Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 4, 1993 TAG: 9306040466
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SONJA TAYLOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Barrett, apparently, suffers from several delusions. He must think all men can and will support their children and family. He doesn't take into account the margin of greed that enters into every employer-employee relationship: If I can find someone to do this job cheaper, I will keep the extra and show higher profits. (Just ask any older person who was making a high-income paycheck and who was replaced by a younger, less-paid person, as the company "restructures.") The high unemployment rate shows we have too many people out of work, let alone the woman who goes home and has 10 children, as Barrett suggests, creating five more females to re-create and five men to go out and work, thereby "multiplying her income (and tax-paying) potential."
Is he under the impression that these boys will want to help take care of their mother in her dotage, as she enters a nursing home with care mounting to several thousand dollars a month, and their incomes being counted and taken by the nursing home to provide this care? Or is he thinking the boys, whose erstwhile wives are home producing five more little taxpayers (and five non-taxpaying girls), will also take care of a bedridden, paralyzed mother? Who is going to pay for the birthing of these 10 children? Is it our fault medical costs are so high, because we hold down a job? Is it our fault that groceries cost so much? How is one man going to pay the grocery bill for 12 people?
What happens to the woman who has no children? Who will provide for her, since she has no earning capacity? What happens if the man dies and these 10 children cannot fend for themselves? Remember, only five are allowed to work. If the five girls do not get married, is their father going to take care of them until his dying day (which should arrive shortly, working to provide for six females, who have no earning capacity)?
And let's cover Barrett's statement regarding men doing jobs at better pay than the women who just vacated jobs to have children.
Is Barrett aware that in this country that all men are not created equal? Not all men are endowed with the intellectual development that he thinks he possesses.
I have to read and write on my job. I know men who cannot read well enough to comprehend. Is it their mothers' fault? (Many of these women never worked outside the home.) How can I be replaced at the particular job I do, or is Barrett only interested in classifying each group? Surely this is his thought, as he is clearly classifying women.
Apparently, he is also under the impression that all men will work and pay taxes. I can assure Barrett that not every man's ambition includes working five days a week for a paycheck.
Let's discuss the stingy man who provides for his own personal requirements, which includes the best, while his wife and children have minimal, if any, considerations. I know women who have stayed at home, raised their families and have the most inconsiderate, selfish and trifling children who have ever walked. These children do not provide even minimal attention, let alone care, to the good, Christian and humble woman who nurtured them. They have stolen, sold drugs, solicited sex, served prison time, lived off welfare and had their children removed for child neglect. How can we say that this is this woman's fault? She never worked a day outside the home.
Who is paying for Barrett's law degree? His father? Why does he not have a full-time job? I say that no amount of formal education can make up for the ignorance he projected in his letter. God forbid this man be in a court of law confronting a woman, in any capacity.
Sonja Taylor of Salem is a clerical government worker.
by CNB