This essay pisses me off

Salary.com recently came out with an estimate of what a stay-at-home mom would earn if awarded their proper due by the market: $134,121. Carrie Lukas writes an essay on the National Review to denounce the very idea that women should think of being paid for their work raising children and managing families.

I will concede that she makes a good point here:

All adults, not just mothers, perform varied tasks. A single man is his own CEO, making a strategic plan for his life, allocating his resources, and weighing big decisions. Single women drive themselves, clean up their homes, and manage their household. Is the single woman who fixes herself a sandwich supposed to demand pay as a cook?

Here is where her logic breaks down:

Who is this supermom supposed to go to for her raise? The truth is no one is going to pay her. Her family benefits from her work as a CEO, but the rest of society gains little from her individual efforts. She also profits most from cleaning her kitchen, chauffeuring her kids, and repairing her home. The CEO of a Fortune 500 company, by contrast, is expected to create wealth and value for hundreds of thousands of shareholders and customers. (emphasis added)

That's her blind spot. Mothers socialize children. Children, in their raw state, as kijjohnson says, are simply primates, who would fling their poo unless taught otherwise. The process of socializing children so that they can become educated and from there go on to do every fricking job necessary to run the entire goddamn planet--that job falls mainly to mothers. Lukas goes on to say:

Women perform these duties because they love their families. Moms aren't daycare providers worth $14 per hour—they are loving parents driven to care for those tiny beings who are more precious to them than any amount of money.

True, women perform these duties because they love their families, but also because society refuses to see and acknowledge with payment the value of their time. And because society gets away with chintzing out women with treacly condescension like this: they are loving parents driven to care for those tiny beings who are more precious to them than any amount of money. Women's work is soooooo important that they are unmoved by ignoble considerations like mere money.

How very convenient for society in getting it off the hook from paying the bill.

For an excellent essay on motherhood's societal role, and how society gets away with undervaluing it, and how as a result women see the strains of raising their children as only their individual problem, see The Motherhood Manifesto here.

Cross-posted to bad_feminists.

Space Camp Pictures!

Saturday

Sunday

A nice one of Delia (note the karate "Fight Like a Girl" shirt).

An impish one of Delia

Delia called right as I was editing this entry. It was a very quick call, because other kids were waiting for the phone, but she reported, "We went on the simulator today. You get buckled into the seat, and they spin you around, and it makes you feel G-force pressure on your chest and shoulders. The other ride we went on was "Space Shot," which is sort of like the Power Tower at Valleyfaire. You get shot up into the air and then come down again."

She talked extremely fast, and there was a lot of noise in the background, so it was a little difficult to understand her. She said she is having a lot of fun, and to say hi to Fiona for her. I will give more reports as I receive them.

If Al Gore had assumed the Presidency in 2000

Al Gore appeared on Saturday Night Live and gave a speech about his last six years as President.

Outstanding.