We knew that the sexual revolution was our fault, but apparently we’re to blame for illegal immigration, too.
The insight shows up in a vignette about Arlene, an “undocumented nanny.”
She not only takes care of the kids, the paper notes, but “she’ll make breakfast, change diapers and keep up with afternoon play dates … wash your laundry, clean the apartment and cook dinner for you when you get home.” Says Arlene: “The parents really depend on it. … We literally make it possible for them to work.”Them? No, Arlene makes it possible for the mother to work. The “underground economy” is actually the backbone of the three-career family: working Dad, working Mom and working Nanny. In other words, defending the illegal economy isn’t just an expression of the To-the-McMansion-Born attitude of the nouveau riche. There is also the strong possibility that the more affluent sector of society — the dual-income family of the upper-middle class — couldn’t exist without it.
That’s right: It’s not about both parents. Hiring a childcare worker allows mom to work, not dad — he’d be entitled to do that either way. That’s what kills me about this argument. It’s simply assumed that dad works, while if mom does it it’s a privilege (and she’s probably being selfish for doing it).
The impact of immigration law enforcement, then, goes beyond national security and cultural identity: It goes to the heart of the American family. Without the “undocumented nanny” to fall back on, many middle-class parents would have to stay home. Such a shift would have untold repercussions, not least of which would be on the little one. Without two-career parental largesse, he might actually grow into the kind of teenager who is willing to work hard and cheap — busing tables, washing cars, working construction and cutting grass. In short, the model young citizen.
Yup, working mothers create lazy children, who in turn refuse to do hands-on hard-labor jobs, which have to then be filled by illegal immigrants. If we stopped illegal immigration, women would be forced to stay home with their kids, and forcing women to do things that they don’t really want to do is just dandy. And women who are forced to stay home will somehow produce model children.
Of course, we don’t really touch on the whole class issue here. Diana West completely ignores the fact that lots of women work because they have to, not because they’re selfish bitches who want their children to grow up to be deviants. But that isn’t who we’re talking about here (remember, at Townhall we only talk about low-income women when we’re complaining about the lazy entitled blacks and the cheating welfare moms). No, this is about those women who live in suburban McMansions with rich husbands and still have the audacity to work — usually in careers, no less, and not just “jobs.”
So if only mom would stay home, her kids would be good citizens who would do the jobs that are currently held by illegal immigrants (apparently wealthy American teenagers are perfectly happy to pick grapes for 10 hours a day at less than minimum wage), and illegal immigration wouldn’t be a problem. It’s the pat conservative answer: When all else fails, blame women.
So.
Why isn’t she blaming the influx of illegal immigration on men who hire Mexican gardeners to do the yardwork for them?
Hee, zuzu.
This argument of hers certainly only takes a certain class into perspective. My mother worked, and we didn’t have a “nanny”–I went to daycare just like the majority of kids in my area today. My daycare provider was an older (white) woman whose kids were grown up and who worked out of her home. She was retired at that point, but still had to work to support herself.
You know, she’s right. I had a stay-at-home mom, and I’d be perfectly satisfied as a dishwasher. It’s the whole reason I’m going to law school…
Never flipped a burger in my life, sorry. Spent my high school summers working at a bookstore. And sneaking a book off the shelf to read in the break room on slow days. Heheh.
What the hell? Most of the people I knew growing up had parents who worked. And most of us either worked part-time in high school, to support car habits or save for college, or at least did lots of work around home (what I did, cause ain’t no way I was going to work at McD’s or Wendy’s, and my parents paid me a bit for my work around home).
There’s nothing new about rich people hiring nannies. The difference is that rich women today are more likely to work, instead of spending their time hosting dinner parties or organizing society functions.
Because the number of people who can afford to hire a full time nanny is so much greater than the number of people who can afford to pay for a couple hours of yardwork every week that there’s no point in even mentioning it.
If all the women stayed home, who is going to be teaching? How in the world would they find enough nurses? Not to mention all the other jobs that women do — those two sprang immediately to mind.
I suppose they could put undocumented workers into THOSE positions, and we women could do our own lawns and construction. But hey! We’d be home and in our places!
My parents both worked. I babysat for my sister after school so that Mom could do that, actually (there’s a seven-year age difference between us). And their careers kept us middle-class but not “lazy.”
Also – my brother had a job as a cashier in town. And he’s the one who got busted for pot. I’m sure that disqualifies him as a “model young citizen.”
Funny, I thought that both parents had to work to pay for those 3 car garage homes, the cars that go in them (you know the Hummer and the Lexus), the grown up toys that the family enjoys on the weekends, the ski trips, the yearly vacations to Disney World or some such…you get the idea.
And if you are scratching your head going “there are families that have all that stuff” then I guess you probably belong to the group where both parents have to work just to make ends meet every month.
This author is hardly the first women to mention this phenomena. I seem to recall a contemporary feminist University professor mentioning this phenomena.(I’ll find & link) That so much of upper class feminism relies on a brown labor pool to successfully achieve the work/childcare quandary feminism presupposes. I would not go as far as saying illegal immigration is the fault of feminism. But of coarse, neither does the author.
Hmmm, both of my parents worked, and I was one of those “model young citizen”s who worked hard and cheap – specifically busing tables and working construction. (And this was in the Central Valley of California, a hotbed of the “illegal immigrant problem”, yet I had no problem getting these jobs that the illegals were supposedly taking away from us.)
Having a working mother was probably the most important factor in my having developed a strong work ethic. It taught me I had to earn whatever I got. Thanks, Mom.
I seem to recall a contemporary feminist University professor mentioning this phenomena.(I’ll find & link)
That’s why I’ve always thought that feminists should avoid labor activism that disproportionately singles out childcare and domestic work. Because ultimately the women (not the men) who hire these workers get blamed for not doing “their own” housework. I’ve never heard of anyone blaming upper-class men for not picking their own fruit.
Plenty of radical feminists, particularly radical feminists of color, particularly radical feminists whose theories are explicitly informed by Marxist analysis, have questioned the revolutionary potential of women entering the workforce in terms described here.
There is, however, a huge difference between saying, “Self-described feminists are willing to sell out poorer women and women of color for the sake of their careers” and “Feminism argues for the systematic fucking over of poorer women and women of color.” The “illegal economy” is not the fault of women with careers, and it sure as hell didn’t begin when The Feminine Mystique was published. It’s the product of centuries of devaluation of certain kinds of extremely valuable work. Men in similar class circumstances benefit from it now and have all along; the only reason this particular sector of the “illegal economy” is receiving greater attention is because the author thinks she can blame it on women and women alone.
The false dichotomy premised by the author illustrates her sexist double standard and her own inability to think radically. Either an au pair or a housewife; never cooperative responsibility–and never dignity, security, or a real income for any of the workers she describes. Why is it better to turn these career women back into a crap-pay labor pool? How is that system less exploitative or punishing? Why do they deserve that treatment any more than the “undocumented nanny” whose life this asshole is pretending to give a damn about?
Thank you so much for admitting the TRUTH: it’s all women’s fault , because they (you) have gone against your true nature. Moreover, you have made it necessary to drive the real wages of working men down by importing cheap labor.
Are you ashamed yet?
If housekeeping is a part of my true nature, how come my apartment is always so damn messy?
Not just the men who hire gardeners, but any contractors. Hire a crew to put in your patio, and while the boss is likely legal, the crew is likely illegal. Move, and that crew that shows up with your moving truck (from your perfectly legal and well-known commercial moving firm) is likely illegal day laborers. Hire contractors to plumb, to hang drywall, to do electrical–same thing. It’s a perfectly legal business, good review in the BBB and on local boards, but it’s likely that the majority of their “employees” (mainly day-to-day workers) are illegal.
I’ve been looking into daycare, and looking at nannies, and what I’ve found is that the majority of them are not immigrants. There’s a lot of older, white women and twenty-somethings putting together money for college.
It’s just one syllable off, which is driving me crazy, but everytime I see the title to this post, I keep hearing “Blame Canada” from the South Park movie.
Dude, that’s the point!!
I’m glad someone got it. In hindsight, “Blame Feminists” would have worked better…
I think you might have titled it, “And that bitch Anne Murray too!”
Diana West is a big fat bitch,
she’s the biggest bitch in the whole wide world…
I’ll stop now.