I’ll admit I could be won over on this point. I’ll admit that I’ve been figuring it’s like unemployment checks, in that you need to be putting in job applications while willing to work but get a pass if nobody’s hiring; if I’m wrong, I’ll of course drop my objections as quickly as I was willing to do when I asked brujaja for a cite.
[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
And this is where your whole argument goes off the rails. Why does receiving government assistance diminish the dignity of the work it takes to care for your children?
[/QUOTE]
If I’m working my job in exchange for money from my employer – which, for the sake of argument, we’ll figure makes me feel as if I’ve earned what I get paid – would my dignity be diminished if I then walked up to someone else entirely, possibly with a pan in my hand, to request some cash in exchange for, er, well, you see, I’m not actually willing to do any work for you in exchange for it, but so what?
I think it would; possibly you think it wouldn’t? If so, that’s possibly the entire difference between us.
That is an entirely different debate, which I wish you would save for another thread. It has nothing to do with the dignity of the work done by mothers caring for their children at home.
I’d argue it’s precisely what Romney had in mind during the quote in the OP: if you work for an employer in exchange for pay, I’d argue that you understand the dignity of earning money; if you think your work entitles you to get paid by some other folks entirely – people you aren’t willing to do some other work for – then I’d say you don’t exactly grasp what “the dignity of work” entails. What the heck else do you think Romney meant by that, if not the contours of this exact debate?
If you have a moral or political principle that demands that children should suffer for that moral or political principle, you have a shitty moral or political principle, and should get rid of it as quickly as possible.
It means what the words he chose to speak mean. He said stay at home mothers receiving assistance would know the dignity of work if they left their kids at home and got a job. They already know the dignity of work; they are taking care of their kids. Getting paid by an employer is a virtue; but receiving federal assistance does not diminish the dignity of work that stay at home mom’s experience, regardless of where their support comes from. Romney is willfully ignorant of that simple truth.
Just help me out with one minor (but possibly all-important) point; I’d like to see if we draw the line in the same place, or in different places.
EXAMPLE #1: Imagine for a moment someone who doesn’t, in any meaningful sense, work. He comes to me and requests money; I mention that I’ve got all sorts of work he could do it in exchange for; he slowly and patiently explains – as if to a child – that, no, he’s not looking to do any work in exchange for it; he just wants cash, from me, now.
I’d say he doesn’t quite get the concept. I’d go so far as to say he lacks the dignity of work. Would you?
EXAMPLE #2 is exactly the same as example #1 – except the guy who explains that he’s unwilling to work for me in exchange for said money adds that, as it happens, he already holds down a job: he shows up for work every morning, follows his employer’s instructions, for some reason gets a paycheck at the end of each week, and would now like to formally request that I start paying him likewise. Not in exchange for doing some other work, he says; I’d just like you to pay me, is all.
If not for that request, I would’ve figured he understood; he presumably gets the whole point of working for an employer who pays him earned money, right? But if he (a) wants me to pay him, and (b) isn’t actually willing to work for me in exchange, I’d conclude he’s significantly similar to the first guy; when you get right down to it, my problem with paying the first guy wasn’t really that he refuses to work for anyone else, but that he refuses to do some work for me – just like this other guy who now has his hand out.
I saw the first guy as an undignified panhandler. I see the second guy as an undignified panhandler. Do you?
EXAMPLE #3 – is the same as example #2, except instead of working for an employer he works as a stay-at-home parent; he still requests my money, and still doesn’t want to hear about performing some other work in exchange for it; he’s a stay-at-home parent instead of a paid employee, that’s the sole difference.
I know you see this guy as having the dignity of work. You know I disagree. But is it that you draw the line here, or back at #2? Or back at #1?
No question, he does not know the dignity of work.
Of course he is a panhandler. But he knows the dignity of work. He just thinks you are not worthy of it.
Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you changed the analogy from #1 to #2? Words have meanings, something you and Romney seem unable to grasp. Had he called stay at home moms who collect federal assistance “panhandlers”, it would have at least made more sense than trying to pretend that the work done raising kids isn’t dignified because she accepts assistance.
Well, at least we are making progress. Apparently in your world, the dignity of work is justified solely by the source of one’s income. Which, in Ann Romney’s case, was her husband’s wallet. Lucky for her he finds her services gratifying.
I realised there are two different arguments here. The first is whether child-rearing constitutes work. That isn’t in dispute, as far as I can tell, though the language Mitt Romney used was ambiguous and I think reneges his capacity to appeal to women voters (due to what appears to be a special pleading element in his argument*).
The second argument which is a little more nuanced is the capacity for women to produce surplus labour (or attain socially useful employment, to word it more neutrally**). A poor analogy would be that a private employer may contract someone to work as a servant, but the government doesn’t subsidise an individual cleaning their own room. The reason this is a poor analogy is that we hold that raising children is a public good. No-one in this thread has posted a compelling reason to believe otherwise.
He’s compounded the issue by not demanding that his wife learn the dignity of work outside the house. She’s presumably not going to be listed as an employee on his tax-returns, so why should she expect money out of him?
** For example, day-care is subsidised by the state in the Nordic countries from what I can recall. He could have made a much more reasonable argument by detailing how the system works there, rather than using the rhetoric that he did (which, as it stands, validates Hilary Rosen’s comments).
Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you changed the analogy from #1 to #2?
[/QUOTE]
Of course I thought you’d notice; I spent rather a lot of time spelling out the change. But the interesting part, to me, is what I didn’t think you’d say: that (a) he’s of course a panhandler, and that (b) he wants my money but doesn’t think I’m worthy of getting his work in exchange.
I honestly didn’t know you’d say that. I genuinely appreciate you spelling it out for me. I’m especially gobsmacked by your follow-up:
We sure are! In your world, someone who requests my money but thinks I’m not worthy of getting his work in exchange is of course a panhandler, be he a stay-at-home parent or a guy who works outside the house; you and I merely disagree as to what so requesting pay while so refusing to work in exchange for it says about the dignity of work.
Well, yes and no. Again, in my world, I do honest work (which has a certain dignity) and then request earned pay from my employer in exchange for it (which, again, dignity); were I to then also request money from you – while spelling out that I don’t think you’re worthy of getting my work in exchange – I’d of course be a panhandler: not someone who dignifiedly works for your pay, but who wants to get it without earning it. Were I to request money from you while agreeing to do some other work in exchange – well, shucks, that’s exactly as dignified as what goes on in the “I do honest work and then request earned pay from my employer in exchange for it” part near the top of this paragraph.
Out of curiosity, are you currently working for an employer? Is it mere luck that your services keep earning you paychecks?
[QUOTE=gamerunknown]
He’s compounded the issue by not demanding that his wife learn the dignity of work outside the house. She’s presumably not going to be listed as an employee on his tax-returns, so why should she expect money out of him?
[/QUOTE]
If she’s doing work he’s willing to pay money in exchange for, it makes perfect sense; she can request that earned pay, from him, with full dignity. (She can’t so request it from me; that would indicate that she doesn’t realize the entire point of working for an employer in exchange for pay.)
That’s the thing though, a marriage contract is not an employment contract and a spouse is not an employee. She cannot request time off, nor sick leave, nor pregnancy leave. There are no mandatory breaks, mother’s unions, nor overtime.
If it were the case, then married couples can be considered private sector employees and single parents as public employees.
So there’s even less of a problem; remember that I’m the guy who kept asking your side Who Was Paying Ann Romney, note that I’ll gladly drop the “if” in that part you quoted, and figure I’m just as happy to figure that Ann Romney worked inside the home, that Mitt Romney worked outside the home, and that neither of them asked anyone else for a handout while raising no more kids than they could afford; possibly Ann Romney would’ve worked outside the house if they’d needed more money; possibly she wouldn’t, and would’ve requested money while making Fear Itself’s quip about how she doesn’t think the folks she’d be requesting money from are worthy of her work; since we never got the chance to find out, all we know is that – as far as I can tell – she spent her entire adult life never choosing to so request money.
So long as you’re arguing it’s not the case, who am I to dispute you?
Score! I don’t care where a stay at home mother gets her income, she knows the dignity of work by dint of caring for her children. You disagree; it is clear you believe only mothers who work outside the home, or have a husband who works outside the home know the dignity of work. I disagree, and find your tiresome arguments unpersuasive.
No. I have not worked for an employer since 2002. Apparently I don’t know the dignity of work either.
Asking – or demanding – that others pay you money so you may stay home and raise children is not dignified.
Choosing to stay home while your spouse works and provides the money for the household is perfectly dignified.
Work is work, but how one gets paid for the work is different, and the person taking public assistance is not as dignified, in my understanding of the term ‘dignity,’ as the person who does not.
Since when is applying for federal assistance for which you are legally qualified “demanding” anything?
As far the dignity of caring for children, you and I simply disagree. Anyone who provides a healthy, nurturing home for children knows the dignity of work, regardless of the source of their money.