Mitt Romney’s rhetoric can’t even take a breath long enough
to let the rest of us write as fast as his disparaging remarks flow. Just
yesterday I was talking about the distraction of the “Momney” fracas with some
friends and co-workers. I warned them not to be distracted by it and that this
was an overt opportunistic attempt for Romney to take a reckless comment by a
Democrat to try and paint liberals as anti-moms. Magically now, one Democrat
speaks for every one of us. Like THAT
will EVER happen! Here is Romney’s
quote:
“While I was governor, 85 percent of the
people on a form of welfare assistance in my state had no work requirement. I
wanted to increase the work requirement. I said, for instance, that even if you
have a child two years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well
that’s heartless,’ and I said ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving daycare
to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing
that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’”
Since he had to take it to the next tier, and after
re-watching the video of Mitt Romney speaking before a crowd in New
Hampshire…waaayyyy back in January of this year about his position on poor
single mothers, I am back today to discuss Romney’s revealing statements about
how, in his religio-political worldview, women are stratified into tidy
classes. And in this delivery he openly admits that “they” are willing to spend
more tax dollars to put the kids in day care in order to force that [lazy]
mother out the door in the morning.
Here are just a few more statements made by the Romneys this
past week at a campaign appearance before a conservative NRA (National Rifle
Association) audience:
“We have to respect women in all those
choices that they make.”
“I happen to believe that all moms are
working moms,” Mitt Romney told the NRA.
“We have to respect women in all the choices they make,” she said. “Raising children, it’s for me the most
important thing we can do … Mitt said to me more times then you can imagine,
Ann, your job is more important than mine.”
And Mitt
added, saying “Her work raising our boys
was tougher than any job I had.”
Dignity Indeed
I am friends with quite a few poor, struggling single mothers,
who according to the conservative flavor of family values their children would
be better off being cared for by strangers so that they could be afforded the
opportunity to gain dignity by leaving their home each day. The double standard
could not be clearer. Consider these following factors which have no place in
their arguments either for themselves or against the poor:
Day cares are
poorly- if- regulated at all and republicans overwhelmingly propose and achieve
continuing cuts to day care services and fight regulation of credentialed
providers
Day care providers
are underpaid and the importance of child care is reflected in the lack of
investment in training, safety measures and pay for workers
The most important
time for children, developmentally, is between the ages of birth to 5 years of
age with regard to bonding and foundational formations of personality
Republicans fight
availability of contraceptives and are militantly anti-abortion but view the
child and its poor family as a burden to society on its first breath
Republicans are
upping their punitive measures in the Ryan Plan that Romney calls “marvelous”
by proposing additional cuts to food stamps and necessary nutrition programs
that poor families depend on such as WIC (women, infants & children)
Republicans refuse
to vote for equal pay and voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed
by President Obama – giving every indication that gaining dignity at work does
not come with fair pay
Odd, isn’t it, that Ann Romney proudly states that one day
during the early years of her mothering her doting husband returned home from
work and announced to her that her work was vastly more important than his.
Really? Again…really?
But Am I Good Enough?
It is with great restraint that I continue to write because
this is not only profoundly insulting to women and all people who believe in
fairness but it is discriminatory, degrading and judgmental toward the less
fortunate and it challenges me to use acceptable language. It is important to
point out that even though Dominionists call Mormonism a “cult” (the pot
calling the kettle black), Mormons claim that they believe in every word of the
Bible in addition to the Book of Mormon. I point this out because no matter
which sect of Christianity is at work here, they seem to miss the most
important verses from the very source they so piously claim as their ultimate
authority.
“He who oppresses the poor to increase his
wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich–both come to poverty.” -Proverbs
22:16
“Jesus answered, ‘If you want to be
perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’” -Matthew 19:21
“He who gives to the poor will lack
nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.” -Proverbs
28:27
The Christian bible is full of these warnings and admonitions;
these are just a few verses to convey that I don’t think the Bible is saying to
them what it is saying to me. Their actions are in direct conflict with these
biblical directives, yet they thump their bibles and insist that their
decisions on these matters comes from the highest authority – their God. Herein
lies the danger of electing politicians who are convinced that they are
divinely chosen to lead us into righteousness through their godly directives.
They are hypocrites of the highest order!
There is No Dignity When Children Suffer
The argument that Mitt Romney asserted before that N.H.
audience is one that has been around as a political point by conservatives for
at least two decades. As a volunteer advocate for families and children on
social justice issues during the 1990s, I had to push back against this
discriminatory argument to our state legislators as we hammered through a piece
of Welfare Reform legislation. Study after study has shown just how crucially
important these first years are for children to be with their parents, but to
the conservative leadership – if you are poor the world becomes a very
different place for you because you have brought this on yourself.
The conservative devaluation of poor women as a parent could
not be clearer when they take the position that the only way for her to attain
dignity is to leave the home each day and abandon her children to the care of
strangers. These are the blanket assumptions that I can tell you I heard from
legislative mouths to my ears over the course of meetings and committee
hearings for years:
Poor women are
lazy and do nothing while at home with their children
Single moms are
failures, evidenced in large part by the fact that they did not marry
Child Support is an unfair burden
to the absent parent (men represent the highest percentage of noncustodial
parents)
Caregivers and day
care providers do not need to be skilled
Abuse in day cares are rare and
do not justify the costs of implementing regulations and licensure oversight
Women receiving benefits should
forfeit income from their jobs outside the home/or be paid at a rate below the
minimum wage
…and two of my favorites
despicable quotes from actual Republican Committee Chairs on the issues of work
and child protection…
“Children will
learn a work ethic because their mothers are leaving the home to go to work”.
“It is better that
one child continue to be abused, than one family falsely accused”.
You Don’t Get a
“Choice” if You Are Poor
All this is black and white. You must be a Momney to make
that choice to be a stay-at-home mom. You cannot be poor, and that includes the
working poor who literally could not make in an hourly wage what it cost them
to pay for child care (especially without child support). In my volunteer
capacity, approximately 70% of my nearly 600 clients were the working poor.
They got up and worked hard for very little. Their incomes were so low that
they were eligible for food stamps. Their employers, including big corporations
like K-Mart and Walmart, were too greedy to extend benefits so they would cap their
hours just below the ceiling so that the company would not have to pay for
health and other benefits.
So this pompous ass and his wife are now whipping up their
base on the backs of approximately 16 million poor women in the hopes of
attracting women voters? Yep! That is exactly what they are doing and some very
ignorant people across America with a predisposed bias against the poor – are
buying it. Shame on all of them…dignity, indeed!
And Ann, this issue has nothing to do with those personal
and health struggles that you have been referring to. My mother is dying of
kidney failure – and like you, she is a fundamentalist bible believer who sat
in judgment of others. I know the type. I was raised by one who was fortunate
enough to be a stay-at-home mom of the 50s and 60s. The difference is that your
husband is running for President of the United States and these positions
against women are no longer personal choice, religious views and private
opinion.
