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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#371

Post by taneq »

weberc2 wrote: post #339
toadi wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, my girlfriend is the same. She tried working as an employee and even self-employed. But finally, she's happy being a housewife. My mother and even friends frown upon me. Like I push her to be a housewife. Actually, I supported her working and even helped her to be self-employed. But she's most happy being a housewife. I think people just want to have a big home, 2 cars annually 2 holidays and that costs a l…

My wife has always had traditionally-feminine work preferences, but she's felt a lot of shame from her more left-leaning friends and coworkers (we're both moderate liberals). Similarly, my office is very liberal, and I often feel a bit judged if I mention that my wife cooked my lunch or otherwise mention that my wife's hobbies are traditionally feminine. Ironically, our conservative friends and family have never said…

It's more than symbolic that the left has dropped the 'liberal' appelation for the more militant 'progressive.' It's no longer about respecting individuals, now it's about enforcing a particular strict ideology (as you've found).

Re: My Family’s Slave

#372

Post by BurningFrog »

throwaway66494 wrote: post #216

My family adopted my female cousin nearly 30 years ago from Guatemala. The country was in civil war at the time so bringing her to the U.S. was in her best interest. Unfortunately my mother and aunt (sisters of her birth father) kept her so locked down that she is effectively a slave. My aunt hasn't worked in decades because my little sister has always signed every paycheck over to my aunt. After working for nearly 2…

The big unknown here seems to be her immigration status. Your family actually may well not know it.

What her actual status is in the eyes of Uncle Sam, and what can be done to possibly fix it should be easily discovered by contacting your nearest immigration lawyer.

The first consultation is maybe $100 (long time since I dealt with this), and then they can tell you what the options and costs are.

Once the immigration status is understood, the options will be much clearer.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#373

Post by stevekemp »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #270
Mz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen career women kind of jokingly say "I need a wife." I was struck by the fact that Alex's mother, whom some people here are vilifying, managed to have a serious career like a man because she had Lola at home to do all the "women's work." This is mostly being overlooked in discussion and I didn't know how to bring it up myself. I appreciate you remarking upon it.

As a male, I'd personally prefer to live a life filled with traditional housewife work. Kids are fun, and I'd like raising them. I like cooking. Cleaning is pretty fun. More than that, though, employment sucks. If you keep me fed, clothed, and with an internet connection, I'd be happy as a clam, even spending eight hours a day doing nothing but housework. I sometimes wonder if there are others who feel this way, espe…

I was looking forward to that myself, too. My wife earns more money than I - and so we'd considered having me give up work to do childcare, instead of her.

As it happens though I think neither of us is going to need to. Maternity/Paternity leave here is almost a year, and by the time that is ended I think we'll be in a good place where neither of us needs to quit entirely, although there may be some part-time working now and again.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#374

Post by bittercynic »

lacampbell wrote: post #350
emodendroket wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there argument here that literally nothing whatsoever could be better than the system we currently live under? The one where we're hurtling toward ecological catastrophe and essentially no mitigation is being done?

Is there argument here that literally nothing whatsoever could be better than the system we currently live under? Potentially, I suppose. The only alternatives I hear being peddled are socialist though. So I associate any petty wry remark about "in capitalism, so and so" as a socialist agenda pushing. In 2017, I don't think it should be considered at all acceptable to advocate socialism in polite company. We've faile…

Don't take a criticism of capitalism as socialist agenda pushing. Acknowledging that some services are best provided by the public sector does not mean that one wants the private sector to disappear. Extreme socialism has been a disaster every time, extreme capitalism seems like it also brings some horrific injustice and poverty for many of its subjects.

In one case there are no groceries on the shelves, in the other the shelves are fully stocked, but you can't afford anything anyway. Either way, a few are very powerful and many have their basic needs go unmet.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#375

Post by zem »

wavefunction wrote: post #39
lordnacho wrote: post #20

I had a terrible "Billy" moment a few years ago. I was travelling and a friend said I could use her house, because it was empty. This was perfect for me, since I had a wife and kid. It turns out there was a housekeeper. She did everything for us, made us feel very comfortable, cooked, served, helped with the kid, etc. Then one day I found out she didn't have her own room, despite the place being a multi storey mansio…

I guess I would have taken her to the authorities and helped her get whatever help she needs as soon as I determined her situation. And your friend is no feminist or idealist.

if his friend was indian, the authorities would have been mightily puzzled. this is standard treatment for live-in servants, right down to the sheer meanness of making sure she "didn't get too comfortable" by way of an unnecessary phone call each morning.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#376

Post by bagels »

pje wrote: post #251
achou wrote: post #141

Truly remarkable story. One thing that struck me is that Lola did so much of the work of a traditional mother's role: raising the kids, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and even providing emotional support. The mother had to take on a traditional father's role in bringing home an income. And the actual father - well, he did neither role and seemed to just freeload, gamble, abuse, and finally disappear. All of the work in…

> the entire capitalist system is built upon uncompensated [domestic] labor Absolutely. This observation was/is the catalyst of many leftist movements, for example Wages For Housework: > The Campaign was formed to raise awareness of how housework and childcare are the base of all industrial work and to stake the claim that these unavoidable tasks should be compensated as paid wage labor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

Childcare is avoidable if you avoid making children.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#377

Post by snowwrestler »

achou wrote: post #141

Truly remarkable story. One thing that struck me is that Lola did so much of the work of a traditional mother's role: raising the kids, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and even providing emotional support. The mother had to take on a traditional father's role in bringing home an income. And the actual father - well, he did neither role and seemed to just freeload, gamble, abuse, and finally disappear. All of the work in…

> An argument could be made that the entire capitalist system is built upon uncompensated labor. Just ask your mom.

My mom grew up during the Cold War. I haven't asked her specifically but I'm pretty sure she would just be confused by your comment. Women in the Soviet Union didn't get compensated either for domestic duties, like spending an hour standing in line to buy food staples.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#378

Post by snowwrestler »

bagels wrote: post #376
pje wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the entire capitalist system is built upon uncompensated [domestic] labor Absolutely. This observation was/is the catalyst of many leftist movements, for example Wages For Housework: > The Campaign was formed to raise awareness of how housework and childcare are the base of all industrial work and to stake the claim that these unavoidable tasks should be compensated as paid wage labor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

Childcare is avoidable if you avoid making children.

Cool, then who's going to pay the bills when you're retired?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#379

Post by snowwrestler »

rayiner wrote: post #283
carapace wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "An argument could be made that the entire capitalist system is built upon uncompensated labor." What? Non-capitalist societies don't have housewives?

Pre-Industrial agrarian societies have quite a different structure. A "housewife" is defined by a wife performing domestic labor supporting a husband who in turn participates in the market economy. That's not how it works on a farm, where the husband and wife both work on the farm.

And who owned the farm? In many such societies, only the husband--meaning the wife's work was still uncompensated.

The problem of uncompensated labor by women does not break down neatly on the borders of economic concepts like captitalism, agrarian, industrial, etc.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#380

Post by quirkafleeg »

nether wrote: post #349
employee8000 wrote: post #341

Every day you let her live in these disgusting situation makes you complicit in this crime. Your aunt is stealing the life away from your sister. Free her.

Why are you typing comments on HN instead of atoning for your countless sins?

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. He wasn't calling the OP a sinner, or even questioning his posting on HN, he was telling him to do something to stop the abuse of his sister.
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