It's be also nice if Ms. Faulkner paid her employees enough so they didn't need frickin' food stamps!

10% though? That high? I can't think of any college educated women I know, except one, who had kids out of wedlock... and that woman is living with her partner they just have some weird anti-marriage libertarian government reason not to get married. I do know a couple divorced women, though...

Amy Alkon is a great blogger.

It's be also nice if Ms. Faulkner paid her employees enough so they didn't need frickin' food stamps! ~ NicoleK at October 5, 2020 10:09 PM

It would also be nice if Ms. Schairer had obtained skills which command a wage rate that does not leave her on food stamps, preferably before having children.

Taking care of children (i.e., babysitting) is not exactly a high-skill job - much as we self-righteously sniff that it's the most important job in the world (and it might well be).

The choices we make are not just whether to have children, but what to do with our own lives to make ourselves valuable members of society - to the best of our abilities. We owe our fellow humans that.

The harsh truth is that the world does not care that you are a nice person who's kind to children and puppies. The world has needs and demands people who can meet those needs. The next time you need surgery, are you going to find a well-trained surgeon equipped with and trained in the latest in medical techniques and technology; or are you going to find a nice guy with a Swiss Army Knife and a puppy?

This piece on the harsh truths of life has been linked here before, but it might be time for refresher. Warning: it contains Alec Baldwin references.

Sounds like a) the majority of these women like Schairer chose to pay their tuition the hard way, and b) when it comes to tragedies like becoming a widow, the old solution of having a mutual-aid society or other community to which one belongs to care for such a widow if she cannot remarry is still practiced by all the Abrahamic religions - but it would require joining and contributing to a community rather than just demanding the government fix it. I know at my church, there are enrolled widows, and their needs are met.

The time to make friends and become part of a mutual-support network is usually before you're needy and in crisis. There's a distinction in human dignity - it is not charity to "care for our own".

Conan, it is my sincere belief that women’s magazines and TV are at the heart of most of the problems experienced by non college educated women. Their expectations in terms of both a spouse, job, and a lifestyle are often way out of line with what is actually achievable but someone of average looks, and average intelligence. This leads to them rejecting the adequate in pursuit of the impossible.

Meanwhile the media is out there screaming at them not to “settle” for a lifestyle that is within both their financial means and what they can emotionally and physically handle.

This, and the breakdown of the extended family has left a lot of women without role models for a life that is not a financial and emotional roller coaster.

"That gives the Faulkner family a profound advantage in income and nurturing time, and makes their children statistically more likely to finish college, find good jobs and form stable marriages."

In my experience the really key part is the time. The money doesn't make that much of a difference. However much money people have they will spend it. Often to no significant effect. But being able to split the child raising chores between two people gives both time to sleep and think.

El Verde, support groups like that work when the people you are supporting are a minority. 10% you can handle. But when 60% or more are part of the group there isn't enough to go around to make a difference. A reality long standing religious groups have had to deal with already. By being part of a faith and taking it seriously you are far less likely to be a single mother. As you say the time to join is before there is a problem.

"paid her employees enough so they didn't need frickin' food stamps!"

A friend was furious that expanding his business required offering a health insurance plan.

So he didn't expand. He just continues to offer bottom-dollar jobs with no benefits and has to rebuild his crew every year or so when they leave for greener pastures.

He's become a farm team training system for the major leagues, basically.

Isab, it's more than that, movies actively brainwash women into choosing unsuitable mates.

There are so many movies where someone has to choose between a financially stable, hard-working, guy and a lovable loser/rebel. And she ALWAYS chooses the loser, and we're ALWAYS supposed to cheer her on. Women who want someone successful are portrayed as superficial gold diggers.

The reality is, male or female, you should be going for someone who has stuff going for them.

Then there are social circle factors as to who we choose as a mate. I remember sitting with some colleagues from a different background at lunch discussing men, as one does when one is single (this was back in the day). One rejected a guy because he had a weird chin. They thought my criteria were insane, and I thought theirs were. Weird chin? Who cares? But I guess a man's looks was more important in their social circle. They thought my wanting to date a well-educated man was unreasonable. I thought their caring about chins was.

We're influenced by the people we grow up with.

I went through the same thing with Obamacare, Gog. It's hard to say what might have been. Especially since I decided to just shut the business down and retire at this point.

"Two parents ... bring two parenting perspectives. Ms. Faulkner does bedtime talks. Mr. Faulkner does math. When Ms. Faulkner's coaxing failed to persuade Jeremy to try hamburgers, Mr. Faulkner offered to jump in a pool fully clothed if he took a bite -- an offer Jeremy found too tempting to refuse."

Honestly...couldn't Jason DeParle have found a less embarrassing example than THAT?

Many people would say that two-parent kids with even one parent like that will likely grow up to be very tyrannical and selfish (never mind when BOTH parents are slaves to their children).

Obviously, you can't let kids refuse any and every type of food, but you can't let the kids become the center of attention at meals either, when they're supposed to be learning to put the family (and other people) first. Refusing food that other people have worked to buy and cook for you is just plain rude. So when, say, ten-year-olds refuse to eat a lunch they've enjoyed many times before, simply tell them they'll have to go hungry and eat it at dinner. Or, if they're much younger, put one teaspoonful of each food on the plate and tell them they can only have seconds when they eat everything on the plate. (That way, there's no parental focus on the dreaded vegetable - and if the kids go hungry, that's THEIR fault.)

My point is: kids need playmates THEIR age. Parents need to be role models, not clowns.

NicoleK, that reminds me of this 2013 column from Dear Margo:

https://www.creators.com/read/dear-margo/02/13/to-love-versus-quotbeing-in-lovequot-b7a0f

Dear Readers: I was recently in the UK for a wedding. (It was my son's, actually.) I was so impressed by what the Rev. Ben Bentham said to the couple standing before him that I asked for the text of his wedding blessing sermon. Some of his references were secular, if not entertaining, which was surprising to this American, because this, after all, was a Church of England ceremony. One portion in particular had resonance for me because it touched on a topic I am often asked about. Usually, the question is framed this way: "I love him, but I am not in love with him." To be truthful, this declaration makes me want to scream. To all of you who have asked, or plan to, here is what the vicar of Sissinghurst has to say on the subject:

"In the film 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin,' Captain Corelli and a Greek girl, Pelagia, have, as Americans might put it, 'made out,' and Pelagia's father says this to her: 'When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roles have been so entwined that it's inconceivable you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, not excitement, not a desire to mate every second of the day; it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. That is just being in love, which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left when being in love has burned away.'

"He's talking sense. The reality is that love burns like a furnace for a while, but then settles, and then it has to be worked at. The romantic and sexual love described in The Song of Solomon has to grow up, to be adult. There is no future in being 'in love.' You have to learn to love. And unfortunately, our cultures seem to have not the slightest shred of maturity when it comes to that. Love in the media is all the burning fire, when what is needed are the strength and wisdom to go beyond being in love to loving."

In other words, being "in love" is unsustainable. Amen to that.
___________________________________

Unfortunately, the comments have disappeared. Most agreed with the column, but some also pointed out that if you marry someone practical for whom you don't feel at least SOME romantic attraction, chances are you're going to feel pretty lonely after a few years. What good is that? You can't force yourself to feel romantic attraction - especially if you already knew that person for years beforehand.

Or, as I like to put it, of course romantic love isn't sustainable, but just how much boredom are you supposed to put up with even BEFORE you marry that person?

Another thing the column didn't mention is that practically no culture in the WORLD teaches young people that "it's better to be alone than to wish you were." (This, unfortunately, is often true for single mothers as well, depending on the circumstances. Obviously, you don't want to marry someone from a heavily criminal neighborhood.) Just how many books or movies - aside from religious ones - let young people know that it's OK for men and women alike to live alone all their lives, even if that wasn't at all what those adults hoped for as teens?

If you don't have children and don't want any, all the more reason to think multiple times before getting married to someone you might get tired of quickly - or worse.

"Another thing the column didn't mention is that practically no culture in the WORLD teaches young people that "it's better to be alone than to wish you were."" ~Lenona

There are historical reasons for that Lenona. For most of history people either lived with their parents or with their spouse. Often they lived with both. Living alone was too expensive. If you weren't a noble it was a completely unaffordable lifestyle.

Even here in the US it wasn't until the 1900s that domestic servants became unusual. By 1970 appliances like clothes and dish washers, microwaves and other more modern cooking tools made living a single life possible for most people. Cultures around the world are still catching up to what technology has now made possible.

And here's another angle:

Just as you can't marry someone you've just met,****no matter how unromantic a rule that sounds, you also, contrary to Western culture, simply CAN'T expect to have sex that is both spontaneous and romantic - unless, maybe, you're half of a monogamous, long-term gay couple.

Why? Because even heterosexual couples who believe in saving sex for marriage have to talk to their doctors and/or do a lot of research when it comes to contraception, unless they actually plan on having a baby every year. Also, not every STD results from sexual contact. (Plus, STDs are often rampant in elderly communities.)

On top of that, many a religious man may have had sex before marriage but will hide that fact from everyone, because he hasn't seen or felt any STD symptoms. So how exactly is a demure virgin bride supposed to make sure he's been to see the doctor before the wedding, when chances are it's not really "polite" for her - or her parents - to ask him about that? Very unromantic, that. But it would be even more unromantic if he gives her herpes or HPV on the wedding night. (Yes, it IS possible to have herpes and hardly have any symptoms.)

****As many of you know, that's one of the messages in "Frozen," which was likely a factor in its popularity, since that's a message as rare as water in a desert, when it comes to kids' movies in general.

"There are historical reasons for that"

I didn't invent the saying. Maybe the term should be "unmarried," and likely, the reason it isn't is that it's a longer word than "alone." After all, not so long ago, Catholic women who refused to marry had to enter convents - but at least they HAD the option not to marry.

Btw, since it will never be cheap to live alone, there have been recent news stories of elderly people - especially women - sharing housing with each other.

Of course, it wasn't until some time after WWII that the AVERAGE person started questioning the command to "be fruitful and multiply," so naturally it would take time for pop culture to reflect that skepticism. But it's been 75 years since WWII. (Even that war didn't cause a downturn in the global population.)

He's become a farm team training system for the major leagues, basically. ~ Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at October 6, 2020 10:11 AM

And, in that, he's probably of more actual use to society than a $15 minimum wage would be. His employees get training on showing up on time, carrying out a task to completion, and the reality of what is expected of them in a job. The companies to which those employees migrate get employees with realistic expectations and work experience; workers cognizant that there are some jobs that pay less than their new job. Those employees have realized that a job pays what the employee's skills and experience are worth.

People pushing for higher minimum wages never seem to understand that labor costs are part of the price of the end product; that a $15 minimum wage will result in a $9 Big Mac and higher prices all around - thus putting the unskilled worker back into the same boat from which the higher minimum wage was supposed to rescue him.

One of the problems with casual sex is that the body doesn't know it is casual and releases bonding hormones. So you get attached to this person you hardly know because of the sex. Not a good basis for a long-term relationship.

Feminism teaches women to be unhappy. There is no way to satisfy their impossible demands especially when they teach women that they are oppressed.

Narcissism leads to people not caring is they are impacting children by getting divorced. In fact, boys without a father are much more likely to drop out of school and go to jail (and other failures) and girls without a father are more likely to be unwed mothers. But feminists degrade the role of the father.

Conan the Grammarian: The minimum wage in Seattle is $15. A Big Mac is not $9 there. (A quick google search says $3.99)

Conan the Grammarian: The minimum wage in Seattle is $15. A Big Mac is not $9 there. (A quick google search says $3.99)

clinky at October 6, 2020 3:06 PM

You can achieve the same result by firing most of your counter help, and using a touch screen ordering system. So what’s better six people making ten bucks an hour, or four people making 15?

I can be whatever irresponsible twit I want to be (not that I actually am) because I don't have children.

Or you can be an irresponsible twit and HAVE children. The latest "baby dies in hot car" story has some amazing details:

Sidney Deal, 27, was arrested Monday on charges of child abuse after police interviewed Deal’s brother and girlfriend, who both tried to assist in getting his young daughter out of the car, according to an arrest report from the Metropolitan Police Department.

When Deal’s brother arrived he told police, “He immediately took his shirt off, wrapped it around his knuckles and was ready to punch the window,” according to the report. “Sidney stopped him and said he wanted to wait for a tow truck. Sidney insisted he not damage his new vehicle, stating he had just bought the car and did not have the money to repair a broken window.”

Deal’s girlfriend told police she spent 23 minutes on hold with a locksmith but that Deal didn’t like the price the locksmith gave so he denied their services.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/dad-arrested-in-death-of-toddler-found-in-vehicle-in-las-vegas-2140539/

Conan the Grammarian: The minimum wage in Seattle is $15. A Big Mac is not $9 there. (A quick google search says $3.99) ~ clinky at October 6, 2020 3:06 PM

clinky, I'll confess first that the $9 figure was hyperbole, but not directionally incorrect. Absent the hyperbole, that $3.99 is the standard cost of a Big Mac nationwide - try it with a different city and you'll get the same result.

A Big Mac combo meal is $5.99 nationwide, but $9.00 in New York City with its higher prevailing wage rates. A 2019 Trip Advisor review of Seattle criticized the £10.83 cost for a Big Mac combo meal. That's just over $14 in US currency.

Popular Seattle burger joint, Dick's Drive-In, had to raise prices to meet the new minimum wage rate: "We thought with higher wages it would be easier to get people to take more hours, but it’s been the opposite,” said Jasmine Donovan, president of Dick’s. She added that the company has had to raise prices for the first time in its history because of the cost of labor alone, whereas in the past, food costs drove such hikes.

Employees at Dick's elected to work fewer hours with the higher wages, which put Dick's in a staffing bind given Seattle's economic boom and 3.2% unemployment when the wage hike began to go into effect.

A 2017 study by the University of Washington, MIT, and Amazon found that wage hikes harmed low skill workers the most, "The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of three to one" as employers cut staff, reduced hiring, and cut hours to meet the increased costs. The study estimated the new higher minimum cost minimum wage workers an average of $125 a month.

Washington's minimum wage when the law was passed in 2014 was $9.32 an hour, already higher than the federally-mandated $7.25 an hour. Seattle's average unskilled wage went $9.96 to $11.14 in 2014-2015, mostly due to expansion of the tech sector (Microsoft and Amazon are both headquartered in Seattle), a job growth rate three times the national rate, and a construction boom. As such, the mandated rise in the minimum was not as significant as it would have been in areas with lower average unskilled wages and no economic boom.

Not to mention, there will be fewer compensating factors or tactics for employers in some areas - e.g., Oregon and New Jersey mandate that gas be pumped by a station employee, a minimum wage job that, by law, cannot be replaced by automation.

The study also looked at entry rates and found "...right after the minimum wage went up, entry rates flattened and eventually fell as the minimum wage went up further, suggesting less experienced workers were being offered fewer opportunities for work."

So, while a Big Mac may not cost $9 in Seattle yet, absent compensating tactics by employers and the economic boom, you'd have seen that proverbial $9 Big Mac. In the meantime, a lot of people who once had jobs now don't - and ones who might have gotten jobs won't.

Minimum wage hikes that do not represent a significant increase from prevailing wage rates generally have little impact on employment and the local economy overall. However, wage hikes that represent significant increases over the prevailing wage rates tend to have detrimental impacts on the local economy. A national $15 rate would devastate the economies in areas where the prevailing wage rate is significantly lower.

Lenona,

It is not just Catholic women who had the option to not marry. Such women irrespective of religion were called spinsters. They were economically unable to move out from their parent's house and hence usually lived there till their parents passed.

Spinsterhood historically has not been a popular choice. For better or for worse you will always be your parent's child. If you are living in their home at 40 you will still be treated like a child. So given the choice of never being treated like an adult or settling on a suboptimal marriage it is no surprise that most picked the marriage.

Today technology has changed that. Anywhere you have stable power you see a breakdown of the traditional extended family. Where stable electrical generation is not possible the extended family continues out of economic necessity.

I am not objecting to the wisdom in "it's better to be alone than to wish you were." Just pointing out why things changed so much from 1950 to today. Money should never be the most important thing in your life. But it is an important thing and it significantly defines what your options are.

"there have been recent news stories of elderly people" ~Lenona

This is not a new thing. It has been common historically for hundreds of years. I don't have much data but to the best of my knowledge the trend is not changing significantly up or down. As for why it is mostly women that is pure demographics. In that age range roughly half of the men have died. Hence cohabitating with them isn't an option.

Funny - aside from nursing homes, which I believe are a mostly 20th-century phenomenon (in part because people just didn't live as long before then), I never heard of elderly people moving into a stranger's house before the late 20th century unless the elderly people were going to act primarily as servants.

After all, if you couldn't afford to live alone, your younger relatives were supposed to take you in and protect you, right?

At any rate, a few lessons that young people really need to learn are:

1. It's YOUR job to make yourself happy, with or without a spouse.

2. You are not entitled to a spouse or a child. You are only entitled to try to get one, just as you are only entitled to the pursuit of happiness.

3. You are not entitled to a sex life, however unhappy that makes you.

4. If you want to be popular, you have to give as much as you take or more - but without expecting anything in return. Even popularity. Until you get it right.

I see a different main benefit to the 2 parent family. A second opinion, check, or different view on any subject.
If Parent A is crazy or stupid about something say nutrition: Believing cookies and soda are a well balanced diet. The other parent is there as a safety valve since it is less likely both will be crazy or stupid in the same way. So jr gets healthy food half of the time, much better than never.

This situation is a large part of why the professional victim mentality, AKA Critical Race Theory, needs to be squashed. A single, working mother such as Ms Schairer simply cannot have the time to do things like read to her kids when they're small, and help them with their homework in high school, which are really necessary if they are to do well in school and be successful in adult life. To a rational person this is why it was the height of irresponsibility for Ms Schairer to have kids. But to a CRT believer, the better preparation that the Faulkner kids get is "privilege" and should be outlawed because it's unfair to the Schairer kids.

People who grew up like the Schairer kids should be encouraged to raise their poverty issues with their parents, who caused the problem.

As far as preventing it from happening in future, I suggest that we do away with LBJ's welfare state and instead take away the children of mothers like Ms Schairer and put them in foster care. It will not only give them a better future, but also will discourage the kind of women who have kids out of wedlock in order to receive larger welfare checks.

The bigger problem than minimum wage is the gap between those at a company which earn the top salaries, and those at the bottom, which is increasing. That's what is going to make the inequality.

Yes, it doesn't take much training to watch babies, but is Faulkner's role as manager that much harder? Probably not.

One could argue that's what Shairer should do... heck, my mom's cleaning lady in the 90s did that, started out with nothing, cleaned houses, then found people to work with her and in a few years was driving fancier cars than her clients were.

At the same time, it's sort of an unsustainable pyramid scheme isn't it? Not everyone can do that because you need to find people to work under you.

Schairer could consider in-home day care if that's a possibility where she lives. In these parts its too regulated so hard to earn much money (there's a limit to the amount you're allowed to charge and the number of kids you can watch is pretty low, I want to say 5 or 6 including your own kids). But maybe she can charge what she wants where she lives.

Lenona, old folk moving in together is actually quite common. So common it wasn't worth mentioning. Yes if you had kids people usually moved in with them first. But in war torn areas or when specific diseases moved through many older people didn't have any kids left. Hence cohabitating to reduce expenses. And yes there was often a religious component to the equation. You can kinda mooch off of your kids but if you are too old to work and don't have kids then you need charity. And charity is typically a religious activity. Today the welfare state has reduced the religious involvement significantly where the welfare state exists.

Oh, and people don't usually cohabitate with random strangers. Most of the time it is a similar aged relative. A cousin or sibling or such. The rest of the time it is a long term friend. Splitting rent with a stranger is mostly a younger person's activity.

“At the same time, it's sort of an unsustainable pyramid scheme isn't it? Not everyone can do that because you need to find people to work under you”

Life itself is an unsustainable pyramid scheme.

I know a number of very bright and well educated people who prefer to be cogs in the company wheel rather than the stressed out person at the top.
The also don’t want the stress of having to work when they are sick, as most managers do.

Yes, it doesn't take much training to watch babies, but is Faulkner's role as manager that much harder? Probably not. ~ NicoleK at October 6, 2020 11:45 PM

Faulkner's job is more involved, certainly. Assuming she is the center manager (the article only describes her as Schairer's boss), she's responsible for making sure the place is clean, supplies are purchased, the toys are not broken, and the children are accounted for a the end of the day. She's probably also responsible for hiring, initiating background checks on new employees, monitoring employees and children, as well as engaging new customers and retaining existing ones.

If Schairer loses a child, she's certainly out of a job, but so is "her boss," Faulkner. She's responsible for both her own performance and for the performance of those under her.

Isab, are the people you know on food stamps though? There will always be richer and poorer people. We want to keep the number of poor who rely on charity to a minimum, though.

Isab, are the people you know on food stamps though? There will always be richer and poorer people. We want to keep the number of poor who rely on charity to a minimum, though.

NicoleK at October 7, 2020 10:32 AM

I kind of resist the temptation to make being on food stamps the equivalent of being poor. When people say “on food stamps” what they really sometimes mean is eligible for WIC, another federal nutrition program.

There was a time when my husband was back in school after leaving the Army, we were eligible for both programs. Did I apply? No because we didn’t need them. I did however, have a distant relative who was the sole heir to a multi million dollar piece of real estate, who was eligible, and did apply, and receive these benefits, which means, I think, that being eligible for, or receiving “food stamps” has no real meaning, at least as short hand for poverty.

It is just another federal program. Pretty easy to game such things. I know a guy who made over $90k. And his old lady was on food stamps, free diapers from the county, etc, etc. I also know people who at the same time had nothing and were close to dying of starvation, rejected.

If WIC didn't exist would Ms. Schairer and her kids die of starvation? Who can say. Maybe she would just get a different job she doesn't like as much. Maybe Ms. Faulkner would have to pay more. Or pay someone with a spouse since that was the only one who could afford to do that job. It is impossible to tell. Maybe she would hire teenagers and give them a leg up in the job market.

Which is why the demand that each and every job pay enough to support a family of four is a really bad idea. You are putting a floor on how much people can work for and essentially telling anyone who can't get a job paying that much they are fired.

And for the spending hawks, at under $7billion/year WIC is not a significant cost for the federal budget. Under 0.2% of total spending.