Parenting and the Inadequacy Industry | Live Nakedly - Cyrus ...

Facts to consider about parenting in the United States, ?land of the free? and home to ?family values:?

• With insurance tied to a job, people are often tethered in time and space once they have a child.? I?m an at-home parent because my wife had the job with insurance, though we all know babies benefit most from having their moms present.
• The Family Medical Leave Act does not permit pregnant mothers to have 16 weeks off from work with their job guaranteed unless she has worked there for more than one year.? The time off does not have to be paid and only guarantees that her job will not be given away by the time she returns.
• In the 1970s, my parents had two babies in hospital births, one that required major intervention.? Total cost to them: $0.? In 2011, we had a home birth without medical intervention and we have a collection agency wrangling payment from the insurance company, who right now thinks we owe nearly $4,000.? It took them six months to pay us the first amount.
• Recently, a clinic forgot to charge me my $10 copay.? The insurance company threatened our insured status unless we paid the ten dollars within thirty days.
• On one salary, thanks to fair wages and union protection, my parents owned a house with some land, had a stay-at-home mother for thirteen years, took us on vacation to nearby states once a year, fed and clothed us, and generally felt secure.
• Western European nations, our supposed peers though our government looks down at them, have national insurance plans that are not tied to jobs, allowing the freedom to switch regions without jeopardizing coverage and costing parents nothing to have their babies.
• These nations often provide stipends for childbearing and give generous paid leave to parents so they can bond with their children.? Some Scandanavian nations offer up to 1.5years of paid leave for both parents.
• Vacation time is more generous, since the United States doesn?t actually require employers to provide vacation time, so families in Western European nations are able to bond and not just be tied to a job.

To prattle on about the ?freedom? we have and the ?family values? we hold dear is to partake in a ruse.? In the United States of America, having a child becomes a decision of economics and risk, while in the countries most like us parents are supported and have a cushion.? As with all the trends in this country, having children will become yet another province of the wealthy, a word increasingly confused to mean ?worthy.?? Perhaps this is why the media feeds us a steady dose of Kardashians, well-off Jersey Shore folks, and ?real? and rich housewives.? And why government officials continue to hack away at services and protections meant for the poor/working/middle classes while providing more and more breaks to the wealthiest among us.? The Inadequacy Industry is hard at work consolidating its power.

Any self-proclaimed ?family values? politician or activist worth his salt would leave gay people alone and focus on enacting policies that are truly family friendly, the way our brethren in Western Europe do.? Or else they?re just spouting words as though words don?t have meaning.

Despite the fact that government-corporate collusion has allowed big business to dictate policy in the United States, the government is often also a reflection of its people.? So maybe we the people don?t have much respect for parenting ourselves.? A liberal firebrand I know told me that parenting isn?t a ?job,? rather it is simply a biological responsibility.? While that is true in the cold, sterile world, it is also a job.? He responded to a Facebook posting I wrote commenting on The Huffington Post leaving parenting off its list of ?least rested? jobs.? My mom said to me, ?Yes, that?s why I tell you you?re doing such a wonderful ?biological responsibility.??

Why point out this viewpoint came from a liberal?? The right side of the aisle has become known for its contempt for social help, unless the money heads to the wealthiest among us.? Those on the political left, different from the true left since the political spectrum has been driven so far to the right, are known as more socially friendly.? If self-proclaimed liberal folks also hold the view that parenting isn?t work, then we?ll never find relief from the social noose the United States applies to parents.

With my wife?s commute, I work 45 hours per week taking care of my now six-month-old daughter.? For the uninitiated, babies require about 98% of your attention, even if you leave them somewhere.? They want to engage with you, play with you, be held by you, and must be fed by you, changed by you, and educated by you.? If they don?t drift off to sleep, you might find yourself walking around town for two hours with them hanging off your chest, or holding a screaming bean for minutes to hours, or lying down with them when you have six or seven chores waiting for you the moment they pass out.? Maybe, the baby won?t sleep unless you?re right there, so you stay in the bed or on the couch.? But dinner needs prepping or dishes need washing or clothes need folding.? Or the parent needs to eat or use the bathroom or shower or take a moment to breathe!

Not a job?!? Yes, parents ? at-home or not ? don?t get paid.? In a culture that worships at the altar of money, we devalue the rewarding, difficult, fun, and tiring job of parenting because it?s not paid work.

I?m very happy that we are able to have one of us at home.? We?ve given up a lot of material desires, a desire planted within us by the Inadequacy Industry from birth, and live in a very small apartment ? no house for us right now like our parents were able to do on one income.? Unless we allow her grandparents to take over home care, my wife and I have no desire to send the child to daycare.? We feel that we know best about how to raise Kalia.? That?s our choice ? we?re not denigrating daycare or people who use it.? Daycare is also a tremendous expense.

How do we shift society?? I?m unconvinced that much will occur in the United States that will prevent further rigging the system against parents.? Though millions of us exist, enough of us have bought into sloganeering around ?freedom? and have allowed it to bludgeon us away from ever finding actual freedom, as it is defined rather than abused.? As a family unit, people were much better off four decades ago than they are now.? From social disrespect for parents to corporate-government denigration of the value that comes from being able to have a parent raise their own child, our culture has conceded parenting to be nothing more than factory farming or shopping at a big box store.? There is no ?value? in ?family values.?? There is no ?family? either.

The Inadequacy Industry has sharpened its control over the American psyche and it?s seeking to do it elsewhere, chipping away at the needs of the majority to concentrate resources among the few.

If we are bound to a job rather than to our dreams, are we truly free?? If we cannot uproot for fear that a well-documented heartlessness that pervades the insurance industry will make life exceedingly difficult, are we truly free?? If economics prevents a majority of the population from having the opportunity to raise their own children, are we truly free?? And if the market turns former luxuries into needs, making it difficult to communicate, mobilize, or find a dwelling, are we truly free?

We have become unwitting and (perhaps) unwilling indentured servants to the Inadequacy Industry, allowing their deep pockets to dictate our lives and roles.? We must remember that we are the government, we can assert control, and we can restore meaning to the empty rhetoric that has dominated talk about families and values for the past quarter century or more.

First, we must wake up to reality.? You have read this.? Don?t hit the snooze bar!

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Source: http://livenakedly.com/2012/03/12/parenting-and-the-inadequacy-industry/

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