"NO APOLOGY" Romney Book: ‘Nonworking Parents’ Produce ‘Indolent And Unproductive’ Children [View all]

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Romney Book: ‘Nonworking Parents’ Produce ‘Indolent And Unproductive’ Children
By Alex Seitz-Wald on Apr 16, 2012 at 11:45 am

As the presidential campaign has become embroiled in “mommy wars,” a passage from Mitt Romney’s autobiography sheds more light on what seems to be his bifurcated prescription for mothers.

For most women, Romney maintains that a choice to work or to stay at home with the kids should be regarded as equally valid, his campaign made clear last week. But for poor women who receive government assistance, staying home is not an option — they should work. Video recovered yesterday shows that Romney said in January that he wants to “increase the work requirement” for mothers who receive welfare. “Those parents [need] to go back to work,” he explained.

A passage from Romney’s book, No Apology: The Case For American Greatness, elaborates on this. In it, he argues that children of “nonworking parents” will be conditioned to have “an indolent and unproductive life:”

In some quarters, however, the American work ethic is waning. Some people devote themselves to find ways not to work. Some seem to take a perverse kind of pride in being slipshod or lackadaisical. In many cases, where our work culture has deteriorated, shortsighted government policies share a good part of the blame.

Welfare without work erodes the spirit and the sense of self-worth of the recipient. And it conditions the children of nonworking parents to an indolent and unproductive life. Hardworking parents raise hardworking kids; we should recognize that the opposite is also true. The influence of the work habits of our parents and other adults around us as we grow up has lasting impact.

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2012/04/16/465010/romney-nonworking-parents-indolent/