by Ann Crittendon
The year 2001 is a rotten year for important books, worse than the usual dreckage. There is little worth reading. The Big
Five--Cheerleaders, infotainers, ultra-liberals, ultra-conservatives and status quo cynics-- have tightened their strangleholds on almost all media. The public is clueless and those who dare mention the publics' cluelessness are attacked with a variety of ad hominems, including being anti-American. If you are not like Homer Simpson or the Big Five, you are hopelessly out of the loops. Paula Poundstone, who asserted no politicians are anti-family, sums up the media attitude. The media are unwilling to see the difference between rhetoric and policies.
Ann Crittendon writes that the work done by mothers is the basic building block of the economy, yet that work is penalized. Mothers do not build up points for Social Security income, though their husbands do, even men who abandon families. Mothers receive smaller pensions than men and the childfree. Married mothers are treated as dependents by the law. There is a huge lifetime income gap between mothers and others.
Crittendon argues that mothers are loved on Mother's Day, yet mistreated and disdained in not so obvious ways. No one puts mothering on her resume. Feminism, more worried about cultural fashions and losing gains in the paid work force, is not helping. Ultra-conservatives merely embrace the ideal of the self-sacrificing mother. The same one-sided slogans get repeated thousands of times. Pro family policies are a hard sell. They face the usual opponents as well as mothers who wear the sucker badge as a badge of honor and wealthy mothers who do not care what the lives of other mothers are like. The situation for mothers in non-Western countries is beyond deplorable.
Unfortunately, Crittendon's recommendations are too general, poorly targeted and not beneficial enough. Among her better recommendations she pushes to:
· "Equalize Social Security for spouses" by giving spouses an equal number of social security credits during marriage.
· Institute child allowances.
· Require spouses to pool their economic resources.
Many of her prescriptions are too socialistic, inflexible, and harmful. Crittendon supports one year of paid maternity or paternity leave or a mix of the two. This is another huge benefit for wealthy parents with little benefit for other parents. Highly paid professionals would get six or seven figure leave while lower income workers would get little. It is too economically inflexible. We would be better off using federal child allowances and the option of unpaid leave. Child policy done at the employer level encourages employers to avoid hiring and promoting parents.
Crittendon claims childcare expenditures be deductible on federal income taxes. This is an inadequate idea. It would primarily benefit the wealthy. We would be better off using vouchers and refundable tax credits for childcare. She says after divorce income should be shared, but this takes no account of fault and post divorce behavior. She argues for universal health care for children and their primary caregiver. Why not universal healthcare for every citizen and legal VISA holder?
A mandatory shorter workweek would be a
disaster. Employees and employers best decide work length. Equal benefits for
part-time workers for the same job is also inflexible. Banning” discrimination
against parents in the workplace" is too open for legal abuse. Separate
tax filing for married persons would be poorly targeted. About half of married
couples do not have minor children and it would mostly benefit wealthier
couples. There are already enough marriage benefits built into the economic
system. "Universal preschool for all three and four year-olds" would
be too expensive and too inflexible. There is little evidence moral or academic
benefit would result from such a policy. Worth skimming.
—book review article by J.T.
Fournier
My Main Page with Links to My Other Book Reviews