"the difference between a stay-home mother and a welfare mother is money and a wedding ring"

[phantom power]

But the brouhaha over Hilary Rosen’s injudicious remarks is not really about whether what stay-home mothers do is work. Because we know the answer to that: it depends. When performed by married women in their own homes, domestic labor is work—difficult, sacred, noble work. Ann says Mitt called it more important work than his own, which does make you wonder why he didn’t stay home with the boys himself. When performed for pay, however, this supremely important, difficult job becomes low-wage labor that almost anyone can do—teenagers, elderly women, even despised illegal immigrants. But here’s the real magic: when performed by low-income single mothers in their own homes, those same exact tasks—changing diapers, going to the playground and the store, making dinner, washing the dishes, giving a bath—are not only not work; they are idleness itself....

So there it is: the difference between a stay-home mother and a welfare mother is money and a wedding ring. Unlike any other kind of labor I can think of, domestic labor is productive or not, depending on who performs it. For a college-educated married woman, it is the most valuable thing she could possibly do, totally off the scale of human endeavor. What is curing malaria compared with raising a couple of Ivy Leaguers? For these women, being supported by a man is good—the one exception to our American creed of self-reliance. Taking paid work, after all, poses all sorts of risks to the kids. (Watch out, though, ladies: if you expect the father of your children to underwrite your homemaking after divorce, you go straight from saint to gold-digger.) But for a low-income single woman, forgoing a job to raise children is an evasion of responsibility, which is to marry and/or support herself. For her children, staying home sets a bad example, breeding the next generation of criminals and layabouts.

All of which goes to show that it is not really possible to disengage domestic work from its social, gendered context: the work is valuable if the woman is valuable, and what determines her value is whether a man has found her so and how much money he has. That is why discussions of domestic labor and its worth are inextricably bound up with ideas about class, race, respectability, morality and above all womanhood.

We talk about employment or staying home as a matter of choice, which obscures what it takes to make that choice: money and a mate. Do books praising the stay-home life ever suggest that if it’s really best for children, the government, which supposedly cares about their well-being, should make that possible for every family? The extraordinary hostility aimed at low-income and single mothers shows that what’s at issue is not children—who can thrive under many different arrangements as long as they have love, safety, respect, a reasonable standard of living. It’s women. Rich ones like Ann Romney are lauded for staying home. Poor ones need the “dignity of work”—ideally “from day one.”

http://www.thenation.com/article/167456/ann-romney-working-woman

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Hear, hear! If raising kids was 'work', then it should be counted as such

for TANF.

[WingDinger]

2. here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002564932

[cr8tvlde]

3. Average cost of childcare for one child $922 a month

http://www.babycenter.com/0_how-much-youll-spend-on-childcare_1199776.bc

Average pay for childcare workers ... $20,000 per year.

Do the rough math...a lower-income or uneducated or otherwise challenged mother has to go to work full time...pay $12,000 for child care, say at least $4,000 in taxes, cheap Obamacare health at say $3,000, cost of gasoline, work clothing and other out-of-home expenses.

There isn't much left but the "dignity of working" ... and that dignity achieved often by taking care of someone else's children.

http://www.ehow.com/about_6541775_child-care-worker-salary.html

[SheilaT]

4. That was the main reason I resisted going to

work when my children were young. The cost of day care would have eaten up whatever I could earn. I was married, fortunately, to a man who pretty much understood the financial argument for my remaining home.

I remember at a company picnic, when the wife of one of his coworkers was pregnant with her third (she'd have three children under the age of five once the new one arrived) and was complaining that the cost of the new baby in daycare was going to be more than she'd make. When I suggested she then simply stay home for a few years, she (and the other working mothers in the conversation) looked at me as if I'd grown a second head and suddenly started speaking Martian. It makes sense to work if in the end there will be a net financial gain. If not, better off wait until the kids are at least in public school, so that there's a minimal cost to care for them. I know that depending on hours of work, you may need to enroll them in an after-school program until your own workday ends, but it's a lot cheaper than the full-time thing.

An exception to this would certainly be a woman in a career she loves, where being gone for a few years will hurt, although we ought to re-think why people can't take some time away without being punished for it. If there's clearly going to be good advancement down the road, if it's a job she loves, then by all means stick with it.

And yeah, all those years I stayed home I got heartily sick of people thinking I was stupid. After a while when someone new asked me what I did, I said, I was the administrator of a privately funded long term child development project. Almost no one saw through the jargon.

[TheKentuckian]

12. This aspect is too often thrown to the side and ignored.

[coalition_unwilling]

5. Awesome. Exposes our society's hypocrisy

(and misogyny) quite adeptly. Thanks for posting.

[Zax2me]

6. So, if true, then, the men in welfare moms lives are shitty losers.

Who have no money and do not take responsibility for the children they bring into the world or the mothers they porked.
This would have to be the case, if this opinion is taken as truth.

[spooky3]

7. The article is by Katha Pollitt and she makes excellent points in it.

Thanks for posting.

[riderinthestorm]

8. Lays it all out perfectly. Great article. Big K&R! nt

[riderinthestorm]

9. Weekend kick! K&R nt

[earth trine]

10. A bit more complicated than that...

As I understand it, if you are low-income you get subsidies for child care. So you could put your kid(s) in daycare from birth and probably not have to work yourself. I don't know this for sure but I think it's a bit risky to compare a person who might get impregnated with someone almost randomly (and therefore cannot maintain that relationship since it's didn't exist prior to the birth) and be supported by the man. Whether legally married or not, I advocate for thoughtful impregnation.

[Nikia]

11. I think that you have to proove that you are working

During the time that your child is going to daycare to get any kind of subsidy and that it isn't 100%. While that does make it more economically feasible for a single parent to work even if they have low income potential, it doesn't guarentee good care and make sense overall. For example, she might go to work taking care of someone else's children for almost the cost of her childcare, whether or not she or the taxpayer is footing the bill.
Part of the question is whether there is added value in taking care of your own child versus sending them to a daycare. I think that part of the issue that this article addresses is that middle class or rich women taking care of their children is seen as superior to daycare while a poor woman taking care of her own child is seen as inferior.
There are many different circumstances that might cause a woman to have a baby without a partner. Sometimes, it might have been a one night stand. Other times, the man might suddenly not want to be part of his baby's life. Other times, he might go to prison. Other times, he might die. Other times, he might be very poor himself and incapable of providing for a child. Do you suggest that a woman should be forced to give up her baby to a couple in better circumstances if she finds herself in one of these situations? Certainly there are things that could encourage a lower birthrate to women who are unable to support their children by themselves and don't have the father in their lives but there will always be will be women who find themselves in those circumstances.