Mitt Romney's "Respect" for the Work of being a Mother

[paft.livejournal.com]

Mitt Romney, in January to a New Hampshire audience: I wanted to increase the work requirement. I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.

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How odd. I thought that stay-at-home moms were working, and that staying at home to take care of your kid was a choice women needed to have available to them.

Ah, but not all women. This is the hypocrisy that Rosen was pointing out. Apparently, in Romney's mind, a rich stay-at-home Mom with nannies and other servants to help out is doing the most important work in the world. A poor, stay-at-home mom with a toddler? Not so much. Get out of the house, you lazy deadbeat! Taking care of a two-year-old isn't work!

Comments

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Taking care of a two-year-old isn't work!

Certainly not dignified work, at any rate.

That said, I think state support for day care, so that single and poor parents can get back into the workforce, is a better way to balance the competing interests involved in supporting poor or struggling families. I don't necessarily think people should be forced into the workforce by cutting off benefits - really, in such a scenario, it's the children that lose the most - but if you combine wise economic policy with smart support programs, you shouldn't need to force people off of the dole.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm all for state supported day care. My point is that the "choice" Romney's wife was saying is so important to Republicans doesn't seem real important to Mitt in this speech. He's boasting about denying women on welfare the choice of staying home with their children.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

This might actually be a better option than straight welfare for parents. I don't know if it's cheaper, but if the goal is to get them off the dole and into the workforce, it's a better investment.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'This is the hypocrisy that Rosen was pointing out'

What hypocrisy?

[paft.livejournal.com]

The hypocrisy lies in Romney's premise that if you're wealthy and have servants, staying home to take care of your children is work and a choice a woman must have available to her, but if you're poor and struggling, staying home to care for your children is NOT work and should not be a choice.

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

Jeez, his wife doesn't work! Where's her dignity?

Like I've said before, he just sucks the value of work of many, many people in the form of money from investments--takes a lot more money than a poor person on welfare ever would--and talks about the "dignity of work" for someone who's barely getting by.

I guess he wants them to go to work so they can produce more wealth for him to take in the stock market.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Getting something for nothing and being a stay at home parent are now the same?

[paft.livejournal.com]

Being a stay-at-home mom shouldn't suddenly stop being defined as "work" when the mother in question is poor.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Like most workfare programs proposed in the past, Romney's "the dignity of work" is a euphemism for "we want you to work at a low-paid job as punishment for needing help to begin with because we really believe you are a lazy bastard". Supplying childcare for the lazy bastard is very generous, but if the parent manages to get a raise or a little job advancement, he gets a cutback in the financial aid, putting him/her right back where they started. So it amounts to slave labor. I would propose requiring training in HOW to find decent employment - something an incredible number of people are totally clueless about.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Romney's "the dignity of work" is a euphemism for "we want you to work at a low-paid job as punishment for needing help to begin with because we really believe you are a lazy bastard". '

Why do you believe all mothers who took welfare during their pregnancy have no marketable skills?

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

I would purpose a "slight" cut in profit to pay people "slightly" better, so that these "slightly" better paid people may not need to work two full time jobs, and possibly allowing these "lazy bums" who cant find a job, to find one.

My thought is this, most low paying jobs are nothing more than slave labor. It pays just enough to maybe cover your expenses, yet when the chips hit the fan you do not qualify for aid, even if you rightfully deserve it. Training on how to find decent employment is a good thing, the problem is in some areas outside of a handful of industries, there is no decent employment. I often reference West Virginia in these discussions, as it is where I reside, and where through sheer ignorance coal is still king. Outside of being a union miner, your pay rate is pretty crappy, and the general consensus is that if you do not like they way you are treated, quit, while the boss knows that there is nothing much better out there, basically paycheck vs no paycheck. Some say pack up and move, yet they say live within your means, so what do you do? Do you move, take a mortgage, or rent a place, with no job, and no prospects for a job in a new area? Or do you suffer with the crap job that you have, while looking for anything that is minisculy better?

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

Slave labor? So you'd be indifferent between being an actual slave and having to get a job?

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work
Oh, the humanity!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You were expecting the patron saint of flip-flopping to be consistent on anything?

[paft.livejournal.com]

No.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Making welfare recipients work for the aid is a convenient sound bite - in the same category as "I'll be tough on crime", or "I'll talk tough to [NAME OF ENEMY COUNTRY HERE]", or whatever will get 30 seconds of applause. Yawn... been there... seen that, in every election for the last 45 years; I assume it took place in every election before that. Candidates from both parties do it; it's part of the game.

[houndofloki.livejournal.com]

At the end of the day, I think the prevailing attitude about this is pretty obvious. Most people consider stay-at-home motherhood a perfectly respectable and even admirable thing to do if you can afford it - if a woman is lucky enough to have a husband who can support her and the family on his own, then being a stay-at-home mom is two thumbs up. But if she can't or doesn't, then she needs to get a job. I think stay-at-home motherhood is viewed as a nice luxury but not a necessity, and if you can't afford to swing it without aid, you're not entitled to it and should be at work. Mitt Romney comes off like a flip-flopping douchebag because the way he expressed that was a mess, but honestly I think it's the majority view.

[paft.livejournal.com]

The issue here is the fact that for the Romneys, a stay at home Mom is "working" only if she's also wealthy enough to afford a nanny and several homes. It's not just a poorly phrased viewpoint. It's an insulting double standard.

[allisnow.livejournal.com]

If Ann Romney was getting paid by the government when she was a stay at home mom, this might be a comparable situation. Pretty sure that wasn't the case.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Nonsense. The very point is that not-working is not-working, whether you are living off your husband or the govt.

If being a mom is work, then being a mom is work, whether you are living off your husband or the govt.

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

So poor people should not have to work, then? The poor should have the right to be stay at home parents?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

why do you think the very poorest are less likely to be economically mobile than anybody else?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

How odd. I thought that stay-at-home moms were working

Not according to liberal feminists. And most of society these days.

staying at home to take care of your kid was a choice women needed to have available to them.

Staying at home even without a kid should be a choice a woman shouldn't be afraid to make. But again, society doesn't like it these days.

[paft.livejournal.com]

This reads like another one of your fantasies about what other people believe. Kind of like all those liberals who think the mere observance of physical differences between different races is "racism."

[caerfrli.livejournal.com]

Ann Romney works outside the home. She goes out among those strange creatures, American women, and reports back to husband and headquarters what they think.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

this kind of petty, meaningless debate is a perfect example of why our government is doomed. good riddance.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So if society's so hopeless, why don't you go somewhere else and bitch about things there? Conservatives seem to be having that alternating patriotism and denigration of the country that comes with having the Oval Office, though no doubt if Romney wins everything will be Obama's fault and if anyone uses the arguments used against anything under Obama not being Obama's fault, it'll be different. How will never be said........

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

On the political note, the Democrats must not be really on the ball if it took 3 months to figure out how to work Romney's speech into the "War on Women" narrative.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

They let Santorum finish flinging Santorum before they started flinging... their own.... San.... ...

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I hate that phrase "the dignity of work". Give me a break man. We don't need you looking out for our dignity... especially at undignified and shitty jobs that don't impart dignity. Talk about the most facile excuse for making people work just because you like the idea better than something else. Oh, just because. "Dignity" or something.

Fuck you pal, I don't get dignity from wage slaving someone else to riches.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I will amend my sentiment a little bit:

Back when we were a "nation of shopkeepers" (and slave-owners), there was some idea of dignity in that your "boss" was the same class as you, worked in the same aisles as you, and generally didn't make millions of dollars off financial skimming... you were both in the same boat. The small business didn't allow for terribly great disparities in wealth to begin with. But today we're working for faceless strangers a thousand miles away, while all the grit and friction of work is handled by middle managers and hired bureaucrats who hate you more than the rich guy.

Workplaces staffed by semi-skilled proles suffer from greater morale and divisiveness since everyone's "dignity" is measured and competed against one another over very small scales of station and pay... so the equipment guy who makes 1.50 more an hour than the operator thinks of himself as "above" those sad sacks packing boxes... even though they're the same.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

from reddit:

"Dear Mrs. Romney,

Perhaps you can advise me. Since you have raised 5 boys, I'm sure you'll understand. One of the kids is sick again and I have no sick days left at work. In fact, my boss gave me a bad performance review and no raise this year because he said I obviously don't care that much about my job since I've missed so many days and if I miss anymore he may have to replace me. Whenever my child gets sick, my boss reminds me how easily I can be replaced.

We don't have health insurance at my job, so, if my boy gets worse, I'll probably be at the ER most of the night tonight. Not for the first time, but that's ok, he'll get care. It's tomorrow I'm worried about.

As you know, regular day care will not take a sick child, so if I want to work when my child is sick, I have to pay for sick child day care, which costs as much as I make, and, as I'm sure you know from personal experience, I still have to pay my regular day care, whether my child is there or out sick, so I actually lose money in order to work while he's sick. It's that or take a chance on losing my job entirely.

Should I take my child to the day care for sick kids and lose money and not have enough for my bills this month, so I can keep my job, or should I stay home with my sick child and hope that I don't get fired?

What did you do when this happened to you?

Sincerely, Just Another Mom"

[paft.livejournal.com]

This.