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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#481

Post by emodendroket »

colechristensen wrote: post #360
emodendroket wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also shared characteristics with the life of an animal that were not uncommon. I think the comparison risks trivializing what is described.

I'm not trying to trivialize slavery but force a recognition that's there's a hair's breadth difference between many instances of being a domestic slave and very many instances of being a housewife. One is demonized and the other is celebrated. The way you hear a minority of Bible-enthusiasts talk about the role of a wife is in _no way_ different than the slavery described in the article.

While there may be some similarities, "no difference" is way too far. Even the most extreme fundamentalist at least in principle is going to acknowledge that Paul wrote in Ephesians that as Christ loved the church a man should love his wife as his own body. And in a more practical sense I can't imagine most of even patriarchal husbands would let their wives' teeth fall out and deny them dental care.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#482

Post by keeptrying »

It's amazing how people who see themselves as virtuous people are complicit in netting out such abuse in someone they all rely on a lot.

I'll posit that this happens a lot.

it's very easy to "miss" - because of the power of social proof. You see so many people mistreat someone and thus it's easy to fall into the same behaviour.

Check your own relationships - I think you'd be surprised at what you'd find.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#483

Post by baby »

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…

My mother was telling me that in her village, in the country side of France, some of her classmates ran away to her house (my mother's father was the mayor of the village).

These were foreign kids that were adopted by farmers. They would get mistreated in class and mocked by other kids (which my mother found normal until this accident happened) and they would get exploited in the fields by the farmers.

Apparently this would happen a lot. Farmers would adopt these kids and exploit them. Don't know if this is still happening.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#484

Post by oarsinsync »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #367
emodendroket wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They already get paid for emotional labor with emotional reward. Great, so they can just pay the rent with emotional reward then. > Maybe you could stop being sexist and calling things like education and nursing "feminine." Clearly these occupations have a larger percentage than average of female workers, they're associated with women, and probably not coincidentally, they also have low pay and low prestige. I don'…

>Great, so they can just pay the rent with emotional reward then. Keeping with gender roles... should we pay men to mow their own lawn? Of course not, people cut the lawn themselves to save money when compared to hiring a lawn service. Every dollar a family doesn't spend on lawn service or daycare is a dollar that can be spent on food or shelter. We do put an economic value on the domestic work that women do and ever…

> If salaries of teachers are too low it's only because there are too many qualified people in the market willing to perform that labor.

Alas, in the environments I've been in, that's definitely not the case. A shortage of qualified teachers doesn't trigger pay rises, it triggers a change in the qualifications required to be considered a teacher. 15 years ago, my Biology teacher was a fresh-out-of-university BioChem major and graduate, with no teaching experience or qualifications, but a nice enough personality and thrown into teaching sixth form A-level Biology (last 2 years of school before university, for which the results are used to determine whether or not you get into your chosen university or not)

I got lucky, and still managed to pass my exams and get into university, but he's the first to admit he wasn't qualified for the job, and that we all succeeded mostly in spite of him, rather than because of him.

The point being is that salaries are not just a pure function of supply and demand. There are many other factors at play. The markets are not always right.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#485

Post by baby »

glogla wrote: post #479
hueving wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are hesitant to intervene in something that will likely destroy their own family. This should not be surprising at all. It happens all of the time in family abuse cases.

Family like this is worth destroying.

Worth thinking about: is it worth destroying a dysfunctional but happy family? Are our own standards for freedom worth enforcing on other people's life?

I'm also thinking about that last child in Arrested Development. A lot of families and people are dysfunctional. But are we functional enough to tell them what to do?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#486

Post by anotheryou »

An honest question: Is the "animal howl/cry" something normal to write? To me as a non-native speaker it sounds tinted in a bad way.

On something else: "I tapped the cheap plastic box and regretted not buying a real urn, made of porcelain or rosewood." Even in the very end, she's still not one of them for him. I'm glad though, he was brave enough to write this article anyways.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#487

Post by cbr »

pervycreeper wrote: post #291
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…

>it's usually uncompensated too In Western society, the act of marriage confers (often vastly) increased wealth and status to the lower status partner, and it is usually women who prefer to "marry up". Furthermore, it is also vastly more fulfilling and satisfying to care for one's own children than one's mistress's children. No two roles could be more different, frankly.

    it is usually women who prefer to "marry up"
Regardless of preferences, what I'd expect to happen is that this would end up pretty balanced. Are a substantial fraction of high status women deciding not to get married? Much more than the fraction of high status men?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#488

Post by shdon »

shas3 wrote: post #51

Great read! Many Asian countries have the concept of live-in housekeepers. I think the 'best' (scraping the bottom, here) arrangement is in Singapore, where the government, laws, and law-enforcement ensure that immigrant live-in housekeepers are treated fairly- kinda like au pairs, etc. in the US. I knew someone in India who brought their live-in maid's sister to the US in some capacity (and AFAIK, paid her wages- sh…

Having lived in Brunei, culturally very similar to Singapore, I know a thing about this. I was a kid at the time and we had an "amah" and her family living in our house (or rather, in the servants' quarters on the ground floor, while we lived in the main residence on the floor above that). Most of the foreigners were Dutch and English people, in the employ of Shell. For us, a Dutch family, the concept of having a servant was a very alien concept.

Our amah was a very friendly lady and had a relatively easy life with us -- helping with the cleaning of the house, doing the laundry, and washing the dishes, no cooking or raising us kids -- and was paid quite well. Even though it's been 30 years, I still remember helping her out by drying the dishes and visiting her family.

What shocked me personally was the exploitative nature of many other families, from what my parents told me, the British tended to have this more than the Dutch, though I can't be sure. My parents actually got in trouble with others who didn't appreciate their "spoiling the market" -- by paying wages that they considered fair, which was at approximately 250% of the going rate -- and by not working them to the bone. It still boggles my mind.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#489

Post by cmdrfred »

baby wrote: post #485
glogla wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Family like this is worth destroying.

Worth thinking about: is it worth destroying a dysfunctional but happy family? Are our own standards for freedom worth enforcing on other people's life? I'm also thinking about that last child in Arrested Development. A lot of families and people are dysfunctional. But are we functional enough to tell them what to do?

There is another aspect to this. Consider 911, you had 4 planes full of people and yet it is believed that only 2 - 3 people on a single plane did anything to stop the hijackers (ultimately saving many lives at the cost of their own).

Uncommon valor is prized and honored simply because it is so uncommon. It is easy to say how you would act in a situation from the comfort of your keyboard but when the shit hits the fan are you sure that you are part of the exceptional 5%? Or are you just another passenger trying to get home? Perhaps OP is just like most people, not wanting to rock the boat and trying to get on with his life. Having walked a few miles in his shoes are you certain you'd do any different? I'd like to think I would but I'd be dishonest to confidently claim it. "Some cats surf, Some cats make the waves"

Re: My Family’s Slave

#490

Post by Chris2048 »

nailer wrote: post #420
int_19h wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left is not a hivemind. There are people who self-identify as liberals but not progressives, and there are people who self-identify as progressives but not liberals, and there's those who mix and match.

If you identify as liberal in the UK right now you're called 'scum' by the people who run the left.

what?
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