Who could have thought I would love anything that Mitt Romney could possibly say? But I really liked the following:
Poor women who stay at home to raise their children should be given federal assistance for child care so that they can enter the job market and “have the dignity of work,” Mitt Romney said in January. . . “I wanted to increase the work requirement,” said Romney. “I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 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 day care 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.'”
In the environment where nobody wants to discuss the horrible damage a mother who is stuck at home and torn out of the normal functioning of society causes to her small children, it is very refreshing to see a politician who suggests that it’s more important to provide women with daycare than with cash to sit at home and gradually go nuts.
My sister has a 2-year-old and, through observing her, we have reached a unanimous conclusion that everybody in our family supports: the last thing a kid of that age needs is to be stuck at home with an adult all day long. Kids need to socialize and grow through being with other kids and not with a parent whose life is in a total dead end.
Romney will still lose the elections, of course, and that’s a good thing. But it’s great to see that even conservative politicians let slip useful things about housewifery. Let’s remember that Romney’s wife hasn’t worked a day in her life, so the guy is probably well aware of the burden of having a housewife about.
Clarissa's Blog 
Hmm… do I sense a bit of disagreement in the Romney household?
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Yes! This is shocking in light of the Rosen controversy.
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This is purely anecdotal, but I have friends with children in various countries where maternity leave benefits range anywhere between a mere few weeks all the way to three years.
The sweet spot seems to be one year to go back to work, at least part time if not full time. By then the kid is usually sleeping through the night, starting to naturally show interest in solid foods (and as a consequence less demand for breast milk) and the mother has had enough baby and recovery time to start being really bored at home.
If you had asked before my circle of friends when through the child rearing stage, I would have said two years, but now having seen all these many couples I believe one year maternity leave is about right.
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It all depends on one’s personality. My sister had 1 year paid leave in Quebec but she was going nuts (and so was the kid) a lot before that. It wouldn’t matter to me because I work at home for long stretches of time anyways but people who are used to being with people and working in the office all the time start wilting extremely soon.
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I am betting, though, that it’s only those receiving public aid Romney wants in paid (service sector, no room move up) jobs.
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Of course. I know he’s no feminist warrior. 🙂 But at this point I’ll take ANY anti-housewifery statement. Look how even Michele Obama is dumping on Rosen for stating a simple truth about Ann Romney. Disgusting!
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Rosen was saying that Ann Romney has no business commenting on the economy because she has never worked, but I think that is unfair. Just because one has been a housewife all her life doesn’t mean she cannot have an opinion on important issues. If anything, that’s like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t type of situation. Imagine if Ann Romney was being interviewed and was asked what is her opinion about the economic situation, and she said she had none and didn’t follow such issues. Then people would criticize her as being a totally out-of-touch rich woman who has the luxury of not having to have an opinion on such things. But because she has an opinion, she gets criticized too.
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Yes, and she does have the right to opine, and I wish the White House had emphasized that rather than praise stay at home moms.
I’m not for stay at home moms, but at the same time, I’m not one of those who think housework isn’t much work. I think the myth of the lazy housewife is another of these anti woman ploys.
What I find unfortunate is that well-off stay at home moms are considered to be saintly and hard working, and poor ones are considered to be lazy … and sent off, under current welfare rules, to push brooms at McDonald’s and other dead end jobs.
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Yes.
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”I wanted to increase the work requirement”
Wait, does he want to take some form of current government assistance from those women and instead add very symbolic “participation” in day care? What do those women get now?
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Money to stay at home, from what I understand. Which permits them to survive for the moment but exckudes them from society, cripples them and damages the children. His plan of offering actual employment and daycare is decidedly a great one.
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I don’t see anything in the text above that says any employment is on offer. As usual it’s incumbent on the individual to go find a job. If there are placement services as well as day care services than I’m sold; more plausibly, what Z said (https://clarissasblog.com/2012/04/15/romney-supports-daycare/comment-page-1/#comment-47150).
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Well, I agree with all this in principle, but…it seems to me Romney has this habit of saying whatever whoever’s listening wants to hear. He’ll need to say it several more times and detail how he plans to do it and where the funding will come from and how it will work, and stick with it for several months at a time, before I’ll do any more than roll my eyes at him.
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“it seems to me Romney has this habit of saying whatever whoever’s listening wants to hear.”
– Oh, yes!
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