It's remarkable how President Biden is exceeding the expectations of even his supporters. Compared to Trump, he was always going to do a good job. But Biden must be maddening to the Republicans. Not just his aggressive agenda that is anathema to the do-nothing-but-cut-taxes GOP, but his low-key empathetic leadership. It's a daunting PR challenge to effectively attack a president whose major policy proposals are supported by significant majorities of the American people.
We must remind ourselves daily that the legislative progress achieved so far and more ahead wouldn't be possible without the outcome of Georgia's two Senate races. So much more needs to be done. But everything hinges on the next round of elections in 2022 and overcoming a party hell-bent on suppressing voting.
I listened to a Lincoln Project TV segment last night.Steve Schmidt, who is a bit darkly prophetic, says we are one election away, still, from losing our democracy.
I want to rest a moment longer in the gratitude and surprise at Joe Biden’s progress. He is a white male with amazing empathy for those who struggle. Quite the contrast to the last 4 years of 45.
I listened to it as well. It was one of the most frightening things I’ve heard in a while. And with the state legislatures poised to pass laws that can overturn elections, we are in a very dangerous place.
Hear, hear. I am very pleasantly surprised. He is also being very effective in pointing out Republican hypocrisy simply by proposing common sense, humanitarian programs and letting them show themselves in response as the cruel, racist, misogynistic ideologues they are.
Yes, it is "his low-key empathetic leadership" which is most striking. He is the exact opposite of a certain malevolent braggart who shall remain unnamed. Biden is building and re-building our social fabric.
For the longest time I have lamented the lack of public will to support child welfare programs. The media sensationalizes the worst events of child deaths, and even ostensible investigative journalism seems more like a reporter’s quest for a Pulitzer than on bringing problems to light in order to help make things better. A journalist might include a statement about agencies that are understaffed and have high caseloads, but what’s to be done about that? Nothing.
In my lamenting, I have appreciated the various prevention programs, starting with early childhood education. Substance abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse perpetrated by adults invariably reveal antecedents in parents’ own life experiences, going back to their own childhoods. Intergenerational child abuse and neglect is particularly heart-breaking. Well, it’s all heart-breaking. But at least the power of state legislations, backed by federal programs such as Medicare, SNAP, SSDI, KinGAP, Adoptions Assistance Program, and Indian Child Welfare Act, provide the authority to intervene for the protection of children while affording parents due process in court, which if finding cause, issues family maintenance or reunification orders for counseling and parent education to fix the presenting problem.
Dr. Richardson’s citation of Ms Magazine points out that the American Rescue Plan Act only “restored a baseline that will help more than 60 percent of the child care programs in the United States…Many parents, especially mothers, will be able to return to their jobs, paving the way for a just and equitable economic recovery.”
I’m a glass-half-full person, but this childcare glass is still 40 percent empty. We’ll take what we can for now, but we need to keep advocating for more than even restoration to the 100 percent level because that is NOT SUFFICIENT.
What to do about substance abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse? Education based interventions really work—not at all perfectly, but overall, significantly, to help families get to a better place, even as this is far down the line of a person’s openness to new learning.
In the bigger scheme of things, the earlier, the better. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is real. From infancy, security grown from having basic needs met matters. Food security (quality nutrition, not just quantity), safe housing, sufficient sleep, and freedom from violence matter. On the other hand, prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol and childhood exposure to abuse, chronic neglect, and/or violence cause trauma that often has lasting detrimental effects on child development, including hypervigilance, learning disabilities, and deleterious acting out behaviors—like repeating what they saw the grown-ups do or what the grown-ups did to them. And so the cycle continues to the next generation.
By the way, these issues are not limited to poor, marginalized families. These issues are also prevalent in wealthy families where children can still be emotionally neglected and grown with a toxic mix of entitlement, thrill-seeking, and lack of responsibility.
HCR readers often have asked what can we do—about trumpers, QAnon, insurrectionists, far right Evangelical Christians, white supremacists—and the answer comes down to early education. HCR herself has said we can change a society in 20 years, which is the time it takes to raise a new generation. Education means attending to how and what children learn both at home and in school—and more and more, in the media.
How: At home, learning by example, the example set by parents and meaningful adults, is the single most powerful method of teaching.
What: Teach children critical thinking skills. Respect authority and question authority. Both/and paradigm, not just either/or. Grow intellectual curiosity and empathy. Pride and humility. Learn self-reflection and taking responsibility. Conflict management, redirection, and de-escalation. Civics education. Financial literacy. Respect differences, and step up anti-racism, advocacy, and being an ally. Have moral courage. Learn how to listen. Walk your talk about equal opportunity and RESPECT for women, LGBTQ, people of color, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, refugees, differently abled people, and people who don’t have a lot of wealth.
All this starts with supporting families, however they are structured, and having quality education starting with childcare as needed.
Biden and the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan Act only restored 60 percent of childcare programs. That's quantity. Quality? Pay more than minimum wage for childcare workers? Pay for teachers and school programs and higher education for our children to learn all those critical thinking skills and civic responsibility? We still have a long way to go.
Casting a vote is no longer a guaranteed way to make our wishes known to our elected representatives. The Republican agenda of the past 40 years, backed by dark money, is in full force in state legislatures across the country to restrict voting so as to manipulate minority Republican numbers to have power over the majority of the people.
Make your voice heard to oppose voter suppression bills and to support voter expansion bills.
Most importantly, make your voice heard to support HR1/S1 For the People Act to ensure voting rights, end gerrymandering, reform campaign finance, and reform ethics in all three branches of government. Even moderate Republicans like hearing about getting billionaires out of politics.
HR1/S1 is the necessary foundation for passing subsequent progressive, humanistic legislation to both make this world a better place in the here and now, and to grow our children to become good citizens of the future.
For all our differences in this group of HCR Substackers, we have amazing brain power and big hearts. Turn our good words into good action.
I love ❤️ love your statement about being a glass half full person! I love the follow up “we will take what we can for now” but as you say “we need to keep advocating for more than even, because even that is not SUFFICIENT!”
I do love a good sound bite. That said many of us do. It is what made DJT so powerful. His ability to garner attention 160 characters at a time. However I do applaud your lengthy diatribe. I honestly envy your passion and your eloquence.
Ellie, You brought up the power of 'state legislatures' backed by federal programs -- state legislatures represent a problem, I believe. Howard Dean tried to incentivize to Democratic to go local, to grow candidates on the local and state level. I think it is something for some of us look into. People who need the programs you mentioned may not vote, live in small bubbles disconnected and isolated. There needs to be organization to bring the people in and connected, so they have a voice and the resources to benefit from.
My state is a good example of being ideologically blind. Or biased. It has refused twice to expand healthcare because it is associated with President Obama. It also has stockpiled ($741M) in funds for women and children rather than spend those monies. These are federal funds, which recur. I believe after much publicity about this pile of money the state has been shamed into finding use for it.
Shaming and organizing by that I mean demonstrating in the hallways in front of their offices. It is another way of getting press attention (alert the press in advance, when you know you have a fair number of people committed to showing up) Grow the numbers of concerned citizens and getting the word out. People have to know what their legislators are doing and not doing.
Fern- I certainly agree regarding what legislators are doing. Here in NH, all 4 branches of State Gov't (Gov., House, Senate, and Executive Council, which is an advisory board to the Governor), flipped Red in the 2020 election (The Republican Governor is in his 3rd term.) They have been forcibly acting against pretty much anything that benefits the people and actually have a bill in process to completely forbid any discussion of any issues of race, implicit/complicit bias, any discussion of abortion, etc throughout the state. IMHO, basically, they are planning to muzzle anyone who dares challenge white patriarchy. Sounds to me like a very good case of violation of the Constitution's Freedom of Speech 1st Amendment rights. I strongly doubt that we who believe in the Constitution will be able stop them. I really hope this will progress through the counts, all the way up to SCOTUS. They are also planning on divert a good chunk of public school funds and give them to religious/private schools instead. We have multiple progressive groups who are doing similar things to what you suggested.
Barbara, What you are reporting is very important. We need to communicate more. I apologize for this brief reply, I am in the middle of job right now. See if you can get more people involved and find out if there is a group or organization that you can work with? We'll 'talk' again.
Yes, you're right. Local programs come down to us in our communities interconnecting in these complicated webs with varying levels of support, skills, and time to commit.
Conversely, the Republicans have been using dark money to initiate lawsuits that start in local jurisdictions and rise through appeals to the higher courts that have been packed for favorable rulings, as described by Sen. Whitehouse, and to take more and more control at local and state levels so as to shape national control--as evident by current state voter suppression bills.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼❤️❤️❤️🤩🤩🤩 you are on a roll Ellie. Wherever you find your energy and clarity of thought, ideas, and words I hope that well of genius never dries up. Thank you 🙏 🙏🙏
Think you, Ellie, Excellent essay. We need more than sound bites to fully understand the full implications of a complex policy. I know a District Court Judge who when a man with a family was charge with drunkenness he would sentence them to take a course on Parenting. They'd say You can't do that. He'd reply Yes, I can! And, a number of times the men came back and thanked him.
Thank you for your insight and passion. So many problems can be prevented by what you outline. Maybe one day our society will make sure that all children are safe and nurtured. It begins with compassion, including from our leaders, no matter their party affiliation.
One caveat though, I would prefer if people would not use the word welfare to indicate health promoting support for families with young children. It should be an obligation of any healthy society in 2021 where we no longer live in multigenerational households, that we collectively support young families however is possible. So crazy that people are not able to see how important that is to their own futures.
That is so interesting. When I read Heather's Letter this morning, I was very impressed that she never used the word "welfare" or perhaps the Biden/Harris admin is leading that. The language used appeared respectful, and felt different. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) sounds different than "food stamps." Does that feel like some change for the positive?
In the fields of social services, the word welfare connotes wellbeing, not the government pay out program of old. With housing expense and/or job losses even pre-pandemic, many people did become multigenerational households. Supporting children and their families, however their families are structured, helps everyone in the long run.
Yes Ellie, I know that, but I’m guessing that isn’t the audience you were speaking too? “Welfare” has an unnecessarily but very negative connotation to at least half of the US. Not trying to be picky regarding your outstanding essay but just think it’s important to remember Lakoff’s advice about choosing our words
Thank you for pointing that out. Lakoff is great. "Child welfare" is a term in public policy that refers to child wellbeing. Even in those domains, the terms "welfare" as had been used that a person was "on welfare" or the disparaging term "welfare queen" are fortunately relegated to the past. Former "welfare" offices are now named "Department of Public Social Services," "Department of Health and Human Services," etc.
The challenge with advice on what not to do is to come up with the affirmative words of what to do. Your suggestions of a word "to indicate health promoting support for families with young children?"
Does Maternal/child health programs work? Although it would be best I think to some how be inclusive of a wrap around type program that supports and nurtures the “family with young children”
State and federal laws define children as from birth to 18th birthday. So "young children" excludes teenagers.
Maternal/child health programs tend to be grounded in public health programs. Child welfare regarding child safety issues of abuse/neglect is addressed in state laws under legal code different from, for example, mental health, education, or criminal code.
In addition, maternal/child health programs actually do focus on mothers and young children. Other social service programs for child welfare include parents regardless of gender, legal guardians (so regardless of biological relationship), and as noted, children up to their 18th birthday (actually often up to age 21 in recognition of "transitional age youth" still preparing and transitioning to living independently).
"Wraparound" is a term in social service programs for a mental health team organized around a child with behavioral/mental health issues--again, up to age 18 and inclusive of parents/guardians regardless of gender.
If one opposes abortion and government-sponsored birth control/sex education, then one must support Biden's initiatives to lift families out of poverty.
If people wish, through government regulations, to deny a woman an abortion, then those people are obligated, through government programs, to see that the child is born into a long-term, stable, healthy, nurturing environment. Period.
As Cathy Learoyd states below, Biden is defining, and acting on, what "pro-life" really means.
So, the question to put to Republicans opposing Biden's "family infrastructure" plans is, "But sir/madame, aren't you pro-life?"
Ha! The "pro-life" coalition has never been about life, it's been about control over women's bodies. All we have to do is ask them if they are in favor of capital punishment to see how very pro-life they are. For all its failings, at least the Catholic church is consistent in this regard, cherishing all life as holy. They are wrong about abortion, but at least their claim to being pro-life has a backbone to it.
You are right, that Cardinal Bernardin inspired "seamless garment " of life approach is the CC's teaching. How destructive it has been for the U.S. Bishops Conference to collapse pro-life into pro- foetus and politicize it all as a partisan issue.
Wow, where have I been since 1971. I had to look up "seamless garment" on Wikipedia:
"In 1971, Roman Catholic pacifist Eileen Egan coined the phrase "seamless garment" to describe a holistic reverence for life.[5][6] The phrase is a Bible reference from John 19:23 to the seamless robe of Jesus, which his executioners left whole rather than dividing it at his execution. The seamless garment philosophy holds that issues such as abortion, capital punishment, militarism, euthanasia, social injustice, and economic injustice all demand a consistent application of moral principles valuing the sanctity of human life."
I'm not a student of philosophy, but I can just hear HCR saying that if an argument or ideology is logical and consistent, we can deal with it. Including a woman's right to choose an abortion in this list of social issues confounds a woman's control over her body.
Remember in the early 1970s when the p-l crowd opposed abortion because pregnancy should serve as punishment for premarital sex? They smartened up and stopped saying it, but they never stopped believing it.
What if one supports abortion, family planning, zero population growth; adapting to climate change and wishes the emphasis be placed upon supporting households rather than the number of children within these households? I emphasize a Utilitarian view to sharing the world's resources which are diminishing at an alarming rate while 1st World folks quibble about 1st World problems.
We are fast running into a phosphate decline which will likely result in major global nutritional deficits. Combined with climate change, then, our discussion should be about sustainable practices and ones that encourage a humane reduction in human populations.
However, all those good, sensible, important ideas have been around for decades and they're still just ideas. If the collective human race was sensible enough to act on them we would have long ago.
I am of the opinion at this point Nature will solve our population problem, thus solving all the other problems as well, in her own way. We won't like it, but she's given us more than ample time to solve our own problems ourselves.
Well, every time nature evolves a solution, modern humans intercede (i.e the pandemic). We'll see how we address sea level rise and climate change (geoengineering).
And if the catastrophic decline of humans is bad enough, the incessant bitching and complaining that accompanies it will be a bit much! Social media will become absolutely unbearable
But, as a species, we could proffer an alternative to that fate through other deliberate means including intentional population reduction.
I’m interested to know how you support family planning. Certainly would be beneficial to our planet if men would accept more responsibility. “Seven percent of men aged 15–44 have had a vasectomy; this proportion increases with age, reaching 16% among men aged 36–45” * Sharma V et al., Vasectomy demographics and postvasectomy desire for future children: results from a contemporary national survey, Fertility and Sterility, 2013, 99(7):1880–1885, doi:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2013.02.032.
All birth control, including vasectomies, should be free and freely available. If these supposedly pro-life people really were, they would advocate for this. But they're not, so they don't.
Globally, increasing the education of women has been shown to reduce birth rates. I think simply extending better reproductive education to both men and women, offering free birth control/family planning and codifying tax codes etc to reward zero population is the proper course.
If folks want to encourage more vasectomies, by all means proceed. That's no skin off my teeth, so to speak...
Christy, William's posts are relatively brief and this one included word play at the end. IMHO "verbosity" did not apply, nor was he writing about his personal fertility. He wrote about a global ecology issue of "extending better reproductive education to both men and women...to reward zero population," with voluntary vasectomies as one option.
I am not here to attack you or to defend William. My intention is to lower the temperature and support productive discussion of difficult issues. I, for one, value both of your contributions.
Ellie, Because I appreciate very much what you bring to these comments I’m going to try to respond. I’m not a student of writing so I may indeed have made a poor choice of words. By verbosity I was making reference to the number/frequency of his commenting here rather than the number of words per comment. I had asked a question about how (what actions) he takes to support family planning based on his statement: “What if one supports abortion, family planning, zero population growth...”. I did not receive an answer, but when I suggested that lending support to more men to consider vasectomies might be a way to do that, he became defensive and spoke of educating more women. This may not have been felt as an aggressive patriarchal slap in the face to you but it certainly was to me. Then he brought it all home to himself by saying it was “no skin off his teeth”, which to me, again shows defensiveness. I was only suggesting he plants seeds in men’s minds about the ease of vasectomies while he’s out and about commenting everywhere on overpopulation. I was not in anyway suggesting anything that should have felt as personal as needing a response like the “skin off his teeth”. Again not having studied the art of writing, I can confidently say I lack your skills in that area.
Our differing emotional experiences have validity, and then we have to figure out how to respond.
This is not about me or my writing skills. This forum does not lend itself to the questions I have nor do I have a moderator role, so taking a hint from Beth Benham's post about humble inquiry, I'll step back.
Total BS. I answered your poorly-formed demand and you respond like a hostile child. You have no real insight or understanding to offer a shred of credibility to what I think. I suggest you focus on what I write and stick to that instead of creating dialogue from "what's in between the lines" (your words, below).
Not surprised that my question is not addressed? “How” are you supporting households to have fewer children? Do you advocate for vasectomies? You seem to have plenty of time to put your POV on a forum like this. Make yourself useful to your own mission and tell everyone what an easy and important thing they could do for our earth. Vasectomies are office procedures that benefit the “household”. I’m making reference to your verbosity not your personal fertility
Yes, I think our child credit tax systems should not exist and instead levy taxes on individuals having more than one or couples having more than two children.
Further there should be free and freely available birth control to all. Particular to all this is educational outreach and messaging that clearly explains the reasons, goals and the means to achieve them. Coupled with universal basic income and healthcare then I thinks puts everyone on track towards understanding and working towards shared societal goals of sustainable populations.
Vasectomies ARE "birth control" and should be part of the suite of tools available to people for sure. However, I wasn't calling for mandatory medical procedures for anyone, which seems like a scene straight from Mengele. I'm not sure I follow your attitude and snark, but I am sure it's interesting.
Wow! We’re so far apart you can’t even begin to understand my words!!! Where did the mandatory medical procedure come in??? Informing, educating recommending vasectomies? Hmmm but you have no problem telling people to have fewer kids very chance you get. Often it’s what’s in between the lines that is deafening. No snark here as much as you want there to be. Just calling out the BS where I see it.
It strikes me that Pres. Biden's focus on helping women and children is akin to efforts made by development aid organizations in developing countries. They often say that if you help the women, you develop the whole of society. Just food for thought.
Education for women and girls in many emerging countries is the single best thing that can be done to improve their economies. The only thing that even closely approaches its power to improve economies is improved community healthcare.
Has anyone thought about the possibility that Biden and Harris are not channeling either FDR or HST, but they ARE channeling ELEANOR Roosevelt? Eleanor argued with FDR about segregation. She insisted on having Marion Anderson and Paul Robson perform at the White House. She served as the first US Chair to the UN House of Delegates (this was before they achieved ambassadorial rank) and was instrumental (I think--not checking sources here) in the establishing of UNICEF. Eleanor was the moral center behind FDR's administration and she became Truman's moral barometer as well.
Thank you, Linda. When I was growing up, Eleanor Roosevelt was a force to be reckoned with, and widely admired. She, like Biden, accomplished what she did by listening to what the people said they needed and finding out who could get it done. She is still one of the people I most admire. Her name deserves to be put in that pantheon of people who changed America for the better.
While we are remembering the ladies, Frances Perkins was also a force in shaping the New Deal. Like FDR, Biden is due kudos for the breadth of his thinking
Such a good point. ELEANOR! Of course! Truman is always a weighted burden for me because of his use of the atomic bomb. I know there are arguments of both sides, but the Hiroshima bombing, alone (Nagasaki was in some ways, worse), instantly vaporized 140,000 civilians while tens of thousands of others died in the aftermath of radiation poisoning and their injuries. Eleanor would never have allowed the A-Bomb to be dropped on innocent civilians.
David Michaelis’s biography of Roosevelt, “Eleanor,” is excellent. He points out that the joke was that FDR stood for “Feather Duster Roosevelt,” but, with a nickname like that, Franklin was wise enough to know that if “his will to power was to be taken seriously, he needed a woman of urgency by his side.”
All are good biographies, but be sure to read Eleanor Roosevelt's own words, which were plentiful indeed. She published 27 books and, further, wrote her My Day column 6 days a week for 27 YEARS. She was the most prolific author ever to live in the White House -- more than the combined output of genius Thomas Jefferson or prof Woodrow Wilson who had to "publish or perish." Detailed checking isn't worth the effort, but she may have written more than all prezes and first ladies put together.
“Something has to happen to people’s souls before they are going to give the rights of citizenship to all the people of our country, regardless of color or creed. That does not mean you have to ask them to dinner. It only means giving them the rights that go with citizenship.”
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT. Typed Letter Signed, to “Harry,” Washington, D.C., February 19, 1944.
Please enjoy a few minutes of song as a concluding hymn to our discourse about women and children and men!
“For the people hear us singing, ‘Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses.’
As we come marching, marching, we battle, too, for men—
For they are women's children and we mother them again.”
With thanks to Beth Benham who posted the whole set of lyrics, and channeling our resident Music Man TPR, I could not choose which version of “Bread and Roses” to share, so sample them all!
As I know firsthand, a mother in poverty means children in poverty. That is great news that Biden and Harris are supporting families in a real way! The nuclear family is a small percentage of reality. It’s a travesty that children in America live in poverty and food insecure. We need an original determined administration to get us out of our societal mess! So glad this administration gets it! Now let’s go for equal pay!
Instead of "poverty," I prefer to say poor people are in distress. Literally everything in their lives is uncertain, and that takes a tremendous toll - not just on the people forced to scramble for scraps but also for our future society. Word choice is semantic, I know. That doesn't make it less important.
We hear the word poverty so much in news reports. It's a dry, clinical assessment of raw data. Up or down, but it doesn't affect me. So why bother thinking about it? It's like the media reporting on the DOW. For most of America, it doesn't mean anything. But there it is, in numbers and such. I guess someone is winning somewhere.
Do you actually know what the poverty rate is? I didn't. https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines I don't care where you live, how can any one person survive on $14K a year? If you're single, live in a city, and make $18k per year, sorry but we can't classify you as "in poverty." In 1994(!) I made about 3k less than that as the sports editor/schools reporter at a small newspaper in Oregon. I was trading in cans at the local grocery store for the deposit.
At any rate, maybe the wider public has forgotten - purposefully? - that there are real people behind those poverty numbers. I know for sure a large chunk of the country feels the poor were never real people anyway.
I'm not sure "distress" is a strong enough word. I do get your point, that "poverty" may not be the right word. "Peril" might be closer. Language is indeed important.
Every year when I do mine and my spouse's taxes and look at the tables for figuring out what percentage above the NPL we have earned, I am shocked and appalled. We always come out well above the NPL, and yet, until I took enough out of my retirement account in cash to purchase a home in a mobile home park for seniors (with a resultant decrease in monthly outlay), we struggled to pay rent, insurance, and food (and veterinary care for aging felines). If we have consistently earned somewhat above the NPL with only two adults (and two cats) to care for, how can someone earning at or below the NPL with a growing child to care for even survive?
Perhaps someone here has previously posted how the national poverty level is calculated, but from my own experience, it has got to be skewed to viewing extreme austerity and deprivation as a viable situation.
The uncertainty, the sense of living on the edge – it never really leaves you.
If we had a few more political types who actually had the experience of having nothing but the money in their pocket, calculating how much you can spend on every, single item so that you have enough left for food that night, ours would be a different, and I would argue, a better world.
There's a problem here though. I'm not disagreeing, but placing women first implies that they are in need of help from men. Isn't equality the goal? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say women with children, but don't all social units with children below the median per capita income, whatever that is, need help?
Thank you, Pete. I passed this by last night. What is adorable about "women and children first" is the gallant chivalrous exercise of kindness and consideration, perhaps to the extent of self-sacrifice. But in principle it is benign paternalism. Paternalism is the issue, and we can do better. Personally, I open doors for other people, period. And I say thank you when others open a door for me.
Finally! I don’t think many people realize just how much of a struggle women go through. I’m a single, college educated woman, making the top end pay of my chosen profession. I’m struggling to pay the rent every month on my 500sf studio apartment. I make too much to qualify for assistance but not enough to actually survive. My coworker is a single mother. Amazing woman. I was helping her this week try to find summer child care for the first time, as her child is in kindergarten. The cheapest we could find was $250/week! That’s $1000/month. Does she have that? No. The times it was open was 8-5. We work 730-530. How is that going to work?! I looked up getting assistance for her in relation to the new Rescue Plan. She doesn’t qualify. Makes a couple thousand more a year than the cut off. She literally broke down crying in the middle of work. She does not deserve this struggle just because she chose to leave her husband who was sleeping with his secretary. I don’t know how to help her. And all of the others out there. Help them right now.
I should have ABSOLUTELY written those numbers down, too! Thank you, Shelly, for highlighting their numbers, because, of course, when race is added to the womanhood equation, the amounts decrease. And to add to your statistics, Native American women make 60 cents and some Asian American women make 52 cents on the dollar. It's an absolute travesty of justice!!!
This is one of the most optimistic and heartening Letters I have yet read here. These thoughts accurately describe the America I believe in, and hope we can be. Thank you!
I have generally found that when women are put in positions of power, fewer people are left behind. This is true in my personal and community life, business, and politics. There are many reasons for this but I believe the power of empathy is likely the strongest.
I love that! So true, and I'm glad you put it into words. Yes, she gives both history and current events dimension, and then shows how they overlap. Bravo.
This letter brought such joy to my heart. The nights and days of grieving I live in a society that does not prioritize children and mothers. How do you sleep at night knowing our children are Hungry, live in environments without the basics : clean water, heat, clothing, transportation, internet, and security. We wonder why we have mental health issues ? The poverty the woman and children live in this country is unconscionable. This is the best news I have heard that Biden and Harris are focusing on this. Just imagine the peace we could feel if our country did not have such economic disparity and we took care of our vulnerable children.
It’s hard to pry loose, liberate, and rationalize the thinking of over 300,000,000 people steeped in over a generation of political memes and knee-jerk reactions.
But if people can wrap their heads around this post, it will be a leap in the right direction.
Thank you, Heather Cox Richardson. I love your perspective.
They have to prioritize right now. Without the voting rights acts, all this happy news will be history soon. Every day they don't force voting rights is another day one Democratic senator might fall ill or be incapacitated and all hope lost, and that's especially true for Black voters. The only Biden story needs to be voting rights until that is fixed, I think.
My biggest fear at the moment is that Manchin will switch sides. He is acting like a Republican and comes from a deep red state. Not that his being a Democrat is helping much at the moment, but the psychological effect would be devastating.
I understand the point you are making, Cate, but I think perhaps things work the other way round. If people see the issues, and care about them, they will work for them. Inevitably, that comes down to votes, and a determination to elect candidates that will support the kind of changes people are working for. It goes hand in hand. Without the passion for these social issues, there will (as there has been for so much of the past) apathy toward the vote. The current movement for ensuring voting rights grew directly out of concern for social issues that brings people into activism.
I am talking about making sure people are able to vote (like they have a polling place that allows them to safely vote) and have their votes count. Republicans are pre-rigging things right now to throw out votes, disallow voters, challenge voters at the polling places much more aggressively, and, in some cases, giving control over who wins to themselves, not the ballot box. And the hyperpartisan gerrymandering continues. Yes, motivated voters. But if the ballot box is locked or Black votes are thrown out, or Republican legislators get to ignore results and install their own guys into power, motivated voters won't matter.
Mm, yes, I get your point. We are both talking about the same thing, but I took a long view and you were pointing out the urgent need to fight the bills up right now attempting to limit access in the near future. You are right about that. I still do think, though, that it is the passion for the things we need to vote on that powers the battle to protect the vote. I lived through an era in which the vote was actively subverted, particularly for black people, but also for anyone who couldn't meet the "requirements" or get to a polling place. The Civil Rights movement fought for the vote and began the modern era of change. But it was white violence, lack of social opportunities, and segregation that fired that struggle.
It's remarkable how President Biden is exceeding the expectations of even his supporters. Compared to Trump, he was always going to do a good job. But Biden must be maddening to the Republicans. Not just his aggressive agenda that is anathema to the do-nothing-but-cut-taxes GOP, but his low-key empathetic leadership. It's a daunting PR challenge to effectively attack a president whose major policy proposals are supported by significant majorities of the American people.
We must remind ourselves daily that the legislative progress achieved so far and more ahead wouldn't be possible without the outcome of Georgia's two Senate races. So much more needs to be done. But everything hinges on the next round of elections in 2022 and overcoming a party hell-bent on suppressing voting.
I knew things would improve once Joe Biden was President, however his progress has exceeded anything I could have imagined 😊.
I listened to a Lincoln Project TV segment last night.Steve Schmidt, who is a bit darkly prophetic, says we are one election away, still, from losing our democracy.
I want to rest a moment longer in the gratitude and surprise at Joe Biden’s progress. He is a white male with amazing empathy for those who struggle. Quite the contrast to the last 4 years of 45.
Quite the contrast to anything that has happened in this country... ever.
I listened to it as well. It was one of the most frightening things I’ve heard in a while. And with the state legislatures poised to pass laws that can overturn elections, we are in a very dangerous place.
He is right. We have so much work to do. Another contribution to FairFight. Maybe make it monthly...
Sad But True
Hear, hear. I am very pleasantly surprised. He is also being very effective in pointing out Republican hypocrisy simply by proposing common sense, humanitarian programs and letting them show themselves in response as the cruel, racist, misogynistic ideologues they are.
Imagine if there were 10 Repug senators willing to serve the public (or more Dems).
Mine too, and it has just begun!
Yes, it is "his low-key empathetic leadership" which is most striking. He is the exact opposite of a certain malevolent braggart who shall remain unnamed. Biden is building and re-building our social fabric.
For the longest time I have lamented the lack of public will to support child welfare programs. The media sensationalizes the worst events of child deaths, and even ostensible investigative journalism seems more like a reporter’s quest for a Pulitzer than on bringing problems to light in order to help make things better. A journalist might include a statement about agencies that are understaffed and have high caseloads, but what’s to be done about that? Nothing.
In my lamenting, I have appreciated the various prevention programs, starting with early childhood education. Substance abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse perpetrated by adults invariably reveal antecedents in parents’ own life experiences, going back to their own childhoods. Intergenerational child abuse and neglect is particularly heart-breaking. Well, it’s all heart-breaking. But at least the power of state legislations, backed by federal programs such as Medicare, SNAP, SSDI, KinGAP, Adoptions Assistance Program, and Indian Child Welfare Act, provide the authority to intervene for the protection of children while affording parents due process in court, which if finding cause, issues family maintenance or reunification orders for counseling and parent education to fix the presenting problem.
Dr. Richardson’s citation of Ms Magazine points out that the American Rescue Plan Act only “restored a baseline that will help more than 60 percent of the child care programs in the United States…Many parents, especially mothers, will be able to return to their jobs, paving the way for a just and equitable economic recovery.”
I’m a glass-half-full person, but this childcare glass is still 40 percent empty. We’ll take what we can for now, but we need to keep advocating for more than even restoration to the 100 percent level because that is NOT SUFFICIENT.
What to do about substance abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse? Education based interventions really work—not at all perfectly, but overall, significantly, to help families get to a better place, even as this is far down the line of a person’s openness to new learning.
In the bigger scheme of things, the earlier, the better. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is real. From infancy, security grown from having basic needs met matters. Food security (quality nutrition, not just quantity), safe housing, sufficient sleep, and freedom from violence matter. On the other hand, prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol and childhood exposure to abuse, chronic neglect, and/or violence cause trauma that often has lasting detrimental effects on child development, including hypervigilance, learning disabilities, and deleterious acting out behaviors—like repeating what they saw the grown-ups do or what the grown-ups did to them. And so the cycle continues to the next generation.
By the way, these issues are not limited to poor, marginalized families. These issues are also prevalent in wealthy families where children can still be emotionally neglected and grown with a toxic mix of entitlement, thrill-seeking, and lack of responsibility.
HCR readers often have asked what can we do—about trumpers, QAnon, insurrectionists, far right Evangelical Christians, white supremacists—and the answer comes down to early education. HCR herself has said we can change a society in 20 years, which is the time it takes to raise a new generation. Education means attending to how and what children learn both at home and in school—and more and more, in the media.
How: At home, learning by example, the example set by parents and meaningful adults, is the single most powerful method of teaching.
What: Teach children critical thinking skills. Respect authority and question authority. Both/and paradigm, not just either/or. Grow intellectual curiosity and empathy. Pride and humility. Learn self-reflection and taking responsibility. Conflict management, redirection, and de-escalation. Civics education. Financial literacy. Respect differences, and step up anti-racism, advocacy, and being an ally. Have moral courage. Learn how to listen. Walk your talk about equal opportunity and RESPECT for women, LGBTQ, people of color, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, refugees, differently abled people, and people who don’t have a lot of wealth.
All this starts with supporting families, however they are structured, and having quality education starting with childcare as needed.
Biden and the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan Act only restored 60 percent of childcare programs. That's quantity. Quality? Pay more than minimum wage for childcare workers? Pay for teachers and school programs and higher education for our children to learn all those critical thinking skills and civic responsibility? We still have a long way to go.
Casting a vote is no longer a guaranteed way to make our wishes known to our elected representatives. The Republican agenda of the past 40 years, backed by dark money, is in full force in state legislatures across the country to restrict voting so as to manipulate minority Republican numbers to have power over the majority of the people.
Make your voice heard to oppose voter suppression bills and to support voter expansion bills.
Most importantly, make your voice heard to support HR1/S1 For the People Act to ensure voting rights, end gerrymandering, reform campaign finance, and reform ethics in all three branches of government. Even moderate Republicans like hearing about getting billionaires out of politics.
HR1/S1 is the necessary foundation for passing subsequent progressive, humanistic legislation to both make this world a better place in the here and now, and to grow our children to become good citizens of the future.
For all our differences in this group of HCR Substackers, we have amazing brain power and big hearts. Turn our good words into good action.
S1/S4 Pass, Please! 🙏🏻❤️🤍💙
Gotta love succinct!
I love ❤️ love your statement about being a glass half full person! I love the follow up “we will take what we can for now” but as you say “we need to keep advocating for more than even, because even that is not SUFFICIENT!”
I do love a good sound bite. That said many of us do. It is what made DJT so powerful. His ability to garner attention 160 characters at a time. However I do applaud your lengthy diatribe. I honestly envy your passion and your eloquence.
Please!
And Amen!
This!
Ellie, You brought up the power of 'state legislatures' backed by federal programs -- state legislatures represent a problem, I believe. Howard Dean tried to incentivize to Democratic to go local, to grow candidates on the local and state level. I think it is something for some of us look into. People who need the programs you mentioned may not vote, live in small bubbles disconnected and isolated. There needs to be organization to bring the people in and connected, so they have a voice and the resources to benefit from.
My state is a good example of being ideologically blind. Or biased. It has refused twice to expand healthcare because it is associated with President Obama. It also has stockpiled ($741M) in funds for women and children rather than spend those monies. These are federal funds, which recur. I believe after much publicity about this pile of money the state has been shamed into finding use for it.
The ideological cruelty of the Republican agenda is unfathomable.
Shaming and organizing by that I mean demonstrating in the hallways in front of their offices. It is another way of getting press attention (alert the press in advance, when you know you have a fair number of people committed to showing up) Grow the numbers of concerned citizens and getting the word out. People have to know what their legislators are doing and not doing.
Fern- I certainly agree regarding what legislators are doing. Here in NH, all 4 branches of State Gov't (Gov., House, Senate, and Executive Council, which is an advisory board to the Governor), flipped Red in the 2020 election (The Republican Governor is in his 3rd term.) They have been forcibly acting against pretty much anything that benefits the people and actually have a bill in process to completely forbid any discussion of any issues of race, implicit/complicit bias, any discussion of abortion, etc throughout the state. IMHO, basically, they are planning to muzzle anyone who dares challenge white patriarchy. Sounds to me like a very good case of violation of the Constitution's Freedom of Speech 1st Amendment rights. I strongly doubt that we who believe in the Constitution will be able stop them. I really hope this will progress through the counts, all the way up to SCOTUS. They are also planning on divert a good chunk of public school funds and give them to religious/private schools instead. We have multiple progressive groups who are doing similar things to what you suggested.
Barbara, What you are reporting is very important. We need to communicate more. I apologize for this brief reply, I am in the middle of job right now. See if you can get more people involved and find out if there is a group or organization that you can work with? We'll 'talk' again.
Yep; TN surely isn't on the progressive forefront.
Yes, you're right. Local programs come down to us in our communities interconnecting in these complicated webs with varying levels of support, skills, and time to commit.
Conversely, the Republicans have been using dark money to initiate lawsuits that start in local jurisdictions and rise through appeals to the higher courts that have been packed for favorable rulings, as described by Sen. Whitehouse, and to take more and more control at local and state levels so as to shape national control--as evident by current state voter suppression bills.
Crucial problem. Local HS and college students might be a link and great work for budding public service corps.
Public service corps are such a win-win for participants and the benefitting public!
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼❤️❤️❤️🤩🤩🤩 you are on a roll Ellie. Wherever you find your energy and clarity of thought, ideas, and words I hope that well of genius never dries up. Thank you 🙏 🙏🙏
You are very kind. And I will keep my eyes and ears open for words better than welfare.
What Ellie said. All of it.
Think you, Ellie, Excellent essay. We need more than sound bites to fully understand the full implications of a complex policy. I know a District Court Judge who when a man with a family was charge with drunkenness he would sentence them to take a course on Parenting. They'd say You can't do that. He'd reply Yes, I can! And, a number of times the men came back and thanked him.
"Are there no workhouses?!"
-- Ebenezer Scrooge
"God bless us, everyone."
-- Tiny Tim
Excellent, Ellie! We need offerings of solutions, lots of them.
Thank you for your insight and passion. So many problems can be prevented by what you outline. Maybe one day our society will make sure that all children are safe and nurtured. It begins with compassion, including from our leaders, no matter their party affiliation.
One caveat though, I would prefer if people would not use the word welfare to indicate health promoting support for families with young children. It should be an obligation of any healthy society in 2021 where we no longer live in multigenerational households, that we collectively support young families however is possible. So crazy that people are not able to see how important that is to their own futures.
That is so interesting. When I read Heather's Letter this morning, I was very impressed that she never used the word "welfare" or perhaps the Biden/Harris admin is leading that. The language used appeared respectful, and felt different. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) sounds different than "food stamps." Does that feel like some change for the positive?
Yes. Big bureaucracies change slowly, but here we do see significant shift to better language!
In the fields of social services, the word welfare connotes wellbeing, not the government pay out program of old. With housing expense and/or job losses even pre-pandemic, many people did become multigenerational households. Supporting children and their families, however their families are structured, helps everyone in the long run.
Yes Ellie, I know that, but I’m guessing that isn’t the audience you were speaking too? “Welfare” has an unnecessarily but very negative connotation to at least half of the US. Not trying to be picky regarding your outstanding essay but just think it’s important to remember Lakoff’s advice about choosing our words
Thank you for pointing that out. Lakoff is great. "Child welfare" is a term in public policy that refers to child wellbeing. Even in those domains, the terms "welfare" as had been used that a person was "on welfare" or the disparaging term "welfare queen" are fortunately relegated to the past. Former "welfare" offices are now named "Department of Public Social Services," "Department of Health and Human Services," etc.
The challenge with advice on what not to do is to come up with the affirmative words of what to do. Your suggestions of a word "to indicate health promoting support for families with young children?"
Does Maternal/child health programs work? Although it would be best I think to some how be inclusive of a wrap around type program that supports and nurtures the “family with young children”
State and federal laws define children as from birth to 18th birthday. So "young children" excludes teenagers.
Maternal/child health programs tend to be grounded in public health programs. Child welfare regarding child safety issues of abuse/neglect is addressed in state laws under legal code different from, for example, mental health, education, or criminal code.
In addition, maternal/child health programs actually do focus on mothers and young children. Other social service programs for child welfare include parents regardless of gender, legal guardians (so regardless of biological relationship), and as noted, children up to their 18th birthday (actually often up to age 21 in recognition of "transitional age youth" still preparing and transitioning to living independently).
"Wraparound" is a term in social service programs for a mental health team organized around a child with behavioral/mental health issues--again, up to age 18 and inclusive of parents/guardians regardless of gender.
This is what pro-life should mean.
Amen, and then some. Seven words that say so very, very much!
Bumper sticker material!
Loving succinct!
If one opposes abortion and government-sponsored birth control/sex education, then one must support Biden's initiatives to lift families out of poverty.
If people wish, through government regulations, to deny a woman an abortion, then those people are obligated, through government programs, to see that the child is born into a long-term, stable, healthy, nurturing environment. Period.
As Cathy Learoyd states below, Biden is defining, and acting on, what "pro-life" really means.
So, the question to put to Republicans opposing Biden's "family infrastructure" plans is, "But sir/madame, aren't you pro-life?"
Ha! The "pro-life" coalition has never been about life, it's been about control over women's bodies. All we have to do is ask them if they are in favor of capital punishment to see how very pro-life they are. For all its failings, at least the Catholic church is consistent in this regard, cherishing all life as holy. They are wrong about abortion, but at least their claim to being pro-life has a backbone to it.
You are right, that Cardinal Bernardin inspired "seamless garment " of life approach is the CC's teaching. How destructive it has been for the U.S. Bishops Conference to collapse pro-life into pro- foetus and politicize it all as a partisan issue.
Wow, where have I been since 1971. I had to look up "seamless garment" on Wikipedia:
"In 1971, Roman Catholic pacifist Eileen Egan coined the phrase "seamless garment" to describe a holistic reverence for life.[5][6] The phrase is a Bible reference from John 19:23 to the seamless robe of Jesus, which his executioners left whole rather than dividing it at his execution. The seamless garment philosophy holds that issues such as abortion, capital punishment, militarism, euthanasia, social injustice, and economic injustice all demand a consistent application of moral principles valuing the sanctity of human life."
I'm not a student of philosophy, but I can just hear HCR saying that if an argument or ideology is logical and consistent, we can deal with it. Including a woman's right to choose an abortion in this list of social issues confounds a woman's control over her body.
Remember in the early 1970s when the p-l crowd opposed abortion because pregnancy should serve as punishment for premarital sex? They smartened up and stopped saying it, but they never stopped believing it.
What if one supports abortion, family planning, zero population growth; adapting to climate change and wishes the emphasis be placed upon supporting households rather than the number of children within these households? I emphasize a Utilitarian view to sharing the world's resources which are diminishing at an alarming rate while 1st World folks quibble about 1st World problems.
We are fast running into a phosphate decline which will likely result in major global nutritional deficits. Combined with climate change, then, our discussion should be about sustainable practices and ones that encourage a humane reduction in human populations.
I agree with you 100%.
However, all those good, sensible, important ideas have been around for decades and they're still just ideas. If the collective human race was sensible enough to act on them we would have long ago.
I am of the opinion at this point Nature will solve our population problem, thus solving all the other problems as well, in her own way. We won't like it, but she's given us more than ample time to solve our own problems ourselves.
Thank you for responding to my post.
I agree and have come to find this idea oddly comforting. We are a planetary cancer it will shake off like a burr. The Earth will carry on.
Exactly.
When the population of a species outstrips the available resources , nature steps in to restore the balance.
Well, every time nature evolves a solution, modern humans intercede (i.e the pandemic). We'll see how we address sea level rise and climate change (geoengineering).
And if the catastrophic decline of humans is bad enough, the incessant bitching and complaining that accompanies it will be a bit much! Social media will become absolutely unbearable
But, as a species, we could proffer an alternative to that fate through other deliberate means including intentional population reduction.
Yes, as we dither amongst ourselves, Paris is burning
I’m interested to know how you support family planning. Certainly would be beneficial to our planet if men would accept more responsibility. “Seven percent of men aged 15–44 have had a vasectomy; this proportion increases with age, reaching 16% among men aged 36–45” * Sharma V et al., Vasectomy demographics and postvasectomy desire for future children: results from a contemporary national survey, Fertility and Sterility, 2013, 99(7):1880–1885, doi:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2013.02.032.
All birth control, including vasectomies, should be free and freely available. If these supposedly pro-life people really were, they would advocate for this. But they're not, so they don't.
Probirthers don’t even want health insurance to cover pills!!
Globally, increasing the education of women has been shown to reduce birth rates. I think simply extending better reproductive education to both men and women, offering free birth control/family planning and codifying tax codes etc to reward zero population is the proper course.
If folks want to encourage more vasectomies, by all means proceed. That's no skin off my teeth, so to speak...
I can only go by what I am reading here, and...
Christy, William's posts are relatively brief and this one included word play at the end. IMHO "verbosity" did not apply, nor was he writing about his personal fertility. He wrote about a global ecology issue of "extending better reproductive education to both men and women...to reward zero population," with voluntary vasectomies as one option.
I am not here to attack you or to defend William. My intention is to lower the temperature and support productive discussion of difficult issues. I, for one, value both of your contributions.
Ellie, Because I appreciate very much what you bring to these comments I’m going to try to respond. I’m not a student of writing so I may indeed have made a poor choice of words. By verbosity I was making reference to the number/frequency of his commenting here rather than the number of words per comment. I had asked a question about how (what actions) he takes to support family planning based on his statement: “What if one supports abortion, family planning, zero population growth...”. I did not receive an answer, but when I suggested that lending support to more men to consider vasectomies might be a way to do that, he became defensive and spoke of educating more women. This may not have been felt as an aggressive patriarchal slap in the face to you but it certainly was to me. Then he brought it all home to himself by saying it was “no skin off his teeth”, which to me, again shows defensiveness. I was only suggesting he plants seeds in men’s minds about the ease of vasectomies while he’s out and about commenting everywhere on overpopulation. I was not in anyway suggesting anything that should have felt as personal as needing a response like the “skin off his teeth”. Again not having studied the art of writing, I can confidently say I lack your skills in that area.
Thank you for replying.
Our differing emotional experiences have validity, and then we have to figure out how to respond.
This is not about me or my writing skills. This forum does not lend itself to the questions I have nor do I have a moderator role, so taking a hint from Beth Benham's post about humble inquiry, I'll step back.
Total BS. I answered your poorly-formed demand and you respond like a hostile child. You have no real insight or understanding to offer a shred of credibility to what I think. I suggest you focus on what I write and stick to that instead of creating dialogue from "what's in between the lines" (your words, below).
Me no play with words.
Not surprised that my question is not addressed? “How” are you supporting households to have fewer children? Do you advocate for vasectomies? You seem to have plenty of time to put your POV on a forum like this. Make yourself useful to your own mission and tell everyone what an easy and important thing they could do for our earth. Vasectomies are office procedures that benefit the “household”. I’m making reference to your verbosity not your personal fertility
Yes, I think our child credit tax systems should not exist and instead levy taxes on individuals having more than one or couples having more than two children.
Further there should be free and freely available birth control to all. Particular to all this is educational outreach and messaging that clearly explains the reasons, goals and the means to achieve them. Coupled with universal basic income and healthcare then I thinks puts everyone on track towards understanding and working towards shared societal goals of sustainable populations.
Vasectomies ARE "birth control" and should be part of the suite of tools available to people for sure. However, I wasn't calling for mandatory medical procedures for anyone, which seems like a scene straight from Mengele. I'm not sure I follow your attitude and snark, but I am sure it's interesting.
Wow! We’re so far apart you can’t even begin to understand my words!!! Where did the mandatory medical procedure come in??? Informing, educating recommending vasectomies? Hmmm but you have no problem telling people to have fewer kids very chance you get. Often it’s what’s in between the lines that is deafening. No snark here as much as you want there to be. Just calling out the BS where I see it.
It strikes me that Pres. Biden's focus on helping women and children is akin to efforts made by development aid organizations in developing countries. They often say that if you help the women, you develop the whole of society. Just food for thought.
If you've worked a little around the developing world you'll understand very clearly why the aid agencies believe this.
Education for women and girls in many emerging countries is the single best thing that can be done to improve their economies. The only thing that even closely approaches its power to improve economies is improved community healthcare.
Has anyone thought about the possibility that Biden and Harris are not channeling either FDR or HST, but they ARE channeling ELEANOR Roosevelt? Eleanor argued with FDR about segregation. She insisted on having Marion Anderson and Paul Robson perform at the White House. She served as the first US Chair to the UN House of Delegates (this was before they achieved ambassadorial rank) and was instrumental (I think--not checking sources here) in the establishing of UNICEF. Eleanor was the moral center behind FDR's administration and she became Truman's moral barometer as well.
Thank you, Linda. When I was growing up, Eleanor Roosevelt was a force to be reckoned with, and widely admired. She, like Biden, accomplished what she did by listening to what the people said they needed and finding out who could get it done. She is still one of the people I most admire. Her name deserves to be put in that pantheon of people who changed America for the better.
While we are remembering the ladies, Frances Perkins was also a force in shaping the New Deal. Like FDR, Biden is due kudos for the breadth of his thinking
If there is an all-star team of US cabinet members, Ms Perkins definitely is in the starting lineup as Labor Secretary.
Such a good point. ELEANOR! Of course! Truman is always a weighted burden for me because of his use of the atomic bomb. I know there are arguments of both sides, but the Hiroshima bombing, alone (Nagasaki was in some ways, worse), instantly vaporized 140,000 civilians while tens of thousands of others died in the aftermath of radiation poisoning and their injuries. Eleanor would never have allowed the A-Bomb to be dropped on innocent civilians.
David Michaelis’s biography of Roosevelt, “Eleanor,” is excellent. He points out that the joke was that FDR stood for “Feather Duster Roosevelt,” but, with a nickname like that, Franklin was wise enough to know that if “his will to power was to be taken seriously, he needed a woman of urgency by his side.”
All are good biographies, but be sure to read Eleanor Roosevelt's own words, which were plentiful indeed. She published 27 books and, further, wrote her My Day column 6 days a week for 27 YEARS. She was the most prolific author ever to live in the White House -- more than the combined output of genius Thomas Jefferson or prof Woodrow Wilson who had to "publish or perish." Detailed checking isn't worth the effort, but she may have written more than all prezes and first ladies put together.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Day
"It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness."
Another excellent biography of Eleanor is Blanche Weisen Cook's "Eleanor Roosevelt" volumes 1 thru 3.
I love this thought!
YES!! Excellent Insight! Eleanor Roosevelt is our model president!
“Something has to happen to people’s souls before they are going to give the rights of citizenship to all the people of our country, regardless of color or creed. That does not mean you have to ask them to dinner. It only means giving them the rights that go with citizenship.”
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT. Typed Letter Signed, to “Harry,” Washington, D.C., February 19, 1944.
Dear people of HCR’s Substack,
Please enjoy a few minutes of song as a concluding hymn to our discourse about women and children and men!
“For the people hear us singing, ‘Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses.’
As we come marching, marching, we battle, too, for men—
For they are women's children and we mother them again.”
With thanks to Beth Benham who posted the whole set of lyrics, and channeling our resident Music Man TPR, I could not choose which version of “Bread and Roses” to share, so sample them all!
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=crmas&ei=UTF-8&p=Bread+and+Roses#id=3&vid=07d7bd33727a67afb5153b7f2c7b8924&action=view
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=crmas&ei=UTF-8&p=Bread+and+Roses#id=1&vid=733e2aa58a50dfd737427f1e4b960530&action=view
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdDXqoxljTI
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=crmas&ei=UTF-8&p=Bread+and+Roses#id=4&vid=6f6dc062c8725efc0bfd41248ad1a7e5&action=click
As I know firsthand, a mother in poverty means children in poverty. That is great news that Biden and Harris are supporting families in a real way! The nuclear family is a small percentage of reality. It’s a travesty that children in America live in poverty and food insecure. We need an original determined administration to get us out of our societal mess! So glad this administration gets it! Now let’s go for equal pay!
Thanks Heather!
Instead of "poverty," I prefer to say poor people are in distress. Literally everything in their lives is uncertain, and that takes a tremendous toll - not just on the people forced to scramble for scraps but also for our future society. Word choice is semantic, I know. That doesn't make it less important.
We hear the word poverty so much in news reports. It's a dry, clinical assessment of raw data. Up or down, but it doesn't affect me. So why bother thinking about it? It's like the media reporting on the DOW. For most of America, it doesn't mean anything. But there it is, in numbers and such. I guess someone is winning somewhere.
Do you actually know what the poverty rate is? I didn't. https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines I don't care where you live, how can any one person survive on $14K a year? If you're single, live in a city, and make $18k per year, sorry but we can't classify you as "in poverty." In 1994(!) I made about 3k less than that as the sports editor/schools reporter at a small newspaper in Oregon. I was trading in cans at the local grocery store for the deposit.
At any rate, maybe the wider public has forgotten - purposefully? - that there are real people behind those poverty numbers. I know for sure a large chunk of the country feels the poor were never real people anyway.
I'm not sure "distress" is a strong enough word. I do get your point, that "poverty" may not be the right word. "Peril" might be closer. Language is indeed important.
Precarious.
Every year when I do mine and my spouse's taxes and look at the tables for figuring out what percentage above the NPL we have earned, I am shocked and appalled. We always come out well above the NPL, and yet, until I took enough out of my retirement account in cash to purchase a home in a mobile home park for seniors (with a resultant decrease in monthly outlay), we struggled to pay rent, insurance, and food (and veterinary care for aging felines). If we have consistently earned somewhat above the NPL with only two adults (and two cats) to care for, how can someone earning at or below the NPL with a growing child to care for even survive?
Perhaps someone here has previously posted how the national poverty level is calculated, but from my own experience, it has got to be skewed to viewing extreme austerity and deprivation as a viable situation.
You speak the truth.
The uncertainty, the sense of living on the edge – it never really leaves you.
If we had a few more political types who actually had the experience of having nothing but the money in their pocket, calculating how much you can spend on every, single item so that you have enough left for food that night, ours would be a different, and I would argue, a better world.
Empathy helps a lot
Going through the couch cushions looking for coins...
finally, a commander in chief who honors the law of the sea: Women and children first.
Albert 100%
I adore this sentiment
Love This, Albert!!!💕💖💓
Albert Scarfing, Nailed it!
There's a problem here though. I'm not disagreeing, but placing women first implies that they are in need of help from men. Isn't equality the goal? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say women with children, but don't all social units with children below the median per capita income, whatever that is, need help?
Thank you, Pete. I passed this by last night. What is adorable about "women and children first" is the gallant chivalrous exercise of kindness and consideration, perhaps to the extent of self-sacrifice. But in principle it is benign paternalism. Paternalism is the issue, and we can do better. Personally, I open doors for other people, period. And I say thank you when others open a door for me.
A night to remember . . . . The Titanic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEWniG991O0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP5bu9hLH9E
Well said!
Finally! I don’t think many people realize just how much of a struggle women go through. I’m a single, college educated woman, making the top end pay of my chosen profession. I’m struggling to pay the rent every month on my 500sf studio apartment. I make too much to qualify for assistance but not enough to actually survive. My coworker is a single mother. Amazing woman. I was helping her this week try to find summer child care for the first time, as her child is in kindergarten. The cheapest we could find was $250/week! That’s $1000/month. Does she have that? No. The times it was open was 8-5. We work 730-530. How is that going to work?! I looked up getting assistance for her in relation to the new Rescue Plan. She doesn’t qualify. Makes a couple thousand more a year than the cut off. She literally broke down crying in the middle of work. She does not deserve this struggle just because she chose to leave her husband who was sleeping with his secretary. I don’t know how to help her. And all of the others out there. Help them right now.
It's so frightening for single mothers! We still make only 80 cents on the dollar compared to men.
And that figure is going down as women leave the workforce and then have to re-enter it a lower wage!
I should have ABSOLUTELY written those numbers down, too! Thank you, Shelly, for highlighting their numbers, because, of course, when race is added to the womanhood equation, the amounts decrease. And to add to your statistics, Native American women make 60 cents and some Asian American women make 52 cents on the dollar. It's an absolute travesty of justice!!!
I absolutely agree. too many have no clue. Thank you for putting this out here in this forum.
This is one of the most optimistic and heartening Letters I have yet read here. These thoughts accurately describe the America I believe in, and hope we can be. Thank you!
I have generally found that when women are put in positions of power, fewer people are left behind. This is true in my personal and community life, business, and politics. There are many reasons for this but I believe the power of empathy is likely the strongest.
Empathy is the new leadership skill.
Except it is not new. It has always been a leadership imperative.
For millennia mass murder was a higher priority for leaders than empathy.
A good article from Forbes reinforcing the importance of Empathy as a core skill in leadership:
Empathy Is An Essential Leadership Skill -- And There's Nothing Soft About It
https://www.forbes.com/sites/prudygourguechon/2017/12/26/empathy-is-an-essential-leadership-skill-and-theres-nothing-soft-about-it/?sh=2dbecd342b9d
Thanks for the link.
Women and children first, instead of rich old white guys. Now there's a concept. Let's have more, please!
This column is a good example of why I read Heather's letters first thing in the morning. Heather writes in 3-D.
Now THAT is a bumper sticker!
I love that! So true, and I'm glad you put it into words. Yes, she gives both history and current events dimension, and then shows how they overlap. Bravo.
YES!!
This letter brought such joy to my heart. The nights and days of grieving I live in a society that does not prioritize children and mothers. How do you sleep at night knowing our children are Hungry, live in environments without the basics : clean water, heat, clothing, transportation, internet, and security. We wonder why we have mental health issues ? The poverty the woman and children live in this country is unconscionable. This is the best news I have heard that Biden and Harris are focusing on this. Just imagine the peace we could feel if our country did not have such economic disparity and we took care of our vulnerable children.
Boom. 💕
It’s hard to pry loose, liberate, and rationalize the thinking of over 300,000,000 people steeped in over a generation of political memes and knee-jerk reactions.
But if people can wrap their heads around this post, it will be a leap in the right direction.
Thank you, Heather Cox Richardson. I love your perspective.
I'll second that emotion!
They have to prioritize right now. Without the voting rights acts, all this happy news will be history soon. Every day they don't force voting rights is another day one Democratic senator might fall ill or be incapacitated and all hope lost, and that's especially true for Black voters. The only Biden story needs to be voting rights until that is fixed, I think.
My biggest fear at the moment is that Manchin will switch sides. He is acting like a Republican and comes from a deep red state. Not that his being a Democrat is helping much at the moment, but the psychological effect would be devastating.
He won't switch sides - he would lose his unique bargaining power for West Virginia, a state raped of resources and respect for 200 years.
Nope, he's very unlikely to switch. He is a WV Democrat to the bone, unwelcome in the state GOP which wants his Senate seat for one of their own.
I understand the point you are making, Cate, but I think perhaps things work the other way round. If people see the issues, and care about them, they will work for them. Inevitably, that comes down to votes, and a determination to elect candidates that will support the kind of changes people are working for. It goes hand in hand. Without the passion for these social issues, there will (as there has been for so much of the past) apathy toward the vote. The current movement for ensuring voting rights grew directly out of concern for social issues that brings people into activism.
I am talking about making sure people are able to vote (like they have a polling place that allows them to safely vote) and have their votes count. Republicans are pre-rigging things right now to throw out votes, disallow voters, challenge voters at the polling places much more aggressively, and, in some cases, giving control over who wins to themselves, not the ballot box. And the hyperpartisan gerrymandering continues. Yes, motivated voters. But if the ballot box is locked or Black votes are thrown out, or Republican legislators get to ignore results and install their own guys into power, motivated voters won't matter.
Your last sentence is what keeps me up at night.
Mm, yes, I get your point. We are both talking about the same thing, but I took a long view and you were pointing out the urgent need to fight the bills up right now attempting to limit access in the near future. You are right about that. I still do think, though, that it is the passion for the things we need to vote on that powers the battle to protect the vote. I lived through an era in which the vote was actively subverted, particularly for black people, but also for anyone who couldn't meet the "requirements" or get to a polling place. The Civil Rights movement fought for the vote and began the modern era of change. But it was white violence, lack of social opportunities, and segregation that fired that struggle.