You go girl!
(warning, about a two martini post, so pour one now and have another at intermission)
15 Replies to “The Joys of Feminist Economics”
Women have worked hard to earn that coveted stress leave in the name of equality, and as a male whose father supported a moderate life style on a single income and my sister and I always had a mother at home who was content with the status quo, I feel sorry for the millions of children that missed out on what was considered to be the normal family unit. Mom and Dad always had equality and money had nothing to do with it. So rare today. Thank god my wife and I followed in our parents foot steps.
I also have no idea what evidence Gen Y and Xers point to that shows men devalue(d) traditional house work done by women. When I ask them to illustrate this “fact” they just say “common knowledge, read a book, you don’t know what you are talking about etc.” (mainly coming from University educated women) It’s total garbage.
If it was so bad in the 50s why then weren’t women killing themselves and suffering from depression at the levels we see today?
When I was a kid they used to have a series called ‘Connections’ by an old hippy by the name of James Burke.
He would start off with an historical point about, say, the high price of sugar in Europe in the 1600’s…and show how it might be historically linked to the development of the atomic bomb in the 20th century through a series of convoluted historical developments. Your fine lecture reminds me of his.
You’re winning though, Captain! Massive movements are on for home and private schooling; the teacher’s unions are squarely in the gunsights of the taxpayers, and women themselves are turning away from the screeching, hairy chested feminists in droves.
Your ‘Decline’ will most assuredly reset some serious societal wrongs…and no doubt set the stage for some entirely new ones.
We stand athwart the tides of history Captain, and it’s my watch up on the poop deck this fine Friday afternoon! Thanks for the screed, it will give us something to chat about at coffee time.
An excellent article by Captain, pointing out not only how expensive it is for the two-income family to outsource all the tasks previously done by the stay-at-home mother, but the comments explain also, how beneficial the old mode was, for the family and the children.
Of course, the technological advances of today, make it easier to carry out a lot of those household tasks, but shuffling off one’s children to the ‘experts’, the social engineers of our society, in daycare, fullday kindergarten, after school care etc, can have damaging psychological results.
Excellent article by the Captain.
ET, I always appreciate your inciteful comments.
This is why the libleft went ballistic about the long form census becoming optional.
Having been a stay-at-home mother, and knowing, first-hand, how the Liberal (aka Feminist) Government punished and penalized me and my family for my husband’s and my choice for me to stay home to care for our kids, I’m utterly aware of what a crock it all was/is — and how damaging to our families, our children, and our society.
The government wanted women working outside the home because those of us who stayed home to care for and serve our families and communities — “what does that mean?” say the feminazis; “why would you want to do that? Isn’t that like being your husband’s chattel?” — didn’t bring any revenue into the government’s treasury (which, of course, funded many a feminist cause).
Now the Captain reveals that the “revenue” due the government, when women use substitute care for their kids, amounts to $67-billion/year. That’s big business.
It all becomes so clear.
In addition to not contributing to the government coffers, those of us who brought our own children up tended to be somewhat subversive: Most of us didn’t — and still don’t — buy the feminist/government-as-Sugar-Daddy schtick and weren’t afraid to say so. My kids’ public school hated me! I questioned all of their anti-history, anti-Christian, pro-sex ed, pro-feminist, pro-gay, garbage and they didn’t appreciate it. I hope I saved a few young lives in the process.
I’m now seeing in the schools the fallout of a critical mass of children farmed out to substitute care: a Zombie-like numbness, an inability to articulate any clear values — “I don’t know,” accompanied by the ubiquitous shrug, being the usual answer to a question asking them to account for why they did something they weren’t supposed to do or didn’t do something they were asked to do.
Families became fodder for the federal coffers and we’re now reaping the maelstrom; farming our children out to substitute care, in obedience to the feminists’ and government’s siren song, has done incalculable damage to our children, our families, and our common life together. There are lots of angry kids who know that their young lives were foisted onto substitute care givers — some of which was adequate, much of which wasn’t. Certainly, substitute care in the vast majority of cases had nothing to do with “love.”
My kids always say to me: “Mom, you and Dad took care of us when we were young, and we’re going to take care of you when you’re old” — a stage which is fast approaching! We don’t have a lot of financial resources — staying home meant considerable financial sacrifice — but we do have a devotion to one another and a commitment to not turn our backs on one another, something that can’t be paid for or bought.
batb – nicely put. Family is the key to any society. Anytime, anywhere. What family bonding does is it actually psychologically enables people to care about themselves – and others. I suspect that without this, as you point out, we don’t develop a certain sense of identity and responsibility. Just speculating..
Excellent observations batb.
batb – I’m sure you have saved a lot of young people from being led down the garden path. I always thought myself a big loser for never having had a family or a great career. It just didn’t seem to be my bag. However, I think if I may have changed one persons mind, about taking drugs, or having an abortion, or running off on some wild tangent (I lived/survived the 60’s)or just not to give up on hope, or turn their back on their faith, then I have found some kind of redemption. I think they really do, some of them, listen and learn from our example.
The Captain is right on, clarifying the financial perspective of the important choice.
If young families read his post they might come to the conclusion that they can’t afford a two income family.
And so is batb right on.
Feminism attacked the core of our society and culture…marriage and family.
As a stay at home mom I often declared my pleasure in trading pantyhose for slippers, and being barefoot and pregnant in the garden, my choice. That was freedom!
We pinched pennies, drove clunkers, and shopped at Sally Anne…it worked for us.
My mother liked to point out that we never had a baby-sitter. It was because if Mum and Dad weren’t there, older siblings took charge. They were taught essential life-skills that enabled them to mind younger siblings for an hour or so.
Has the current generation handed down cooking, cleaning or coping skills to their kids?
ET, your speculations are accurate. If children don’t bond to at least one caregiver “who’s crazy about them” — usually a parent or a family member — as one child psychiatrist puts it, they’re in danger of not being able to make emotional connections throughout their lives. Knowing they’re consistently loved and valued helps kids to recognize and admit when they’ve done something wrong and, therefore, helps them in taking responsibility for their actions and in being accountable in all areas of their lives. Two-income families can provide this kind of emotional stability but it is a much harder proposition when both parents are out of the home eight hours a day.
What I’m seeing, amongst the vast ocean of daycare- and nanny-reared children today, is an inability to own up to one’s actions: “I didn’t do it,” “she did it,” “he did it,” “I didn’t do anything,” etc. are the mantras one hears when calling students to account. One in ten might readily admit to having done something they shouldn’t, and as for an immediate and/or heartfelt apology, they’re almost non-existent.
The Feminist Manual made it very clear that for women’s “emancipation” to be realized, the only way forward was to dismantle the key institutions and building blocks of society, beginning with the mother-father family, then moving in on educational institutions and the Church.
Looking at our societal wreck today, at the fractured lives of so many of our children and families, leaves me in a quiet rage at the feminist and governmental social engineers who’ve wreaked such havoc. This disastrous genie once released cannot readily be sucked back into the bottle.
Perhaps now that the money to fund the feminists’ fantasies is running out, we might begin a return to some kind of sanity in the rearing of our children and in valuing the contributions of intact families and stay-at-home parents. Two incomes, though nice, are not essential, not as essential as stable and consistently caring homes for our children.
Thanks, Jema54, larben, and HCW, for your comments.
Mt 8 yo son just made our traditional Saturday lunch of hot dogs for the family. He can cook this meal from start to finish with no adult help, although either me or mom is always behind him at the stove while he is doing it. As he gets bigger his responsibility will increase to the point where he will be expected to plan a meal, buy the groceries and prepare it within budget. Both my sons will have this valuable life skill by the time they are 13 yo.
Gee, minuteman, I wish my daughters were younger … 😉
Women have worked hard to earn that coveted stress leave in the name of equality, and as a male whose father supported a moderate life style on a single income and my sister and I always had a mother at home who was content with the status quo, I feel sorry for the millions of children that missed out on what was considered to be the normal family unit. Mom and Dad always had equality and money had nothing to do with it. So rare today. Thank god my wife and I followed in our parents foot steps.
I also have no idea what evidence Gen Y and Xers point to that shows men devalue(d) traditional house work done by women. When I ask them to illustrate this “fact” they just say “common knowledge, read a book, you don’t know what you are talking about etc.” (mainly coming from University educated women) It’s total garbage.
If it was so bad in the 50s why then weren’t women killing themselves and suffering from depression at the levels we see today?
When I was a kid they used to have a series called ‘Connections’ by an old hippy by the name of James Burke.
He would start off with an historical point about, say, the high price of sugar in Europe in the 1600’s…and show how it might be historically linked to the development of the atomic bomb in the 20th century through a series of convoluted historical developments. Your fine lecture reminds me of his.
You’re winning though, Captain! Massive movements are on for home and private schooling; the teacher’s unions are squarely in the gunsights of the taxpayers, and women themselves are turning away from the screeching, hairy chested feminists in droves.
Your ‘Decline’ will most assuredly reset some serious societal wrongs…and no doubt set the stage for some entirely new ones.
We stand athwart the tides of history Captain, and it’s my watch up on the poop deck this fine Friday afternoon! Thanks for the screed, it will give us something to chat about at coffee time.
An excellent article by Captain, pointing out not only how expensive it is for the two-income family to outsource all the tasks previously done by the stay-at-home mother, but the comments explain also, how beneficial the old mode was, for the family and the children.
Of course, the technological advances of today, make it easier to carry out a lot of those household tasks, but shuffling off one’s children to the ‘experts’, the social engineers of our society, in daycare, fullday kindergarten, after school care etc, can have damaging psychological results.
Excellent article by the Captain.
ET, I always appreciate your inciteful comments.
This is why the libleft went ballistic about the long form census becoming optional.
Having been a stay-at-home mother, and knowing, first-hand, how the Liberal (aka Feminist) Government punished and penalized me and my family for my husband’s and my choice for me to stay home to care for our kids, I’m utterly aware of what a crock it all was/is — and how damaging to our families, our children, and our society.
The government wanted women working outside the home because those of us who stayed home to care for and serve our families and communities — “what does that mean?” say the feminazis; “why would you want to do that? Isn’t that like being your husband’s chattel?” — didn’t bring any revenue into the government’s treasury (which, of course, funded many a feminist cause).
Now the Captain reveals that the “revenue” due the government, when women use substitute care for their kids, amounts to $67-billion/year. That’s big business.
It all becomes so clear.
In addition to not contributing to the government coffers, those of us who brought our own children up tended to be somewhat subversive: Most of us didn’t — and still don’t — buy the feminist/government-as-Sugar-Daddy schtick and weren’t afraid to say so. My kids’ public school hated me! I questioned all of their anti-history, anti-Christian, pro-sex ed, pro-feminist, pro-gay, garbage and they didn’t appreciate it. I hope I saved a few young lives in the process.
I’m now seeing in the schools the fallout of a critical mass of children farmed out to substitute care: a Zombie-like numbness, an inability to articulate any clear values — “I don’t know,” accompanied by the ubiquitous shrug, being the usual answer to a question asking them to account for why they did something they weren’t supposed to do or didn’t do something they were asked to do.
Families became fodder for the federal coffers and we’re now reaping the maelstrom; farming our children out to substitute care, in obedience to the feminists’ and government’s siren song, has done incalculable damage to our children, our families, and our common life together. There are lots of angry kids who know that their young lives were foisted onto substitute care givers — some of which was adequate, much of which wasn’t. Certainly, substitute care in the vast majority of cases had nothing to do with “love.”
My kids always say to me: “Mom, you and Dad took care of us when we were young, and we’re going to take care of you when you’re old” — a stage which is fast approaching! We don’t have a lot of financial resources — staying home meant considerable financial sacrifice — but we do have a devotion to one another and a commitment to not turn our backs on one another, something that can’t be paid for or bought.
batb – nicely put. Family is the key to any society. Anytime, anywhere. What family bonding does is it actually psychologically enables people to care about themselves – and others. I suspect that without this, as you point out, we don’t develop a certain sense of identity and responsibility. Just speculating..
Excellent observations batb.
batb – I’m sure you have saved a lot of young people from being led down the garden path. I always thought myself a big loser for never having had a family or a great career. It just didn’t seem to be my bag. However, I think if I may have changed one persons mind, about taking drugs, or having an abortion, or running off on some wild tangent (I lived/survived the 60’s)or just not to give up on hope, or turn their back on their faith, then I have found some kind of redemption. I think they really do, some of them, listen and learn from our example.
The Captain is right on, clarifying the financial perspective of the important choice.
If young families read his post they might come to the conclusion that they can’t afford a two income family.
And so is batb right on.
Feminism attacked the core of our society and culture…marriage and family.
As a stay at home mom I often declared my pleasure in trading pantyhose for slippers, and being barefoot and pregnant in the garden, my choice. That was freedom!
We pinched pennies, drove clunkers, and shopped at Sally Anne…it worked for us.
My mother liked to point out that we never had a baby-sitter. It was because if Mum and Dad weren’t there, older siblings took charge. They were taught essential life-skills that enabled them to mind younger siblings for an hour or so.
Has the current generation handed down cooking, cleaning or coping skills to their kids?
ET, your speculations are accurate. If children don’t bond to at least one caregiver “who’s crazy about them” — usually a parent or a family member — as one child psychiatrist puts it, they’re in danger of not being able to make emotional connections throughout their lives. Knowing they’re consistently loved and valued helps kids to recognize and admit when they’ve done something wrong and, therefore, helps them in taking responsibility for their actions and in being accountable in all areas of their lives. Two-income families can provide this kind of emotional stability but it is a much harder proposition when both parents are out of the home eight hours a day.
What I’m seeing, amongst the vast ocean of daycare- and nanny-reared children today, is an inability to own up to one’s actions: “I didn’t do it,” “she did it,” “he did it,” “I didn’t do anything,” etc. are the mantras one hears when calling students to account. One in ten might readily admit to having done something they shouldn’t, and as for an immediate and/or heartfelt apology, they’re almost non-existent.
The Feminist Manual made it very clear that for women’s “emancipation” to be realized, the only way forward was to dismantle the key institutions and building blocks of society, beginning with the mother-father family, then moving in on educational institutions and the Church.
Looking at our societal wreck today, at the fractured lives of so many of our children and families, leaves me in a quiet rage at the feminist and governmental social engineers who’ve wreaked such havoc. This disastrous genie once released cannot readily be sucked back into the bottle.
Perhaps now that the money to fund the feminists’ fantasies is running out, we might begin a return to some kind of sanity in the rearing of our children and in valuing the contributions of intact families and stay-at-home parents. Two incomes, though nice, are not essential, not as essential as stable and consistently caring homes for our children.
Thanks, Jema54, larben, and HCW, for your comments.
Mt 8 yo son just made our traditional Saturday lunch of hot dogs for the family. He can cook this meal from start to finish with no adult help, although either me or mom is always behind him at the stove while he is doing it. As he gets bigger his responsibility will increase to the point where he will be expected to plan a meal, buy the groceries and prepare it within budget. Both my sons will have this valuable life skill by the time they are 13 yo.
Gee, minuteman, I wish my daughters were younger … 😉