BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

The primary reason that our society is falling apart is because we’ve devalued the most important profession in our society - motherhood. A stay-at-home mother and housewife is a sociologist, a psychologist, a medic, a financial planner, a teacher, an interior decorator, a chef, a chauffeur, an escort, and a lover, all balled up into one sweet bundle. Yet, society treats them like they’re of little or no value. As a result, women flooded into the job market, and society’s children have been deprived of the most important socialization experience of their lives. This, in turn, has led to crime, rampant drug abuse, the breakdown of our educational and political system, and the general disruption of our society, because the American family is the foundation upon which everything else in our society is built upon. Congress has clearly demonstrating that we can do without them in a pinch - they haven’t done a thing in over two years. But we cannot survive without the American family.
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Yet, during the fifties and sixties, we began to chip away at this important institution. Due to our chauvinistic attitude towards women, many mothers and housewives tore off their aprons and began to demand equality with men. They demanded that they too be afforded the opportunity to go into the more "prestigious professions" of medicine, law, science, and business, that, until that time, had been considered the all but exclusive bastion of men.
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That created a severe problem for the nation, because, in terms of their relative value to society, they were already MORE than equal to men, because these mothers and housewives were responsible for the very lifeblood of society - our future. These women were charged with a responsibility that was more important to our society than any doctor, any supreme court judge, or any CEO. Thus, our narrow-minded insistence on relegating motherhood to second-class status in our society is directly responsible for, literally, throwing our babies - and our future - out with the bath water.
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We’re currently paying a severe price for our bigoted attitude towards women - as we will eventually pay for all areas of institutional bigotry - because the most obvious solution to some of our most tenacious problems - our dysfunctional educational system, the breakdown of the family unit, and the proper socialization of our children - is for a large number of women to temporarily leave the job market and return to the home and reassume the essential function of nurturing and guiding society’s future - at least until their children reach an age where they are relatively self-sufficient. But that’s not going to be easy. In fact, I expect to be attacked by some for even suggesting it, because our society has made the word "housewife" - the most important profession in our country - a bad word. To many women it’s like asking Black people to go back into slavery for the best interest of the country.
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So in order to convince women to return to the home en masse, society is going to have to bestow upon motherhood the kind of stature, prestige, and compensation that’s commensurate with their value to society - and we owe them that, because the fact is, the business community has essentially been working women for free for the past fifty years now.
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Prior to women coming into the workforce in large numbers, a family of five could be supported on one income. But after women came into the workforce, the cost of living began to gradually rise until it consumed the woman’s entire income. So now whether or not a woman decides to enter the workforce is no longer a family option. The woman MUST work just to maintain a standard of living that could previously be sustained by her husband’s income alone.
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So while business has indeed accommodated a woman’s ability to enter the workforce, it’s the business community itself that derives all of the benefits, not the woman and her family. The business community benefits in many ways off the toil of working women. First, working women have enabled business to nearly double the cost of everything in our economy; secondly, business is obtaining what is essentially free labor from women; and finally, it’s using that free labor to either layoff or lower the wages of the working woman’s husband. And where is all of that extra money going? It’s going into the pockets of grossly overpaid CEOs and executives, even as our children suffer, and society is rendered dysfunctional by a destabilized family structure.
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So we’ve got to turn this trend around, both through social pressure, and legislation. First, mothers and housewives have to be made equal partners with their husbands. If a woman defers her career or education to raise the family’s children while the husband pursues a medical degree, that medical degree, and all of the income derived from it, should be considered community property, and half hers - for life. And the reverse should also be true for stay-at-home dads. 
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In addition, the same principle should apply for employment. When a company hires an employee, it should be understood that they are hiring a partnership, so any and all compensation derived from that employment should be issued to both the husband, and the wife - and if one partner so chooses, the compensation should be divided between the two of them. That way, should the stay-at-home partner decide to further their education after the children become self-sufficient, they’ll have their own source of income to pursue that goal.
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In case of divorce, the partner who deferred his or her career to raise the children should continue to be compensated by the employer of the working partner until such time as the child-rearing parent has achieved financial parity with the working partner. If the child-rearing parent never achieves parity, the employer of the worker should pro rate the second partner’s compensation to make up the difference in income.
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And finally, in order to get corporations to cooperate with these policies, the people are going to have to place pressure on congress to pass a "Worker’s Bill of Rights." And included in that legislation, there should be a provision that would require any company or corporation who wants to do business in the United States to pay it’s employees a living wage, provide affordable healthcare, and maintain a given level of employment based on the amount of profit that they generate within our borders. If they decide to thumb their noses at such legislation and take their business elsewhere, that’ll open up the market to domestic entrepreneurs.
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But in order for such policies to be put into place, the American people are going to have to come to the conclusion that they’re tired of being manipulated by multinational corporations that have a vested interest in lowering the standard of living of the American middle class to conform to that of third-world countries. We’re also going to have to stop allowing bought-and-paid-for politicians to keep us divided. In that regard, a good rule of thumb will be to always remember that the bigger a politician’s war chess, the less likely he or she is to be working in the interest of the people. If we remember that, money in politics will become a liability rather than an asset.
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What I’m suggesting may seem far-fetched at this point, but so did the New Deal at one point in our history. So even if it seems far-fetched now, as the corporatists continue to drag American workers under the bus, I guarantee you, it won’t be long before we see the light - and that light will reveal that saving our women and children is the key to our survival, not protecting multinational corporations that’s sending their money to Dubai.
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Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
[email protected]
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.