America's Next Top Pundit
posted by Sybil Vane
As you may have seen in our tweets yesterday, LeBlanc wants the bitches to participate in this WaPo contest to win a weekly column there. Below, you will find my first draft at an entry in a contest to be a part of the illustrious WaPo community
News of the recent penalties leveled against a Utah company that employs children [although, to be fair, they were 13-15 and I think we all know how a) we all like to think of humans this age as objects and b) how that makes it difficult to think any *actual* harm is being done to them] to work in its phone bank has me thinking. Specifically, it has me thinking, well, why shouldn’t they appeal? Partly, this is practical: what do they have a lot of in Utah? Mormons. What do Mormons have a lot of? Kids. What do we know about capitalism? It seizes the resources at hand. What do we know happens when the government tries to muddle around in that seizure? Unmitigated disaster, and an inefficiently administered one at that.
But then I started thinking of it more philosophically; specifically, I wondered, how about these child labor laws anyway? More exactly, how about we spend some time consider the labor children impose, rather than just he labor from which they should be protected. I’m not talking about the labor they usher into their parents’ lives – in case you’ve not heard, it’s the 21st century and we have a little thing called BIRTH CONTROL. Readily available in preschools even I hear. Please do not complain to me about how a child makes your life more labor intensive. Don’t want to wipe someone’s ass or help with homework, don’t have kids. Fin.
No, what I am thinking about it more how children impose labor onto the lives on non-parents. There are the obvious impositions – the waitress who has to clean up crushed French fries from the floor, the babysitter who has to babysit, the airplane passenger who has to actively squeeze her fingers into her ears – but there’s also the more insidious labor. That labor is made up of responsibilities shirked by parents in the name of the sacrosanct act of parenting (which, let’s be honest, almost always means going to a soccer game) that are then picked up by non-parents. The managing of someone else’s meeting when a parent has to stay home with a sick kid, the resignation to heading up late afternoon or evening tasks because someone has to get home to make dinner or attend a play, the rescheduling of early morning sessions because of parent-teacher conferences. You all know what I mean. That is LABOR and it is being redistributed from its rightful owners to non-breeders.
We can all agree that the answer is not forcing these parents to cut back on their “parenting” and pay more attention to work. Heaven knows we have more than our fair share of crummy parenting (read: mothering) already doing on in this country. But if we could get those *kids* to pick up the labor, well, doesn’t that kill two birds with one stone? Sure, these kids will only be able to handle menial tasks, they aren’t going to teach your economics seminar at 7pm, but still. Responsible and ecologically minded citizens will be assured that some other task (their laundry maybe? Cleaning the bathrooms? Or the freezer?) is being taken out of their hands, and the kids will get a MUCH needed kick in the pants lesson about responsibility and obligations to community.
So continue braving the way, Weston Wats Center, Inc., I say. Show us the way to a more progressive and balanced society, one where everyone’s work counts and is counted.
News of the recent penalties leveled against a Utah company that employs children [although, to be fair, they were 13-15 and I think we all know how a) we all like to think of humans this age as objects and b) how that makes it difficult to think any *actual* harm is being done to them] to work in its phone bank has me thinking. Specifically, it has me thinking, well, why shouldn’t they appeal? Partly, this is practical: what do they have a lot of in Utah? Mormons. What do Mormons have a lot of? Kids. What do we know about capitalism? It seizes the resources at hand. What do we know happens when the government tries to muddle around in that seizure? Unmitigated disaster, and an inefficiently administered one at that.
But then I started thinking of it more philosophically; specifically, I wondered, how about these child labor laws anyway? More exactly, how about we spend some time consider the labor children impose, rather than just he labor from which they should be protected. I’m not talking about the labor they usher into their parents’ lives – in case you’ve not heard, it’s the 21st century and we have a little thing called BIRTH CONTROL. Readily available in preschools even I hear. Please do not complain to me about how a child makes your life more labor intensive. Don’t want to wipe someone’s ass or help with homework, don’t have kids. Fin.
No, what I am thinking about it more how children impose labor onto the lives on non-parents. There are the obvious impositions – the waitress who has to clean up crushed French fries from the floor, the babysitter who has to babysit, the airplane passenger who has to actively squeeze her fingers into her ears – but there’s also the more insidious labor. That labor is made up of responsibilities shirked by parents in the name of the sacrosanct act of parenting (which, let’s be honest, almost always means going to a soccer game) that are then picked up by non-parents. The managing of someone else’s meeting when a parent has to stay home with a sick kid, the resignation to heading up late afternoon or evening tasks because someone has to get home to make dinner or attend a play, the rescheduling of early morning sessions because of parent-teacher conferences. You all know what I mean. That is LABOR and it is being redistributed from its rightful owners to non-breeders.
We can all agree that the answer is not forcing these parents to cut back on their “parenting” and pay more attention to work. Heaven knows we have more than our fair share of crummy parenting (read: mothering) already doing on in this country. But if we could get those *kids* to pick up the labor, well, doesn’t that kill two birds with one stone? Sure, these kids will only be able to handle menial tasks, they aren’t going to teach your economics seminar at 7pm, but still. Responsible and ecologically minded citizens will be assured that some other task (their laundry maybe? Cleaning the bathrooms? Or the freezer?) is being taken out of their hands, and the kids will get a MUCH needed kick in the pants lesson about responsibility and obligations to community.
So continue braving the way, Weston Wats Center, Inc., I say. Show us the way to a more progressive and balanced society, one where everyone’s work counts and is counted.
Labels: journalism, kids, parenting, Sybil Vane
Posted at 6:56 AM
|
