This coming Thursday I am testifying before the U.S. House in Washington DC for TANF re-authorization. This is the re-visiting of what is supposed to be done for (mostly) low income families in order to provide them with support when they have nowhere else to turn. In essence it is not doing the job ~ worse TANF funding is also being used as a slush fund in my state(WA)and many other states to destroy low income families and harvest low income kids for adoption.
More over the fold ...
In the following link you can see Page 13 of this study where it shows in living color that over 1000 X more money is being spent to take children and adopt them than is being used for family preservation: http://www.childtrends.org/... . Even though study after study shows kids who stay within their own families do better than foster care and adoption and it is far less expensive than devastating low income families and their kids by tearing them apart. States get on average of taking kids around $50,000 per child to take them and get absolutely nothing to return them home. The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform has some dire statistics and briefings that has shocked and angered me about what they call, "The Foster Care Industrial Complex"
Much of this is because of the lack of respect for families and women's work and no concept for what this work does for our communities. If motherwork was respected as it should be, low income families would get the support they needed. There would be little need to take kids away and adopt them out. There would be no need for the "Foster Care Industrial Complex",a heueueueuge industry living off the backs of kids and their low income families.
I am a post-feminist (one of the first in the 1970s) who believes motherwork (care giving) should be respected more than it is for all classes of women, not just the poor. If a mother were paid a livable wagein my state she would earn over $135,000.00
According to labor statistics however, women lose on the average of $500,000 dollars in wages over a lifetime because they are also the major caregivers in this country First to their children, then to their parents, and finally to their spouses. As I say in my speech, if they had to create institutions to do all the work this unpaid labor achieves, it would cost us trillions more in taxes.
I am a little scared but hope I have a worthwhile message. Here is what I will be reading before the Ways and Means Committee briefing:
Catherine Sullivan
Parents Organizing for Welfare and Economic Rights (P.O.W.E.R)
http://www.oly-wa.us/...
Postiion for Consideration ; TANF Re-authorization
February 25th, 2010
I am a lifelong low income worker and Welfare recipient. Over the past 35 years I have struggled to provide for my family while working low paying jobs. Because of this work, I am also an activist for low income parents whom I do not want to live what my family has lived. Take me and multiply me by millions.
If there is one life lesson I have learned, it is that this paid work did not support us. Worse, my children went without a parent while we struggled to make ends meet. It taught me that my parenting job was far more important than saying, "Do you want fries with that?" Yet my society tells millions of women who spend a great deal of their lives caring for others, this care giving is "doing nothing" important for society. When in fact this caregiving is saving billions in tax dollars and preparing for our country’s future as well as caring for this country’s past. Women lose on the average of $500,000 in paid wages while millions do the unpaid work for family. If you created institutions for this work it would cost taxpayers trillions more.
TANF at this time does little to support this work; instead it is a form of subsidy for large business and CEO bonuses to exploit women with the low wage work that does not even provide for her family’s basics. She is unable to afford the time or money for an education to better herself, and she is left to flounder when she is in essence working 2 full time jobs. When someone says to me, "Why should I support women and their children?" I reply with this: "With this thinking, why should the next generations pay your Social Security, fight in your wars, take care of your infrastructure, or take care of you when you are too old to do it?" .
The cost of subsidizing large business to pay these low wages is actually costing the taxpayer more money than supporting parents to BE parents. A low wage job will not pay for the cost of childcare, much less essential needs. A low wage job will not provide health benefits that leave families destitute whenever a member gets sick. A low wage job will never leave a family with the resources they need to work a lifetime and be able to support themselves in their old age without a pension or ability to save, leaving younger generations to provide and care for them.
All of this is because we do not even have enough respect to support this work that women have done since the beginning of humanity ~ the caring of our families and the weaving of our communities. At the other end of the spectrum women my age face destitution and homelessness, where women with stress and health issues and no support after all those years of care giving find themselves facing ageism, sexism, racism and nothing to care for themselves.
This unpaid work is desperately needed during those times when someone needs a parent a daughter, or a partner who is committed and available for him or her. It is already expected of a mother, daughter and spouse in all classes, not just the poor. It is the poor however who do not have the support they need to do this work. As in all classes, they also contribute to their community’s welfare by giving of themselves to those who have no one else.
You would be surprised at the messages low income work gives to our kids too. One time I could not go to an important school function for my son because of my work. He told me in his disappointment something that was very painful to hear: "You know that stupid job you work all the time, Mom? I could make more in a day on the street than you make in a month!" My kids' anger at my not being there for them reflects in their lives today. They all dropped out of school. They did not see the value of working only to be homeless, going to school with the burden of pretending they were "rich" like the other kids who did not have to do their homework by flashlight or eat out of a donated can because I was not home for dinner. What to a child, is the point of being a responsible, caring, sober, person whose qualities and hard work did not even pay the rent?
If there is one dream I would leave this lifetime realizing, it is that that you see that motherwork saves our country billions for doing non-paid work that ensures our country’s future. I dream that you respect this work enough to consider it valuable and support this work enough to help women get a leg up with things like access to an education, jobs with a liveable wage, and with funded community support for care giving. I dream that instead of seeing paid work as the only way to contribute; it is that you consider taking care of family and community as an essential part of the "personal responsibility" in the Personal Responsibility Act.
Cat in Seattle