Who is 'chopped-liver'? A housewife or a working wife? Who is to be preferred? One-income or two-income marriages? This last forty years, we have promoted working couples while leaving single-income marriages to fend for themselves. It should be the other way around. Single-income marriages deserve support. I propose to replace child allowances with a HOMEMAKER ALLOWANCE. The strengthening of the family. And the restoration of middle-class society.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Case For A Homemaker Allowance

As an unpublished writer, I drove taxi in Vancouver for twenty years. During the Christmas rush one year, I picked up an elderly lady from a downtown store where she had just worked a twelve hour shift. She was exhausted! She recalled how in the Sixties, she had worked part-time one Christmas 'to buy her daughter a cashmere sweater'. Thirty years later, she was working full-time year-round to pay the bills. What had happened? She still lived in the same house. Where had it all gone?

The real value of wages has been cut in half since the Sixties. Where a man's wage supported a family, now two incomes are needed. We went from a system of single-income marriages to working couples with no corresponding rise in the standard of living. When the wife's income was added to the man's for mortgage purposes, the price of housing went through the roof; and the second income became a necessity.  Just a mug's game!


Somehow we have to recover that all-important principle of the single-income marriage. We have to choose between breadwinner and homemaker (B&H) marriages and working couples.
This last forty years, we have promoted working couples while leaving single-income marriages to fend for themselves. It should be the other way around.

The Australian govt now gives $200 a week to working couples to defray their daycare costs but not to single-income couples. That's nonsense! Single-income couples deserve support. Working couples are a turkey~~ They ain't gonna fly!~~ no matter how much support they are given.  If we gave a fraction of the support to B&H couples, we might get off the ground.


Working couples are always the hallmark of a disadvantaged life-style: exploited women, abused children, neglected seniors and marginalised men. Whereas B&H marriages mean a self-respecting middle-class life style. 

The problem is, Working couples are good for the economy. Women are cheap labour in the corporate view, undermining the unions. And denied proper homes, two-income marriages spend more on consumer goods. Working couples represent the corporate interest; B&H marriages the public interest. Which is more important? The economy? Or peoples' lives? Working couples assume an arm's length relationship between men and women; B&H marriages assume a close partnership. Different kinds of people living different kinds of lives in different kinds of society. B&H marriages mean worthwhile lives. Working couples are Desperation City: virtual peonage.


One of my last rides when I was driving taxi was an old lady whose ancient mum had suffered a stroke and had to be institutionalised, because the daughter could not care for her financially, which both mother and daughter found devastating. We as a society can find the money for institutional care, $1000+ per day, when we cannot find the money to help a daughter care for her mother. Those are our collective values, or corporate values, or Feminist values, or media values, whichever you prefer.

My preferred solution is a homemaker allowance: not just for the money but for the recognition. It is a little ThankYou to housewives mainly for their contribution. (It used to be called a housewives' allowance, but 'housewife' is now a dirty word.) I envisage an allowance of a few hundred dollars a month for a basic homemaker, with increments for any children and dependents she (or he) may maintain.

So for starters notice, a homemaker allowance is not just another entitlement: It will mainly be existing child benefits repackaged and renamed. But childless B&H couples will receive the allowance, while working couples will receive no public support, even if they have children.

We can't just order love and happiness. That's the problem! The things we value most cannot be legislated. We can't legislate functioning families. People cannot be legally obligated to get along as breadwinners and homemakers. We can't ban working couples even: It would discourage marriage. We want to encourage marriage and family life, but we don't want to encourage working couples. That's how a homemaker allowance fits in.

Given the choice, many women~~possibly a majority~~would prefer to be homemakers with perhaps a part-time job for themselves. So the first function of the allowance is to make homemaking a viable option for the maximum number of women. Only financial necessity drives women to seek full-time work in many cases. And a homemaker allowance sets our priorities straight. It restores the element of choice to many women: whether to seek part-time or full-time work, or be full-time homemakers.

Anything women want, men feel obliged to give to them. If women want equality in the workplace, men bend over backwards to accomodate them. The problem arises when women want contradictory objects, or when they want to give away the farm. Then men must straighten up, and point out that women also want nice homes and strong family relationships: which are incompatible with equality in the workplace. And the mass entry of women into the workforce means the end of the living wage and reduced wages for everyone.

The position of women in the workforce cannot be legislated because it has no object. For men to compete with each other is a general good: The winners get the females and pass on their superior genes. Men work to provide for their women and be attractive as partners; women work so as not to need partners. Employment masculinises: It completes men and straightens out their lives, but represents a dead end for women. It turns a boy into a man but a girl into a 'female eunuch', as Feminists say. A girl in her twenties with a govt job is looking at seventy years of financial security~~ not to be risked having children. That's more a lifetime's frustration than fulfilment.

The fulfilment of the individual is the ultimate goal. Fulfilled alpha males expect to protect and provide for their women; beta males want to be seen with girls. Fulfilled females expect to support their men; beta females want to play with boys. The alphas are empowered as breadwinners and homemakers~~ the betas don't want the alphas empowered. A homemaker allowance is a recipe for decent society~~ the betas don't believe in decent society. They believe in Number One. And a breadwinner and homemaker are not two Number Ones: They seek fulfilment not in themselves but in a relationship with the other. And that is outside the comprehension of regressive types.

The age of full employment is over: Job shortages are the norm. We cannot hope for one good job per person, but we could achieve one good job per family. A homemaker allowance means a policy of good homes; well-raised children; living wages for breadwinners; homemakers steered into part-time work; singles doing 'voluntary' work as a condition of employment; and working couples marginalised, and eliminated from the public sector. Personal completion. Social and economic reform. The restoration of the middle class. And an end to Feminism.


WHENCE THE WHEREWITHAL?


A homemaker allowance is a major entitlement. Where is the money coming from?

* For starters, it is not yet another entitlement: a homemaker allowance will replace existing child and family allowances. At-home wives will receive the allowance whether or not they have children, but not working couples with children.

* Most daycare will be provided by homemakers rather than by expensive professional centres. As noted above, the Australian govt now gives $200 a week to working couples but not to single-income couples. That's favouring the corporate interest over the public interest!

* Most homecare for the elderly and infirm would be provided by homemakers. Instead of institutional care costing $1000+ per day, the going rate, homemakers would be supported in their care for invalids.

* Spousal benefits for working spouses can be rethought: Only homemakers are entitled to survivors' pensions. If women want equality in the workplace, they must lose their husbands' pensions. (Similarly surviving husbands of course, but they're hardly an issue. Women live longer than men, and marry older men with greater incomes, so the net result is a massive transference of funds in favour of working wives.) A homemaker allowance should mean the end to that kind of double-dipping.

So the net cost of the allowance could be positive, depending on how it is implemented. And it could be administered through existing unemployment agencies, with no need for a new bureaucracy. The potential for savings is considerable.

Govt programmes like education, health care and old age pensions define the terms of our existence. So a homemaker allowance says what kind of people we want to be, in what kind of world. It is a blueprint for an empowered middle-class society. We can live in a sustainable society based on B&H marriages and one good job per family~~ Or we can try living on credit in a dysfunctional society based on working couples, low wages and ever-rising house prices. We all know which path we took; and where it has landed us. The question is, How do we get out of the mess!


Updated: January 2012
This essay is now ready for publication
Anyone interested should contact me

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Homemaker Allowance....Postscript



WHAT'S WRONG WITH FEMINISM?


Feminism is a try-on. Feminists know they are asking for something that does not belong to them; but if we're fool enough to give it to them, they're fool enough to take it. The fault is ours if we let them get away with it. Shysters don't have to be men.

To recap. Before Feminism, wages and benefits were based on men as breadwinners, and women as homemakers, in single-income households. Men had a right to high wage jobs not as men but as breadwinners with wives and families to support. By definition, a 'living wage' is sufficient to support a couple and their immediate family. A high wage economy assumes breadwinner and homemaker marriages. No way may a husband and wife each be entitled to a couple's wage.

The Feminists and the corporate media are giving us the runaround. Female labour is as generally socially-undesirable as child labour. Just because a child can do a job~~ and wants to do a job~~ is no reason why the child should do the job; if it disrupts their development and social environment, and takes the job from someone in greater need.


How did they get away with it? Because Feminism fitted the corporate agenda.


WHO QUALIFIES?

A homemaker allowance is applicable to China and Chad and Czechoslovakia, so I don't wish to get into details because they will vary. And it isn't my forte. There is a grey area as to who will qualify. Single mothers? Retirees? I don't know! The important point is a plain housewife with a breadwinner husband will get the allowance, even if childless, whereas working couples will NOT qualify, even those with children. Barbara Bush will get the allowance but not Hilary Clinton. The rest is secondary.

I don't have an administrative brain; but as a writer, my approach would be to start with the core idea of a breadwinner and homemaker defining each other~~ a homemaker supports a breadwinner who supports the homemaker~~ and carry on from there. Should a widowed homemaker continue to receive the allowance? I can't imagine her being denied.

MY biggest problem with a homemaker allowance is... How to work in family businesses... husband and wife running a cafe... the private farm worked by a farmer and his wife. These are the founding concept of a breadwinner and homemaker! They have to be worked in somehow. I don't see how. But so what? I don't have an administrative brain.

TWO KEY CRITERIA that I can see are a) a homemaker must make a home for someone else, not necessarily a breadwinner, but not just for themselves; and b) a homemaker must not compete in the workforce for full-time work, but only for part-time work

So single mothers I expect would usually qualify for a homemaker allowance, even though they aren't connected with breadwinners. A single black mother~~ the classic conservative bogeyman~~ would rather receive the allowance and help in finding a part-time job than receive welfare and be pressured into finding full-time work. It's no skin off the public's nose: It's the same money! But to the mother, it means self-respect. The children still need homes.

Once the allowance starts, there is no way of knowing where it will end up. Unemployment insurance now covers pregnancy leave, which is miles from the original intention!

Speaking of pogey... A homemaker allowance could be administered through existing unemployment insurance agencies, as part of their mandate to get people into suitable employment... which includes getting mums out of full-time and into part-time work. No new bureaucracy may be needed.


PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM


The govt service should be an examplar of the best employment practices. Since Feminism, it has become the sleaziest employer in town.

It was never allowed before Feminism for a husband and wife each to have govt jobs. Dropping that rule allowed the public sector to double up~~ They found jobs for each other's wives!~~ and govt workers went from an honest middle class to a privileged elite. Public sector wages and benefits were set in the Sixties at old-style levels sufficient to maintain a family, and have been upgraded for inflation ever since; and unlike the private sector, new public sector jobs kick in at old-style wage levels. So working couples each with govt jobs are astronomically over-paid.

Several managers have told me~~ and it stands to reason~~ an old-style breadwinner husband with a wife and kids to support cannot be employed in the public sector today. He makes everyone else feel uncomfortable. The singles and working couples have taken something that belongs to him.

I work out in a big public fitness centre with a staff of several hundred, about half-half single men and unmarried childless women. The unmarried childless manageress has eliminated all visibly sexually complete people. Across the service sector, this kind of unfulfilled female resentment is becoming an issue.

And women law graduates before Feminism were hot. Today they are useless: unemployable in the private sector. They don't like to do the 'voluntary' work necessary to get into middle management. So they clutter up the Crown Counsel's office. And the administration of justice has become a govt make-work project for otherwise unemployable female law graduates.

(Unlike England, Canada does not use unpaid magistrates: There is no bedrock of good sense and civic responsibility in the Canadian system. There were riots in London and Vancouver last year. The rioters in London were dealt with and put behind bars within weeks. Here in Vancouver, it is still being debated whether to televise the trials. Unpaid magistrates have moral authority.)

And in the liquor stores, another big operation here in BC, single men and childless women preponderate: nary a breadwinner in sight. And the girls don't like to handle security, so it gets contracted out, and there is professional security everywhere. I don't call that doing the job! The liquor stores could easily have men as breadwinners doing the shipping/ stocking/ security on a full-time basis, with women as homemakers working the tills on a part-time basis. Which incidentally makes for a more satisfying work environment.

So Public Sector Reform means a) men as breadwinners prioritised for the full-time jobs and b) women as homemakers prioritised for part-time work. They would be implicit in a homemaker allowance, with the occasional exception.

But also c) veterans prioritised and d) private sector experience to count as a qualification.

The public sector has to be honest, and to be seen as honest

NOT a life-style option


SEXUAL SATISFACTION


The only people who are happy in a non-sexual environment are 'faggots and fag hags', as they call each other: pre-sexual juveniles who are stuck (usually temporarily) in the kindergarten stage of development. They love the boy/ girl relationship. They love supervision as an end. Everyone else wants to grow up, and prefers separate reciprocating gender roles.

Sex is natural.


THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA


The media have promoted Feminism since the Fifties. For whatever reason. Perhaps they are anal-period retards who believe in symbols. Or they are lackeys doing the bidding of their corporate masters. Or they are collaborationists psyched-out by the ludicrous number of Jews in the media. Or they are cowards courageously defending powerful interests: govt workers and property values. Or they are harlots who have acquired power without responsibility. Or they are an illicit ruling class deriving their power from their exclusive manipulation of the symbols, like the church in the dark ages. Or they are servant class oiks expecting to be made to be responsible. If they screw up, it's not their fault: They're not responsible! And you can probably think of other reasons~~ Which all amount to the same thing. The higher thinking of the media is compromised, leaving their juvenile stuff undisturbed. They DETEST adult men and women.

Simple explanations are usually best.


The Feminists fucked the alpha males off the face of the earth, and the runts in the media can't stop sniggering: Yippee for Feminism!


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The definition of marriage as a husband and wife~~ on which society was always based~~ is valid only as an approximation to the breadwinner and homemaker idea. Men had a right to high-wage jobs as breadwinners; and wives enjoyed spousal benefits as homemakers. It was outrageous for women as singles and 2nd-wage earners~~ neither breadwinners nor homemakers~~ to be allowed both rights. That is where we went wrong. And where we get back on track.

If you want a screaming row, we could make a legal distinction between structured B&H marriages and '2nd rate' companionative marriages. Or we could opt for an easy partial administrative solution. A homemaker allowance means a bureaucracy, records, regulations and procedures. To qualify for spousal benefits for example, you would have to prove you were in a supportive relationship with a breadwinner spouse. And the usual proof would be that you were receiving the homemaker allowance. There may be other proofs. But that should solve the problem for most purposes.


About Me

The same age, height, weight and initials as Cassius Clay, your favourite great uncle was born a Capricorn in the Year of the Snake. (Am I ever wise!) He has a good honours degree from an ancient British university. If you believe in symbols, kneel! In reality he has a lower second BA in geography from Durham. You may rise! (I don't make the rules!) He dropped out in the late Sixties to write up an insight (because I couldn't take to any work routine) and spent his entire life on the project. It was quite unpublishable. It used the idea of a Dual Brain to hold together the conflict between symbol and reality, right and good. Pounded by the hammers of rejection, we came to conclude the best hope for mankind lay in a homemaker allowance. So blog it!