insomnomaniac

Stay-at-home-Moms UNITE!

Here I am trumpeting my support for the President's Social Security proposals, and it only dawns on me TODAY that I'm not going to benefit from any of it, not one whit!

Why? Well, because I am a Stay-at-home-MOM, a SAHM if you prefer. All I'll have coming to me when I "retire" is whatever is in my account from when I used to work, plus whatever will be added if I ever go back. But at 39 years-young, with an 18 month old and at least one more child not yet born, and an intention to home-school, I'll practically be in my 60s when I return to the wage-earning world, so why even count that?

Then I come across Salary.com's loooooong overdue analysis of my "job" as a SAHM and I begin to get more than frustrated with this situation, I get downright ANGRY. In this country, we seem to go out of our way to encourage parents to allow someone else to (attempt to) raise our children. Because that's what it is folks. If you put your kids in daycare, or have a nanny, sitter, or even a sibling or grandparent watching your kids when you are out working, those people are "raising" your children. They aren't just "babysitting," expecially if between them and school (if your child is school-aged) other adults are spending more time with your kids per week than you are. It's as plain as the nose on your face, but I bet you haven't thought of it before, right?

And what do we get as a society when we do this? Well, look around you! Five year-olds who have to be restrained with handcuffs. Thirteen (and fourteen and fifteen) year-olds on anti-depressants who one day go mad, grab a gun and march into school to blow people away. Babies having babies and babies having abortions--not sure which is worse. These are obviously the extreme cases, but what about the garden-variety under-achiever? Do we really need to add to our nation's apathy and growing population of "what's the government done for ME lately" young adults? Because while the liberals may say that kids of two-income families grow up to be "more independent," they're forgetting that independence is supposed to happen AFTER 18, not before! We don't really want kids who can't legally be held accountable for their actions running around "choosing" to act in whatever way seems appropriate to them or to adults in their world who are NOT their parents, do we?

Nevertheless, our society, and even our President act like SAHMS (and SAHDS too, don't mean to be sexist here at all) don't exist, never mind MATTER. If they did, they would be just as concerned (if not moreso) about us having a "safety net" as they would about low-income earners. We are NO-income earners, and yet, as Salary.com points out, we do the jobs of several people!

Don't take it from me, take it from them:

In The Price of Motherhood, author Ann Crittenden comments on the professional hits that stay-at-home parents take. According to her, mothers pay too large a lifetime price in lost income and status because of the time and energy they devote to their children. "Raising children may be the most important job in the world," she wrote, "but you can't put it on a resume."

And, the longer moms take before returning to work, the higher the price many of them pay in the long run. After all, nannies and babysitters qualify for Social Security benefits; stay-at-home mothers do not.

Even though stay-at-home parents aren't included in Department of Labor statistics, their type of "non-wage labor" adds incalculable value to future human capital. Mercer hopes that by staying at home, she'll teach her children to be "responsible and well-mannered" productive members of society.

Bingo.

So I have taken it upon myself to contact the President about his "oversight." I have written the following letter:

Dear President Bush,

I support your proposals for Social Security reform 100%, however, I think you've missed something very important. Stay-at-home-moms like me will either get NO benefits or will only get benefits from the payroll taxes we paid when/if we worked before having children.

Given your emphasis on preserving the traditional family unit, and on raising our children to become well-mannered, well-educated wage-earning, tax-paying citizens with sound morals and ethics, I am surprised that your policy has this giant gap in it!

Statistics tell us that our husbands are likely to pre-decease us, and, to your point, without personal investment accounts as part of Social Security, we are the one class of Americans who will be left with NO safety net other than whatever our families are able to save on our own, and whatever we managed individually to save during whatever years we were in the workforce either prior to raising a family, or after sending them off to college.

Given the skyrocketing costs of even mediocre daycare, and given the troubling influences in our society, the number of parents (mostly mothers) who are choosing to stay at home while their children are at home is growing. Some of us stay home because we literally can't afford to work outside the home. We may live far from friends or family who could help care for our children while we are gone, or simply cannot afford to pay others to take care of our kids. Others of us stay home because we believe that it's the most important contribution we can make to our families and to our society as a whole. We believe that raising our own children--taking responsibility for their day-to-day care and non-academic education--is something that our government should not ignore, but rather REWARD!

Mr. President, as you examine proposals for reforming Social Security, I implore you sir, please don't forget about us! Please ensure that we who are doing the most important job there is will not be left with nothing when it's our turn to "retire." Please don't let us sit here and wonder why it is that our country treats illegal aliens with more deference, fairness and compassion than it treats its own hard-working Stay-at-home-MOMS!

II wish your lovely wife Laura and your Mother Barbara a happy Mother's Day, and hope that you will honor the occasion by considering what I have written.

Thank you in advance for your kind consideration.

Best Regards,

I would encourage anyone out there who agrees with me to do the same. Perhaps, if enough people write to him he will do something. What do I want exactly? I'm not sure. I sure don't want a "hand-out" but I would like us to be counted by the labor department, and I would like our job to be classified as a JOB, and I would like the government to at least acknowledge the far-greater contribution our "hard-work" makes to this society than the alleged "hard-work" of people who aren't even fucking supposed to be here in the firt place, but who nonetheless get benfits to the tune of BILLIONS per year! Kick their asses out and give us the money instead, that would satisfy me, what do you think?

Besides, I'm sure there are way fewer of us than there are of their criminal asses anyway, so even if the government PAID us outright I still think there'd be a net savings to each state, never mind the Federal Government!

Posted by insomnomaniac at May 4, 2005 12:21 AM | TrackBack