I came across this essay on a mens' rights site and to be honest I didn't like the way the men on the site were treating its author, Andrew Usher. I have engaged in brief debate with this author in the past and although I profoundly disagree with some of his ideas I always found him to be reasonably polite and well-mannered (as per internet standards anyway)...
This idea of a basic income for every citizen and work being 'extra' money for those who wish to live at a higher standard has some potential for ending child support as we know it and the vicious custody wars that have ensued because of it...
It's interesting reading.
Total credit to Andrew Usher at the following address: http://menswiki.wikidot.com/essay:basic-income
One last point: I often find that people have a nasty little habit of just hanging around 'bitching' about every problem but never making any real meaningful suggestions on how to change things; YET when someone else comes up with an idea for any policy changes, they are immediately shot down and called: stupid, unrealistic, etc.,
Sad really, sad.
Men's Wiki
Essay:Basic income
I propose the basic income, also known as the guaranteed minimum income or negative income tax, for modern civilised society. This entails that every person would receive a fixed payment from the government, which is enough to maintain oneself without working. I further maintain that this is only practical with a system of true national health care, as, for one, persons with significant medical expenses could not rely on the basic income alone, as is entailed by the concept. The system would replace all other government benefits, except perhaps for disabled people with special needs beyond being unable to work.
I say that we can and should end poverty by this simple expedient of giving the poor money to be no longer poor. As a system of true socialised medicine will end that worry of those on a fixed income, no one need ever be financially desperate again.
- How should it work?
I will refer only to the USA in the rest of this essay, though it applies to every comparable nation. The basic income would be paid out by the federal government to everyone, and would replace all current welfare and redistribution programs (federal, state, and local) with possibly a few minor exceptions. Similarly the universal health care that accompanies it would replace all current provisions for health care; as these combined form about half of all government spending, their obsolescence would free a considerable amount of money.
The benefit could be paid based on individuals or based on households. In my mind, only payment based on individuals would be acceptable. First, there is the rampant fraud likely to arise if done the other way; this already exists with current welfare programs, and would be much worse if applied to the entire population. Second (and related), the costs of managing the program would be much lower for an individual income as the means to count every person exactly once already exist. It may be objected that this provides an incentive for persons to live in fewer households, but this is no different from the situation now: in both cases, one financially benefits from living with other persons as the fixed costs do
not scale with number of persons. Although I do not like that it is an issue of housing availability and not money per se.
Persons in prison or another involuntary institution should be excluded, but should begin to receive it again immediately upon their release.
- The amount of the benefit
It is necessary to propose a monetary amount for the benefit. Though the exact value it would be can not be specified, I propose a present value of $1,500 per month, plus $200 for each dependent child. This benefit would for obvious reasons have to be limited to citizens, or perhaps citizens and legal permanent residents. My benefit of $200 per child seems low. However, I realise that to avoid encouraging high
fertility, the amount must be less than the minimum reasonable cost of raising a child. Also, as it may be assumed that persons relying on the basic income are not working, it is unnecessary to account for regular child care; likewise, as health care will be free I do not need to include that, either.
This child benefit should not be zero either, I think, though that would not be impossible. No increment would result in many families with children in need of help, just as now, which this program is meant to end.
Another issue is that I do not vary the amount with place of residence, while everyone knows that some places have a significantly higher cost of living than others. I answer that the reason such places do have such a high cost of living is the high demand to live there, and that varying the basic income by place of residence will only drive that demand higher, thus further increasing the cost. The only way to partially equalise these differences is to encourage more housing developement in high-cost areas, bringing the price of housing down there.
The amount would of course be automatically indexed to the cost of living.
- Paying for it
Concrete proposals for a basic income usually include a flat income tax (hence the term negative income tax - the benefit can be thought of as a flat tax minus the benefit amount). I concur. With a flat tax, it makes no difference if it is figured by individuals or married couples, so I would do it by individuals to match the benefit. My tax would have no exceptions, and go from 30% up to 70%, with most ordinary people in the 30% bracket and the very rich in the 70%. This would apply only to earned income (wages, salaries, and other compensation for work performed). Investment income would be capped at 30% to avoid disadvantaging investing or punishing people that live on investment income.
Likewise, the corporate income tax, though it can not be made exactly flat, would be made far more so, at 30 or 40%, greatly increasing revenue; this is only restoring it to where it was in the 1950s.
Considering the amount of the benefit named above, the federal government's revenue would have to approximately double to pay it. The taxes above would go a long way toward that, and others could make up the difference. The most important figure is the proportion of total GDP; my benefit would be approximately 38% of current GDP, which is not out of bounds for government revenue.
- The basic law of the basic income
The basic income would surely decrease the amount of work performed. Many people would choose to not work at all, or to work only part-time, rather than a conventional job. Hence we may be certain that the average income would fall. It must be noted that this would not be a large effect, because employers would soon adjust to the new conditions, and much of the work done in our society has zero or negative value. The reasons for the latter are partly those explicated in the next section that would go away with the basic income, and partly issues of patronage, class, etc. that would hopefully diminish.
If the average income falls, while the worst-off become better off, it can only be by decreasing the income of the rich. Indeed this will occur, by means of the taxes I propose, as well as the fact that businesses will have less to spend on salaries. This can't be considered a bad thing.
- Automation
Though the essential argument does not depend on it, many thinkers have proposed that the basic income is essential to implement because of automation. This may be. It is definite, though, that the basic income has the potential of eliminating many inefficiencies that are at root caused by the reduced number of workers needed in our modern economy. In today's society, there are fewer places for useful full-time work than there are people that, in our economic system, need to have a job. The basic income is the only solution that I can see to this dilemma.
Therefore the prevailing conceit that everyone should have a normal job to support themselves is harmful. It is inconsistent in any case as there are already people that violate this ideal: not only wealthy people that don't need to work, but retired people and stay-at-home wives - anyone not working is in fact living off the rest of society. It doesn't matter where the money is coming from: it is important to realise that money is just marks on paper or in a computer, not real wealth.
And another way that everyone, even working people, is free-loading is through living in an advanced society like ours rather than a Third World society. It is impossible to quantify this, but it is real, and everyone shares it in common. In other words, it is our inheritance for all past technological and organisational developement. Paying part of this inheritance in money is not fundamentally different.
I have another argument, as well: that the possibility of automating many jobs will dramatically reduce the impact of the basic income of national production. As the effective cost of unskilled labor rises, the incentive to automate jobs that have not been automated increases. For example, I just observed, when making a doctor's appointment, that that could be entirely automated given what it now entails - of course, in this particular case, a national health-care system would allow it to be done easily.
The basic income also reduces the impact of further automation on the economy, as workers that lose their jobs face no risk of starving and can take ample time to train for a new career if desired. And as I know that most jobs can be largely automated, I would not be surprised if, say, 30-50 years after implementing a basic income less than 20% of adults were working a normal job, calculated as full-time equivalents.
Therefore, it will increase freedom by allowing us to choose, individually, whether to take productivity increases as more leisure or more money.
- Is it a form of communism?
If we consider the goal of communism to provide everyone a decent living, then we can say the basic income has the same goal. But nonetheless, it does not have the deficiencies of Marxist government.
First, it does not give any more power to the government. To the contrary, government will have less power if anything.
Second, it does not try to abolish money. It is true that the world once ran without money, but the trend throughout history has been to put more and more on a money basis. It is today impossible to live even a short time without money in some form. The basic income accepts this.
Third, it has no ideological component beyond the basic idea. I'm sure everyone knows that governments having an ideological basis become tyrannical because of their need to suppress dissent. This includes, of course, all historical communist governments.
- Its effect on men's rights
The essential difference between the opportunities afforded to the sexes at present is that women can normally rely on a man to support them, if need be, and thus need not work, and most men must. Further, it is presently true that women on average, especially women with children, have access to much more support of various governmental programs than do men, and are if anything more likely to get those kinds of support that are nominally equal. This plan would end such differences, by giving both men and women a precisely equal benefit. It is true that women would normally receive the increased benefit for children they bore out of wedlock, but as mentioned the amount would be low enough so as not to advantage having children.
Therefore, the basic income, alone, would be a great step forward for men. But there is more: with an income assured to all, the justification for alimony and child support disappears. It would be reasonable, then, to completely abolish them upon its implementation; but if not, at least to protect the basic income from any awards, as with all other debts.
- Its effect on youth rights
I wrote an essay, which is online here proposing that the age of majority be made 15, and outlining the securing of adult rights to young people 15 to 20 years old. Since the basic income would be paid to all adults, that would necessarily entail that that be given to all those 15 and over (instead of 18 as at present).
Regardless of whether the age is 15, 18, 21, or otherwise, the plan would surely cause more young people choosing to leave home shortly after that age, simply because that would not require employment. It does not seem that having the age 15 is much worse, even if one considers this a bad thing.
Note that although many people in the youth rights movement say that there should be no age of majority, it is plainly ridiculous to not have a threshold age for the basic income, and paying it upon birth would (as discussed above) become a huge reward for having children, which can not be tolerated. If the money were placed in a trust-fund, not to be given out until the child reaches a certain age, we would again have to decide on an age; further, that plan would be needlessly costly, and it runs contrary to the spirit of the guaranteed income (which is intended for current expense) to have it used for saving as that would be.
- Its effect on crime and criminals
I do not know for certain what impact it will have upon crime. However, I surmise that crime will be reduced overall. As no one would feel the need to turn to crime for a living, it would become a less attractive option. This applies especially to men getting out of prison, who now often feel unable to get reasonable work again and therefore want to go back to the criminal world.
Some crimes, of course, are unrelated to money, but I can not believe there would be any substantial rise in their incidence. I am somewhat concerned that the law would create more 'idle hands', but know that reducing the overall level of crime would allow us to focus more on eliminating the criminal subcultures that remain.
- An end to wage-slavery
All of this, however, is surpassed by the most pointed reason for the basic income; namely, to reduce the disparity of power between employer and employee. No longer would the boss be able to rely on employees' willingness to do anything to avoid termination, for no one would have to fear his life reaching a crisis due to job loss. It is true that the rich would nonetheless have a significant reduction in income, but they tend to be treated better by their employers anyway, and also likely have savings sufficient to make temporary loss of work less traumatic (As well, many weathly couples have two incomes; I will not cite that as a primary reasons because I am focusing only on individuals in this paper.)
Ironically, this scourge, created by this existence of money, will be ended through money.
This is an essay created by Andrew Usher. Please do not edit it; but only comment in discussion.
115 comments:
Move along folks, nothing new to see here!
The "minimum income" has been proposed before and is even largely in effect in Europe. It's just a repackaging of the welfare state. His claim that it would benefit men and replace child-support is unsupported and pure pipe-dream. Note that when feminism was proposed and women would be paid more, it was claimed that women would no longer need to judge men as breadwinners, would rely less upon child-support, alimony, and welfare. That's really worked out, hasn't it?
Women's so-called "equality" can only exist when men pay for it indirectly via SOME KIND OF welfare state rather than as direct spouses that the woman has to acknowledge gratitude towards. That's just the way it is. Some things will never change.
In the meantime, even in Europe, men are slowly being asked to pay more in "child" support as the welfare state there collapses.
It probably wouldn't do anything to reduce crime, either. As long as someone has something that someone else doesn't there will be ALWAYS be crime and "oppwession" rhetoric.
No economic system can change human nature.
Richard
The tragedy of the situation, Richard, is that I really do think that a limited form of socialism could produce results similar to what Andrew proposes. The problem is that it quickly is abused and erupts into a class and special interest group warfare and government employee croneyism that destroys most if not all the benefits it produces.
Consider public education. It was originally proposed as a last resort solution for the poor, like welfare. Yet, today, most children of welfare either don't graduate from public schools or are so uneducated that their diplomas are worthless. It's tragic. And the teachers' unions prattle on that this only means they should get paid more.
Andrew objects to the notion of "wage slavery" but I also think that our society defines, and needs, the masculine role of the breadwinner. Someone who HAS to earn a living. Literally. A man who lives off of someone else, such as his girlfriend or parents, is referred to by adult women as losers. In socialist Europe, many men live their lives in this fashion and it's disheartening to see. You know the three main products of Sweden? Abba albums, Volvos, and male suicide. There's something inspiring about earning a living in the world not just because it's right, but also unescapable. (Note, earning a living isn't the same as being a successful career professional.) One way or another, we all have to do it. This is the necessary message that fathers teach children that most mothers don't.
"You know the three main products of Sweden? Abba albums, Volvos, and male suicide"
Fathers for Life show that male suicide rates for Sweden are 20.0 and for men in the USA 19.3. Hardly a significant difference.
http://fathersforlife.org/health/who_suicide_rates.htm
"(Note, earning a living isn't the same as being a successful career professional.) One way or another, we all have to do it. This is the necessary message that fathers teach children that most mothers don't."
What fathers teach their children is that it's okay for dad to enjoy the financial contributions of mom when they both work full-time jobs, but that mom should still come home and do most of the childcare/housework without expecting little or no help from dad.
Dad to son: "Yeah, son, it's great. You get to make the most money AND have your meals cooked, laundry washed, house cleaned, and children raised, and sex provided by your wife while enjoying her financial help in paying the bills after working all day herself. Plus, she usually gets to pay most of costs of daycare so that she can work. You've got it made boy as the "breadwinner" with lots of perks too."
Dad to daughter: "Expect to earn a living and not to be a financial burden on anyone else-especially your husband. Just make sure that you help pay the bills, and be prepared to cook dinner, wash laundry,clean the house, and pick up after a full grown male who can't be expected to help out in any, way, shape, or form. And while your at it, make sure you do the same for any kids you have and make sure they don't bother their daddy while he's watching wrestling even though you both worked all day. Only he can get a break because he's THE HUSBAND. What if you work a full-time job as well? Well, sorry honey, most likely, your husband WON'T be able to support a family entirely on his own, but he's going to need all the money you make to help pay those bills. Just don't expect him to help YOU out when you come home to do your second full-time job, you know honey, the second shift. Just make sure you do it quitely and don't nag your hubby because he needs to relax. But hey, you might bring him a beer once in a while. What if your too exhausted for sex? Well, sorry, honey, your going to have to give him all the loving he demands and still look 25 because you don't want him to find another woman, do you? After all, doing all the childcare/housework on top of a full-time job can't be all that demanding, can it? But hey, what do I or any man know about it? We, men, never have to do it! Just be sure that the bills are paid, housework is done, kids are cared for, and sex on demand is provided. And whatever you do, DON'T NAG. God forbid, if you complain! That's the kiss of death to your lord and master, I mean, hubby. So, honey, do what daddy tells you to do so that you have a successful marriage. And above all, stick it out for the sake of your hubby, oh, I mean the kids. After all, you don't want to traumatize him, I mean them, with a divorce now do you? He might actually have to cook, clean, and pick up after himself. And he'll be so worried that he might lose custody of kids that he never bothered to take care of in the first place. My god, he might actually only get every other weekend with them. Oh, the horror, a whole weekend alone with the kids where he might actually have to be a parent without dumping it on someone else. Ahhh! If your my daughter, you'll never act like that if you want to be Daddy's Little Girl!
Virago, that long rambling paragraph is a fantastic insight into your mind. I don't think it's over real daddy issues. Your generalization about men watching wrestling while mommy does two jobs sounds like Politically Correct stereotypes mashed together.
You're just projecting onto men your own entitlement attitude as a defense mechanism. Ideally, you would like it if women got handout affirmative action jobs they only half showed up for (take off maternity leave half the time, paid) and then came home from $500 shoe shopping to nag the husband that he wasn't doing his share of the housework properly and then call him a loser for not earning as much as you.
I chuckled at your outrage that, gasp, many women are now HAVING to work and that their loser hubbies can't fund them coming and going as they please. EEK! That's the world of MEN!
Truth be told, the worst case scenario you present: A woman having to work and getting a hubby who earns more than her and watching TV while she housecleans is now better than many aging women who can't find a decent breadwinner at all.
Finally, about what to tell the kids. Richard, listen up. Instead of taking kids to work, why not take them to the mall during a weekday to see the real horrors of what middle and upper class women lead? Play a game and count how often a man gets a woman to pay his way. Tons of educational fun!
Polsh Knight reads comment on a mother's blog, shits pants, can't cope.
Rinse, repeat, wash.
Well now that we've heard V's fantasies, how 'bout some real-life mother-daughter dialogue?
"It's just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one."
"Don't ever marry a man who expects you to work. If he ever starts wanting you to work, you can just have another baby."
"If I'd married the man I should have married I'd be wearing a four-carat diamond and driving a Cadillac today."
"If he doesn't make you happy, get out and find someone who can. Life is short."
"If anyone in the house is going to be spoiled, let it be you."
"Don't try to please a man too much. He won't respect you."
That's just a small sampling of motherly wisdom my wife claims to have heard growing up in suburbia. She said many of her friends were taught the same things.
I'm glad she didn't tell me any of this before we married. I might have passed her over and missed out on the best thing that ever happened to me.
But to be fair, I suspect girls don't hear quite as much of this now as they used to, just like V's caricatures say more about the last generation of young families than the current one. The late twentieth century was very much a transitional period.
The "angel in the house" myth has been hard for people to give up but it's bound to die eventually.
Richard
Richard, for God's sake, haven't you ever even GLANCED at Cosmo and the girls' magazines at the checkout counter? They drip with sexism and entitlement including games such as "asker pays" (man always asks first) that you appear to have fallen for. (Yeah, it's just a coincidence. For the record, in our household the first person who sees cat vomit picks it up. I never saw it...)
In some ways, women of the past were more honest, and therefore responsible, with their sexism than the rageaholic rants from "Virago"/Kimberly that men aren't all knights with platinum AMEX cards who wash the dishes. To their credit, it doesn't take a lot to set them off nowadays (try using the word "no" and stand back and watch the fireworks!)
While I have you here, quickie request. You had claimed that college educated women were better wives (more stable, tended to marry more) than non-college educated women. I want to know if there's any controls in the study for such things as class (are these MRS degrees rather than actual career women?) and if you have a URL, I'd appreciate it since soc.men is interested. Thanks.
"The "angel in the house" myth has been hard for people to give up but it's bound to die eventually."
Ha! The "angel by the hearth" myth was started in the Victorian Era by conservative society to "romanticize" motherhood, domesticity, and morals like the virgin/whore dichotomy and such cultural values to keep women in the home and OUT of the public sphere. The idea was only "bad" women worked outside the home (like the majority of poor women had to). It was conservatives who started this myth, and it's conservatives who want to continue it. All you have to do is listen to the Religious Right to know that.
The myth was also a direct outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution that took men out of their homes and left it the domain of women.
Whoever started it or whoever wants to continue it, it has to go eventually and it will. Young men who are coming of age now see nothing "angelic" in modern women and have little or no desire to keep them in the house and foot all the bills for them.
PK, what you're looking for is hard to find because education itself is usually one of the defining characteristics of "class." But I'll have a look around anyway.
Richard
Virago's naive PC platitudes are a source of endless amusement for you and I, Richard. She really does believe that the "religious right" as defined today by the popular media. She probably also thinks that "Pirates of the Caribbean" is an accurate description of piracy as well. Arrrr!
This very forum's existance is to restore the myth of the angel by the hearth and crumbling chivalrous view of motherhood. Rhetorical question: Does NYMOM sound like a religious right conservative?
Richard, regarding the statistic of college educated women's marriages more stable than not. The devil is in the details, eh? Of course, women raised in nice, affluent families are both going to tend to go to college (even if just for an MRS degree). That's why I made the comparison to finishing school. Both are simply indicators of class that contribute to family stability.
My apologies, but I can't help to poke at you, Richard, for saying that "The late twentieth century was very much a transitional period." Yeah, in the past women dependend upon the state and men lest their children starved to death and...er, that's the same today. And women of the past regarded men as breadwinners and...er, same thing. Yeah, a lot has "transitioned." I'm now going to stand up, and then sit down. What a "transition!"
Poke away, PK. I have a tough hide.
What I mean by a transitional period was women like my wife coming to grips with new opportunities for education and careers while at the same time hearing their mothers' generation in the background admonishing them about the need to marry up and the need to quit working once they have kids and all the details that were part and parcel of the June Cleaver era ideal. Embracing the new choices while reluctant to release the old privileges.
You could also see it in the young dad getting down on the floor to change a diaper while his own dad looks on saying "You're kidding, right?"
But I'm telling ya, the kids now starting to come of age are a different breed. They look at the old taboos, the old expectations, the old stereotypes, and they just don't get it. They don't understand why anyone ever cared about interracial marriage, about sexual orientation, about cohabitation.
And one thing they particularly don't get is chivalry. They can not remember a time when women were not going to college, working, sleeping around, doing everything the guys are doing. They don't really see why women should be due any support, protection or special honor.
When was the last time you saw a young guy open a car door for his date?
That's one reason why I think presumed shared parenting will eventually become the norm. By the time this new generation reaches midlife it will probably be accepted as simple fairness and common sense.
Perhaps I'm too optimistic. Of course it's human nature to cling to any device that will bring you more perks and privilege, and women will surely continue to exploit oppression and "angel by the hearth" rhetoric as long as someone will buy it. Just saying, people won't buy it forever. By their own behavior women have deliberately smashed the angel mythology that would have kept people buying it.
Richard
Richard, I still don't buy it. As you know, most women in the past worked at least part-time and most men changed a few diapers. So what?
On the contrary, middle and upper class women have increased their income demands of men to keep up with them. A woman relative of mine outearned her husband by a few thousand dollars and she was sure to remind everyone within earshot, at every opportunity, of this in front of her husband of how liberated she is. He got the hint and worked overtime to get promoted to "oppress" her by earning more.
Your point about sexual orientation, interracial marriage and cohabition ties into a lack of chivalry only in the sense that the culture overall is weakened due to men not being able or motivated to perform up to the traditional role. Another relative married interracial because, she complained, no decent income earning white men were asking her out. By the same token, slacker young men increasingly slam doors in women's faces rather than hold them because why bother respecting women who still judge them by their income?
We ARE at a stage in the culture when wealthy white women complaining to be oppressed by chivalry now have to compete politically with other special interest groups for the political spoils. I would hardly say that's progress but rather "change" but in a way, I guess it is the system working it's way through. But it's not moving towards equality since the men who don't live up to traditional standards don't have much difference in their choices or responsibilities than a century ago.
Have you figured out what the "asker pays" game means yet?
"Young men who are coming of age now see nothing "angelic" in modern women and have little or no desire to keep them in the house and foot all the bills for them."
Young women coming of age don't want to be in a two-earner marriage AND STILL have to be responsible for the majority of the childcare/housework. Young men coming of age need to learn that they can't expect the services of a full-time wife and mother while their spouses work a full-time job. And don't worry Richard, these guys may not have any "desire" to keep these women in the house, but here too, women are way ahead of them. It's not men who are filing for 70% of those divorces.
Virago, your sanctimonious demands and threats reveal that you are not in a relationship. What kind of man wants to live under those demacles sword kind of conditions? What woman would respect him?
The way life works, Virago, is that people are flawed, but often above average in other ways. A woman might be pretty and sweet, but doesn't pay the bills. A man might be handsome and a good wage-earner, but never picks up after himself. People, men and women both, put their desires ahead of fairness.
Men seem to be more honest about it, however. It's not a credit to your character when you say that 70% of divorces are initiated by women because of their gripes. On the other hand, you fail to see many of the men throughout history, and today, who work long hours at jobs they hate in order to support their families and live up to the breadwinner role that nearly all women demand of them. You only notice when they're "deadbeats" and walk off even as you cheer on women doing the exact same thing! In addition, the major thing most women offer men: sexual attractiveness, decreases with age yet most men are willing to stay in their marriages out of love and commitment to their children.
Something else for you to consider is the concept of Sexual Market Value (known as SMV). You probably have no problems figuring out that a pretty woman isn't going to spend a lot of time worrying about the unfairness of not paying her way on dates or knowing how to cook homemade meals. On the other hand, you fail to consider that high income earning men might be able to make their own demands. A plain looking woman with an ordinary job and life is going to wait a long time for the perfect prince to ride up on his horse or they'll wind up with frogs masquerading as princes.
I found it invaluable, myself, to never date plain looking women because they were just as demanding as the good looking ones. In many cases, the good looking women tended to be better adjusted and happy with themselves to boot! Even if you are pretty, remember the clock is ticking. Tick tock tick tock.
Of course, there is always the option for a woman to date a man who works full-time, "equal" to her, but earns less money than her and he may be willing to do 1/2 of the cooking and cleaning or even all of it. Richard pointed out this option and Kimberly claimed that some study showed otherwise. Yeah, sure. But one doesn't need a study to see that few women are actually looking for such men.
"Note that when feminism was proposed and women would be paid more, it was claimed that women would no longer need to judge men as breadwinners, would rely less upon child-support, alimony, and welfare. That's really worked out, hasn't it?"
Ummmm.
Yeah, btw, Polish Knight it has. Most women marry men today for companionship versus the past where we had to marry any man that asked in order to survive.
I don't know what planet you are living on Polish Knight that you don't see this...Frankly I think that's what all you men are so upset about. You can't get away with the crap that you used to get away with years ago when women were totally dependent upon your goodwill for survival.
"In the meantime, even in Europe, men are slowly being asked to pay more in "child" support as the welfare state there collapses."
I happen to follow news from Europe and I've never noticed this so-called trend of yours being mentioned. Where did you hear this????
I hate when people make statements like this w/o any backup documentation such as a news article at least saying this is happening.
"No economic system can change human nature."
Yet that's what you and your buddies struggle to do every day. Change basic human nature for the advantage of men.
Typical.
When a change favors men you're all for it but as soon as it proves a disadvantage to you, then it's just baloney, no such thing as human nature.
"Expect to earn a living and not to be a financial burden on anyone else-especially your husband. Just make sure that you help pay the bills, and be prepared to cook dinner, wash laundry,clean the house, and pick up after a full grown male who can't be expected to help out in any, way, shape, or form."
This is the whole problem I have with feminism...basically it appears to have dumped a triple burden off on women: kids, home and now WORK outside of home. THEN when we complain ie., as in filing for a divorce when we get fed up with some lazy loafer who never picks up after himself or pays any attention to the kids, gender neutral feminists then assist these layabouts in fighting for custody.
Actually I read on a legal site that younger female Judges (under 40) are the WORSE judges for mothers to go in front of in custody cases...they inevitably rule against mothers and for these male idiots.
THEN they expect support from women???? WTF...
"Your generalization about men watching wrestling while mommy does two jobs sounds like Politically Correct stereotypes mashed together."
No, it's called reality.
"A woman having to work and getting a hubby who earns more than her and watching TV while she housecleans is now better than many aging women who can't find a decent breadwinner at all."
AND so what???
Many aging women are paying their own way, they don't need to marry or seek a man as a breadwinner.
Actually outside of families single women are the largest group of homeowners in this country. So what are you talking about?
Numerous studies have shown that never married women are the 'cream of the crop' college educated, good incomes, etc.,. While their opposite number never-married men are from the bottom of the barrel: criminal, drug addicts and the like...
So once again, you don't know what you're talking about...
"The myth was also a direct outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution that took men out of their homes and left it the domain of women."
This is pure gender neutral feminist propaganda.
Children are what makes a house a home and women have ALWAYS been the primary caregiver of their children. The industrial revolution made no difference in that equation.
Men have been ignoring their children for eons, both before during and after the industrial revolution. In every society, in every age this has been the case.
Men would be ignoring them still if the government didn't get tired of it and finally crack down with high mandatory child support guidelines (since the 70s or so) and that's what dragged men back to the table.
Don't try to act like historically men and women put equal investment into children and then suddenly men were forced to leave the house due to some outside factor such as 'the industrial revolution'...
It's just another excuse.
"Virago, your sanctimonious demands and threats reveal that you are not in a relationship. What kind of man wants to live under those demacles sword kind of conditions? What woman would respect him?"
LOL, are you serious? I'm officially divorced, but I live with my ex-husband. Much better btw. I won't remarry him that's for sure, and our relationship is better than it was when I was officially the "Mrs". Anyway, if he doesn't like our current arrangement, there's the door, but he doesn't obviously doesn't have a problem cause we've been "living in sin" for 4 years now. My kids get to live with both parents, and I still get child support because the local child support agency won't stop payments unless we are officially remarried even though we live together. So, if he wants to leave, he's free to go. It won't cramp my style as I have physical custody of the kids, and he never wanted 50/50 when we were apart. And btw, 50/50 custody in my state doesn't eliminate child support obligations because the parent with the higher salary still has to pay child support to the parent who makes less money, and in most cases, dad still has to pay while getting 50/50. In our case, it wouldn't have mattered because we both make roughly the same amount of money, and he was happy with visitation. OTOH, like I said, child support is taken out of his check, sent to me, and he lives in the same household. Makes it easier to make sure the money goes where it is suppose to which is why we ended up divorced to begin with. I won't tolerate a guy who thinks he should be able to spend money on a big screen TV for himself when we have kids to feed. Anyway, he's learned his lesson because I won't hesitate to kick him out again. That's the way life works Polish Knight.
"I found it invaluable, myself, to never date plain looking women because they were just as demanding as the good looking ones"
OMG, puke! For someone who thinks that I'm obsessed with his sex life, you sure spend a lot of time trying to convince me that you even have one. Newsflash, it's easy to have a sex life and get good-looking women when you buy them in a brothel. Otherwise, go try to convince someone else what a big stud you are. You just sound pathetic to me.
"Even if you are pretty, remember the clock is ticking. Tick tock tick tock."
So goes the crocodile. It's time to come back from Neverland, Peter Pan and grow up. You've got a long way to go.
"Don't try to act like historically men and women put equal investment into children and then suddenly men were forced to leave the house due to some outside factor such as 'the industrial revolution'...
It's just another excuse."
You are absolutely correct, NYMOM-100%.
"This very forum's existance is to restore the myth of the angel by the hearth and crumbling chivalrous view of motherhood. Rhetorical question: Does NYMOM sound like a religious right conservative?"
This forum's existence is to alert mothers to the dangers they face due to the usual suspects: greedy men...
"Richard, regarding the statistic of college educated women's marriages more stable than not. The devil is in the details, eh? Of course, women raised in nice, affluent families are both going to tend to go to college (even if just for an MRS degree). That's why I made the comparison to finishing school. Both are simply indicators of class that contribute to family stability."
I know this sounds good in theory but I don't think it's true. Just like the Bible belt has a higher divorce rate then the liberal East and West coastal states, so too more educated women either never marry at all or have a high divorce rate when they do...sorry to pop that little bubble of yours.
Anyway a lot of this religious and conservative talk is just that, talk. Actually as much as people talked about Bill Clinton, he was married ONCE and never divorced like most of his conservative critics. Plus him and Hillary managed to raise one pretty good kid together, Chelsea. Meanwhile Ronald Reagan (who I have a lot of respect for ending the Cold War and all that) was divorced and his kids were a complete mess.
"And one thing they particularly don't get is chivalry. They can not remember a time when women were not going to college, working, sleeping around, doing everything the guys are doing. They don't really see why women should be due any support, protection or special honor."
Could we stop with this chivalry crap as well. Chivalry is a code of conduct for men detailing how they should treat OTHER MEN in times of war...like an early version of our Geneva Code...a men could be chivalrous and still beat and rape women, murder small children or old people, kick his dog, etc.,
Men keep trying to change the history here by claiming they always treated women and children with this so-called chivalry...and I'm getting sick of hearing the lies.
"That's one reason why I think presumed shared parenting will eventually become the norm. By the time this new generation reaches midlife it will probably be accepted as simple fairness and common sense."
Right I think many others hoped this would happen as well.
Instead we have sharply dropping birth rates and custody fights undermining what was once the finest legal system anywhere. Plus parental child abduction is one of our fastest growing crime...not that I recognize that as a crime for a mother to take her own children w/o a Judge's permission...
Men and gender neutral feminists obviously don't seem to 'get it' that mothers are not just going to quietly sacrifice their children to help social engineer this brave new world of yours.
I think you're being rather melodramatic, NYMOM. Had to marry _any_ man that asked? This would be like saying that if you don't grow food, then you have to eat at any restaurant in order to not starve to death. There was still a selection of men to choose from for many women. Of course, the concept of romantic love (for either gender) is somewhat modern.
And you missed the point: Women still insist upon marrying breadwinners because, drum roll, that's WHAT THEY WANT! I chuckled at your claim that women marry for "companionship". Now aging career women have the choice to marry sensitive guys who earn little but want to cook and clean. Yeah, right. You believe that if you like.
And women still depend upon mens' goodwill for survival. It's just mostly men in the government that force individual men to pay taxes lest women (and children in their care) starve to death. But even collectively, when enough men don't rush up to protect the damsels in distress, that's the end of the "independent" liberated woman (and you know it.)
Here's a cite. I can do more digging, but I have read that EU nations are cracking down on mommy support, er, I mean child-support so this idea of men getting out of paying it due to the welfare state is bunk: tinyurl.com/lj23ch
"It should not be surprising, then, that Finnish and Swedish single mothers have the highest employment rates and lowest poverty rates worldwide. Yet it is not only employment that keeps their poverty rates low: Single mothers in these nations receive benefits that other parents and workers get, such as child allowances and guaranteed pensions later in life. They also receive child-support payments from the government when absent fathers cannot or do not pay them."
Finally, regarding unsupported claims, you talk about the crap men did years ago back when we oppressed you, blah blah blah. As I pointed out, that "crap" was known as chivalry and now you're back to the women as babymakers model. Do you realize that you sound little different than chivalrists of the 19th century?
"It's not a credit to your character when you say that 70% of divorces are initiated by women because of their gripes."
Women with children probably file first because the person who files first generally also gets temporary custody of the children. AND, as I've told people many times temporary custody usually morphs into permanent custody unless you're an ax murderer or something.
It's ridiculous to keep trying to fault women for doing the thing that makes the most sense for them and their children...
Why should a mother wait to file first when some idiot might beat her to the courthouse and try to take the children in order to avoid paying child support???? Mothers would be damn fools to do that...
Actually that little factoid is the only thing that gives me any hope in women's ability to adapt to the continuing adverse situation that men keep trying to put them in...
Men are just mad that women have outmaneuvered them in the legal arena...
"Could we stop with this chivalry crap as well. Chivalry is a code of conduct for men detailing how they should treat OTHER MEN in times of war...like an early version of our Geneva Code...a men could be chivalrous and still beat and rape women, murder small children or old people, kick his dog, etc.,"
Chivalry toward women is a big myth. Chivalry was originally only available to high born ladies with wealthy fathers and husbands. Peasant women (who made up probably 90% of all women) were never treated with chivalry or anything remotely like it by upper classes (or their own class for that matter). Poor women were basically a free for all for any Knight or high born male who wanted someone to share his bed. As for that chivalry crap on the Titanic. What a laugh. Most of the women, children, AND men who survived were of the upper classes. In the meantime, entire families of men, women, and children of the lower classes drowned. Yeah, that's chilvalry for you. And btw, that wonderful example of patriarchal high technology-The Titanic-sure didn't do anyone a lot of good when the ship was billed as "unsinkable" and those great men didn't think THEY NEEDED ENOUGH LIFEBOATS FOR EVERYONE because of the arrogance of the men who built her. Saving women and children first was the least they could do, WHEN THEY WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENTIRE SITUATION TO BEGIN WITH.
"On the other hand, you fail to see many of the men throughout history, and today, who work long hours at jobs they hate in order to support their families and live up to the breadwinner role that nearly all women demand of them."
Well men didn't do that because of some inherent moral goodness about them, they did it because they had to. Otherwise, other men would have ganged up on them and beat the crap out of them...Women didn't force men into these roles, society did (in other words other men made you do it)...so once again, just like chivalry you are taking a historic concept out of context to make men look better then they were...
Men took wives to have sex, sex led to children which society forced you to provide resources for...
Simple, you don't get a medal for that.
"A plain looking woman with an ordinary job and life is going to wait a long time for the perfect prince to ride up on his horse or they'll wind up with frogs masquerading as princes.
I found it invaluable, myself, to never date plain looking women because they were just as demanding as the good looking ones. In many cases, the good looking women tended to be better adjusted and happy with themselves to boot! Even if you are pretty, remember the clock is ticking. Tick tock tick tock."
AND sadly, this kind of thinking is an example of why women must seek new ways of living since the old ways will always oppress us...
"It won't cramp my style as I have physical custody of the kids, and he never wanted 50/50 when we were apart. And btw, 50/50 custody in my state doesn't eliminate child support obligations because the parent with the higher salary still has to pay child support to the parent who makes less money, and in most cases, dad still has to pay while getting 50/50."
Even this is a concession to men by the legal system which I'm not against as it's the lesser of many many evils that can happen to women and children if the states didn't make the compromise. But again, it shows how they bend to the will of men.
"I think you're being rather melodramatic, NYMOM. Had to marry _any_ man that asked?"
No this was fairly common Polish Knight. Thus this nasty little tradition (that men have turned into another example of their chivalry towards women) of asking a women's father for permission to marry her...
Get it now????
Well I have to go walk my dog but I think I'll have to repost that article I wrote about Chivalry on here. It's a very very misused word these days.
Actually, the male breadwinner is one of the biggest myths out there next to chivalry. In fact, throughout history, most household goods were produced IN THE HOME. Men and women were both seen as necessary to make a living. Women worked side by side with their husbands on the farm, and in the shops to earn a living. A housewife was seen as an economic asset instead of a liability up until the Industrial Revolution took most of the household production out of the home and to the factories. This led to men leaving the home for WAGES. And btw, a lot of wealthy men became wealthy in the middle ages because THEY MARRIED HIGH BORN WOMEN WITH DOWRIES. Unfortunately, through most of history, while women were breadwinners along with their husbands, it was the husbands WHO HAD LEGAL CONTROL OF ANY MONEY OR GOODS EARNED BY BOTH OF THEM. Women were never depended on men as the breadwinners until recently. It was actually the men who were dependant on their wives, and they got all the legal control on top of it all. Male breadwinners my ass.
"Even this is a concession to men by the legal system which I'm not against as it's the lesser of many many evils that can happen to women and children if the states didn't make the compromise. But again, it shows how they bend to the will of men."
Your right, but in my individual circumstances, I don't have to worry because any legal custody was on paper. He certainly never tried to exercise his so-called legal rights, and basically, left all decisions concerning the kids to me when we were married, when we were divorced and living seperate, and even now while were living together. Because what it boils down to is he believes kids belong with their mothers. And he's right. Plain and simple.
NYMOM, saying women outmaneuvered men in appealing to western chivalry is kind of like saying damsels in distress held by a dragon outmaneuver knights in shining armor. That only happens as long as the knight, and the dragon, play along. And you know it.
You claim these women are doing what's best for them, oh, and for their children of course (wink.) I guess society doesn't need all those social programs to bail them and their kids out and mommy-support anymore. Chivalry is so good to you that it even allows you to delusion yourself that it doesn't exist. For now.
Regarding "society" forcing men to take care of women and children. Hmmm, you mean society of the past didn't allow men to just dump that burden on the taxpayer, hmmm? And who made up and controlled that society? Apparently, male chivalry wasn't so bad on women, or easy on men, after all, was it? You claim that society of old oppresses you, yet here you are wanting women to be viewed as baby-making momma machines. That's about as old-fashioned as even I can write. Except you think women should just do as they please and hold the kids hostage. Then you blame us men when society looks down on motherhood when babies in dumpsters turn up on the news over and over and over again!
Regarding men working because they had to. It's called personal responsibility. You realize, even if at a subconscious level, that if we had a welfare state where nobody had to work that it would look like the inner cities of the country in a matter of days.
I stand by what I wrote about marriage. Most women today don't want to marry non-breadwinners so how can you rail against fathers choosing such men for them? On the contrary, women seemed a lot happier back then.
Let's go back to maneuvering and what's best for the kids: My wife and I are doing great, thank you. But she knows of many unwed mothers she works with who struggle financially. They wound up with losers or, gasp, deadbeats. They chose them, not their fathers. So whose to blame for that choice? Hmmm?
Virago, you claim that women didn't really get chivalrous privileges on the Titanic ahead of class. 47% of women and children survived in steerage class compared to 94% of first class, true. But only 31% of men in first class survived and they had the best survival rate.
After arguing that women didn't really enjoy anything due to chivalry you then argue that women deserved it anyway because "men" designed the ship thereby arguing that it was ok to let men of lower class die anyway since they were the same gender as the ship's designers. Wow! Quite a contorted reasoning there.
Whenever I hear chivalrous privileges (and takers advantage of) deniers use that reasoning, I can response that if men deserved to die a watery death on the titanic then they deserved exclusive credit for all the other ships out there that ferried women and children safely, or paved streets that women walked around on, or electrical power that keeps your lights on and homes warm. Yes? If you insist upon hanging blame for everything on men when it's bad, then you are irrelevant other than as a baby gestating machine and with "child" support, you only get to claim 50% of that since most women can't foot the bills!
It's ironic, Virago, that as you praise the wonderful days of old when most work was done in the home (or more accurately, in the fields), you didn't enjoy all this... stuff that the industrial revolution provided. Your computer didn't spout up out of the backyard.
And I would betcha dollars to doughnuts that even back then, men probably earned more simply because such labor was strength intensive and paid via risk such as dangerous hunting trips. You may also like to know that there were mines before the industrial revolution and most of this work, high paying or not, was done by men.
The undeniable fact is that the ability to gestate children into poverty is not an ability at all. Men ran things because they could. And as you have proven both by deeds and words, it works out better that way. Don't forget to set your car alarm when parking in unwed mother neighborhoods.
NYMOM, when you said: "AND sadly, this kind of thinking is an example of why women must seek new ways of living since the old ways will always oppress us..."
In regards to me saying I didn't date plain looking women, it didn't click to me immediately how strange your statement is.
Why would one of your liberated women want someone like me, anyhow? In addition, didn't you just argue that it was part of oppression to tell women who to marry? Yet here I am merely stating my own personal preferences. I am perfectly fine with plain looking women sitting around waiting for high income men to ask them out and offer to do 1/2 the housework. Good luck to 'em. Really. It's a free market.
NY said: "I know this sounds good in theory but I don't think it's true. Just like the Bible belt has a higher divorce rate then the liberal East and West coastal states, so too more educated women either never marry at all or have a high divorce rate when they do...sorry to pop that little bubble of yours."
NY, I simply have to hand it to you. For someone who hates to "pop our bubbles," you have more bubbles floating around begging to be popped than the Lawrence Welk Show.
It is a complete myth that more educated women never marry or divorce more. College-educated women now marry at the same rates as all other women. And are less likely to divorce, particularly if well-matched educationally and monetarily with their husbands.
http://www.divorce360.com/divorce-articles/statistics/us/more-education-less-chance-at-divorce.aspx?artid=436
People in the Bible belt divorce more because they marry younger and as a group are less educated. Religion can not overcome those drawbacks. But among educated, later-marrying couples, practicing a religion does indeed enhance marital stability.
"I happen to follow news from Europe and I've never noticed this so-called trend of yours being mentioned. Where did you hear this????"
Well for starters, SenecaWoman just a few threads ago was telling us all about what a paradise Sweden was for women and children because it had the "best child-support system in the world."
"Right I think many others hoped this would happen as well...Instead we have sharply dropping birth rates and custody fights undermining what was once the finest legal system anywhere."
Give it time, NY. The Victorian myths have not completely died out yet.
Not to worry, though, our liberated and empowered modern girls are hard at work wiping them out.
The whole developed world has dropping birth rates. I read the other day that even Iran's birth rate is spiralling downward. It's a symptom of affluence. Fewer people want to be bothered with kids now.
It's also an earmark of the divorce culture that you women embraced so enthusiastically.
In fact, it occurred to me when V and I were talking about the future of reproduction and the prospect of everyone being able to have kids by themselves and on their own terms...without solid families and the values of responsibility, self-sacrifice and loyalty that they beget, I can imagine a time when just about nobody will want to fool with having kids. Maybe then it will be up to the state to gestate and rear its own citizens.
And that's the point where culture and progress truly WILL stagnate.
I used to think Huxley was full of it. Now, I think he may have been a prophet.
Richard
"Children are what makes a house a home and women have ALWAYS been the primary caregiver of their children. The industrial revolution made no difference in that equation."
Children do not make a house a home. My wife and I had a perfectly nice home together before we ever had our kids. But whether or not, the angel in the house myth simply never existed before the Victorian era. Children were always viewed as the joint responsibility of their parents and they lived, worked and were taught right alongside them.
Sorry if you were ignored by your father. I wasn't. Nobody in my family was. And when the world ran on 99% agricultural production I'll wager it was rather hard to ignore the children who were working right alongside you and learning the ropes from you.
And as for chivalry, I don't care what word you call it by, whether chivalry, privilege, courtesy, gallantry, or macaroni and cheese. Women were once afforded protections and privileges that compensated for their lesser physical ability, lesser earning capability, and what was mistakenly believed to be their innocence and moral superiority and possibly lesser rational intelligence. Those conditions no longer exist. There is no practical reason now for men (either individually or collectively) to support women financially, to extend them special courtesies, or to excuse them from ordinary accountability in any circumstances.
"Most women marry men today for companionship versus the past where we had to marry any man that asked in order to survive."
Baloney. There have always been women who didn't marry. There were numerous property laws set up to benefit the spinster daughter who remained at home. And around the turn of the century there were so many women not marrying that the watchdogs were sending up alarms even then about the immigrants overtaking us because not enough white women were marrying and having kids.
But just the same, it was not nasty at all for a man of bygone times to need a girl's father's permission to marry her. A young girl just out of adolescence and ready to start a family had no wherewithal to select a quality man. They still can't. Hence the reduced risk of divorce among later-marrying couples.
Of course, young men had little ability to select well either. But historically they didn't take wives to "have sex." They mostly took them because it was expected of them. Marriages were arrangements between both families for EVERYONE'S mutual benefit.
Richard
"Why should a mother wait to file first when some idiot might beat her to the courthouse and try to take the children in order to avoid paying child support???? Mothers would be damn fools to do that..."
NY, have you ever actually been in a family courtroom?
There's no such thing as "beating someone to the courthouse" for custody. You can file all you want and whenever you want, but no judge issues a temporary order without a temporary hearing with notice to all parties and evidence of where the children are living and who is taking care of them.
That's the decisive factor.
Women don't file for divorce in order to get custody. They file BECAUSE they expect to get custody and all the accompanying perks. Just like PK's friend's wife expected to and got disappointed. Without that expectation there is less divorce all around. Which is the main thing that makes presumed shared parenting desirable.
And like I already pointed out, women wouldn't be in lawyers' offices learning about dirty pre-divorce tricks in the first place if they hadn't already decided to crap out on their families with the expectation of coming out on top.
A WHOLE hell of a lotta men would be delighted if it WERE that easy to get custody. They'd pack up their kids and be gone yesterday if not sooner.
If getting custody were that simple a matter, and women exploit it while men mostly don't, then that would speak a load of crap about women's sense of family responsibility, wouldn't it?
Oh and PK, while the evidence does suggest that education is a marriage-protective factor, experts do acknowledge that people who go farther in school do have different "value orientations" than others, which possibly indicates class as a factor as well. See the Handbook of the Sociology of Education:
http://books.google.com/books?id=5B3ZNi0ryvIC&pg=PA515&lpg=PA515&dq=women+%2B+class+%2B+education+%2B+likely+to+divorce&source=bl&ots=pBlgqPjiGA&sig=rXWUNIevcWleGpHWY9_X7ab7cPQ&hl=en&ei=S1c6So-xC6KqtgeY1v3TDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
See also data from the Centers for Disease Control:
http://www.psychpage.com/family/mod_couples_thx/cdc.html
"Saving women and children first was the least they could do, WHEN THEY WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENTIRE SITUATION TO BEGIN WITH."
This rivals the "men don't understand the male psyche" remark for sheer absurdity. Congrats.
Richard
"There's no such thing as "beating someone to the courthouse" for custody. You can file all you want and whenever you want, but no judge issues a temporary order without a temporary hearing with notice to all parties and evidence of where the children are living and who is taking care of them."
This is simply not true...
I, myself, had the experience in the early 80s, where my then husband went down to the courthouse and filed for divorce and arranged for temporary custody to me awarded to ME...this, of course was in the days just before high child support so there was no incentive for him to seek custody...and btw. no one sent me anything in the mail to inform me of a hearing. I was informed of the filing when he served me the papers at work.
AND If he had filed for temporary custody for himself I would not have had access to my baby for weeks or even MONTHS until a court hearing was scheduled.
I have also read on many mens rights site this advice given to men...along with the proviso to delay the actual heading date as much as possible since after six months with temporary custody in the father's hands it will probably morph into permanent.
YET you continue to deny this.
Obviously you are very invested in this myth (which many mothers believe as well btw)...Actually many of the non-custodial mothers I used to maintain contact with loss their children in just this manner...
Regarding this business of college-educated women having low divorce rates. I can't quite figure out why you refuse to accept that this is not true either. Maybe you'd like to believe if you have daughters that they'll be protected from the world you've been helping create if they get an education?
Sorry but it's simply not true.
I have two articles from the past that I'm going to re-post this weekend. One on chivalry and the other about high divorce rates.
It's almost like the materials I have from the past few years are so on the mark, that I don't even have to blog anymore, just re-post...
LOL
"Actually, the male breadwinner is one of the biggest myths out there next to chivalry. In fact, throughout history, most household goods were produced IN THE HOME."
I guess I have to say how did people get a so-called home and land to farm to produce all these household goods unless someone provided it? Women were not even allowed in most cultures to own real property in their own name (they could own movable goods like clothing, furnishings, jewelry, etc.,) but real property that came with a dowry generally reverted back to a woman's father or older brother in the event of a divorce (this probably explained the low divorce rates of ancient times).
Actually this was the genesis of many small wars that morphed into bigger ones when men refused to return dowries after they divorced their wives. Her male relatives wanted the real estate returned along with her...
I think the Romans allowed a man 5% of the INCOME from a woman's estate to maintain her children in his care in the event of a divorce. But everything else reverted back to her father or older brothers or uncles, etc.,
The 5% was awarded under the assumption that a man should NOT have to spend any of his own funds to raise and educate a woman's children...so even this Roman law was a backhanded compliment to womens' more pivotal role in children's existence...I think men were jealous even then of this fact, but still top greedy to make any attempt to spend their own money to undermine it...
Now I know this was the upper classes but we have little or no material that was written on the lower classes to go by, so we have to extrapolate this same thinking to the rest of their society. I believe that children who had no 'estate' or property of any kind were worth nothing to anyone except their mothers, so I don't believe there were any property issues involving them...If their mother didn't want them, no one did. A poor kid either died or begged on the streets.
Thus, I believe this whole notion of many men and women as families working side by side in a home to provide for their children until the industrial revolution broke the family apart is a myth. It's the rock on which both men and feminists undermine womens' more legitimate bond with children...
Sorry but I think it's a romantic version of family history that has no basis in fact. Maybe for some few families but not most and it aids and abets men today to get custody of children from us claiming that mothers never raised their children anyway.
Really sorry.
"Your right, but in my individual circumstances, I don't have to worry because any legal custody was on paper."
Of course I hope you realize that by moving in with him again, you have given him legal grounds to re-litigate the whole issue of custody and visitation all over again should it not work out and either you or him decide to split up...
Hopefully it will never happen again but I have heard of men playing this 'reconciliation game' to get a do-over in court...
Just be aware...
"Women don't file for divorce in order to get custody. They file BECAUSE they expect to get custody..."
Ummm and this is different from what I said because????
"and all the accompanying perks. Just like PK's friend's wife expected to and got disappointed."
Oh I see your opinion is that, just like men, women only file for custody to get so called perks...I think they call that projection Richard...look it up.
She got joint custody with him...and guess what: if she hadn't filed first I seriously doubt if she would have even gotten that...
"Without that expectation there is less divorce all around. Which is the main thing that makes presumed shared parenting desirable."
I would never accept as legal or fair a rule that had the effect of forcing women to stay in relationships they didn't want to stay in by holding their children as hostages...
We've been there and done that already Richard. Actually that is a more realistic view of womens' history then this so-called myth of the household production unit that people love to talk about so much...
"Then you blame us men when society looks down on motherhood when babies in dumpsters turn up on the news over and over and over again!"
That's a small universe of women who do this. Just like it's a small universe of men who sexually abuse children. AND as I've told you many times, we cannot make judgements about everybody else based upon either of these groups of misfits. They are basically the outliers on either end of the bell-shaped curve of people, whereas most of the rest of us reside in the vast middle of that curve.
"Of course, young men had little ability to select well either. But historically they didn't take wives to "have sex."
Sorry Richard but that is why they do it...since ancient societies didn't allow the same kind of casual contact between the sexes that goes on today that was pretty much the ONLY WAY a young man could get sex...to marry.
Or have sex with sheep or donkeys...which is what young men do in societies that don't allow prostitution...
Sorry but I'm not going to allow you to keep attributing these noble motives to men for marriage...
"I used to think Huxley was full of it. Now, I think he may have been a prophet."
Once again trying to go against human nature aren't we???
Now what possible motivation would a man have for wanting a test tube baby to raise on his own????
"NYMOM, saying women outmaneuvered men in appealing to western chivalry is kind of like saying damsels in distress held by a dragon outmaneuver knights in shining armor. That only happens as long as the knight, and the dragon, play along. And you know it.
You claim these women are doing what's best for them, oh, and for their children of course (wink.) I guess society doesn't need all those social programs to bail them and their kids out and mommy-support anymore. Chivalry is so good to you that it even allows you to delusion yourself that it doesn't exist. For now."
I am not unrealistic in my expectations and have said many times that the state itself should be empowered to seek child support from men in the event that these mothers cannot provide for their children.
But a mother should be given the opportunity to provide for them herself, if she so choses, and not forced into an some artificial custody arrangement so men can pretend they are being noble.
Actually after a few years this would help men who you are always complaining about being forced to pay 'mommy support'...
NYMOM talks about a small universe: "That's a small universe of women who do this [abandon babies in dumpsters]. Just like it's a small universe of men who sexually abuse children."
Nice moral equivalency argument there, NYMOM. Do you realize, though, that you just blew away your romantic justification for automatic custody for mothers? When you spread around the mud to get everyone dirty, you can't win the beauty queen contest....
"tinyurl.com/lj23ch"
Well I read part of the article there and I don't see where you get the idea that men were the ones being asked to provide more subsidy to women with children. In theory it's everyone being asked including childless women (who are becoming a larger part of the population in all industrialized countries now).
Also to be honest I might be against this author's idea as well, since I don't think mothers of such young children should be forced into the work force so more child care for babies is not the answer to the poverty of single mothers.
I would rather it be something like a grant/loan program (similar to what they do for college students) for single mothers to help them stay home for a few years and raise their children (maybe to school age, I'm not sure exactly). This could be paid back in increments once they began working (when the children were older)...
Raising children properly is as much of an investment in any society as sending people to college is and should be treated similarly...
It seems to me that you confuse men with taxpayers and everytime you read an article about higher taxes you assume it's men paying it. WOMEN WORK AS WELL and many educated high-paid women NEVER MARRY and/or have kids (in spite of what Richard would like us to believe) and so those women pay taxes as well...
NYMOM says: "Actually after a few years this would help men who you are always complaining about being forced to pay 'mommy support'..."
Yeah... sure NYMOM. Thanks bunches. Instead of women exploiting men's children for money from them directly, you advocate doing so indirectly even as you argue that men oppressed and exploited women throughout history.
Amazing. It's a social delusion made only possible by white male chivalry.
"Nice moral equivalency argument there, NYMOM. Do you realize, though, that you just blew away your romantic justification for automatic custody for mothers? When you spread around the mud to get everyone dirty, you can't win the beauty queen contest...."
I NEVER said that unfit mothers should have custody. BUT they should be the only mothers in litigation. Absent provable charges of abuse or neglect a mother should always have custody of her children. It shouldn't be allowed to be contested...
"NYMOM says: "Actually after a few years this would help men who you are always complaining about being forced to pay 'mommy support'..."
Yeah... sure NYMOM. Thanks bunches. Instead of women exploiting men's children for money from them directly, you advocate doing so indirectly even as you argue that men oppressed and exploited women throughout history."
I don't get your argument here? I just said that ONLY the state could go after men if women went on public benefits. Since most women with children do NOT go on public benefits things would revert back to what they were before. So what are you complaining about????
NYMOM asks: "Now what possible motivation would a man have for wanting a test tube baby to raise on his own????"
PK responds: The answer to that is in this very article, NYMOM. When society declares a child to be a tool to exploit for personal gain, no doubt men would take advantage of it. Some already are in the form of being paid as anonymous "baby daddies" that the mother then claims she can't identify...
Of course, IMO, such behavior is disgusting but perhaps if men joined the club then maybe society would need to reconsider before we go totally broke (which doesn't seem that far off.)
NYMOM backpedals: "I NEVER said that unfit mothers should have custody. BUT they should be the only mothers in litigation. Absent provable charges of abuse or neglect a mother should always have custody of her children. It shouldn't be allowed to be contested..."
Let's go back to the Titanic for a moment: Absent such sea disasters, men have done a pretty good job of building a society to provide creature comforts for women and children. MOST of the ships got across safely. Only a "tiny universe" of the patriarchy is bad.
So using that reasoning, the sexist position that, absent abuse or neglect, men should get all the high paying jobs. Shall we shake on it?
Ok, seriously, this very article is about you advocating the state to step in to rescue unwed mothers and their children (or get the father to do so) lest the majority of them wind up on the streets. I would consider that a sign of neglect on her part. The reason why the patriarchy ran things (and continues to do so) is because we get things done. Some things will never change. That's just the way it is...
NYMOM says: "Sorry Richard but that is why they do it...since ancient societies didn't allow the same kind of casual contact between the sexes that goes on today that was pretty much the ONLY WAY a young man could get sex...to marry."
History lesson, NYMOM. Prostitution was legal in the Roman empire you just referred to. Many cultures had legal prostitution and still do. Yet... men marry in these cultures.
On the other hand, your claim that women would marry for "companionship" when the financial motivation was removed with her own income has been shown to be laughably false. Single motherhood has exploded not out of a reaction to bad men not doing housework but because women are having a harder time finding breadwinners in their league. Men were required to raise their children in these cultures and be responsible for them. You, on the other hand, want to dump it on the taxpayer because you know the little women aren't up to it.
NYMOM says: "Since most women with children do NOT go on public benefits things would revert back to what they were before. So what are you complaining about????"
Here's the thing: If the women are living off of the men via "child" support, they aren't really on "public" benefits, are they? If they are on public benefits, then the women are still living off of the state and raising children in squalor.
If the women didn't "abuse and neglect" children financially so often, we wouldn't be having this discussion. In answer to your question, us men will "complain" (and more) as long as you ask us men to foot the bill.
"And I would betcha dollars to doughnuts that even back then, men probably earned more simply because such labor was strength intensive and paid via risk such as dangerous hunting trips. You may also like to know that there were mines before the industrial revolution and most of this work, high paying or not, was done by men."
And so what? You may also like to know that there was childbirth even before the industrial revolution and ALL of this work was done by women. And more half of women died giving birth to these children who more than likely died also. And it was mothers who primarily raised these children who were usually put to work by their FATHERS and expected to work full-time by the age of 9 to help support the family. It must have been nice for the FATHER to have his wife financially supporting the family along with him all while giving birth and raising his future work force with a high risk of dying herself. But, hey, the father was legally able to keep the wages of both the mother and his children BECAUSE HE LEGALLY OWNED THEM ALL. And further more, these women faced a high risk of injury and death from domestic violence, and there weren't any legal protections whatsoever. In fact, there weren't any legal protections until about 30 years ago, and women still end up dead and abused because they are forced into unsafe custody agreements with their abusers. Statistically, the most dangerous place for a woman is in her own home. You can talk about men doing more dangerous jobs until your blue in the face, and I could give a shit less cause women are in far more danger just being some guy's wife. And btw, both women and children worked in the coal mines as least during the industrial revolution. Here's a good source where you can read testimonies from the women and children who did. You might want to pay close attention to the illustrations to see what women ACTUALLY did in the coal mines. One picture, in particular, shows a woman crawling on her hands and knees in a coal shaft while dragging a huge tub of coal attached to her by a rope and a chain. The other picture shows women using a windlass to lift coal and workers because it was work that "men refused to do."
http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/coalMine.html
Btw, there were even accounts of women working in coal mines while pregnant and giving birth down there.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ux8HPBFAc0EC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=women+gave+birth+in+the+coal+mines&source=bl&ots=hdGigIz_LE&sig=Ufz-NfwQNCkpL9Bw-SoxBw4SNbQ&hl=en&ei=Czo9SsbgK4SmM8qCmMMO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
"In the account, there were numerous accounts of women who gave birth in the mines; one relates, "I had a chid in the pits, and I brought it up the pit shaft in my skirt."
One woman said about her mother:" My mother worked in the pit to very hour of my birth: and when she found the labour-pains coming on, shehad been dragging a heavy corf...retired to a damp cave in a narrow passage leading to the foot of the shaft and there gave birth to her child. That child was myself."
And I'll betcha dollars to doughnuts that the men made far more money in the mines too. Women were just cheap labor. But, hey, I'm sure these women didn't have "strength intensive and paid via risk". After all, they were just doing heavy labor in the coal mines while doing the job that only women could do and were expected to do.
"So using that reasoning, the sexist position that, absent abuse or neglect, men should get all the high paying jobs. Shall we shake on it?"
Well since one thing has nothing to do with the other, no...
Women should get the high-paying jobs if they successfully prepare for them. Simple...
Has nothing to do with mothers' rights...since men cannot be mothers.
I'm actually sorry that you can't be...it would make things so much more simple...
Unfortunately for men the tasks you perform can be treated as gender neutral commodities and allocated accordingly. While the task mother does cannot be allocated in the same way.
Just the way it is...
Again, truly sorry.
"PK responds: The answer to that is in this very article, NYMOM. When society declares a child to be a tool to exploit for personal gain, no doubt men would take advantage of it."
I seriously doubt if men are going to deliberately put themselves in this position for no immediate gain. The immediate gain to them today is random sex with many women, most who use birth control so don't get pregnant. But what would be the incentive for men to pay to have a baby gestated in a test tube for them?
It's not logical, as Spock would say, so it won't happen.
Just to be a little clearer Polish Knight a man doing this would be equivalent to someone investing $50,000 to $100,000 dollars (low estimated cost of medical procedure involved) immediately to MAYBE get back about $10,000 annually or so in benefits (estimated from NY) spaced out over a 20 year period...
It doesn't make sense...thus, it wouldn't happen.
"Only a "tiny universe" of the patriarchy is bad."
I don't like to use the terms good or bad when talking about these things, it's too simplistic.
"Single motherhood has exploded not out of a reaction to bad men not doing housework but because women are having a harder time finding breadwinners in their league. Men were required to raise their children in these cultures and be responsible for them. You, on the other hand, want to dump it on the taxpayer because you know the little women aren't up to it."
No, single motherhood has exploded because society no longer stigmatizes single women having children...I think I read that amongst early American settlers about a third of the women were pregnant during their engagement...
AND dumping it on the taxpayers (as you call it) shares the burden equally amongst every working man and woman. Everyone benefits from healthy well-raised children. They are the future nurses, teachers, firefighters, etc., of our society.
So why should single childless people get a free ride from other people's children.
"I, myself, had the experience in the early 80s, where my then husband went down to the courthouse and filed for divorce and arranged for temporary custody to me awarded to ME...this, of course was in the days just before high child support so there was no incentive for him to seek custody...and btw. no one sent me anything in the mail to inform me of a hearing. AND If he had filed for temporary custody for himself I would not have had access to my baby for weeks or even MONTHS until a court hearing was scheduled."
Obviously the answer is no, you've never been in a family court room.
Since you don't seem to understand the difference between something conceded up front, uncontested, and something petitioned for.
NY, you don't get a temporary order on the spot simply by asking for one. You petition for it, then the judge schedules a date for a hearing on it, with notice to all interested parties to appear and present EVIDENCE.
And at that hearing, he wants to know where the child actually is, and who is taking care of it, and how it's being supported.
Then he issues the temporary order based on the answers he gets to those questions. Which yes, usually does become permanent.
Why in hell do you think the lawyers instruct women to first and foremost get the man out of the house? It's to establish a status quo of a sole caregiver in the family home.
"Actually many of the non-custodial mothers I used to maintain contact with loss their children in just this manner..."
I doubt it. If they did, they probably couldn't read or understand the summons and so never appeared.
"Ummm and this is different from what I said because????"
Ummm, because there is a world of difference between doing something in order to produce a specific result and just proceeding with your agenda while taking the result for granted.
It's exactly the same as how welfare mothers don't generally have kids in order to get welfare benefits, but they go ahead procreating with little thought to the ramifications because they assume the benefits will be there.
"I would never accept as legal or fair a rule that had the effect of forcing women to stay in relationships they didn't want to stay in by holding their children as hostages..."
Well pardon the hell out of me NY but that is traditionally the entire point of the institution of marriage. To keep parents together long enough to raise their offspring whether they particularly want to be there or not.
You know, a contract.
This world is full of men who stay in relationships they don't want because their children are held hostage. And I for one consider it fair. They had the initial choice while their children had none.
But what's fair for them is just as fair for women.
"Oh I see your opinion is that, just like men, women only file for custody to get so called perks...I think they call that projection Richard...look it up."
It's likely that women file for SOLE custody mostly for the accompanying perks. What you usually see men asking for (and FRA groups advocating for) is shared.
Richard
"Regarding this business of college-educated women having low divorce rates. I can't quite figure out why you refuse to accept that this is not true either."
Ummm, perhaps because the CDC finds lower divorce rates among the educated? See the above links and those in previous threads.
"....and many educated high-paid women NEVER MARRY and/or have kids (in spite of what Richard would like us to believe)"
It ain't a matter of what I like or not, NY, OR of what you believe. The US Government's 2005 Current Population Survey shows that among women ages 35 to 39, 88% of women with advanced degrees have married, as opposed to 86% with a college education or lower. 88% of women earning 100K a year or more have married by age 44, compared to 82% of all others.
Further, 78% of high-achieving women aged 36-40 have children. That's about the same percentage as all other married women regardless of education.
I know you're a fan of Sylvia Ann Hewlett's stuff but she used way too much data from several decades ago when there really was a marriage penalty for educated women.
PK and I hashed this all out in G's thread. Go back there for the relevant links if you wish.
I think you're the one invested in myths, NY. Maybe the thought of smart women participating in the stupidity that you and your pals here advocate is somehow validating. But the truth is that most smart women with something on the ball laugh at this sort of thing.
Richard
"Now what possible motivation would a man have for wanting a test tube baby to raise on his own????"
Ummm...maybe to have children that can't be stolen from him?
"Just to be a little clearer Polish Knight a man doing this would be equivalent to someone investing $50,000 to $100,000 dollars (low estimated cost of medical procedure involved) immediately to MAYBE get back about $10,000 annually or so in benefits (estimated from NY) spaced out over a 20 year period..."
As if a man's attachment to his kids is purely a matter of dollars. Sexist much?
"It doesn't make sense...thus, it wouldn't happen."
Just hang on to that thought, then, NY. Meanwhile men will go their own way on this as they do elsewhere. Only a generation or so ago nobody ever dreamed women would actually want to be single parents, either.
Glenn Sacks did a disapproving but understanding article not too long ago on Ricky Martin becoming a single dad through surrogacy. And just the other day my wife opened her alumni mag to see one of her former classmates and his gay partner announcing the birth of their daughter.
It already happens, and it will of course increase. Imagine how much more common it might become when it no longer requires the hassle of choosing and paying a surrogate, but simply renting a machine.
"Also to be honest I might be against this author's idea as well, since I don't think mothers of such young children should be forced into the work force so more child care for babies is not the answer to the poverty of single mothers."
Oh please. When Jason De Parle wrote his examination of welfare reform and the welfare-to-work process, American Dream, he found that about the only poor children who actually benefitted from the whole thing was the toddler/preschool-age group, in that it got them out of their mothers' exclusive care and into structured day care thereby improving their outcomes.
Daycare does NOT improve outcomes for children of married middle-class-or-higher mothers, however.
Women who do a substandard job of supporting their kids evidently tend to do a substandard job of parenting as well. We could all do with less of the whole thing.
"AND dumping it on the taxpayers (as you call it) shares the burden equally amongst every working man and woman. Everyone benefits from healthy well-raised children. They are the future nurses, teachers, firefighters, etc., of our society."
Sorry to pop another bubble but women who must rely on the taxpayers for their children's support do not generally produce our future nurses, teachers, firefighters, or anything else of value to society. What they produce is the lion's share of society's parasites.
Everyone benefits from healthy well-raised children but a generation of failed social experimentation has already painfully taught us that you don't get them by subsidizing unwed breeding. You get them by strengthening marriage.
Richard
"Instead of women exploiting men's children for money from them directly, you advocate doing so indirectly even as you argue that men oppressed and exploited women throughout history."
Well, I guess that settles it. Women should not be allowed to get child support for MEN'S CHILDREN. After all, if they are the MEN'S CHILDREN, than forget about child support. All men should just get full legal and physical custody of THEIR OWN CHILDREN, and all men should just REIMBURSE the women for ALL the unpaid childcare/housework and basic sweat and toil that it took to ACTUALLY RAISE the MEN'S CHILDREN. And of course, women should be reimbursed for ALL the extra housework that they put in just to make sure that the CHILDREN'S FATHER had dinner made for him, his clothes washed, his messes cleaned up for him, etc, and of course, the women should also be reimbursed for ALL the money that they lost cause they took off work when the FATHER'S CHILD WAS SICK and provided the round the clock nursing care for that child. There should also be reimbursement for all the daycare that more than likely came out of the woman's paycheck for the FATHER'S CHILD just so the woman could go to work at all. The woman should also be paid over-time for having to work a full-time job and a second shift when she comes home as well. Oh, and if the woman gave up paid employment to stay home full-time with the FATHER'S CHILDREN. She should be reimbursed for whatever the going rate is for a full-time cook, nanny, housekeeper, nutritionist, nursemaid. She should also be reimbursed for ALL the social security benefits, retirement plans, sick days, and employment promotions that she gave up just to stay home and take care of the MAN'S CHILDREN. After all, the actual cost of reimbursing the woman for EVERYTHING she's done to make sure that the MAN'S CHILDREN are well-taken care of as well as the extra work that she's done picking up after the man himself is far more than the cost of her own food, shelter, and clothing. And the man also got the extra perks of a fellow breadwinner (in most cases) so that he didn't have to foot the bill for everything. And reimbursing the woman for the care of the MEN'S CHILDREN and the loss of her own income as well is far more than any child support award. And last, but not least, the woman should also be reimbursed for the 24/7 nine month gestation period for each of the MAN' CHILDREN that she brought into this world. Also, there should be extra reimbursement for every pregnancy complication like gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, epsiotomy and c-section scars, and heck, an extra $100 for every bout of morning sickness. Oh, and stepmothers have the right to reimbursement for all the care they give their stepchildren once dad has full legal and physical custody because most likely stepmom is going to be doing the majority of that care. Yessiree, we have to make sure that all men are not exploited for money when women take care of all the MEN'S CHILDREN. And for the sake of equality, we have to make sure that ALL MEN REIMBURSE WOMEN FOR ALL THAT HANDS ON CARE in making sure the children are taken care. After all, we can't let men exploit the women either.
More bubbles:
"Statistically, the most dangerous place for a woman is in her own home."
The most dangerous place for both sexes (at least up until the age of 34) is behind the wheel.
"...and I could give a shit less cause women are in far more danger just being some guy's wife."
Ummm, no, V. Not even close. A married woman with children is far safer from abuse or violence than single mothers.
http://www.heritage.org/research/family/bg1732.cfm
And a married family is also by far the safest place for kids, though of course we knew that already.
To quote:
"...rates of serious abuse of children are lowest in the intact married family but six times higher in the step family, 14 times higher in the always-single-mother family, 20 times higher in cohabiting-biological parent families, and 33 times higher when the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend who is not the father of her children."
When we're talking about fatal abuse, the picture gets even grimmer:
"When an abused child dies, the relationship between family structure and abuse gets stronger: It is lowest in intact always-married families, three times higher in the step family, nine times higher in the always-single-mother family, 18 times higher in the cohabiting-biological parents family, and 73 TIMES higher in families where the mother cohabits with a boyfriend."
"...and women still end up dead and abused because they are forced into unsafe custody agreements with their abusers."
More baloney. Far more women end up dead and abused by the new live-in loser that they took up with after they threw out the guy who was sucker enough to actually marry them. And so do the kids, if anyone around here gives a damn about them.
But let's not forget the single most dangerous place on earth for human beings in general.
The womb.
Richard
Virago, you really ought to think these things through before tossing them out there. Indeed, your argument only works if men are given 100% custodial rights of the children. Otherwise, you have totally invalidated any justification for alimony or child-support for women. Good going!
But even so, men already called your bluff. Didja ever hear of illegal immigration? Career women are notorious for getting the cheapest labor possible to entrust their darling property, er, I mean children to. Even legal nannies and housekeepers, while expensive, can be had for about $40K a year or so (or even less.) It's not rocket science after all to change diapers and sweep floors.
And you forgot to consider the value of room and board. You assume that servants who are paid to pick up their own rent should also get free room and board. Er, no.
Finally, at least with professional labor, even cheap, at least they understand that it's just a job and they can't use the kid to demand perks from the employer or refuse to be fired. If ONLY such women treated mothering like a job maybe their kids wouldn't be in the news as criminals so often...
"Statistically, the most dangerous place for a woman is in her own home."
Richard responded: "The most dangerous place for both sexes (at least up until the age of 34) is behind the wheel."
I'll add that the most dangerous place for a newborn infant to be in the hands of her mother hence the construction of safe havens.
NYMOM says: "Everyone benefits from healthy well-raised children. They are the future nurses, teachers, firefighters, etc., of our society.""
NYMOM, everyone benefits from me cleaning my cat box, sweeping my front sidewalk, putting my trash into the proper receptacle, or even just spending my paycheck on stuff I want for myself.
However, that doesn't change the fact that these are basic, adult responsibilities or choices and only via chivalry can you argue that women should be both taxpayer subsidized and lauded for doing something basic that the patriarchy did for eons.
All you've done is just obscured the husband-wife relationship by making women into housewives of the state. And not very good housewives at that considering how many of their "healthy" children wind up to be criminals.
"NY, you don't get a temporary order on the spot simply by asking for one. You petition for it, then the judge schedules a date for a hearing on it, with notice to all interested parties to appear and present EVIDENCE."
Again, you are very invested in winning this argument Richard, but this time you're going to lose. I am a Columbia University graduate who can read quite well so I assure you that I know the difference between a summons and a temporary order. This was a temporary court order.
So you're wrong. Many, many, many men go down to court everyday and get temporary orders of custody. It's then up to the child's mother to retain a lawyer and fight the temporary order. MEANWHILE, she cannot even visit her child until she manages to get a visitation order established. Nor can she pick the child up from school...
AND no mens' rights groups do NOT encourage men to file for joint custody. They tell men to go down to the court and file for temporary sole custody. Then it's the burden of the child's mother to hire an attorney and fight this...and of course, men work the legal system to delay and delay for months on end.
Don't act like you don't know this Richard. I'm sure you have read the same mens' rights sites I have...
So you are wrong...
"Well pardon the hell out of me NY but that is traditionally the entire point of the institution of marriage. To keep parents together long enough to raise their offspring whether they particularly want to be there or not.
You know, a contract."
You're right of course in this area.
Of course men always allowed themselves the escape hatch of divorce, while this has only been available to women here in the west for about 40 years now...
That is why I say that women must invent new ways of living. We cannot piggy-back on the old forms anymore...
"Glenn Sacks did a disapproving but understanding article not too long ago on Ricky Martin becoming a single dad through surrogacy. And just the other day my wife opened her alumni mag to see one of her former classmates and his gay partner announcing the birth of their daughter."
I never said a few men won't experiment, but once again I'm not talking about those outliers. I am talking about the average man...
To be honest I never understand why so many women have children as it's a thankless task with little or no reward at its end, as you'll find out when your children are older...
Thus, I have concluded that there does exist an innate maternal instinct which pushes women to have children...fatherhood on the other hand is a social construct, nothing innate about it.
That's my own personal opinion, you can disagree, but that's my opinion, my blog.
Anyway that the reason I just don't see many men opting for test tube babies.
Your other numerous comments/statements I will address through the next two posts...
"NYMOM, everyone benefits from me cleaning my cat box, sweeping my front sidewalk, putting my trash into the proper receptacle, or even just spending my paycheck on stuff I want for myself.
However, that doesn't change the fact that these are basic, adult responsibilities or choices and only via chivalry can you argue that women should be both taxpayer subsidized and lauded for doing something basic that the patriarchy did for eons.
All you've done is just obscured the husband-wife relationship by making women into housewives of the state. And not very good housewives at that considering how many of their "healthy" children wind up to be criminals."
Single mothers raise many fine children. President Clinton as well as President Obama were products of single mother homes. As self-centered as you are I know you understand the difference between cleaning your cat box and raising healthy children to function as future citizens.
Or maybe you don't...
NYMOM claims: "Of course men always allowed themselves the escape hatch of divorce, while this has only been available to women here in the west for about 40 years now...
That is why I say that women must invent new ways of living. We cannot piggy-back on the old forms anymore..."
NYMOM, I googled up "history of divorce" and found a cite such as this one:
"In 449 the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian of Rome changed the divorce law to allow penalty-free divorces to men and woman if their spouse committed certain acts (homicide, poisoning, robbery, etc). In addition, husbands were specifically allowed to divorce their wife, keep the dowry and remarry later if he could prove that she was: "(I) going to dine with men other than her relations without the knowledge or against the wish of her husband; (2) going from home at night against his wish without reasonable cause; (3) frequenting the circus, theatre or amphitheatre after being forbidden by her husband.""
Last time I checked, 449AD was somewhat longer than 40 years ago. Granted, it may not have been entirely fair towards women but your blanket statement is clearly false. Didja ever hear of this guy named Henry VIII? He took over the church precisely because they were saying he couldn't get divorced. So divorce prohibitions were hardly one-sided.
And yes, comparing child raising to cleaning the cat box is appropriate in many ways since parents ought to know that raising children, responsibly, is about burdens rather than cashing checks either from the taxpayer or other parent. It's a personal responsibility.
I love arguments that we should pay for someones kids because they might grow up to be doctors someday. Really? Great! Then you can send your money over to us, NYMOM, and we'll assure you that when our kids become doctors they'll look after you, for a huge fee of course. Get the point? People provide services in order to be compensated, not as charity, just as people pay for them not out of the goodness of their hearts but also for market reasons. If someone doesn't want to have kids, then the world will go on.
I'll discuss your next posting regarding the dispute between you, Richard, and suprisingly myself (three way) regarding career women's marriage and childbirth rates.
NYMOM says: "Thus, I have concluded that there does exist an innate maternal instinct which pushes women to have children...fatherhood on the other hand is a social construct, nothing innate about it."
It's funny that you wrote that on father's day.
I don't think Richard or I disagree that fatherhood is a social construct. He's pointed out that our society, which requires educating children for years and housing and clothing them in comparative luxury to the animals who sleep in the forest requires a male breadwinner.
The notion of the "independent" single mother, on the other hand, is a social _delusion_, not a construct. The mother is as independent as, well, her baby is.
We cannot separate the fact that people have a fundamental obligation to support themselves and their children. We can fantasize about welfare states or "minimum incomes", but they always turn out to be some shell game taking from one disenfranchised group to give to the other. The dangerous game here, NYMOM, is that you're relying upon male chivalrous patronage to enable women to kick at men. That works only as long as men allow it. Enjoy it while it lasts...
"Many, many, many men go down to court everyday and get temporary orders of custody. It's then up to the child's mother to retain a lawyer and fight the temporary order. MEANWHILE, she cannot even visit her child until she manages to get a visitation order established. Nor can she pick the child up from school...
NY, do you still not see that the critical factor here is WHO HAS THOSE KIDS?
Hello? Hello?
Dad can file whenever he wants but until there's a temporary hearing resulting in a temporary order nobody's going to send the cops to take the baby from mom and give it to him.
And unless he has the baby with him he has small chance for a temporary order of custody when the hearing does happen.
Now it might be different if the mother has left the baby in his care for some time and perhaps he disappears with it and establishes a status quo as a sole caregiver.
The crucial element is still, who has the kid.
I'll say it again, nobody even starts this crap in the first place unless they've already decided to flip off their responsibilities.
Just another reason why we need presumed shared parenting and an end to these shit-silly games.
Richard
"Single mothers raise many fine children. President Clinton as well as President Obama were products of single mother homes."
Clinton's father died when he was a baby. As we've already seen it makes a world of difference to a kid whether his family was destroyed by fate or simply blown off for someone's convenience.
As for Obama, he was raised for the most part by his married, white maternal grandparents. His mother took him to Indonesia for a couple of years when she remarried but soon sent him back (wonder why?).
But even HE appears to understand what you do not: "While I was lucky to have two wonderful grandparents who poured everything they had into helping my mother raise my sister and me, I still felt the weight of his absence throughout my childhood.
As an adult, working as a community organizer and later as a legislator, I would often walk through the streets of Chicago's South Siode and see boys marked by that same absence-boys without SUPERVISION or DIRECTION or anyone to help them as they struggled to grow into MEN. I identified with their frustration and disengagement-with their sense of having been let down.
In many ways, I came to understand the importance of fatherhood through its absence...the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that NO GOVERNMENT CAN FILL. WE CAN DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE GOOD JOBS AND GOOD SCHOOLS AND SAFE STREETS FOR OUR KIDS, BUT IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH TO FULLY MAKE UP THE DIFFERENCE."
From: "We Need Fathers To Step Up" by President Barak Obama, Parade Magazine, 60-21-09. All emphasis mine.
Richard
"Virago, you really ought to think these things through before tossing them out there. Indeed, your argument only works if men are given 100% custodial rights of the children. Otherwise, you have totally invalidated any justification for alimony or child-support for women. Good going!"
Boy, are you a dumbass not to mention forever missing the point. I was being sarcastic you ignoramous. You used the term MEN'S CHILDREN as if men were the only parent. In reality, MEN ARE THE PARENTS WHO INVEST THE LEAST IN THE ACTUAL CARE OF THOSE CHILDREN. Obviously you and other men think children just raise themselves and don't need food, clothing, and shelter. And when women have the responsibility of most of the childcare, it cuts into THEIR OWN EARNING POTENTIAL. In fact, women as a group pay far more for the cost of raising a child than men ever do. And men exploit women all the time when it comes to doing their share of the childcare/housework. In fact, men create far more work for their wives than they actually do. Btw, this has been rehashed again and again by me and others. Again, you can't seem to comprehend something that is so obvious. You make condescending remarks about how simple it is to sweep floors and change diapers. Again, you don't know what your talking about. How about if you actually have a child (other than in a brothel), and actually spend some time taking care of that child more than just a few minutes a day like most fathers do. I guarantee you'll be singing a different tune, that's for sure.
"But even so, men already called your bluff. Didja ever hear of illegal immigration? Career women are notorious for getting the cheapest labor possible to entrust their darling property, er, I mean children to. Even legal nannies and housekeepers, while expensive, can be had for about $40K a year or so (or even less.) It's not rocket science after all to change diapers and sweep floors."
And I'll call your bluff. FYI, the U.S. Dept. of Labor categorizies nannies as "unskilled labor". U.S. immigration laws make it virtually impossible for non-American nannies to find work in the U.S. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service rarely grants work visas to foreign nationals to work legally in the United States as nannies. You can't hire someone legally when there isn't someone legal to hire you idiot."
"And you forgot to consider the value of room and board. You assume that servants who are paid to pick up their own rent should also get free room and board. Er, no"
And wives and mothers are not servants, and shouldn't be treated like one by the fathers of their children. Unfortunately, that's how most men EXPLOIT THE MOTHERS OF THEIR CHILDREN while expecting her to work a full-time job in most cases. Instead, these men want to whine about how they're being exploited by paying child support when the mothers of their children get fed up and walk.
"Finally, at least with professional labor, even cheap, at least they understand that it's just a job and they can't use the kid to demand perks from the employer or refuse to be fired."
And that's what you don't get stupid. HUSBANDS ARE NOT EMPLOYERS, and they get plenty of perks just from having a clean house, clothes washed, meals cooked,well cared for children, a sex partner, and in most cases, an extra paycheck to pay the bills. It's about time women get the same.
" If ONLY such women treated mothering like a job maybe their kids wouldn't be in the news as criminals so often..."
Yeah, it's nice how you refer to children as men's children when women supposedly exploit them for money, but refer to children as women's kids when they end up criminals. Of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that most men don't do anything to raise their own kids whether they live with the mother or not. Or the fact that MOST CRIMINALS ARE MEN who a lot of times come from homes where there was a lot of domestic violence that ended up with them being in a single mother home to begin with because they have fathers who are shitty examples of manhood, and not to mention the fact that we live in a patriarchal culture that glorifies rape culture and male violence, devalues women in general and mothers in particular, and tells boys their entitled to anything they want from women, can do anything they want to women without any consequences all while neglecting their children because after all everything is always going to be-THE MOTHER'S FAULT!
"I'll add that the most dangerous place for a newborn infant to be in the hands of her mother hence the construction of safe havens."
Well, this is easy to judge when most fathers do not spend nearly as much time with their children-infants or otherwise-as mothers do.
So, of course, your also going to see more mothers killing their children because they have far more opportunity. OTOH, if fathers spent as much time with their children as mothers do, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the numbers of fathers who kill their children would be far higher than the number of mothers who do. Plain and simple.
"But let's not forget the single most dangerous place on earth for human beings in general.
The womb."
Or you mean the organ that is attached to only one half of the human population. You know, the half that doesn't count-women. After all, men don't care about this organ, what comes out of it, or what happens to any "human being" in this organ unless they can use it to try to claim rights for themselves at the expense of both the mother and the child. Otherwise, it's "tough luck, baby, pay for your own goddamn kid." The only organ that men really care about on a woman is the one below the womb where they can ejaculate without any consequences at all.
Virago/Kimberly writes: "In reality, MEN ARE THE PARENTS WHO INVEST THE LEAST IN THE ACTUAL CARE OF THOSE CHILDREN. Obviously you and other men think children just raise themselves and don't need food, clothing, and shelter."
This is a classic example of projection. This isn't pot meet kettle, it's more like pot meet mirror!
Kimberly/Virago, if women were really "investing" in their children then we wouldn't be discussing how to restructure the welfare state to keep children from starving to death in their loving care. It's largely men, directly or indirectly as taxpayers, who "invest" in their families and children in real, cold, hard cash.
The fact of the matter is that it is easy to look after children and clean one's own home compared to earning a living in a competitive, modern economy. Logic 101: If the skills of housewifery were really worth millions of dollars, then women would be chasing after janitors and hospital workers rather than doctors and lawyers.
As I already pointed out to you, if women wanted men to help out around the house they'd select such men rather than the patriarchal breadwinners they crave.
You are seeking to demand that women double dip and be treated as employees, and get an income for the work they do for "his" children but at the same time get free room and board and have them remain "her" children and home. Then you project onto men that we're out to exploit women.
Finally, your whole victim claim is amusing considering NYMOM just bragged that us men got outmaneuvered by women who can use the welfare state and affirmative action to their benefit yet... you claim they can't help but squeeze out babies for bad boys anyway. Do I have that right? And then you claim the fathers don't help raise the children but NYMOM says the men shouldn't be around if the mother doesn't want them and get taxpayer support.
If women are getting a bad reputation as mothers it's only because they've milked the damsel-in-distress paradigm and "give me what I want or the kid gets it" to the limit.
V, if it weren't for those human beings in "this organ," and the rights thereto, few men would ever bother to marry at all. Some, but not many. Yet over 85% of us do.
Guys who are only interested in the organ below the womb have absolutely no compelling reason to sign on the dotted line with women and place their entire futures and all their "worldly goods" up for grabs, since there is certainly no shortage of those organs out there.
Without the expectation of a family, I probably would never have married.
Most of us could live quite comfortably in modest homes, cook (or microwave) our own meals and do a few loads of laundry every week. And clean our houses too, probably not to your satisfaction but enough to meet our needs.
But it's in our whole society's interest for men to marry and build solid families. This leads to the creation of wealth, social stability, progress, and those "healthy, well-raised children" that NY talks about.
Therefore those "rights" you're bitching about are not truly at the expense of anyone. They are a positive good for all.
Now we need to equalize custodial rights enough to remove the incentives to divorce and get people focused on fixing their families again before it's too late.
Richard
Virago, once again you create your own double standard: You defend the notion that women should be Miss Independent and Unwed Mothers if it suits them and that they're such great mothers, blah blah blah, and then when it turns out that so many of them are killing babies that society constructed "safe havens" you claim that it's because they spend "so much time with them."
Pity Charles Manson didn't use that excuse: "Hey, if people didn't want me to kill them, they shouldn't have spent so much time with me!"
The men don't spend time with their children because women and society push them out of the home and they are busy working for a living to live up to their basic adult responsibilities. If everyone stayed around at home cashing checks and looking after their kids, then the whole magic-money paradigm would fall apart!
Your crying game that women don't count, blah blah blah, and are so oppressed is kind of like a girl crying that "daddy doesn't love me" so that daddy will come a running to you. You know that chivalrous patronage allows you to get away with that while men who gripe and whine are just gripers and whiners.
Here's what it boils down to: If you think kids are such a burden then don't have them. The same goes with me and women with attitudes like yours. I went and found a woman with a more positive attitude. If you want to get a man who pays the bills, cleans your place, and apologizes for oppressing you while you cash his checks, good luck to you. But don't count on getting a big welfare state to take care of you. Obama's already spent all the money. Tee hee.
"The fact of the matter is that it is easy to look after children and clean one's own home compared to earning a living in a competitive, modern economy."
Oh of course it is. Otherwise career women looking for husband's wouldn't routinely refer to this role as "sitting on one's butt."
The secret consignment store again, y'know.
My wife stayed home briefly after our second was born and she freely admitted it was easier. In fact, during that time she insisted on doing the evening tasks that I had always done, and still do now, because she said it "broke her heart" to think of me fighting traffic in and out of the city to work every day while she didn't have to.
She's a "kitty kat" like me, PK.
;-)
But I never accused her of "sitting on her butt." Gotta leave that to women who'd rather hire strangers to care for the kids than downscale the lifestyle... or risk them maybe being closer to dad if he stays home. Can't have that.
Richard
Richard, your speech (and a good one) reminds me of the final speeches in the film "Other People's Money". "Even if the dollar does this, and the yen does that, this company is still... dead!"
Even if we reform the divorce laws and don't make babies into a monetary prize (which is a pretty incredible challenge), there will still be the fundamental problem that the higher class women will be competing for a shrinking pool of eligible, breadwinning men and a growing discontent among women and thirst for the welfare state.
Regarding needing a woman to do housecleaning. Pulease. Most American women I know are worse than me.
I'll one-up you Richard. My wife likes to work because she feels guilty that I'm the primary breadwinner. I asked her if she would have been interested in me if I _wasn't_ a breadwinner and she admitted that she wouldn't have been. Like your wife, she thinks it's outrageous to saddle the breadwinner, even if she's working, with more chores the moment he steps home after fighting traffic.
Your observation about traffic hit a chord with me because it's become part of earning a living that the "fun" hobby-job crowd didn't think of. Sitting in traffic is a waste of life (sometimes literally) and it takes a good hour or so after getting home to undo the stress of being on one big bumper car ride.
While your wife had the option to return to a high paying job, my wife knows many women who don't and in many cases they are unable to find a breadwinner. After hearing their tales of woe at work, she realizes how lucky she is. On the other hand, millions of women carry away a lesson from the experience that when they've dug a hole, they should go deeper! Go to the governent, the same guys that scared those breadwinners away from them, and demand mo' money for welfare. Yeah, the same guys that blew trillions on sub-prime loans for $500K for 1 bedroom condos.
"You are seeking to demand that women double dip and be treated as employees, and get an income for the work they do for "his" children but at the same time get free room and board and have them remain "her" children and home. Then you project onto men that we're out to exploit women."
It's obvious Polish Knight that you don't understand sarcasm. Sarcasm is a verbal form of irony. There's a saying,"Irony is wasted on the stupid." You sure proved that point.
"But I never accused her of "sitting on her butt." Gotta leave that to women who'd rather hire strangers to care for the kids than downscale the lifestyle... or risk them maybe being closer to dad if he stays home. Can't have that."
No, you just accused everyone else's wife of "sitting on her butt." You've made many a comment on this blog that shows that you think stay at home wives are some kind of parasite, but it's okay for YOUR WIFE. What a hypocrite! That said, your wife only stayed home "briefly" Richard. I'm sure that she had to rely on some kind of childcare. How come she dumped the firstborn on strangers and stayed home "briefly" with the second one? How come she went back to work and left her kids with strangers at all? Maybe your wife WANTED TO GO BACK TO WORK because she saw that staying home longterm is a tougher job than she could handle. OTOH, why aren't YOU staying home with the kids since stay at home dads are more poppular nowadays? With all your wife's masters degrees and high education that you like to brag about, there's isn't any reason why she couldn't be the primary breadwinner. How come you didn't stay home? Not a manly enough thing for you to do? And don't give me that crap that you both have to work because neither one of you can afford to stay home. You made comments that suggest you make a good living. It's always a possiblity for most people to "scale down" their lifestyle so that one parent can stay home long term. Why didn't one of you do this instead of leaving your kids with strangers? You've made comments where you plainly said that BOTH PARENTS should be responsible for supporting the children. And don't even bother denying this because there was a comment made about the Swedish system only giving benefits to single mothers who have a job while providing incentive for MARRIED WOMEN to stay home, and you clearly didn't think it was a good idea for married women to stay home because you said both parents should support the children. Yet, you say that career women are "dumping their kids on strangers" so that they can work. Yet, if dad doesn't stay home, that's somehow the fault of these women as well EVEN THOUGH BOTH PARENTS ARE WORKING JUST LIKE YOU SAID THEY SHOULD. God, your a piece of work. The double standard for everyone, but Richard and his wife. Career women who hire nannies are dumping their kids on strangers, but they shouldn't expect to live the "Angel by the Hearth" lifestyle. Just like the divorce issue. Every woman should stay in a miserable marriage to provide her children a two parent home because Richard and his wife are "supposedly" happy in their two parent home. Richard and his wife are conservatives who think both parents should work outside the home to support their kids (unless your Richard's wife that is). Yet, they both support the political party that wants to "keep women IN THE HOME". You and your wife can both go stick your heads in the fucking sand and wait for a reality check, but you sure aren't going to get one any time soon.
V, I don't care what choices are made within a family if they're affordable and everyone is cool with them.
I wouldn't have had a problem if my wife had wanted to stay home. She wouldn't have had a problem if I had wanted to stay home, except for the during the period I mentioned when having our second coincided with a move and she didn't have a job lined up at the time, so I HAD to work.
What smells to me is when the supposedly onerous task of staying home with kids and all the accompanying dependency and oppression and career handicaps is supposedly some kind of noble sacrifice when a woman does it, deserving of an eternity of compensation in this form and that form and every form you can think of...but suddenly morphs into "sitting on one's butt" when done by a man.
The truth is, it is neither. It's a job with value though it's easier than a paid one. My wife isn't a liar. She wouldn't have said it was easier if it were actually toughter. But it was important to her to start building college funds for them early on so that we can give them all the education that they're willing to take someday.
It's also a privilege, one lots of men will afford their wives but few women will afford their husbands even if the guys WANT to assume the domestic role. For reasons that I suspect have mostly to do with not wishing to cede any of the woman's traditional power base within the home and be relegated to the provider status that is usually men's lot and is supposed to be some sort of "privilege."
Such a woman can use a nanny and still convince herself that she's the "primary parent." She can't do that if dad stays home.
My wife isn't a liar. She wouldn't have said staying home was easier if it were actually toughter. But it was important to her to start building college funds for them early on so that we can give them all the education that they need someday, while at the same time making preparations for our own retirement so we won't have to burden them while they're trying to start families of their own, since we got started rather late.
I don't know what you mean by this Sweden thing. I didn't say I thought that married women shouldn't stay home. Somebody had said that Sweden's system made it easier for married women to stay home and I pointed out that it was specifically designed to encourage them NOT to stay home. Only 2% of married Swedish women are homemakers.
Now in the event of a divorce, that's a whole 'nother thing. Then everyone DOES need to work and contribute to supporting the kids. It's supposed to cut ties and all, and make people independent of each other.
"Every woman should stay in a miserable marriage to provide her children a two parent home because Richard and his wife are "supposedly" happy in their two parent home."
No. We need to strengthen marriage and encourage people to work on them not because WE are happy but because most children are happier, healthier and safer that way.
Richard
Well, sorry to have doubled some stuff there. In a hurry.
R
Hello Richard. Virago's rambling response reveals that she's just throwing a hissy fit in leau of an argument. It's a distraction from the fact that she's got the double standard of ignoring women's continual demands that men live up to 1950's Wally Cleaver breadwinner role and then griping that he doesn't do at least as much cooking and cleaning as her. And even in the cases where men do just that, she still probably thinks the man shouldn't get shared custody anyway in the event of a divorce.
On the other hand, it's not a paradox/contradiction for us to say that women should have basic financial responsibilities for them and their children. This isn't the same as women make of men to earn as much income as possible. Period.
Richard, I got a chuckle out of your "primary parent" who hires nannies reference. I actually know of cases where the small child called the nanny "mommy". Isn't it amazing how the same women who declare that housewifery is a million dollar a year task turn around and look the other way while career women pay $8 an hour for cut rate services as "primary" parents?
Finally, and this is the fun part, if supposedly a _quality_ parent is worth that much, then how are unwed career women who are supposedly buying sperm able to afford quality services? Hmmm? I betcha they're cutting corners. Most of the women exploited as cheap house and childcare are exploited by OTHER WOMEN. But don't expect Virago to complain about that...
"I wouldn't have had a problem if my wife had wanted to stay home. She wouldn't have had a problem if I had wanted to stay home, except for the during the period I mentioned when having our second coincided with a move and she didn't have a job lined up at the time, so I HAD to work"
Okay, I can appreciate that.
"What smells to me is when the supposedly onerous task of staying home with kids and all the accompanying dependency and oppression and career handicaps is supposedly some kind of noble sacrifice when a woman does it, deserving of an eternity of compensation in this form and that form and every form you can think of...but suddenly morphs into "sitting on one's butt" when done by a man."
Well, this is where I disagree with you because every time I read about a "househusband", he's getting all sorts of kudos and being talked about what a great dad he is. OTOH, women stay home with their kids all the time, and no one blinks an eye. It's always a question of, "What does she do all day?". For the record, I don't think a househusband just sits around on his butt all day if he is actually taking care of the kids and the housework. I know women who tried this arrangement, and they came home to a messier house than they left it, dishes piled up, and dirty kids. You might be right about men saying they would like to stay home with their kids, but once they actually do, a lot of these men resist the arrangement because it's not all fun and games like they thought it was. I've actually seen reports that more men complain about being unhappy with staying home than women. Sure if I was a career woman with a great salary, I would love a stay at home husband, but a lot of stay at home wives of high paying career men do a lot of entertaining for their husband's companies, making it possible to network with other clients and furthering their husband's climb up the career ladder. A lot of husbands may be keen about staying home with the kids or whatever, but they usually aren't as supportive of their wive's careers as much as high salary career man's wife is. In order for a lot of these women to succeed in their careers and as the breadwinners, they need the same kind of support from their husbands that men in their positions get from their wives. Unfortunately, they don't get it. A lot of men don't want to be known as the "host with the most" for their wives companies. I've read that these "househusbands" actually think it's emasculating to host a party for their wife's company while "feeling less than a man" because most if not all the other men present are high paid executives. If a career woman can't find a "househusband" who is willing to support her career the way a wife would, why should she even bother with one? It makes more sense to marry a high paying executive and get a nanny. Anyway, I'm not interested in arguing the same point over and over again. I have my opinion, you have yours.
"The truth is, it is neither. It's a job with value though it's easier than a paid one. My wife isn't a liar. She wouldn't have said it was easier if it were actually toughter. But it was important to her to start building college funds for them early on so that we can give them all the education that they're willing to take someday."
Well, you said your wife stayed home "briefly". If she stayed home on a more permanent basis like what she originally wanted to, I think it would be a different story. Staying home for the long haul instead of while waiting for a job is a lot different down the road. Being the breadwinner is "easier", but neither is staying home with the kids.
However, it's the breadwinner role that gets more respect both in and out of the home.
"It's also a privilege, one lots of men will afford their wives but few women will afford their husbands even if the guys WANT to assume the domestic role. For reasons that I suspect have mostly to do with not wishing to cede any of the woman's traditional power base within the home and be relegated to the provider status that is usually men's lot and is supposed to be some sort of "privilege."
Such a woman can use a nanny and still convince herself that she's the "primary parent." She can't do that if dad stays home."
Well, again, I refer to the second point I made in this post. However, as far as a woman telling herself she's a primary parent when her husband stays home? I'll tell you what Richard, most breadwinner wives can tell you what kind of schedule their kids are on, what dr. appointments they have, etc, and despite dad being at home, a lot of the breadwinner wives are still very active in actually putting together the schedule that dad is going to follow. Of course, dad may vary from this schedule from time to time, but most househusbands that I've read about, heard about still run things with a lot of help from mom even though she's at work. I've read this same fact over and over again when I've read articles about the subject. For example, breadwinner mom is nursing at home, but pumps at work. Dad has to follow her schedule when it comes to feeding the baby a bottle during the day so she can nurse when she gets home. And most breadwinner wives end up doing more than their fair share of childcare/housework when they get home. OTOH, most breadwinner dads can't tell you what their kid's schedule is, who their kid's dr.s are let alone when their dr.'s appointments are, etc. Breadwinner fathers just don't parent the same way as breadwinner mothers, or are as involved. Dad may stay home, but the mother is usually an equal parent right along with dad in more ways than one. That's why I don't buy it when male breadwinners say they can't do their share of caring for the kids because they have to work. Breadwinner moms do it all the time. However, I've said this repeatedly, and again, I'm not going to hash it again and again. You have your opinion, I have mine. Case closed.
"I don't know what you mean by this Sweden thing. I didn't say I thought that married women shouldn't stay home. Somebody had said that Sweden's system made it easier for married women to stay home and I pointed out that it was specifically designed to encourage them NOT to stay home. Only 2% of married Swedish women are homemakers."
Well, it was on another post on this blog. I can't tell you off the top of my head, but I'm sure if you look you can find it. And actually Sweden's system is designed for SINGLE MOTHERS to work and not stay home. OTOH, Sweden's system also make it easier for ALL mothers to combine work and family life than the U.S. It shows that most mothers would probably work if they didn't get screwed like they do here in the U.S. However, I do know that more married mothers with SMALL CHILDREN stay home in Sweden than do thier married counterparts in the U.S.. That's usually when women do want to stay home, AND married women aren't penalized for it financially in Sweden like mothers are in the u.s.
"Now in the event of a divorce, that's a whole 'nother thing. Then everyone DOES need to work and contribute to supporting the kids. It's supposed to cut ties and all, and make people independent of each other."
And most single mothers do work and support their kids. It always seems like there is an accusation that just because the mother gets child support from her children's father, that somehow, this is how she is supporting herself and the kids. Most child support awards don't even cover a third of the cost of actually rasing a child. In fact, it's usually reimbursement for money that the mother has ALREADY SPENT. OTOH, it seems that a lot of FRA's want 50/50 joint and physical custody to eliminate child support, but like I said above, that doesn't work in my state. The higher earning parent still has to pay child support to the lower earning parent even in 50/50. This could be either mom or dad, but usually, it's going to be dad. And most 50/50 arragnements never stay 50/50
for very long because the plain truth of the matter, most dads just don't want custody. And 50/50 custody in my state is not very popular.
"No. We need to strengthen marriage and encourage people to work on them not because WE are happy but because most children are happier, healthier and safer that way."
I don't disagree with that, but I don't agree with making divorce harder to get just to force a couple who is miserable to try and stay together. While women file for more of the divorces, women are usually the ones who actually put more effort into saving the marriage. Women are usually the ones who want to go to couples counseling, or whatever. Men are the ones who resist this, and than they claim that they are blindsided when the wife files for divorce. Sorry, but in most cases, the handwriting was on the wall the entire throughout the entire marriage, and men either can't or won't see this. Anyway, again, I'm not going to argue this crap anymore because it just goes round and round. You think your right, and I KNOW I'm right (smile). We're at an impasse, and neither one of us is going to change the other's mind.
"Well, sorry to have doubled some stuff there. In a hurry."
No problem Richard. Maybe some other time. I'm kind of sick of this thread anyhow. I've got at least three arguments going on other blogs as we speak. Can't let them get a head of me. LOL.
" Most of the women exploited as cheap house and childcare are exploited by OTHER WOMEN. But don't expect Virago to complain about that..."
Yes, Polish Knight, you are being exploited by a woman who has a college degree, a part-time job, and absolutely no children to give her a reason to stay home full-time, part-time or otherwise. I suggest you tell your wife to get off her dead ass and work full-time. There isn't any reason for her not to because SHE DOESN'T HAVE ANY FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES. Sorry, you and the cat don't count. So before, you talk about women exploiting men because they have to pay child support. I suggest you clean up the mess in your own home first.
Virago says: "Well, this is where I disagree with you because every time I read about a "househusband", he's getting all sorts of kudos and being talked about what a great dad he is."
I'm calling your bluff, Virago, when was the last time you read such an article? URL please. For the record, I know plenty of women housewives who leave the place messy. While we're at it, give us two examples (you used women in the plural case) of women who have tried having a househusband and the man turning out to be a slob. Note, unemployed boyfriends whom such women let slack off for a while don't count.
Wait a minute... next you write: "I've actually seen reports that more men complain about being unhappy with staying home than women." Doesn't that contrast with your earlier claim above that EVERY time you read about men they were getting a kudos?...
Next, you trot out the rationalization for housewifery as work that they do entertaining for their husbands as if that's a sacrifice. "I work, I slave, I plan parties and go to tennis! Calgon, take me away!" Are you serious? Have you been watching too many episodes of Bewitched or something?
Don't fret, Virago, I'm sure the new, young pretty girl such executives choose are up to that ARDUOUS task! Sometimes it's hard to be a woman...
You then go on and on about how men don't want to do it and just can't figure out how to call a high priced caterer to plan a party. Yeah, you really must have researched this issue or... maybe you're just latching onto them as convenient excuses for all the career women that crave 1950's breadwinners at all costs?
Virago writes: "However, it's the breadwinner role that gets more respect both in and out of the home."
INDEED Virago! And just whose fault is that? Oh, lessee, the 99% of women who don't respect men without high paying jobs and regard women who spent their lives as housewives as victims because they didn't make money?
Here's real life: It's easier to spend money than to make it. Upper class housewives planning parties are not overworked.
Richard, have you ever seen The Real Housewife series on Bravo? It's hilarious. A bunch of spoiled women (usually white) planning parties all the time (for "charity") just to have something to talk about and blowing money on jewelry. The horrors they go through for their men!
OK, V, enjoyed it.
The only thing I would add is that it doesn't sound right that more mothers of young children stay home in Sweden than here. The latest data I know of states that about 63% of American mothers of preschoolers are in the labor force. While Swedish mothers have roughly a year of paid leave immediately after a child, almost all children over the age of one are in formal daycare with their mothers either working or going to school. Housewives account for only 2% of married women. Mothers at home isn't something they like to encourage over there.
Here's a link that might be interesting:
http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Work-live/Equality/Equal-Opportunities/Children-playing--mothers-working/
Oh and PK, about the kids calling the nanny "mommy," that reminded me of years ago when I was driving home from work and heard Dr. Laura reading a letter from a working mom who was upset because her daughter started crying every day when she came home. The child was attached to the nanny and didn't want her to leave.
She had seen a counselor or something about the problem, and the counselor told her the solution was that every day, about a half-hour before mom was due home, the nanny should start dancing around the room with the child singing "Mommy's coming home! Mommy's coming home!" Supposedly this would get the child excited about seeing mom.
This doesn't happen as much in formal daycare where different workers come and go all the time. 'Course then you gotta deal with all the ear infections and stuff...
Richard
Virago, your response to me is a total non-seuqitur. I was remarking that there's a double standard for women who claim that housewifery skills, when performed by women with a male breadwinner, are worth their weight in gold while career women themselves pay bottom rate for such services from other women.
Let's clear the air here: Your stereotypes of men who stay at home as nearly all slackers, breadwinning men who don't know their childrens' doctor appointments, and men don't want shared custody of the kids (except that they're too greedy to avoid paying CS while women are saints for getting as much as they can). These are all anti-male chauvanist stereotypes that you claim are validated precisely because they are stereotypes. You claim to have lots of anecdotal evidence, but your stories are full of contradictions and hot air.
Yet on the other hand, the most easily validated stereotype: Women want breadwinner men and pretty boys and rarely consider men's houseskills, are easily validated and obvious. You continue to ignore that uncomfortable truth because it blows away ALL of your other sexist claims. Boo hoo, men are such sexist scum because that's what women want. "Case closed."
Regarding my wife: she isn't responsible for my cat (I clean out his box, without societal compensation I might add!) It's not a mess since I'm ok with the situation. You claim that the women try to work things out before getting divorced (which you made up, I'm sure you have a URL to prove this, right?) but both of us know what you really mean is that after marrying Mr. 1950's, she then NAGS and GRIPES he's not working enough around the home. Yeah, you ladies are so selfless... (that's sarcasm)
Virago, your response to me is a total non-seuqitur. I was remarking that there's a double standard for women who claim that housewifery skills, when performed by women with a male breadwinner, are worth their weight in gold while career women themselves pay bottom rate for such services from other women.
Let's clear the air here: Your stereotypes of men who stay at home as nearly all slackers, breadwinning men who don't know their childrens' doctor appointments, and men don't want shared custody of the kids (except that they're too greedy to avoid paying CS while women are saints for getting as much as they can). These are all anti-male chauvanist stereotypes that you claim are validated precisely because they are stereotypes. You claim to have lots of anecdotal evidence, but your stories are full of contradictions and hot air.
Yet on the other hand, the most easily validated stereotype: Women want breadwinner men and pretty boys and rarely consider men's houseskills, are easily validated and obvious. You continue to ignore that uncomfortable truth because it blows away ALL of your other sexist claims. Boo hoo, men are such sexist scum because that's what women want. "Case closed."
Regarding my wife: she isn't responsible for my cat (I clean out his box, without societal compensation I might add!) It's not a mess since I'm ok with the situation. You claim that the women try to work things out before getting divorced (which you made up, I'm sure you have a URL to prove this, right?) but both of us know what you really mean is that after marrying Mr. 1950's, she then NAGS and GRIPES he's not working enough around the home. Yeah, you ladies are so selfless... (that's sarcasm)
Richard says: "Dr. Laura reading a letter from a working mom"
Richard, one of my pet gripes is that we live in a society that is so gooey and oversentimentalistic. "Mom" (and Dad) were terms that YOUNG children used for their parents either on the playground or privately. An teen referring to their mother as "mommy" would have been roundly pummelled.
My wife refers to her mother and father by their first names. She has a healthy, adult relationship with them and one of the reasons I fell in love with her. She doesn't worship her parents nor does she engage in all these attention games that American women seem to like to play.
My wife was born in the south and when we were first together I was a little puzzled that she still called her father Daddy.
It seems to be a southern thing. She says he didn't worship his parents either but he called them Mama and Daddy till they both died at 75 and 83.
A page right out of the Waltons.
I call mine mom and dad, though. First names would feel disrespectful.
Richard
"You claim that the women try to work things out before getting divorced (which you made up, I'm sure you have a URL to prove this, right?)"
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/divorce-grownups/200904/marriage-counseling-and-the-decision-divorce
This about sums it up:
"Another strike against marriage counseling is manifest in an old joke among marriage therapists: We all have skid marks at the door from husbands being drug in. Therapists tend to go out of their way to engage the man because he is 10 times more likely to drop out than his wife."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/200905/emotional-abuse-why-your-marriage-counseling-failed
http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/019.htm
Your an idiot Polish Knight. You act like women who stay home TO TAKE CARE OF CHILDREN are getting a free ride off their husbands, but a full grown woman without any children OR a full-time job is okay because it's YOUR WIFE. Your dumber than I thought.
"My wife refers to her mother and father by their first names"
And you think this is all right or healthy? OH, god, you and your wife are more fucked up than I thought. But than, what can I expect from a guy who thinks it's okay for someone to take his son to a brothel for his first sexual experience. Forget about having children, your wife has her own "sugar daddy". Well, I'm not coming back to this thread. You get creepier and creepier the more comments you write. If your wife was smart, your cat would be only pussy you'd be getting.
Virago, if you had read your WHOLE cite, you would have gotten to this: "Don and Marie started marriage counseling but by the third session it becomes evident to Don that Marie has no intention of trying to save the marriage. In fact, he feels deceived and believes she agreed to marriage therapy just to prove to him that the marriage is over. This, he believes is proof that Marie isn't willing to "try" to save the marriage and he becomes angry at her for deceiving him. In fact, he becomes angrier than he was before and begins to blame the whole divorce on her. And now, he says he's ready to find the "tough" lawyer to protect him from Marie.""
It's also worth noting that many therapists themselves don't blame the men (totally) for the marital breakup. This URL is from psychology today:
tinyurl.com/lmuppb
"When a woman feels close to her husband, all is right in the world. However, if the marriage takes a back seat to other commitments, she pursues her husband for more connection by having frequent heart-to-heart talks. If these tête-à-têtes are successful, the marriage blossoms. If not, her complaints are no longer confined to her feeling unimportant. She begins to find fault with many other aspects of their relationship. He hears, “If I had known what kind of father you’d be, I never would have had children with you,” or “What can’t you pick up after yourself? You’re just like one of the kids.”
Suffice it to say, these complaints hardly prompt him to want to spend more time with her. And so, she quietly plans her exit strategy. She tells herself, “I’ll leave when my youngest goes to college, or “I’m going to find my soul mate and then I’ll leave this marriage,” or “As soon as I can support myself financially, I’m outta’ here.”"
One thing to note about even this therapist is that she never considers that maybe the husband has his own challenges and difficulties with the marriage but, rather than becoming resentful and sulking OR nagging and harping, he just figures out how to deal with them.
Consider your favorite gripe: the man doesn't do enough housework. One option is an income producing career women to pay for outside childcare or housecleaning services. My wife, for example, pays a buck a shirt and pants rather than spending hours cleaning and pressing them herself. I'm ok with that. (Especially after she ruined a few of my favorite pants!)
Your fundamental problem, Virago, is that you seem to think that a "relationship" with a man is you doing as you damn well please and him being an ATM machine and personal servant that you gripe at all the time. If he complains about something, you tell him to quit "whining" and "man up" or spuge out a litany of your every growing complaints to dismiss him.
It's no surprise, therefore, that such men resist counseling after years of her griping at him. I know men who have had negative and positive experiences with counselors and on the negative side, they tell me it's some hired gun she's picked to help her gang up on him and find new stuff to gripe about while telling him to shut up and wait his turn. Then when his turn finally comes the wife says: "We're done now, thank you" and ends it. It can become a Stalinist show trial.
Regarding my relationship with my wife. I never said my wife wasn't getting a free ride on me. I'll come right out and say she is but it's ok because I love her. Indeed, this is inconceivable to you because the only way you can have a loving relationship is via blood relatives or children as helpless chattel. And you have the nerve to accuse me of being "creepy?"
Finally, your pattern of dive bomb, and then run away (say you're not responding), and then coming back is a sign you have serious communication issues.
One of my challenges, Richard, is that I had to learn my in-laws' _father's_ names. (Virago must really love that!) Then I would use that as their middle name in order to emphasize seniority similar to the way we say "sir".
Proper first names are, well, proper in Slavic cultures. Most people as children soon go by their "nicknames" and there are several for any given name which are used by their friends and colleagues. For example, Maria Sharapova's nickname is "Masha". So to call an elder by heir first name is not as strong a faux paus as it would be here.
In Polish, language is somewhat westernized (having East and West fight on your land tends to give a place an international flavor) and we use "panu" and "pani" respectively to address men and women. So if you want to impress a Polish co-worker, try saying "Dzien Dobri Pani Kawaskola!" Poles take formality to excess and I still have yet to master all the titles for children (male and female), groups, clergy, etc. Even Poles joke that it takes them years to master all the grammatical variances.
I should wrap up by conceding that my wife has a special nickname for her parents: "mamanka" and "papania!" but ONLY when she's talking to them on a phone that is not public or as a personal greeting when seeing them after a long absence.
"I should wrap up by conceding that my wife has a special nickname for her parents: "mamanka" and "papania!" but ONLY when she's talking to them on a phone that is not public or as a personal greeting when seeing them after a long absence."
Nice, she doesn't want to acknowledge them as her parents in public. Much better.
"In Polish, language is somewhat westernized (having East and West fight on your land tends to give a place an international flavor) and we use "panu" and "pani" respectively to address men and women"
My mother came from Poland. She called her parents "tata" (papa) and "mama".
Nice to know that you like Dr. Laura so much Polish Knight. Btw, did you ever hear the phone call where she told a custodial mother that it was okay for her son to call his step-father "dad" and to refuse to visit his biological father in another state because the kid didn't feel like bio-dad was his father. Dr. Laura was all for the step-son calling his step-dad "dad" because he was the one he saw most of the time. With children living in stepfamilies mostly containing their biological mother and stepfather, calling step-dad "dad" is going to be far more common. Well, since it's okay to call your mom and dad by their first names, I guess you can't say much about calling other people mom or dad. Dr. Laura approved too.
"My mother came from Poland. She called her parents "tata" (papa) and "mama"."
I thought your mother lived on an indian reservation Seneca Woman, You must be Kimberly too. You women are all liars, and I'm sexist ass.
SenacaWoman (NNF?), it was Richard that mentioned Dr. Laura, not me.
In answer to your rhetorical question, I didn't hear that broadcast (I maybe have only listened to a total of an hour of her show) but when you state the case out of context like that, I can come up with a number of explanations. Maybe the father really was a jerk and the stepfather, er, stepped up.
I never said that all fathers were great and all mothers were bad. It's also a good time to point out that I am not against women having sole custody if they show financial responsibility and there's a clear, documented situation of the father needing to be excluded. I don't make excuses for bad fathers.
I also don't make excuses for bad mothers though. I hold women to high standards too. It's ironic that the core of our disagreement is that I don't cut women chivalrous slack so they can pretend to be equal under lesser standards. Sorry about that.
Yes, I mentioned Dr. Laura, and I know jack about her and care even less what she approves of. She just happened to be on talk radio one day while I was commuting home earlier than usual, and she happened to be reading that letter about a kid being more attached to a nanny than to her mom. PK's remark reminded me of it.
I thought the counselor's "solution" was rather funny.
Man, you gals don't miss a chance to pounce, do you? Even half a chance, or less.
Richard
"Polish(space)Knight", I rather like your point about suspicious it is how Senaca Woman's "mother" is supposedly Polish. I was thinking of that myself, but you beat me to it. You seem to be a pseudonym to build a strawman of me which makes it confusing when you called her out. Brilliant!
Richard, I found the solution rather funny too including that the women here didn't find fault with the mother for demanding a childcare provider work as a cheerleader for an absent mother.
It's a neat allegory for the purpose of this blog which celebrates women dumping their kids into daycare or underpaid nannies in the quest for mo' money, divorcing men at the drop of a hat and then struggling financially when the "deadbeat" doesn't pay up or fighting him for the money prize, or having the taxpayer come to the rescue of women who have children they know they can't afford to raise.
Then she blames men and "feminists" (supposedly gender neutral feminists for many in society coming around to not respect these women as the selfless, noble, wise, heroic victims she sees them as.
It all comes down, really, to money. "Selfish" men don't want to pay higher taxes or support for children they don't have equal access to and the "independent" mother model doesn't work so well outside of a few rich hollywood celebrities and 6 figure income career women.
That's the 500lb gorilla in the room. Just thought we ought to say hello to him from time to time...
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