Women Leaving the Workplace

Larry Burkett in Women Leaving the Workplace has a chapter called "What a Working Mother is Worth. " There is so many angles to this. I hope you read his book. Here is a little of what he says, "If we assume the median income of a working mother is $14,500, that means a net return of slightly more than $300 per month for her labor. Based on a 40-hour work week, a working mother nets about $2 per hour (average) for her time! "

"Forget the child labor laws; we have mothers who are working for Third World wages to support our tax system, child care providers, and new car dealers. "

"If that same working mother were available to use her services at home to reduce the family 's food bills, shop at discount stores and garage sales for the kid 's clothes, and reduce her family 's income into a lower tax bracket, it is quite possible that she would net more savings for her family than the income she generates. ... I was sincerely impressed with the ingenuity of many of the women who responded to our survey, particularly as it concerns reducing family expenses. One mother said that she had worked out a plan with her family doctor (and later the dentist) in which he would accept her services in the form of redeemable coupons for child care. "

In an article "in the Chicago Tribune, financial analyst Michael Englung of the MMS International, a San Francisco forecasting firm, noted that even in families where the primary wage earner makes $100,000 and the secondary wage earner makes $50,000, nearly 80 percent of the second income is consumed in taxes, child care, and transportation. "

"That seems a pretty pathetic return for the demands an employer makes on a $50,000-a-year employee, especially a mother. "

"Another interesting side note was reported in U.S. News & World Report. A Loyola University five-year study found that husbands whose wives stayed home received 20 percent higher raises than men whose wives worked. " I could on and on. He gives other examples of studies showing how it usually isn 't worth it for the wife to work financially and studies show men whose wives stay home earn more money than men whose wives work. I wish I could go into all the nuances of all the arguments on this and every idea in this book. I can only direct you to some of the books that I have learned from. One more quick note about Burkett 's book on finance. He goes into a detailed analysis of what it would cost to replace all the services of a wife and it comes out a minimum of $26,000 a year. This is for a live in nanny, housekeeper and private tutor. He says many affluent families he talked to can 't get reliable domestic help at any price.

Romantic lifestyle

Helen Andelin says that a woman staying home is the ultimate romantic life. It brings "soul satisfaction," but when the wife works and when men see other women excelling him in the marketplace it breaks his heart, "Picture, if you can, a mother at home nurturing her little ones, making a comfortable home for her family; the father goes out into the world, struggling against the elements and oppositions of life to bring home the necessities and comforts for his loved ones. This romantic scene, instead of being taken for granted, should be viewed as the heart and core of life which, when lived properly, brings soul satisfaction that cannot be measured. There is nothing to equal it and nothing more important. "

"A man also has an inborn need to feel needed as a provider, to feel that his wife depends on him for financial support and can't get by without him. In addition, he has an inborn need to excel women as a provider. A man's feeling of worth can be undermined when he sees women in the work force doing a better job than he, advancing to a higher position, or earning more pay. How much worse when his own wife excels him."

Maria Shriver

Maria Shriver is the wife of Arnold Schwartzenegger. In an article, "Maria Shriver Changes Priorities," Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph TV Guide, July 10-16, 1994 she said, "There can't be a relationship where two people are working to make changes in the world. Something has to give. Someone has to be focused on the kids. I think Arnold has made some changes in his life, but one of us had to be flexible enough to be there for our kids all the time."

This insane idea that women can bring home the bacon and cook it too completely breaks down if a woman has many children. Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of Israel, lost her marriage and did not have many children. Margaret Thatcher practiced birth control because a woman cannot have a career and have lots of kids. Father commands UC women to have as many children as they can have. He has said four is a minimum but more than 10 children is better and he often mentions the number 12, "Heavenly sons and daughters should live more happily than anyone else, and should bear more children than people in the satanic realm. Maybe twelve children will be average for you. Continuously give birth to children. Unification Church members cannot practice birth control. You should bear more than ten children."

Father loves the family. He loves children. He criticizes America for not having more children, "Many Americans think they don't need children. But if they would deepen their conjugal love by rearing children, there would be less divorce. They live in false love instead of true love by leaving out children, and repeatedly divorce. The ethics of American society are declining due to this bad trend." Those couples that cannot have children should adopt from third world countries. Why don't we have a church adoption agency to get some of the 40,000 children who die of starvation in third world countries every day into American and UC homes? If a sister can't or won't physically have many children then that couple should adopt until they bring the number to 12 or more. If those 12 children each had 12 children that would give 144 grandchildren. If each of them had 12 children then there would be around 2000 great grandchildren. This is enough for a city with its own school, hospital and graveyard. If the entire UC would adopt on a massive scale, it would have millions of members in just two generations. We should go beyond this world and have huge families. Benjamin Franklin was the 15th of 17 children. Why not adopt to bring our families up to 20 children. If we live as trinities we could do it easily.

Woman 's role: homeschool

Another reason to keep women out of the market place is because their role is to do homeschooling. Father commands all brothers to provide and all sisters to stay home and teach their children: "School education should take place in the family, where the mother renders heartistic education and the father renders intellectual education. However, since fathers must work in order to take care of the family" they must depend on their wives. The man, he says, is the "king" of his castle and the woman is to "attend" her husband and teach the children, "Women should be the central figures to attend their husbands, who are the kings of their families, and become the teachers of true love by rearing children to be future kings." He says, "When a husband looks tired after working, she should prepare water to wash his face, and toothpaste and toothbrush to brush his teeth, and she should be able to wash his feet and comb his hair."

Common Sense

Father wants to abolish centralized education and return to the early days of America where people really got educated before it became socialized. One book on homeschooling gives this insight: "In 1790, it was still possible to get an education in the U.S. One dramatic evidence of that was that Tom Paine 's Common Sense sold 600,000 copies in that year to a population of two and a quarter million, three-quarters of it slaves and indentured servants. Almost nobody has the skill to read Common Sense today, even though its language is simple and powerful. "

"In 1790 school didn 't preempt all the time of the young in endless abstractions, nor did it act as the major destabilizer of family life then, nor did it disseminate a river of half-truths and state-approved myths so that its clientele were turned servile and mindless. "

"Alexis de Tocqueville said in 1831 that the common people of America were the best educated in the history of the world. That was before we had a government monopoly in schooling -- does anyone think he 'd say that again? "

Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to a friend on March 14, 1818 telling him some of his ideas on homeschooling. In it he says, "I thought it essential to give them a solid education, which might enable them, when they become mothers, to educate their own daughters, and even to direct the course for sons, should their fathers be lost, or incapable, or inattentive. My surviving daughter accordingly, the mother of many daughters as well as sons, has made their education the object of her life, and being a better judge of the practical part than myself, it is with her aid and that of one of her elves, that I shall subjoin a catalogue of the books for such a course of reading as we have practiced. "

He goes on to write about the value of women 's work in the home saying, "I need say nothing of household economy, in which the mothers of our country are generally skilled, and generally careful to instruct their daughters. We all know its value, and that diligence and dexterity in all its processes are inestimable treasures. The order and economy of a house are as honorable to the mistress as those of the farm to the master, and if either be neglected, ruin follows, and children destitute of the means of living. " In another letter Jefferson listed some characteristics of a lady: "possessing good sense, good humor, honest hearts, honest manners...music, modesty, and that softness of disposition, which is the ornament of her sex and charm of ours. " When he was traveling through France he wrote, "I observe women and children carrying heavy burdens, and laboring with the hoe .... Men, in a civilized country, never expose their wives and children to labor above their force and sex. " By that definition, we are living in an uncivilized society.

Mary Pride is one of the most famous writers on home schooling. Your public library probably has her books in the reference section. My local library has them. They are full of resources and ideas on how to do it. Larry Burkett has written an excellent book giving many insights into the process of leaving the workplace and staying home. In his chapter on homeschooling he has many great ideas and lists many resources. He lists many books on other aspects of staying at home. Burkett is founder and president of Christian Financial Concepts, a best-selling author of over 40 books on business and personal finances, and hosts two radio programs broadcast on hundreds of stations worldwide. He had Mary Pride on once talking about homeschooling. He says, "Mrs. Pride was expecting her ninth child when she appeared on 'Money Matters. '... Some parents aren 't sure they could handle being with children all day; but, they may be more suited for the task than they realize. 'I think it 's probably those parents who think their kids would drive them crazy who ought to do the most, ' said homeschooling expert Mary Pride on CFC 's 'Money Matters ' radio program. 'They haven 't dealt with a lot of issues in their children 's lives, and they 're just letting them get worse and worse by shoving it under the rug and sending them away from home as much as possible to summer camp and after-school activities. Homeschooling provides, if nothing else, an intensive environment in which you can get to know your children well. " My feeling is that it is too hard for most women to homeschool children all alone and still do all the other things. Women need to live in a community and share teaching and babysitting the infants. More on this in the chapter on communities.

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