I very much enjoy your blog, as it gives perspective. You write well and are often quite funny--your common sense surfaces the absurdity out there.
I have a theory about why Republican Senator Andrew Koenig and others in the Republican party are against Universal Pre-K.
It is the exact same reason they vote so eagerly to defund Public Schools and redirect those funds to private (Christian) schools. They see Pre-K and any Public Schooling delivered on a national basis as a threat to their Christian agenda.
They see schooling as a way to indoctrinate the kids. They know Universal Pre-K would undermine their efforts to control the message since it would never be an exclusively Christian Nationalist curriculum fed to the children.
What a difficult situation our families are facing. Told with such clarity, Jess. Thank you. Whatever happened to the 'party of family values'? Remember that? The attacks on childcare and public schools are what is really un-American! The attitude of too many of our 'leaders' in our state are right out of Charles Dickens character Scrooge..."Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.” “Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge. “Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. “And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge.' I try to get to the Missouri Rep's production of the Christmas Carol every year and I always get emotional because so many of our Missouri leaders refuse to show empathy, kindness, or provide basic human needs to their fellow human beings. They blame them for their circumstances and remain pious about being pro-life. What hypocrites. They NEVER seem to realize the epiphany that Scrooge reaches at the end. If they did, we would be living in a much different color state.
So sad for this mother. I am sure the state senator will like vouchers for private preK. My daughters struggled with childcare, too. It was very expensive . But thank God, they survived. This state must do better. Vote blue whenever possible.
Jess, to your reference to a Rep rep from Neosho. I remember a few years ago when I lived in SW Mo. a local soccer club had youngsters 10 and under selling raffle tickets door to door for a chance to win an assault gun. Donated by a local gun manufacturer. It’s a way of life there. Talk about indoctrination cradle to grave!
an incredible challenge to parents. I know workers at these facilities aren't killing it, so sure, business owners, right? No I don't think so. During pandemic a lot of these private centers closed, b/c parents worked at home and their needs changed. As a nation, we must do better in this area, children's futures are at stake.
Supporting your child abuse comments, there is a recent piece in The Atlantic about data on incest, uncovered via DNA database analysis. These hurried decisions about child care could have devastating consequences.
Jess, this is such a sad situation. Thank you for speaking up about it. The lack of care on the part of our legislators is frightening. This is not humane behavior. Even in the other-than-human families, care of their little ones is a priority.
I was born in Missouri and my family still lives there so I’m always interested in what’s going on in this state. Child care is an escalating problem nationwide and I can sympathize with single mothers’ child care problems having been a single mother myself. This is just one of the many reasons I will never, ever vote for another Republican as long as I live. They just don’t seem to care about their constituents or others. What has happened to legislating for the “greater good”? As the party of “family values” how can they have no regard for struggling families and not care how many unborn children will be born just as long as abortion is forbidden? To reiterate: I will NEVER, EVER vote for a Republican for ANY elected office for the rest of my life.
You nailed it. Back in the '80s, when I was supporting a then-husband through medical school, I contemplated pregnancy and investigated daycare options where I was living, in NYC. At the time I was making $17K and I found that daycare cost $20K/year, more than I made. I was bringing in all the money in the relationship, I had all the responsibility (and all the housework, despite my efforts to get my husband to lift a finger), and we were living at a very poor standard of living, in a dangerous, roach-infested slum. I asked all the working mothers I knew, how can you afford child care? and they all told me, they had unpaid family members taking care of their children. I spoke with my mother and she said, "I've done my time." My then-husband's mother was insane and I didn't consider her a possibility. So I never had children because I couldn't afford them. We split up right after he graduated and I didn't remarry until after menopause, partly because I didn't want a repeat of this problem.
I went back to school and became a software engineer, and even in that field, I never had a spare $20K kicking around; to work in that field, I had to afford city rents (in the Boston area) and because I made 80% of what the guys made, rent and transportation to work ate up most of my salary. All the men I met had debts and precarious financial situations. Even as an engineer I couldn't imagine how people could afford to have kids.
In the '90s, I read an essay on the Christian Coalition website that said that women don't want to work, they want to stay home with their children. And the assumption was that their husbands made enough money to support a family, which I thought was delusional. Maybe in the '50s, '60s, a man could support a family but I hadn't met any who could, and I had gone to an Ivy League college. When I noticed that the same politicians who railed against abortion did not support daycare, I thought, hey this is logically inconsistent, especially within the context of marriage. When you're single you can be celibate but not when you're married, sex is part of the wife job. If a couple needs two incomes just to cover food, rent, clothing, and transportation to work, and birth control fails, then the wife, who makes at best 80% of her husband's salary, is going to have to quit her job to stay home with the kid because someone has to and the wife makes less. So this government policy decision not to support daycare is designed to drive women out of the workforce.
When a woman is completely reliant on her husband's income and goodwill for her sustenance, she is going to put aside her opinions, her needs, everything, to keep peace at home. Because she and the child literally cannot live without him, the lack of daycare means he has all the power in the relationship. Little by little, she changes everything about herself to keep him happy. Little by little, she only allows herself to entertain the thoughts that will keep him happy, because to think anything else is too dangerous. She has gone from being an autonomous human being to being his possession, his slave, with all the rights and privileges of a chair. That is literally how the legal system in this country viewed women until the '90s, and it is why marital rape was legal, because a man can do anything he wants to his possessions.
No support for daycare is a policy decision that is *meant* to get women out of the workforce and reduce them to the level of possessions.
And these same Republicans lament about how "No one wants to work anymore." They completely discount how lack of affordable childcare forces some women to stay home for lack of an alternative, sometimes impoverishing their families as a result.
They are not pro life they are pro birth. And if I’m not mistaken they haven’t actually implemented Medicaid expansion, because of course they know more than their constituents. 🤬
I very much enjoy your blog, as it gives perspective. You write well and are often quite funny--your common sense surfaces the absurdity out there.
I have a theory about why Republican Senator Andrew Koenig and others in the Republican party are against Universal Pre-K.
It is the exact same reason they vote so eagerly to defund Public Schools and redirect those funds to private (Christian) schools. They see Pre-K and any Public Schooling delivered on a national basis as a threat to their Christian agenda.
They see schooling as a way to indoctrinate the kids. They know Universal Pre-K would undermine their efforts to control the message since it would never be an exclusively Christian Nationalist curriculum fed to the children.
Sinister, if I am right.
What a difficult situation our families are facing. Told with such clarity, Jess. Thank you. Whatever happened to the 'party of family values'? Remember that? The attacks on childcare and public schools are what is really un-American! The attitude of too many of our 'leaders' in our state are right out of Charles Dickens character Scrooge..."Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.” “Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge. “Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. “And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge.' I try to get to the Missouri Rep's production of the Christmas Carol every year and I always get emotional because so many of our Missouri leaders refuse to show empathy, kindness, or provide basic human needs to their fellow human beings. They blame them for their circumstances and remain pious about being pro-life. What hypocrites. They NEVER seem to realize the epiphany that Scrooge reaches at the end. If they did, we would be living in a much different color state.
So sad for this mother. I am sure the state senator will like vouchers for private preK. My daughters struggled with childcare, too. It was very expensive . But thank God, they survived. This state must do better. Vote blue whenever possible.
Jess, to your reference to a Rep rep from Neosho. I remember a few years ago when I lived in SW Mo. a local soccer club had youngsters 10 and under selling raffle tickets door to door for a chance to win an assault gun. Donated by a local gun manufacturer. It’s a way of life there. Talk about indoctrination cradle to grave!
Saying the legislators don't care sounds like apathy. This isn't apathy; this is intentional.
an incredible challenge to parents. I know workers at these facilities aren't killing it, so sure, business owners, right? No I don't think so. During pandemic a lot of these private centers closed, b/c parents worked at home and their needs changed. As a nation, we must do better in this area, children's futures are at stake.
Republicans only care about fetuses . Once they’re born they need to get a job and support themselves
They want women to say home with their children and not need day care. Another part of the plan.
Supporting your child abuse comments, there is a recent piece in The Atlantic about data on incest, uncovered via DNA database analysis. These hurried decisions about child care could have devastating consequences.
Jess, this is such a sad situation. Thank you for speaking up about it. The lack of care on the part of our legislators is frightening. This is not humane behavior. Even in the other-than-human families, care of their little ones is a priority.
I was born in Missouri and my family still lives there so I’m always interested in what’s going on in this state. Child care is an escalating problem nationwide and I can sympathize with single mothers’ child care problems having been a single mother myself. This is just one of the many reasons I will never, ever vote for another Republican as long as I live. They just don’t seem to care about their constituents or others. What has happened to legislating for the “greater good”? As the party of “family values” how can they have no regard for struggling families and not care how many unborn children will be born just as long as abortion is forbidden? To reiterate: I will NEVER, EVER vote for a Republican for ANY elected office for the rest of my life.
You nailed it. Back in the '80s, when I was supporting a then-husband through medical school, I contemplated pregnancy and investigated daycare options where I was living, in NYC. At the time I was making $17K and I found that daycare cost $20K/year, more than I made. I was bringing in all the money in the relationship, I had all the responsibility (and all the housework, despite my efforts to get my husband to lift a finger), and we were living at a very poor standard of living, in a dangerous, roach-infested slum. I asked all the working mothers I knew, how can you afford child care? and they all told me, they had unpaid family members taking care of their children. I spoke with my mother and she said, "I've done my time." My then-husband's mother was insane and I didn't consider her a possibility. So I never had children because I couldn't afford them. We split up right after he graduated and I didn't remarry until after menopause, partly because I didn't want a repeat of this problem.
I went back to school and became a software engineer, and even in that field, I never had a spare $20K kicking around; to work in that field, I had to afford city rents (in the Boston area) and because I made 80% of what the guys made, rent and transportation to work ate up most of my salary. All the men I met had debts and precarious financial situations. Even as an engineer I couldn't imagine how people could afford to have kids.
In the '90s, I read an essay on the Christian Coalition website that said that women don't want to work, they want to stay home with their children. And the assumption was that their husbands made enough money to support a family, which I thought was delusional. Maybe in the '50s, '60s, a man could support a family but I hadn't met any who could, and I had gone to an Ivy League college. When I noticed that the same politicians who railed against abortion did not support daycare, I thought, hey this is logically inconsistent, especially within the context of marriage. When you're single you can be celibate but not when you're married, sex is part of the wife job. If a couple needs two incomes just to cover food, rent, clothing, and transportation to work, and birth control fails, then the wife, who makes at best 80% of her husband's salary, is going to have to quit her job to stay home with the kid because someone has to and the wife makes less. So this government policy decision not to support daycare is designed to drive women out of the workforce.
When a woman is completely reliant on her husband's income and goodwill for her sustenance, she is going to put aside her opinions, her needs, everything, to keep peace at home. Because she and the child literally cannot live without him, the lack of daycare means he has all the power in the relationship. Little by little, she changes everything about herself to keep him happy. Little by little, she only allows herself to entertain the thoughts that will keep him happy, because to think anything else is too dangerous. She has gone from being an autonomous human being to being his possession, his slave, with all the rights and privileges of a chair. That is literally how the legal system in this country viewed women until the '90s, and it is why marital rape was legal, because a man can do anything he wants to his possessions.
No support for daycare is a policy decision that is *meant* to get women out of the workforce and reduce them to the level of possessions.
Xlnr. Rural EVERYWHERE is hurting...in ruralPennsyltucky
It just seems so simple…all R legislators would have to do is respond to the needs of their constituents , they would be golden. Forever.
And these same Republicans lament about how "No one wants to work anymore." They completely discount how lack of affordable childcare forces some women to stay home for lack of an alternative, sometimes impoverishing their families as a result.
They are not pro life they are pro birth. And if I’m not mistaken they haven’t actually implemented Medicaid expansion, because of course they know more than their constituents. 🤬