by Lucy S.
I didn't intend to write anything else for the blog this week, but after seeing yet more of these posts on Facebook calling for mandatory drug tests, I wrote a post on there, and this is an expansion of that.
When
I see posts favoring mandatory drug tests for mothers (or fathers - but in
reality, it's almost always directed at mothers) who receive welfare, I would
like to know if people who feel this way also favor mandatory drug tests for
stay at home parents with spouses / partners working for an income. Or maybe
the partner should demand it since s/he is providing an income. For that
matter, even if the partner provides a much higher percentage of the total
income, maybe s/he should demand it. Would anyone just maybe find that
insulting? Would that be a sign of a
healthy, equal relationship?
I
find it a really problematic notion that somehow if a parent receives an income
from the state (and a very meager, inadequate one – Tennessee’s is a whopping
$185 a month for a parent with two kids), that somehow gives the state a right
to invade her body with these tests as if she is somehow more 'suspicious' because
of receiving this income. But if it is privatized to another individual
providing the income (and here we always end up connecting to either residuals
of patriarchy or very active forms), then everything has changed and it's fine
and even warm and wonderful and no one else's business. Now she's under the lordship of her husband!!
It is labor caring for kids and others and doing a multitude of other things – and it is labor whether the person has a partner or not. And the kids are not being raised to hand over to the income-providing partner. They are being raised to become part of humanity, so this labor is really to sustain humanity, and is not some private hobby, nor a gift for patriarchy.
And having been in the position of parenting without a partner around or with one, sometimes working for an income, sometimes not, I can say that it's usually a lot more work to be a single parent (even "stay at home") than one with a partner. (The exceptions are if someone has a partner who needs a lot of help for health reasons or who is dominating and difficult while offering no help.) The single parent has to be "on" a lot more of the time, because there is no partner to take over with babies and young kids, or to cook, or to run to the store for something, or to do all the other work. The single parent has to take those kids along if they're too young to leave, unless they're fortunate enough to have extended family or friends living with them.
It is labor caring for kids and others and doing a multitude of other things – and it is labor whether the person has a partner or not. And the kids are not being raised to hand over to the income-providing partner. They are being raised to become part of humanity, so this labor is really to sustain humanity, and is not some private hobby, nor a gift for patriarchy.
And having been in the position of parenting without a partner around or with one, sometimes working for an income, sometimes not, I can say that it's usually a lot more work to be a single parent (even "stay at home") than one with a partner. (The exceptions are if someone has a partner who needs a lot of help for health reasons or who is dominating and difficult while offering no help.) The single parent has to be "on" a lot more of the time, because there is no partner to take over with babies and young kids, or to cook, or to run to the store for something, or to do all the other work. The single parent has to take those kids along if they're too young to leave, unless they're fortunate enough to have extended family or friends living with them.
(I
think an informal communal situation like that is much healthier than the
vaunted nuclear family one, but many single parents live with only their young
kids, partly because as a single parent – and oh do I know this from personal
experience – you’re more likely to get people treating you as if you don’t know
what you’re doing, or who want to emphasize that you’re the one who screwed up,
so you’d better be ready to ‘take the responsibility for it.’ I especially love this from anti-abortion
folks who value babies’ lives so much, yet see them as punishments to bear once
on the scene for the single mom. So you often
need that place of your own just to get everyone off your back and to prove to
yourself and others that you are a competent adult. I should add: my birth family didn’t treat me
this way, but there were others I lived with or knew who did.)
I have known married parents who were cruel and negligent with their kids, so if we're so determined to have the state police everyone, why not just say all parents have to be drug-tested? And maybe psychologically evaluated, too, in case they're failing in other ways? I mean, what is the justification for this insulting intrusion into the lives of mothers who collect welfare? What subconscious assumptions and ideologies are being brought along in these calls for testing?
I think mass testing of this kind would be a disaster, but I want to say to these people who keep speaking in favor of it: if you don't want it for yourself or all the non-welfare-recipient parents you know, then why target mothers who get a meager income from the state for doing the same work married / partnered mothers do, but doing it with less help? It’s a disgusting kind of bullying.
I have known married parents who were cruel and negligent with their kids, so if we're so determined to have the state police everyone, why not just say all parents have to be drug-tested? And maybe psychologically evaluated, too, in case they're failing in other ways? I mean, what is the justification for this insulting intrusion into the lives of mothers who collect welfare? What subconscious assumptions and ideologies are being brought along in these calls for testing?
I think mass testing of this kind would be a disaster, but I want to say to these people who keep speaking in favor of it: if you don't want it for yourself or all the non-welfare-recipient parents you know, then why target mothers who get a meager income from the state for doing the same work married / partnered mothers do, but doing it with less help? It’s a disgusting kind of bullying.
I
mean, if we’re talking about a mother whose partner left her, it is really
adding more injury to her to imply that she is a lesser person for this, a
person who needs drug tests, because after all, if she couldn’t hold on to her
partner, there must be something defective about her, right? That’s what it comes down to, and it’s
degrading to all women to judge us according to these terms. (And let us always keep in mind that there aren't nearly enough jobs paying anywhere near a living wage - so it's not as simple as just saying that she should go get a job in this ridiculous economy.)
***
Postscript: What a surprise... In addition to the continual efforts to diminish any governmental economic support (all the neoliberal privatization moves going on in the U.S. and around the world), we find that the big corporations who stand to profit from forced mass drug-testing of people receiving welfare (and even unemployment compensation) are pushing these laws. Alternet has a short article on this. http://www.alternet.org/how-big-pharma-bringing-forced-drug-tests-state-near-you The pharmaceutical corporate executives have lobbied politicians to put these laws in force and even been behind-the-scenes writers of some proposed state legislation for mandatory drug testing for those receiving welfare or unemployment payments. One reason for the push is that companies have finally decided that it hasn't been worth the expenditures to continue testing their employees, so the big pharmaceuticals need a new base of customers.
Well said. What could be more important labor than caring for the future? The call for this kind of intrusion is nothing more than an attempt to degrade and humiliate. There is the principal of "judge not.." and apart from that I'd like to know what is great about the dynamic I know of in so many families where parents work so many damn hours that they spend little time with their children? And talking themselves into this idea that it's "quality" not "quantity" that matters. And, of course, there are the cruel and negligent ones you've mentioned. Or, the ones that can't have their styles cramped with little kids around them. I talked to a woman who runs a skiing camp on weekends. She said you see some of the rich parents bring their kids every weekend all winter long and then drive off in expensive cars. They can afford it so no one judges them. Who's in favor of a Parent License? Courses in parenting? Stop it! I'm sick of it too. No one is getting rich from Welfare. This call for drug testing is about punishing parents, mostly mothers. As if we have a right to invade their lives. And the people who are diabetic and receiving Medicare, do we have a right to their grocery receipts? It has nothing to do with drugs, smoking, alcohol, or food. The people not on any kind of public assistance are probably doing more drugs and alcohol. It has everything to do with blaming the poor. In the days since you have written this, it has occurred to me that whenever there are economic woes: inflation, joblessness, recessions, etc... there is this tendancy to want to cast blame: the poor, "illegal" immigrants, jews, etc... This has been a historical trend.
ReplyDeleteTammy L.
Hi Tammy (my sister!),
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughts on this. That's a really interesting point about the wealthy parents who can drop their kids off and interact with them minimally. Yes,what it really comes down to is that money buys people respect, a respect that has nothing to do with their ethics or the quality of their care for their children. Yes, the casting of blame onto everyone except those actually responsible -- those who dominate the economic system -- serves those power interests well. "Divide and conquer..." This drug-testing is thinly disguised as some kind of concern for children, but it is just another way to punish low-income parents along with their children, and as we now see, another way for pharms to make money and governments to exercise control over people's lives. Thanks a lot for your comments!!