I was stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce; holding one toddler, while the other clung to my knees and three others under nine were racing around our small kitchen in Des Moines, Iowa. It was 1971 and I had been lobbying for a piece of national child care legislation, The Comprehensive Childhood Development Act.
This was the first and last piece of national, comprehensive child care legislation on this issue to pass both houses of Congress, and when the call came in that it had been vetoed, I was stunned and disappointed. But the saddest part about my efforts back then was that I was not even lobbying on behalf of our family. I was fortunate enough that if I loaded my five children in two grocery carts and used a hand held counter to stay inside the $20/ week we budgeted for groceries, our family could live on our small income. But I knew too many mothers who could not...and that was devastating. They had to have a job to feed their children, but they had to have care in order to work
Gail Collins reminded me of this moment in her recent New York Times column, "The New Perils of Pauline", where she writes about the death of this 1971 bill, which in spite of it's truly bi-partisan support, was vetoed by President Nixon. It wasn't perfect, but when the veto came down, the door closed on the last national piece of legislation of its kind. Collins wrote the column as a warning to those who think we will get another shot at health care. We haven't yet had another significant piece of legislation on childcare, and it's almost 40 years later.
Having worked for over a decade now on getting women into leadership positions in the US (where the percentage of women leaders hovers at only 18% on average), I can tell you that we have paid a price. The lack of good early childhood education and after-school programs are a primary reason that our democracy and its institutions are not able to avail themselves of the only resource we have never fully utilized in solving our nation's problems: America's women.
The fight against the 1971 bill developed during the nascence of the social right movement. Walter Mondale, the bill's chief sponsor, heralded this as the beginning of the right wing agenda, with this newly energized group who crowed that the legislation would "undermine parents".
In truth, the failure of the bill to become law was about the fear that women would walk into the public world and abandon their private roles as mothers: fear that both men and women still have today.
And while today's anti-choice advocates talk about protecting unborn children through leaving abortion coverage out of the current national health care bill, at the heart of this debate beats the role of women and the politics of motherhood.
In 1971, I was a preschool teacher who took my toddlers with me to teach in a Montessori School. There I realized how important good early childhood education was for children. They thrive on interaction with each other. Teachers who have other adults around to support them (parents, volunteers, staff) thrive as teachers, and are then better able to work with children. We are a tribal group, and the notion of raising children alone in homes with one person, is not only a singularly modern notion, but a crazy way to bring up kids.
And not allowing women to determine the numbers of children they can safely bear and raise is a crazy way of saying we are protecting children. Protecting our families through providing adequate health care and good early childcare is the best way to protect children.
But, as a popular president once said, "oh no, here (we) go again": fighting the passage of a landmark health care policy using the bodies of women and the care of our children as pawns.
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Where I am from, mothers can take up to 2 yrs off work to care for a new baby, and during that time they are paid about 80% of what they were making before, after which the baby can go to a child care facility, which is free (actually paid for through taxes). Sure, taxes are higher in my home country than they are in the US, but then childcare is free, healthcare is free, higher education is free. When you factor in all these additional expenses, it becomes obvious that in reality, the effective tax for families in the US is much higher.
Odd how one can so easily extol the virtues of women out of one side of her mouth, and then insult women out of the other side of her mouth. Are women so incapable of being able to "determine the numbers of children" to bear, that abortion must be available to use as a contraceptive? Are women so devoid of self-control that they can't engage in sexual activity responsibly, at their own discretion and with the aid of contraception to avoid becoming pregnant? It would seem that a womens' rights advocate would have more faith in women than the author appears to have.
Instead, we woman should demand adequate help and support in raising those "extra" children. Most if not many, perhaps nearly all women choosing abortion would choose to bear and raise that child if they felt they had enough multi-level support to do so. That "in a perfect world".
Oh, and straight to jail (or worse) with ANYONE who dares discriminate against, make a derogatory comment, or even looks sideways at a pregnant woman, mother, or child, regarding the circumstances of that child's conception and birth!!!!!!
Sorry "lifers". You can't have it both ways.
Why the fathers could not stay home and clean, cook and be a father was then and now beyond my comprehensions.
If we only ever talk about when life begins, we've got no place to go. That is a religious discussion, not a matter of law. And it is the height of human arrogance for anyone to say they know exactly when life begins, or for any government to make a legal determination about when life begins.
Those pointless arguments keep us from adequately caring for children who have life and breath and who need our support. They keep us from helping mothers and making sure they have what they need to care for their children.
I so appreciate seeing the "big picture" view, as it is presented here. We need more of these conversations, and less arguing over religious dogma.
But if you're female and unemployed, you're supposed to get off your lazy welfare queen ass and get a job -- and finding child care is your "personal problem."
But then when you're working, you're supposed to quit your stupid job to go take care of your kids.
Oh, but then you're unemployed, which means you're supposed to ... wait a minute.
Rinse and repeat? How often? Once for each kid?
The lack of affordable child care and health care in this country simply guarantees a highly volatile underemployed and "overqualified" pool of labor. This system of exploiting the underpaid work of women, educated women, kept our schools, libraries and hospitals going for decades.
The Make-Abortion-Illegal crowd are not pro-life, they are pro-fetus. Mothers could squat on the ground, birth their babies onto the sidewalk, and walk-away, leaving the newborn baby to fend for itself, and the Make-Abortion-Illegal crowd would be happy.
What the Make-Abortion-Illegal crowd will never tell you is the penalty they expect to be paid by the doctor, back-alley abortionist, or the no-longer pregnant woman. They won't do this because making their demands concrete and real would lose support and harm their real motive: forcing women to accept the 'servant leadership" of their husbands.
If you believe abortion is premeditated murder, prove it. Demand the death penalty for all involved. Demand that all women be given a pregnancy test before international travel. If they return not-pregnant and with no baby, they should be arrested and executed.
Let the reductio ad absurdum begin!
1) Quality public education, library, and internet facilities across America
2) Multi-modal local and regional public transportation across America
3) Walkable, LIVABLE urban and suburban environments with parks, exercise, and recreational opportunities for families and supermarkets and farmers' markets with quality food in every community across America
4) Equal pay for equal work across America
5) A clean environment where one can feel good about breathing the air, eating veggies grown in the soil, and swimming in the water.
All those are requirements for raising children. Not luxuries. All those support keeping marriages and families together.
We are allowing a few misogynist religious fanatics to squeeze ALL American women into tighter and tighter boxes, without addressing any of these issues.
Call it what it is: control, domination, and subjugation.
You mean they're perfectly aware that children go hungry and without shelter or health care when their mothers are discriminated against in employment matters -- or lose too many days at work due to being in the hospital due to, say, domestic violence?
You mean, you really think they're doing this on purpose?
Do you really mean to imply that these Good Christians (tm) are actually that malign, duplicitous, tyrannical and self-serving to institute policies that would starve innocent little children, leave them to die, unsheltered in the streets, without medical care -- and are perhaps using their stance on the abortion issue to assuage their own guilty consciences?
If they're doing it deliberately, and not out of, say, outright stupidity or willful ignorance of the effects of discriminatory policies on actual children -- then they must have some strategic goal in mind.
Why on earth would people who call themselves Christians do such a thing?
Read my full reasoning at lay opinions.
"Men's individuality is not eroded by pregnancy." If a man does the right thing (as I did) and takes responsibility, his individuality is not affected the same way, but it is certainly affected. In fact, he is not only accountable for the baby's life but also the mother's. Not because they are his "property," but because they are his responsibility.
I don't like the term "eroded," either. I went from being a selfish bachelor to being a father and a husband. I gained much more than I lost.
We make many "choices" in life that have potential consequences. If you drink and drive, you will either get home safely or harm somebody. If you lend or invest, you will either make money or lose money. If you have unprotected sex, you will either conceive a child or not. If you have a baby (and/or get married), it will either “erode” you or augment you.
Too many people feel justified in walking away from unintended consequences. Conservatives stand for personal responsibility, period. I don’t know any one who is pro-life that thinks fathers should walk away.
I guarantee you, we'd have a real health care bill with a real leader like Biden in the White House.
No. Biden would have caved, too.
What we need is...Campaign Finance Reform!!!!!
They wanted to get the money out of politics and increase accountability. Their "solution" created 529 organizations which bring MORE money into politics and offer LESS accountability.
Now we're going to "reform" a huge portion of our economy with a health care bill. It's stated objective is to lower costs while increasing access and quality. In reality it will lead to higher costs, rationing of care and fewer innovations that drive quality.
We're supposed to be "hawt" and sell our bodies to the highest bidder! Pole dance if necessary! Wear that push-up bra! You're only allowed into the workplace to compete for the highest status male (but only if you failed to do that by graduation day, honey).
After snagging the high status male you're supposed to just quit your stupid job and...choose life! Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers!
Didn't you get the memo?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/michelle_bachman_welfare_queen_20091221/
Progressives we must keep this story alive and make sure EvERybody reads it. Grassley's a WElfare Queen too.
Generally speaking.
Iif a state wanted to pass more restrictive abortion restrictions, they should only be able to do so if their public education includes comprehensive sex education that has been shown to effectively reduce pregnancies. Abstinence only education could not be counted because it has not been shown to be effective.