Politicians in America Will Never Solve the Unemployment Problem, but Mothers Might
Who should we ask? Mexican laborers will tell you they’re only taking jobs that comfortable Americans are too good for. Union officials can’t wait to raise the minimum wage and all other salaries, causing workers to be laid off so that recouped wages can benefit those who remain.
Universities prefer high rates of unemployment because adolescents will come knocking on their ivy-covered doors, having first absorbed the propaganda that pots of gold await them on graduation. Not to worry that this might not be true, because generous government loans will keep the poor youth occupied for several years. Those still unemployed can always stay on for a master’s degree.
Well, what about welfare recipients, including those who receive free money, food, clothing, toys for children, rent subsidies, and suchlike? Surely they’re motivated to work because the proverbial wolf is nearing the door? Not so, considering the seemingly limitless capacity of our liberal media, churches, and government to make professional beggars of us all.
Now that you mention it, isn’t the history of technology all about finding ever more “labor-saving” features and gadgets, making “dignity of labor” an unknown phrase?
Are advertisers and those few who are making it rich by stimulating ever-increasing circles of consumerism to blame? After all, when tempted by the omnipresent casino or sweepstakes jackpots, don’t we all have the personal fortitude to simply walk away? Apparently not. Women have been leaving their historical roles as household managers to flood into the workplace–under the guise of “liberation” of course, so that families can afford more stylish homes, cars, and clothes, and electronics–that is, things other than necessities.
Families have a naive, almost religious faith that immersion in what appears to be material well-being will be rewarded with secular salvation down the road. Meanwhile, everyone is stressed, kids are raised by others (daycare) or by themselves (latchkey), mothers drive in the fast lanes with cell phones stuck in their ears, and meals are as “fast-food” as everything else in the family is.
Would the high unemployment problem be solved if working mothers dropped out of the workforce to manage their homes again, as they used to? Sure, there will always be Marie Curies and Joan of Arcs who may choose to keep working, but won’t the others discover that the things that really matter in life are not found at the cash register? Can’t a strong case be made that the best things in life are free or nearly so?
There is some evidence that upscale women who stay at home, even among liberal secularists, do so as a badge of matrimonial distinction. “My husband is doing well enough so that I don’t have to work,” they might say if pressed. “It’s the loser husbands who are inadequate breadwinners that force their wives out of the homes,” they are too polite to mention. Working parents often suffer the domestic chaos and thin ice of our modern lack of well-ordered homes.
Even so, there might be just as many of the well-off double-income-no-kids couples who want to continue a hyper-liberal style after their small families materialize. Toys, diversions, and pricey exclusive schools and enrichment activities will keep the kids away from the riffraff that working-class children must daily contend with in public education. The equality-minded husband in such a family will never see himself as breadwinner or protector. A surfeit of double income will solve all problems. Hello culturally adrift nouveau riche!
