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Joanna Hunter's avatar

You know, I've been on a real tear lately with this idea of a budget being a moral document. Like, if you want to know what a family or a city or a country values, look at what they spend money on. What do they consider "essential"? What are they willing to cut out when times are lean? Obviously this isn't a perfect analogy, particularly when dealing with a household budget, but if we assume for the sake of argument that a given household is able to meet its basic needs, look at what they spend their "extra" money on. Maybe its hobbies or fancy coffee or a vacation. Those choices tell you what that person values, because even if we are assuming that basic needs are being met, money is usually finite. If I have $100 extra dollars this month, I can choose to spend it on a nice blanket or I can donate it to charity. Neither choice makes me a "good person" or a "bad person" but it does tell you what I value right now.

By the same token, when a town decides to close schools for children because covid cases are rising instead of closing bars, that tells you what the town values. Both choices are have costs, financial and otherwise. And both choices tell you what the town finds to be important. If we valued school, we would make it work.

So when I think about what we value as a culture, we clearly do not value women's time. Its like that saying about breastfeeding, "Breast-feeding is only free if a woman's time is worth nothing."

Indeed.

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Antonia Malchik's avatar

All of this, so much. I was literally on a Zoom call with a group of friends last night talking about how close I am to either breaking or walking. I told them I’d been thinking about (probably mostly white) moms in the 60s and 70s who, once they felt they had some window to leave, they did, no matter how much they loved their spouses and kids. Probably the first time I’ve started to feel like I understand how trapped they felt and how few options they had. And no matter how aware I am that the problems I face (which are relatively far less than other moms face) are almost completely systemic, I don’t know what to do about them. Thank you to Jessica Calarco for your research. Reading this might help me not totally fall apart for a while longer 💗

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