Once again, Mitt had every opportunity to say that he wanted to give women the dignity of “working outside the home in exchange for the their government assistance.” Unfortunately for him, “work” came out instead.
::shrugs:: Okay, I can get behind that. Mitt phrases a lot of things awkwardly. Remember how he likes the fact that he can fire people to explain how great it is that he can switch from one insurance company to another? I figure he’ll so explain this comment when asked, in the debates.
The guy is a corporatist to the last. I can believe that when he talks about how everybody should work, he really means everybody should have a boss. His wife qualifies, because he’s her boss.
NM
So it’s only dignified work if the government doesn’t pay you to do it…my cousin the Marine might be interested in that.
The problem here is the sham/wohm semantic argument on work, blown out of context, As it almost always is. Anyone who has had children knows parenting is work. So is working a job. So is investment banking, planting a garden, fighting ms, baking bread, getting elected president, and finding inner peace. And the vast majority of us juggle many, many types of work at one time. But commonly, when we say work we mean go to a paying job.
As has been made clear, it’s dignified work if you’re doing it in exchange for the pay. I certainly felt that way when doing dignified work in the armed forces; I didn’t request a check in exchange for simply continuing on like I had as a private citizen, but because I was obeying lawful orders from superior officers.
If a private citizen mops his own floor, that’s dignified work. If he joins the Navy and draws a paycheck for swabbing decks, that’s also dignified work. If he requests that paycheck without actually joining up, instead merely continuing to mop his own floor, he doesn’t really understand the principle of the thing.
If you bake bread for yourself, that’s dignified. If you bake for other folks, that’s also dignified. If you request my money while simply and only baking the bread for yourself and your family, you’re doing it wrong.
I’m not going to dignify that remark with an answer. 
He should have said “supporting one’s family” rather than “work”. However, my outrage meter is stuck on zero here. The only reason it registered a tick on the Rosen thing was how anyone involved in politics, especially a woman, could be stupid enough to say what she said.
Anyone who has been a work inside the home parent or who is married to one knows what inspired the outrage. Stay at home parents are sensitive to those who think they are taking it easy. I don’t know how much help Ann Romney got, but she at least didn’t ever have to worry about where the next dollar was coming, or had to give up anything as a result of their decision, as we did and I suspect Mr. Moto did too. (However they apparently gave up having a car big enough to put their dog in on family trips to Canada.)
I wonder how successful Romney would be in getting an “entitlement” for day care through a Republican congress. I also wonder where all these jobs they are supposed to be getting come from. Maybe they are supposed to trickle down from another tax cut for the rich? A WPA type program with day care support would not be a bad idea, but I don’t think I’ll expect to see it in the Republican platform any time soon.
it is so typically Republican to be against women having children they can’t support but also be against easy to get birth control and abortion services, to demand that they get job but be against job programs.
Engaged in politics, yes. However our experience has been almost everyone who said snotty things about stay at home or work in the home mothers are women who work outside the home. At this point most men know better.
I just want to put my two cents in. (BTW, I am always so impressed with rational, …err … dignified discourse. Nice going, everyone.)
Eighteen years ago, I found myself very poor, with a new baby and a partner who had just left me for a wealthy woman, for obvious reasons. I had resisted the idea of motherhood at first; but at three months, I decided I wanted my baby very much, and by the time he was born, he was a long-awaited and very welcome little man.
My mother stayed at home with myself and my two brothers. Although my economic situation was very different from hers, I had already had a few abortions, I was thirty years old, and I just really wanted the opportunity to share my love with a little one. Also, I wanted the chance to raise a child my way, to see if I could transcend the dysfunctions of my own upbringing. (yes, it worked very well in fact.) My son was and is my only child.
So, I was a “welfare mother.” I have many skills, and had worked for years before my pregnancy. I could have found a job, I suppose.
But here’s the thing: Even the very best daycare is still other people raising your child, spending many hours with them nearly every day. No matter how much you like and respect your caregiver, they are not you. Now, I spent five years (much later) being a nanny for a dear friend’s daughter, and I know that not everyone feels this way, and that’s perfectly okay.
But, I was damned if I was going to miss the amazement, delight, joy and sorrow of watching my baby grow. I was not going to leave his early education up to anyone else’s curriculum. Believe me, I did not make this decision in a cavalier way: “Oh, the government will pay for everything, I can just sit on my butt!” (Ha ha, I don’t drive – I walked everywhere with that stroller, miles and miles. No butt-sitting, evar!)
And, one more thing. (I have probably already told this story here, somewhere) On his first day of kindergarten, the teacher asked the kids to name things starting with the letter “H.” The teacher told me later that the other kids said things like “horsie” and “hula hoop.” My son said, “hologram.” 
Oh, one more point, I’m not sure if anyone mentioned it: if you get TANF, (formerly AFDC), when you do eventually begin working again, ***you have to pay it back. ***
Your argument is invalid.
What about child support from the father?
At any rate, that’s a real good argument that welfare encourages poor people to have children they can’t afford. I’m sure your kid is wonderful, but I’m not won over by the argument that I have to pay for other people’s deliberate choices to reproduce when they know they can’t afford it.
Cite? That would go a long way to convincing me to change my position.
Finally, you get the point of what the entire thread has been about.
So, if Romney can have a chance to explain and clarify his comment, can Rosen? After all, she said more than just “Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life.” She continued, “She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and why do we worry about their future.” The crux of her statement was not that Ann Romney was lazy, but that as Mitt’s touchstone on the opinions of “the American Woman,” she was out of touch with the issues facing most actual American women.
John Mace: My good sir, remember that we also have to pay for other peoples’ deliberate choice to get old and need Medicare; and other peoples’ deliberate choice to bomb the f**k out of Baghdad. I’m sure your war is wonderful, but I’m not won over by the argument that I have to pay for it.
I’ll go look for a cite. Besides my own direct personal experience, I mean. BRB
Didn’t she do that already? I’m looking at today’s newspaper, and Rosen is already quoted as explaining and clarifying that “Nothing in Ann Romney’s history – hardworking mom she may have been – leads me to believe that Mitt has chosen the right expert to get feedback on this problem he professes to be so concerned about.” I thought she already had the chance, and already took it.
Those are really stupid arguments.
No one chooses to get old.
Our duly elected Congress voted, against my wishes, to bomb the shit out of Iraq.
I want to have a baby, and I want to raise it even though I can’t afford to, so other people are just going to have to pony up for the expense is a walking advertisement for welfare reform.
Didn’t really expect it 
I say “work” to mean paid work all the time. And, yeah, she probably should have known bett, or at least how to quickly dig herself out of that hole when it was jumped on, but it’s a stupid thing to jump on. In my experience, it’s womn looking to b offended that jump on that one.
Aaaaaaand thus did Romney squander whatever slight goodwill or tactical advantage he and his wife might’ve earned after Hillary Rosen’s boneheaded remarks.
HOW DARE YOU SIR!!!
She clearly said that she walked with her infant son in a stroller for literally “miles and miles” AND taught him the word “hologram” by the tender age of 5.
To my way of thinking, she should receive a Federal $80,000 yearly cash stipend for the rest of her life after showing such devoted child rearing.