Reply #7: Well, aren't you special

[Tansy_Gold]

Forgive me, Klukie, but as one of those mothers who "had" to work when her children were pre-school, I have to take exception to what comes across as a blanket condemnation of parents (and you probable meant "parents" to mean "mothers") who don't stay home to raise the kiddies.

No one ever blames fathers for going off to the office or the plant every day. That's still seen as the man's job -- THE job. So why don't you blame the fathers who come home from work and plot themselves in front of the TV to watch the NCAA play-offs and leave mom, who also has a day job, to do the dishes, bathe the kids, and then get herself ready for the next day at the office?

Why not blame the fathers who take off and leave Mom to raise two small children on a minimum wage job and maybe, if she's lucky, find the spare change to take the absentee dad to court for child support so she can give up the part-time week-end job?

Why not blame the greedy-ass corporations that made health insurance so expensive that Dad's employer is now expecting him to contribute $300 a month to the premium and now Mom has to go out and get a part-time job to make up the difference?

Why not blame the greedy-ass wealthy pukes who resist time and time again any raising of property taxes so ALL schools are fully funded and poor kids don't have to work jobs to afford their second-hand football uniforms?

Why not blame the government regulations that have changed education from a learning experience to a testing experience, where kids who have never learned how to learn, who don't have books at home, who don't have a computer at home, are boxed into the mold demanded by the corporations and sometimes they just don't fit?

Why not blame the poverty that sends some kids to school hungry and sick and scared and abused?

Oh, no, you'd rather blame parents -- read that, working mothers, those selfish greedy bitches -- because you yourself are so special and are doing the "right" thing.

Just to pile on the anecdotes -- I worked, and my husband and I raised two pretty darn good kids. One's an engineer with a major manufacturing company in the northeast, and one is a speech pathologist in an urban (and generally poor) school district on the east coast. One is married to a nurse, the other to a teacher. Both spouses had working mothers, too. And both my kids have 5-year-old sons who are bright and happy and well-adjusted and healthy.

You're special. You're lucky. You get to choose to stay home and take care of the kids -- yours and the neighbors' -- and have someone else who picks up the tab. Not every mother is that lucky. And the ones who aren't don't deserve your scorn.

This isn't a snark at you as a person, Klukie, but it is a challenge to your attitude and your post. There are a lot of fine people who came from essentially fatherless homes or father-only families or from families where both parents work.

That our teachers are also unfairly blamed for the "failures" of our schools is correct; I will agree with you on that. But that working mothers are the root of the problem, no, I won't agree. Not at all.



Tansy Gold