He's the darling of the NYTimes, made the front page, prominently. Why am I not surprised.

I couldn't stand to watch it. He has lied all over previous SOTUs and nothing he says has significance. So why waste my time?

Didn't watch it; my local PBS had a Father Brown Mystery (Catholic priest who solves murders in his quiet English village) on at the same time; So, I watched that instead as it had a more believable storyline.

The SOTU has gone waaaaaaay off of the Founders' intent. It was meant to be an accounting of the government's yearly finances and activities. Nowdays it's just another campaign speech, a chance to command media and browbeat the opposition party in a venue where they are not allowed to respond.

And yeah, one of Obama's endearing(?) traits is that he just loooooooves to do the end-zone dance and spike the football. Even when he doesn't have it.

Amy didn't tweet about his "equal pay for equal work" comment, but I would like to send this message to the President: If this is the problem you claim it is, start enforcing the law that was put in place during the Kennedy administration. If you can't enforce the law and you're going to hash through this same material in your final State of the Union address next year, you'd better site verifiable examples of the companies where this is happening. Don't quote statistics, name names!

I couldn't watch it either. I despise rhetoric that will amount to a loogie. I instead enjoyed 2 old episodes of Flashpoint.

Amy didn't tweet about his "equal pay for equal work" comment,
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Didn't watch it, but...

I happen to know a man of 47 or so, very well-educated (but quite sheltered in some respects, in his upbringing) who has said to me that he doesn't believe in equal pay for equal work, because "someone needs to take care of the kids."

As if 20% of Americans in their 40s weren't childless (and plenty of those - most? - are childfree). Not to mention that even a happy SAHM very much needs to keep her marketable skills sharp in the event of an emergency.

I don't get to see him much, but at some point I'll be telling him that if he believes what he said, why not also argue that a man who works for the same company for 20 years should accept a pay cut at age 40 if he still doesn't have kids? It would only be fair to the men who DO have kids, after all...

BTW, he's also said that a man shouldn't have to clean house when there's a woman around, since that's just "natural." Maybe it's also natural for some teen boys to hate school more than teen girls. Should we make it easier for boys to drop out?

After all, even a girl who likes cleaning won't like it nearly as much as an adult, if she works outside the home - even if she lives alone! Imagine how much she'll resent it if she DOESN'T live alone and the other person never does anything useful...

"happen to know a man of 47 or so, very well-educated (but quite sheltered in some respects, in his upbringing) who has said to me that he doesn't believe in equal pay for equal work, because "someone needs to take care of the kids."

Lenona, you were being trolled. And *who cares*?

In some respects we were much better off when people viewed themselves as part of a team, that team being the family unit.

But the pendulum will swing back that way soon, the laws of economics demand it.

"I won both of them".

Just like George W. Bush. Right?

Lenona, you were being trolled. And *who cares*?
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If you mean that he (an old schoolmate who had to stay with me for six months because he was temporarily homeless) was trying to bait me, I doubt it. He also gets upset about race-based affirmative action. I'm sure he says the same things to other people. He hasn't considered that one day, the whole world might just have to implement a one-child policy (for those who WANT kids) and come up with new ways to care for the elderly - maybe by forcing the childfree to act as free careworkers. I.e., we don't need as many babies as we're getting, so the need for SAHMs is not what it was - and childfree taxpayers may well become increasingly valuable. Not to mention that even if every woman in the world WANTED to be a SAHM, it wouldn't change the fact that if the provider suddenly dies, sometimes the only way to deal with that is to get a full-time job.
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But the pendulum will swing back that way soon, the laws of economics demand it.

Posted by: Isab at January 21, 2015 8:44 AM
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Er, how?

Living independently of family (parents, siblings, grandparents, spouses) is a concept that can only exist in a robust economy.

The rest of the world is feeling it since basically no one under 30 is living on their own.

Er, how?
Posted by: lenona at January 21, 2015 1:31 PM

The only way for the middle class to be well off, and provide any kind of intergeneraltional transfer of assets is for "one" family member of each generation to spend the better part of their time taking care of the home, the children, and the grandparents.

The single and childless who are not wealthy will lose most of their their assets to the *state* in the name of subsidizing medicare, and medicaid for the working poor, and the indigent.

The wealthy are unaffected, and the truly poor never had anything to lose to begin with.

So your friend is, in general, right, no matter how sexist you find his math.

Seems to me that back when parents used to ORDER their kids to leave home, the sons, especially, simply got roommates if they had to. Not that it was as typical for daughters to get tossed out, of course. (It's been said that many women only got married, especially before the 1950s or so, because it wasn't considered "decent" for them to move out beforehand.)

And I don't see what's so safe about letting your marketable skills wither over even five years if you hope to stay within the middle class. Yes, one's earnings can get eaten by the cost of daycare, but you can make it up later, as the kids get older.

The other issue Lenona is women actually make more money for the same work. The old 77c of 82c comparison is a great example of lying with statistics.

Also, while I don't agree with her final conclusion Elizabeth Warren wrote a good book called The Two-Income Trap. She clearly shows how one parent working and one staying at home has historically been safer than both parents working.

Regarding childless and childfree people, what's wrong with what I suggested at the 8:33 AM post? Funny no one's talked about that...

Of course, as a CF person, I don't really endorse it, even for both sexes, simply because, to paraphrase a certain veterinarian, anyone who doesn't already have kids in this have-it-all society likely SHOULDN'T have kids - so we shouldn't be trying to bribe them either, especially in a world where babies will become less and less valuable as the limited environmental resources force the economy and people's habits to change.

Plenty of people who want kids could afford at least one if they CHOSE to lead much humbler lifestyles - the "Frugal Zealot" Amy Dacyczyn and her former Navy husband Jim had six (born from 1983(?) to 1991), but they also managed to provide their kids with plenty of presents, plus opportunities to earn their own money. Yes, she was a SAHM for several years - but I'm guessing that had they not had the accidental twins after having four kids, they could have managed the cost of daycare or what have you quite easily for the first four babies.

Bottom line is:

1. It's not fair to assume everyone wants kids (or will have them) when more and more Americans are exercising their right to avoid parenthood and/or marriage.

2. It's not fair to assume that childless (or childfree) women have no extra expenses to save for. Many women (and men) under 40 have, or will soon have, infirm or elderly parents to care for.

3. It's not fair to assume that any mother wants to stay home in the first place. Maybe the father wants to. It's been happening for decades - if not very often.

4. Gay couples with kids. 'Nuff said.

It's all about freedom of choice for both sexes - but, of course, everything in life is a trade-off, and many things still need to be worked on to make things truly fair.