How many jobs are they supposed to work?

[phantom power]

This is actually revealing. For years, conservatives and centrists have argued that welfare makes women lazy and dependent. They needed to get out into the workforce and learn the value of a hard day's work. But at the same time, they fetishize the stay-at-home mother as a very difficult full-time job which must be considered a career equal to any work outside the home.

This nicely illustrates that their loathing of welfare is not about dependence or dignity. It's about preserving their own privilege. And in their mind it's always a zero sum game. Any time the government gives a dollar to help a poor person it's a dollar they don't have. That's what's unacceptable.

And their position on being a stay at home mom is that it's a full time job as long as you don't need wages, which is a very neat trick. "Ladies, we'd prefer that you choose a traditional lifestyle as long as you don't need any money."

In the end, it's all basically just conservative boilerplate: a poor mother should work two full-time jobs, a middle class mother should also work two full-time jobs (or agree to sacrifice a middle class living to stay home) but a wealthy full time mother should get the same credit they do because she's a respected member of the "job creator" class and is therefore naturally superior. It's nice work if you can get it.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-many-jobs-are-they-supposed-to-work.html

[Brickbat]

1. I protested at a Bush fundraiser back in the day. Some of the attedees yelled, "Get a job!" I yelled

back, "I stay at home with the kids! I thought that's what you wanted!"

[liberal N proud]

2. K&R

[xxqqqzme]

3. Back when DU was very young,

a person posted - They're afraid we're going to spend a nickle and they're not going to get 4 cents of it. I've found that to be true throughout the intervening years.

[dkf]

4. Being a parent isn't a for pay job, it's a fulfillment of life job.

Two different things in two different realms.

Ann Romney decided she didn't want to participate in a job for pay. She is therefore less qualified to address this issue.

She can address being a mother but must realize she is limited in her life experience, just like people who haven't taken care of kids can't claim to be all around experts on parenting.