Legion of the Banned and Proud: Observations of a Misfit

Stay-at-Home Moms, Working Moms, Single Moms

Filed Under : Kids of All Ages,Pollyticks,Slacker Mom by loretta

Apr.13,2012

The most recent non-controversy ginned up by the political media involves comments by a Democratic “advisor” Hilary Rosen (and who, exactly, defines “advisor”, and to whom does she advise?) regarding the fact that Ann Romney has “never worked a day in her life.” The Romney camp and its surrogates responded with outrage, claiming that this was an affront to stay-at-home mothers, and was, therefore, an attack on Mothers.

I have the rare distinction of having experienced all three of the categories of motherhood: as a stay-at-home mom, briefly, in the early 80s when my first two children were still in diapers; as a working married mom living in a two-income home; and as a single working mom. I can tell you without hesitation that the hardest of these three positions is the single working mom. Hands down, no contest, have a nice day.

The easiest was when I had the toddlers at home, could watch Sesame Street, linger over the menu for dinner, take walks with the kids in a stroller, and look forward to reading or socializing when they went to bed, sometimes as early as 8 pm. These were simple days, compared to what came next: sudden single motherhood.

When I was thrust into the working world (while the youngest was still in diapers), and I had to live on about $800 a month and woefully inadequate child support, my budget was tight. I got up at 6 am, prepared the kids for daycare, drove to the daycare, parked, hopped on a bus downtown (I couldn’t afford to pay for parking); if I was very organized, I packed a lunch. I also went to college at night to finish my degree, so finding babysitters and time to study was a constant challenge.

Even when I had a better job, the years when the kids were in middle school were difficult. They were too old for day camp and too young to stay home alone. I had to hire a series of babysitters who were at turns terrifying, terrified or terrible. There were sporting events, scouts, church events, and other social activities that competed with my work demands; not to mention my love life. The guilt! Oh, the guilt. Guilt, guilt, guilt. I sincerely doubt stay-at-home moms even understand the guilt under which we working moms are buried.

One year I was so broke all the time, I had to live on one meal a day: a baked potato, a salad and a chicken breast. Sometimes I would even get a Frosty from Wendy’s as a big treat on payday. I was so broke, I had to pack snow on my license plate so cops wouldn’t notice that I hadn’t renewed my tags. (I got away with it for 6 weeks until I could afford the renewal.) My kids never went hungry, but I did. Looking back, I wonder how I managed. Maybe I should be a Budget Director!

It’s a little less stressful when you have a partner/spouse to share the economic and domestic burdens. At least someone else can take out the garbage, shuttle a kid to an event, or babysit when you want to hit a few tennis balls once in awhile. Having a partner also eliminates the desolate singles scene (usually), and you might even have enough scratch to buy a house or pay for remodeling, or take a trip. It’s not ideal, but it’s a heckuva lot better than single parenthood.

I’m not disparaging any of the choices women make when they have children. Many of them keep a dozen plates spinning at once, and I have had my moments. However, there is no contest, no comparison, no planetary equivalent between a woman with means raising kids at home with a husband who provides amply versus a single mother reluctantly letting the Village raise her children as she struggles to survive on below-average wages, worrying endlessly about the next time the car breaks down or if the kids get sick and she has to take off work, or how much she can pay on her credit cards that month. Or when her male co-worker gets the promotion or the best accounts because her male boss thinks she is going to have another child or have to take off too much work for her children. The pervasive sexism in the workplace facing single mothers is encyclopedic.

This life is the one that most single mothers, and many working mothers, experience. This is the life to which Ann Romney can never relate.

Tags : Ann Romney, faux outrage, sah moms, war on women, working moms

The Insurance Mandate vs. the Delusion of Self-Insurance

Filed Under : Pollyticks by loretta

Apr.8,2012

From a town hall meeting featuring Rep. Steve King (R-NY), a widely-quoted argument against the health insurance mandate:

What I’ve said is that, in every decade, in every state, there have always been babies that were born, lived, and died, and some of them a long and healthy life, without ever using a dollar worth [sic] of health care expenditures. That would mean that they didn’t engage in interstate commerce with regard to health care.

Bloggers mocking this argument are justified in their astonishment at Steve King’s magical thinking; however, the real issue here is the delusion that one can self-insure without consequence. Taking this silly argument a step further, let’s say you do have an accident, break an ankle (!), or need long-term care when you lose two or three daily living activity functions at age 80 – are you or your family prepared to pay the freight? Never mind the cost of dying without a life insurance policy when you have minor children and a mortgage.

As a life and health insurance agent for the past six years, I can attest that our culture teaches us to avoid insurance, as if insurance is some kind of swindle. In reality, nobody ever hated an insurance company when they received a big, fat check or had their hospital bills paid quickly and painlessly after major medical services. To be self-insured is to be a little insane. You have to hope to either never need health care (unlikely), or have the savings or resources to pay thousands of dollars to health care providers without risking bankruptcy or financial ruin.

The truth is, if I go to an emergency room today without having health insurance, I will be treated. And in two weeks, I’ll get a bill from three or four sources: the radiologist, the lab, the attending physician, and the hospital, that will amount to a few thousand dollars, at least. If I am admitted to the hospital (which I was, in 2001, for an emergency surgery), I will face several huge bills (surgeon, anesthesiologist, lab, hospital, etc.) that I’ll have to pay, or I will be buried in envelopes and eventually hounded by bill collectors. I may face a judgement that will follow me the rest of my life, and my credit score will tank. I will be lucky to negotiate my way out of some of the bills or make arrangements to pay an agreed-upon amount every month until I have satisfied the debt.

Nobody gets free health care – that’s a fallacy. If you refuse to pay for the service, you will have consequences. Only the poorest patients are eventually written off, and they have no credit in the first place, so they have nothing to lose. But, they still get the bills, I assure you!

Therefore, if you take the risk (and insurance is, after all, risk-management) that you will never need health care, or you are prepared to stash away a few hundred thousand dollars in an account in the event you do need it (and if you can afford to do that, you can afford to pay premiums!), then you are betting against astronomical odds, which would make you seem, well, stupid.

It is a common premise that people only buy insurance when there is a “triggering event” – someone young in their family dies suddenly and leaves his family destitute; your elderly mother needs a nursing home and she has to liquidate all her assets to afford it – there goes your inheritance; or a friend comes down with a terrible disease and you think maybe you are not immune from disaster. Even the absolutely worst health insurance policy is better than nothing. The Affordable Care Act has set up exchanges to offer health insurance in more affordable, more competitive ways, yet those opposed to the “mandate” argue that creating affordable insurance is somehow unconstitutional. This is just silly. You can’t have a for-profit health care business with only sick customers. Without the mandate, the insurance companies will drop out of the market. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until only sick people buy insurance!

Tags : insurance mandate, self-insured, steve king

Why Wasn’t Josh Powell Arrested Two Years Ago?

Filed Under : Spouse Murder Theater by loretta

Mar.31,2012

In the last two days, several alarming news stories have appeared detailing the search warrant affidavits applied to Josh Powell and his father, Steven Powell (currently in jail awaiting trial on various pornography and voyeurism charges). The best article that summarizes this new information is from the LA TIMES. Read the whole thing (as they say on the blogs) and we’ll discuss.

Long-time readers of my former blog have followed a number of spousal murder cases, most notably Laci Peterson and Lori Hacking’s, and will notice many similarities to Susan Powell’s “disappearance”. However, unlike in Laci and Lori’s cases, Susan Powell’s body was never found and will likely never be found now that Josh Powell is dead along with the only potential (albeit unreliable) witnesses: his two little boys.

Susan Powell’s parents are understandably outraged and devastated by the news that their son-in-law behaved in ways that were undeniably regarded as consciousness of guilt: the removal of Susan’s cell phone SIM card, removing his own cell phone’s SIM card, lying about his whereabouts, renting a car the day after Susan’s “disappearance” and logging 800 miles on it (and WHY, by the way, were not West Valley Police following him at this point? Have they never had a spousal murder case in that town?!), plus all of the other Petersonesque behavior by Powell in moving out of the house right away, taking his children to Washington state, closing Susan’s bank accounts, and his blatant lack of cooperation with police.

Even if a man shows incredibly suspicious behavior, even if observers and law enforcement know in their guts that Powell was stone cold guilty, even if all the evidence points to a murder, it’s another matter to prove this in a court of law to a jury, especially one in conservative, male-dominated Utah among 99% white conservative Mormons. Had this murder (and we know it was) occurred in New York or California, we may have had a different outcome. We’ve seen murder trials succeed even without the murder victim’s body found. So, why didn’t the DA in Salt Lake City County prosecute? I’m sure this decision will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

When I received the Google alert that Josh Powell blew up his house with his children inside, I felt an overwhelming wave of rage, nausea and despair. This was one of the worst spousal murder cases I have ever followed, and the more we learn about it, the angrier I become.

It really doesn’t matter anymore if Josh is convicted in absentia. The DA may now pursue a case to save face, but the damage is done. Those poor little boys are gone, their mother will never have justice, and the Cox family may never recover from the blow. Perhaps we can obtain some satisfaction if Steven Powell is convicted of all charges and imprisoned for life, but even that won’t make up for the unforgivable part he played as an accessory to this horrific crime.

I think the DA should have prosecuted even with the weak circumstantial case she had against Josh. Charging Josh would have sent those boys to their grandparents months earlier, removing them from the Powell household and its damaging influence. It would have eliminated Josh’s ability to plot his murder/suicide and perhaps saved those boys, even if Josh was acquitted (which I don’t think he would have been). It was worth the risk.

The New Misogyny

Filed Under : Kids of All Ages,Pollyticks by loretta

Mar.13,2012

For the past few weeks, those of us who are paying attention to cable TV news and the internet have been bombarded with outrageous stories about Rush Limbaugh shaming a law student, Republican lawmakers creating laws that impose improper and unreasonable barriers to women’s reproductive choices, and, most alarming of all, serious discussions about banning birth control.

Like millions of other women who grew up in the 60s, I’m no stranger to rampant misogyny, but this latest attack is a surprise, not only because it seems like a non-starter politically, but because it looks like a stunning act of cowardice and spite by a minority of frustrated white men.

Hey, I’m not ashamed to admit I wish I had been born a boy…just because you won’t. Back in the 70s when boys looked like girls and girls looked androgynous, I was mistaken for a boy a few times in the girls’ locker room at the local swimming pool. Some little girl would point to me and call out to her mother, “Mom! There’s a BOY in here!” I had short hair, wore baggy t-shirts and cut-offs like every other girl in the neighborhood. Ok, I had an ironing board shape and a lanky build, so it wasn’t that crazy. At first, I was insulted, but then I decided this might prove amusing, so I played a little game to see how often I could pass myself off as a boy. I even called myself “Adam.” Sometimes I had to get my little sister or a friend to play along, but it worked. A lot. I even won a few bets.

By the time I was 16, I didn’t want to look like a boy anymore, but I still didn’t have any…curves. One of my first jobs was at the Brown Derby where I was a “salad girl” back when salad bars were all the rage. (By the way, there are no salad bars at Applebee’s). I wore the same uniform as the bus boys, but the job was harder than being a bus boy, because I also had to cook, and I got paid about half since I didn’t get any tips. One day this huge 300-pound man was standing in front of the salad bar piling on the fixings as if he hadn’t eaten in…oh, about an hour, and I had to get by. I’m standing behind him struggling with these 40-pound crocks, asking in my most polite voice, “Excuse me, sir, can I get in there?” I asked at least four times and finally I nudged him a little with my elbow. He whirled around, grabbed my arm, nearly knocking me over, and said, “Look here, Sonny! I’m gettin’ my salad!”

Sonny?! I mustered up my courage and said, “I’m not your SONNY! I’m a girl! And I need to get in there!” He looked a little embarrassed, but he didn’t apologize. This was just one of many lessons I’d learn about what it was like to be a girl in a man’s world, feminism be damned. Not much has changed, has it? The lawmakers who are facing push-back from their female constituents seem a little embarrassed, but they don’t apologize. Read More…