From: stewart@geophysics.harvard.edu (Cheryl Stewart)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Daycare
Date: 9 Oct 92 03:32:32 GMT
Reply-To: stewart@geophysics.harvard.edu
Organization: Dept. of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Harvard University

In article Bq9@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu, Laura Blankenship <lblanken@silver.ucs.indiana.edu> () writes:
>I'm very upset about the discussion of the daycare issue going on here.
>I see myself having children at some point in my life and having a career.
>My career is self-fulfilling, but the main importance of day care is not
>so much to make it possible for me to go back to work, but because I
>couldn't afford to not do so.  Thus, some people argue, I shouldn't have
>children.

Those same people are the kinds of people who argue that "it's just as
easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man," and those same
people can't even imagine a woman doing as good a job as a man, much less
deserving to be paid as much as a man for doing the same job as one.

It's not those peoples arguments that's preventing you from having
children.  It's lack of affordable day-care.


>  This sounds to me like only the rich people can have children--
>which is an elitest and unfair attitude.

Elitist, unfair and it encourages a view of marriage which is more like
prostitution than a sacred institution.

>In this country, you can't even
>take off enough time to give birth and expect to have your job waiting for
>you.

Hey,these days you can't even take off enough time to take a crap and
expect to have your job waiting for you when you get back from the john.
And that goes for all of us.  Thanks to the Ron and Georgie show.  Hnf.


>Well, I'm not exactly poor, but I know right now I can't afford to have a
>child (just the basics of hospital care even) and in the future, it's going
>to be a real squeeze to afford day care--with two incomes.  One income would
>barely provide the basic necessities for three people.  I didn't get three
>degrees so that I could live on welfare or starve.

I talked to my aunt the other day, who works in workman's comp law, which
sees a lot of welfare mothers as well as disabled workers. I told her how,
yes, I have a Ph.D. and yes I have a job where I don't have to do stoop labor,
and yes, I am a scientist, but No, I do not forsee a time when I will be
able to even be able to give birth to a child much less raise one -- not
enough money, not enough time, and not enough security.  There isn't enough
time and money in the whole world for a woman to have kids when the
competition for jobs is as stiff as it is right now.

She then said, "You mean, you can't even have ONE child because you know
you'll be fired, and will never work again, and you're one of the most
highly educated, smartest people in the whole country, one of the people
who should be having children...and yet we're PAYING these illiterate bitches
to pop puppy after puppy, not take care of them, watch TV and collect their
checks?"

To which I answered, "In a word, Yes."

>Some kind of assistance
>is necessary.  I don't know if we need fully subsidized day care, but cheaper
>day care would certainly help.  It's just a financial fact of life that two
>incomes are necessary to support two people, so those incomes would definitely
>be needed to support three people.

>Okay, done blowing off steam.
>--Laura Blankenship

You're not blowing off steam.  You're raising an important issue.  It's
not your emotions that are the problem, the problem is lack of daycare
and the selfish idiots who argue that daycare isn't necessary or desirable.

In France, there's a sliding scale based on the parent's income.  Furthermore,
numerous studies have shown that children of women who work are more creative,
and independent, have better social skills and perform better on standardized
tests than children of women who don't work.  Conversely, children of women
who don't work are less independent, less creative, less mature, relatively
poorly socialized and perform worse on standardized tests than the children
of women who do work.

Do you think Welfare mothers work?  No.  Are their children model citizens?
Well educated?  Well socialized?  No way!  Well, guess what guys.  Welfare
moms are stay-at-home moms.  Really does WONDERS for the kids, doesn't it?

Hnf.

Cheryl
Newsgroups: alt.feminism