Is David Brooks trying to sell Bush's marriage promotion plan?

[kerrygoddess]

America Needs More Stay at Home Moms and More Children

Sounding like something straight out of the Bush book on family values, David Brooks’ column “Empty Nests, and Hearts” advocates that more women should stay at home and have kids. Because women have “more choices” now, there are just not as many kids and there in lies our problems with Social Security and Medicare.

I suspect that if more people had the chance to focus exclusively on child-rearing before training for and launching a career, fertility rates would rise. That would be good for the country, for as Phillip Longman, author of "The Empty Cradle," has argued, we are consuming more human capital than we are producing - or to put it another way, we don't have enough young people to support our old people. (That's what the current Social Security debate and the coming Medicare debate are all about.)

Is it possible that David Brooks is trying to help sell the plans “within the Bush administration to spend more than $1 billion over five years on programs to promote marriage among low-income couples?”

Administration officials say they are planning an extensive election-year initiative to promote marriage, especially among low-income couples, and they are weighing whether President Bush should promote the plan next week in his State of the Union address.

For months, administration officials have worked with conservative groups on the proposal, which would provide at least $1.5 billion for training to help couples develop interpersonal skills that sustain "healthy marriages."

After all, if women start staying at home and giving up their dreams of an education and a career, then we will have another baby boom and all those privatized retirement accounts, that Bush longs for, will flourish. So, I get it… instead of teaching my daughter to go for her dreams of good education and a career, I should start looking for her future husband and stressing the values of being a stay at home mom. Not.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=230

[imenja]

1. I doubt it

I can think of a number of others I would suspect before Brooks. Bay Buchanan comes to mind. Brooks doesn't espouse pure Bush propaganda. He has some criticisms and is fairly measured as far as conservatives go, which is why the NYTimes recruited him. He's a lot smarter than Armstrong Williams. I'd look toward the party hacks, like Laura Ingham. I'm tempted to say Ann Coulter, but I tend to think that even this White House wouldn't be crazy enough to hire her.

[kerrygoddess]

4. He's pushing the marriage agenda and the crisis all in one!

The column was down right nauseating. They are fools in my book... everyone of the right wing columnists.

[imenja]

6. not in equal measure

Think of Sean Hannity as compared to Brooks. I disagree with Brooks. Hannity I want to strangle.

[Be Brave]

2. What David Brooks says...

has always made me nauseous. I hope the News Hour gets rid of him.

[demnan]

3. This just shows how out of touch they are

Don't they know that the two income family is an economic necessity in most cases?

Can't they see the the deterioration of actual wages and the astronomical rise of rental and morgage expenses, coupled with the astronomical cost of health care, makes the stay at home Mom an impossible luxury, even among women who would prefer this?

And they're trying to encourage low income women to quit their jobs and marry? There are no words to describe the assinity of this, so I'll just quit. :grr:

[kerrygoddess]

5. It's not on their conservative agenda

Babies, women at home, more babies, better for the economy... backassed thinking!

[cornermouse]

8. Don't they know that the two income family is an economic

necessity in most cases?

Yes, I think some of them do know.

In my opinion, its another tool/whip with a dual purpose. It appeals to the voter with a traditional mindset and it is also used to single out and verbally beat up on women who were working because obviously if they worked they were "feminists" (again my opinion).

The Reagan era was when two incomes really started to become a necessity. They were calling for women to stay home and raise families while engaging in union busting which had a direct effect on the level of income that the husband brought home, which made it impossible for an increasing number of women to stay home.

I also remember it as the era when it seemed to become more acceptable for men to dump their older wives in order to marry the young chick they met somewhere else. I saw a lot of that.

[BR_Parkway]

7. If I opened a whore house, under the guise of "helping couples develop

interpersonal skills that sustain 'healthy marriages'", and put some Bibles in the lobby, highlighting the Song of Solomon passages as "quiet instruction" would I be eligible for some of that $1.5 billion in faith based funding?

[proudbluestater]

9. Somehow the Eagle Forum and CCW must be involved in this

It's so strange because I just mentioned this type of article on another thread. Every so often, out of nowhere, a newspaper article shows up purporting to show "more women are quitting their jobs and staying home with the children." And there is really little evidence to back it up, but they want to keep that idea planted in your head to make you think, hmmm, maybe I'm not doing the right thing here going out to work every day.

This has been going on for my entire adult life. The Rethugs would like to take us back to the 50s when each family had one car and one person as the breadwinner. Keep them women barefoot, pregnant, out of the jobs that belong to the MEN, and most of all, subservient.

Sadly, as more women joined the workforce anyway, wages have fallen for all of us. It seems to be built-in into the system, that since both spouses now work, we can pay each spouse proportionately less.

I think they're mainly worried about the rising economic and political power women may have. Sorry, folks, we're here to stay.

[Sparkly]

10. What a JERK!!!

I took a look at the feedback forum, and he's getting blasted. Good!!! He's outlining a recipe for disaster in his column: middle-aged women with kids and no job experience -- exactly the model of the "welfare queens" the rightwing loves to hate -- not to mention overcrowded schools, etc. And THIS is a sound solution to SS and Medicare not being funded??

What the hell is he thinking?!?

[shrike]

12. Exactly

A 40-year-old woman fresh out of graduate school, no job experience, 15+ years at home, goes out into the job market and finds -- what?

Ask any "older" job seeker -- employers want youngsters, particularly unencumbered youngsters willing to work 80 hours a week.

[hollowdweller]

11. I think he's right! Our country WOULD be better off with one parent at

home. Kids turn out better, less daytime crime, more community cohesion. The main problem is increasing overtime, tax policy that funnel money to the upper class, and concentrating wealth a the top, which is what the GOP wants achieves the exact opposite. The only way you can have one parent at home is to increase the earning power of the middle class, and we aren't doing that!

[Sparkly]

14. That's not his point, though

He's saying have MORE children, earlier on, and enter the workforce later -- and, he's saying a bigger population boom is the answer to Social Security and Medicare being underfunded. It's sure not the answer to overcrowded schools, unaffordable housing, pollution, stressed infrastructure, etc...

Most people probably agree having a parent at home is a good thing, and being able to afford it is preferable than not having that choice. But he's not talking about that.

[kerrygoddess]

22. There's a lot to be said for having a parent at home...

But selling the concept of marriage at a young age is wrong. We've come to far, to let them do this!

Perhaps we need a second coming of the Women's movement...

[imenja]

15. New law: Men stay at home

Men are required to stay at home and look after their children. Sounds like a plan

[blm]

13. Bush's marriage plan is RevMoon's marriage program. Most of the "experts"

have been trained at Moon's seminars.

They teach that marriage should not be based on love but on how it benefits society. They may wrap it in acceptable packaging but it is STILL a moonie program.

[XemaSab]

16. Wow

I'm a single young woman with a career, but if David Brooks is telling me to abandon my career, stay home, and raise up a litter of children, maybe I should do it, because David Brooks is always right when it comes to telling people how to live their lives.

/sarcasm

No, really, if it was Krugman I'd do it, but *nobody* listens to Brooks. He's an asshat.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. And Yet Another Reason to Criminalize The Birth Control Pill

Breeders for Jeebus!!!!!!!

[kerrygoddess]

21. LOL!

Love the bumper sticker... can't stand fundies!

[American Tragedy]

18. And these hypocritical bastards say they're against "big government".

What would you call $1.5 billion wasted on a deluge of pop psychology, right-wing propaganda, and social engineering?

[Cats Against Frist]

19. Uh...I'd call it "big government."

And right-wing authoritarian big government, at that. So much for freedom. Thanks, freeptards.

[wildwww2]

20. This stay at home dad says: Mr. Brooks tell yourself and your Repuke

buddies to mind your own freaking business. My wife and I will control our own lives considering our family. And you can continue to cover up for election stealing and the ruining of our country. Thank you very much. You are a much better cheerleader for Bu$h`s murderous war crime. Than you are an Ann Landers.
Peace
Wildman
Al Gore is My President