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What Price Motherhood? Moms rally to demand Social Security for work as caregivers
The Sunday Star-Ledger (NJ) ^ | 5/11/03 | Peggy O'Crowley

Posted on 05/11/2003 10:20:02 AM PDT by VeritatisSplendor

Edited on 07/06/2004 6:38:49 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

Families honor their mothers today with perfume, hanging plants, and dinners out. What many of today's mothers want most, however, doesn't come from a store. They want respect, financial recognition, and nothing less than to change the way society looks at motherhood. And they're not waiting for anyone to give it to them.


(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government
KEYWORDS: congress; motherhood; socialsecurity; welfare
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To: VeritatisSplendor
I'm all for it! Since the government keeps telling me that it's a "pay as you go" system (as opposed to the pyramid scheme that it looks like), I'm looking forward to all those "care givers" taking out their check books, and start writing big checks to the IRS for the benefits that they want to have. I can't wait for them to start paying, before they start collecting.

Mark

61 posted on 05/11/2003 8:30:58 PM PDT by MarkL (Maybe that was a bit TOO inflamatory? Nahhhh....)
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To: zip
Social Security shouldn't be the answer for doles.

You couldn't be more wrong. Social Security is the dole.

It was established for working people paying their share into the fund and receiving funds, when justifed, from SS.

Yikes. I can't believe you're buying this sham. There is no fund from which people receive their so-called share. The money comes from people who are working and goes to people who aren't. It's welfare, income redistribution, cleverly packaged so as to make people feel like they are entitled to what is actually other people's money.

Nowhere in the Act does it say "give away for getting pregnant" or "give away for taking care of someone's child".

True. It just says "give away for reaching some arbitrary age."

62 posted on 05/11/2003 9:08:56 PM PDT by Sandy
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To: Elsie
If mere humans discover that businesses do NOT pay any taxes, then the game will be over!

FYI, business will pay a tax if they are either a monopoly or if they are singled out. If a hardware store on a state border has its taxes raised by one state, and a store on the other side of the border does not have its taxes raised, then the tax really does come out of the pocket of the business. Also, if the business is a monopoly, then additional tax does come out of the business. For most businesses, the SSI tax does not fit either circumstance and is paid by the employee.

63 posted on 05/11/2003 10:28:46 PM PDT by staytrue
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To: VeritatisSplendor
"Motherhood is the single biggest reason for poverty in old age".

What a pile of garbage. Assuming I pass on before my wife, she will live in a home that is owned free and clear with no indebtedness and adequate income to live comfortably for the rest of her life. Her choice to be a wife and mother gave her entre to a much better life than she could have achieved with her current level of education.

The reality is that I will probably survive my wife. The women in her family have never lived beyond age 59. We have that documented back to the 1400s. Assuming that I continue my current level of employment, she will never experience poverty in old age.

This is clearly another grab at the Social Security money that is already being drained by many people who never paid a dime in Social Security in a working capacity.

64 posted on 05/11/2003 10:55:14 PM PDT by Myrddin
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To: staytrue
........then additional tax does come out of the business.
ALL taxes on a business are merely another cost to be figured in the selling price of it's products. They WILL be passed to the end user.

Thus, the tax will be HIDDEN from view of the uninformed purchaser.


The 'value added' tax is the most draconic of these pocketbook weasels......
65 posted on 05/12/2003 3:39:08 AM PDT by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you read - ESPECIALLY *** ones)
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To: Sandy
Social Security shouldn't be the answer for doles.
You couldn't be more wrong. Social Security is the dole.

It was established for working people paying their share into the fund and receiving funds, when justifed, from SS.
Yikes. I can't believe you're buying this sham. There is no fund from which people receive their so-called share. The money comes from people who are working and goes to people who aren't. It's welfare, income redistribution, cleverly packaged so as to make people feel like they are entitled to what is actually other people's money.

Nowhere in the Act does it say "give away for getting pregnant" or "give away for taking care of someone's child".
True. It just says "give away for reaching some arbitrary age."

Number 1 - SS is NOT A DOLE. It is a return on investment.

Number 2 - I am not parsing, ala Klintoon, this issue. There is a "fund", whether it is solvent, currently viable, or whatever, that I paid into. If others are paiying now so I can draw is not relevent.

Number 3 - Again, it is not a give away. It is paid in advance. You can play word games until hell freezes over but you cannot convince anyone that SS is "unearned".

66 posted on 05/12/2003 4:58:54 AM PDT by zip (If you don't care enough to take action, don't whine when evil occurs.)
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To: zip
you cannot convince anyone that SS is "unearned".

Oh I'm well aware of that, thus my phrase "cleverly packaged".

Bunch of middle-aged workers currently "earning" a right to the income of people who haven't even been born yet. Kinda cool, actually.

67 posted on 05/12/2003 1:42:02 PM PDT by Sandy
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To: VeritatisSplendor
This article points up the precise reason so many mothers choose to work outside the home instead of be full time care givers to their children. Financial security.

My mother was a SAH for 18 years when my father left her. She had no job skills to speak of (she had been a teacher before marriage). She had to scramble around for years with low paying menial jobs and going to school to get some skills before she finally got a decent wage job. Even then she only worked 15 years before having to retire for health reasons. So she only paid into the system a short time.

Lots of women find themselves in this situation in their mid 40's and 50's. Their daughters do not miss the lesson and few take the same risks.
68 posted on 05/12/2003 3:54:06 PM PDT by Lorianne
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To: VeritatisSplendor

Have you any idea of what it is like to face your future knowing that you will always exist in poverty so dire that you must often budget for toilet paper? Let me tell you how it is to be a 56 year old woman living with kidney failure and knowing that all the best years of your life was given to a man and the children I bore him and raised for him while he worked. I never foresaw divorce happening to me. Never thought about the fact that I was not getting credit for the retirement he was earning for himself while I stayed home to raise the kids and put a hot meal on the table each and every night. Yet, seventeen years of marriage, years of being the good wife and mother, hard work and giving up my needs for the needs of my family, to end up in a poverty so stark that most people would have given up and... well you get the picture. I exist monthly on less than most people make per week from SSI. Now that my husband is retired I find out that he had a special retirement that wasn't part of Social Security and that I am not entitled to any of it. Do you think this is fair? You just have no idea!


69 posted on 07/11/2005 11:19:19 AM PDT by NightMareInOldAge
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To: Alouette

Have you never given thought to the fact that just maybe the children do not survive the parents? What happens then in your perfect world? Did your mother stay home to raise you? Should she be punished for that by having to live out her life in poverty when the husband drops her for a younger woman? It isn't all so black and white!


70 posted on 07/11/2005 11:24:23 AM PDT by NightMareInOldAge
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To: babygene

I am an example of the woman who raised the five kids. At the time I thought I was doing the best thing I could do, raise my children to be honest,caring, loving, adults. However, after seventeen years and a nasty divorce, I found myself disabled and living alone on a poverty level that would scare most people. If not for the SSI I get I would be dead, which might please the people that feel they are burdened by the taxes that pay for this. Too Bad! My point is that the entire time I was married and working my butt off, my husband was putting away lots of money for HIS retirement. Don't I get any? I never thought to ask about it before the divorce was finallized. So where does that leave me? Fighting a legal battle that would take longer than I have left to live? You tell me... is this fair?


71 posted on 07/11/2005 11:40:17 AM PDT by NightMareInOldAge
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To: Sandy

In a way he is right about this. The Federal Government has been "borrowing" (stealing) from Social Security for so many years to pay for their little pet projects that the Admin is now nearly broke. Why don't we make the Deadheads at the top repay what they have taken to re-solidify Social Security? It ain't gonna happen. All we can do is hope and pray we don't outlive the money that's left and their new "plan" will be in place long enough to help those that come after. Remember...Poverty Sucks! Plan well. Just don't blame those of us that didn't and now beg for help. We are already demeaned enough.


72 posted on 07/11/2005 12:06:48 PM PDT by NightMareInOldAge (If you see a person's need, do you close your eyes?)
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To: NightMareInOldAge

Of course it's not fair, my point is that the problem isn't solved by subsidizing motherhood independent of marriage. Your problem is that marriage (as a LEGAL institution) was practically destroyed when divorce laws were liberalized. Your husband should never have been able to get out of his legal obligation to support you, and before the divorce laws were liberalized, he wouldn't have.

Some states have "community property" laws which, while not preventing divorce, ensure that the stay-at-home wife gets her share of the wealth earned by her husband while she was putting his meals on the table and enabling him to earn. That's an acceptable alternative if you're going to make divorce easy to get.

I'm very sorry you did not live in a place where the laws protected you; but either of the two alternatives I mention (eliminate unilateral divorce, declare both partners' earnings "community property") would be better than a law like the one proposed above, which would simply give a monetary incentive to become a mother independent of marriage.


73 posted on 07/11/2005 1:24:29 PM PDT by VeritatisSplendor
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To: fooman

Nahhh,
We aren't
(OK, I'm not).

Just gonna take it one day at a time.


74 posted on 07/11/2005 1:28:32 PM PDT by najida (The hardest person to forgive is yourself.)
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To: najida

Two year old thread surfaces...always interesting...


75 posted on 07/11/2005 1:31:46 PM PDT by dakine
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To: Ima Lurker

Just wondering, do you have the same objection to taxpayer funded daycare?


76 posted on 07/11/2005 1:33:34 PM PDT by Politicalmom (Just one more reason to hate the government....)
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To: Politicalmom

Oops. Didn't notice the date. SO sorry!! : )


77 posted on 07/11/2005 1:34:13 PM PDT by Politicalmom (Just one more reason to hate the government....)
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To: dakine

ACK!

I didn't notice the date and it looks like a newbie (Troll) is the resurrector.

~~sigh~~ I'm off my game today.


78 posted on 07/11/2005 1:38:33 PM PDT by najida (The hardest person to forgive is yourself.)
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To: VeritatisSplendor
[ Moms rally to demand Social Security for work as caregivers ]

And what about the Caregiver tenders(fathers).?..

79 posted on 07/11/2005 1:46:40 PM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been ok'ed by me to include some fully orbed hyperbole....)
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To: Politicalmom

LOL!! I thought for a minute I had gotten lost in a time warp! But, in answer to your question, yes, I do have the same objection to taxpayer funded daycare. But then again, I object to most things taxpayers are forced to pay for.


80 posted on 07/11/2005 1:50:06 PM PDT by Ima Lurker
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