My boys were five and two when I got divorced. I didn’t receive any child support. The courts found that with 50/50 custody and my education and earning potential, I was more than fine to survive on my own for 16 years of raising children as a work mom. That is 192 months. 192 months of hustle, struggle, tears, laughter, late nights, bills left un-paid, sacrificing the things I wanted to give to them, rearranging work schedules to be there for their events.
I wouldn’t trade a minute of it. Being a working single parent wasn’t easy, I struggled and my struggle became a hustle — a hustle my boys learned from me. No, I wouldn’t trade a minute of it and because it was my choice to become a parent, I never believed anyone owed me anything to do so.
But, now Reshma Saujani has the brilliant idea of printing more money from the Fed to hand out $2,400/month in check to mothers who have struggled during the pandemic. Ms. Sauhani, I have ALWAYS struggled. So, for the 192 months I raised children and worked, I will send you a bill for $460,800 in reparations.
The Girls Who Code founder and CEO, Sujani ran a full-page ad in The New York Times urging President Biden and the rest of Congress to per her Marshall Plan for Moms to include the unpaid labor that moms do at home. Excuse me, are we just waking up to the fact that there is and has always been things that we do in life that we don’t get PAID for. Having children is supposed to be a choice, correct? Did I miss where it was a job inflicted on us that the government should then pay us for?
Where is all this money coming from? Are we just going to keep printing it to pay off everyone until the value of the dollar is nothing?
The pandemic has been a trying time on us all. Sales have dropped in some industries, leaving salespeople struggling. Layoffs have happened in other industries. Businesses had to down-size leading to personal losses in jobs. We have ALL struggled. Any mother that was forced out of the workforce due to the pandemic is already collecting unemployment.
Are they suggesting that on top of that an extra $2,400/month is warranted? So, what of the other untold masses that have lost?
Where does all of this end? The full vaccine distribution to all adults is now slated to occur by the end of May. Schools will be re-open soon. We don’t “Build Back Better” by bankrupting the country to pay for CHOICES and we don’t Build Back Better by incentivizing women to stay OUT of the workforce by paying them to do so.
It all seems like an endless payoff that there isn’t a tru way to stop. I am consistently stuck between trying to fight is as I watch the growing tide of debt and handouts become the norm and just getting in line for my “hand-out” for what I have always done without ever thinking the government owed me anything for doing so.
So, if this passes … I want my $460,800 in reparations for the 192 months I single-parented without any help from the government. Actually, I will make it an even $500K because I want a bonus for the teen years.
Pretty Political 