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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#391

Post by tathougies »

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…

> All of the work in a traditional mother's role, well it's usually uncompensated too. Sure it's a "labor of love" but it's also just a huge amount of work, for decades. An argument could be made that the entire capitalist system is built upon uncompensated labor. Just ask your mom.

I mean the key difference here is the obvious one, which is that spouses have complete access to the other's money. period.

If Lola had been the equivalent of the mother and the mother the father, Lola wouldn't need to ask the mother for money -- she could just go to the bank with her marriage certificate and take it herself.

My wife and I live in California, a community property state. At the moment we married, everything that is mine became hers and vice versa.

Right now, for various reasons, she's not working and she does a lot of the housework. She's hardly a slave though. Firstly, if I didn't give her enough money to live on, she could just go to the bank. Secondly, if I hid my accounts from her, she could sue me for neglect. Thirdly, if I were to take on a mistress, she could sue me again for spousal neglect. Of course, the same would apply if the situation was reversed.

Let's not compare marriage to slavery. The entire institution of marriage is meant to prevent one spouse from controlling the other by simply making ownership joint. Show me a system of slavery where the slaves own the entirety of their master's estate, and I'll show you justice.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#392

Post by [deleted] »

pervycreeper wrote: post #268
dbg31415 wrote: post #58

When I was in elementary school in the 80s one of my friends has a "nanny" who slept on a cot in the laundry room in the basement. I didn't think much of it, a few of us had housekeepers and I just imagined a few other people had live-in help too, like on TV shows... A year or two into our friendship, I was over at their house after school and around dinner time I asked if I could stay. The parents said, "Sure, no pr…

> Then stood over her with a clenched fist and yelled at her in a language I didn't understand. Which language?

[deleted]

Re: My Family’s Slave

#394

Post by abritinthebay »

quirkafleeg wrote: post #380
nether wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some people would rather criticize the critics than admit there is a problem. :(

Re: My Family’s Slave

#395

Post by watwut »

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…

Being housewife in the past was not like today - washing, cooking, shopping and all that took much more work then today. You also fixed cloth by yourself and had to sew. Even embroidery was more then just a hobby it is today, it had more practical function. On farm or withing peasants, there was a lot of garden and animals related work to do too. Which is one of challenges of staying with children now, you feel useless and underused a lot of time.

In here, you are expected to take a lot of time away of work while the child is small. Colleges were honestly horrified when I told I consider staying shorter. You are "just a housewife" during that time. It is love or their life for some women, but definitely not for most. That time is actually considered risk time for depression and alcoholism - people drink out of isolation and boredom and depression. Good think through is that you can talk openly about all those negative feelings with other women, you don't get shut up with "that was your choice be happy".

If you feel like trying it, I would say try it even if you are a man. Maybe it will work for you. It is more practical in some ways, but you became dependent on partner on a lot - not just money but also social stuff. There is a reason why women were supposed to be so much more talkative and on the phone constantly by 1950 stereotypes - because alone in the house most of the day.

I don't think switching would work for most people, you have to make a lot of changes. It is major lifestyle switch and adjustment period is tiring (both into it and out of it after). You will basically need new hobbies (old ones will be frustrating or cease to be satisfying or are impossible), need new ways of finding people to socialize with (when I work, the society is sort of around you without effort - the challenge is to be alone once in a while. At home you have to work on not being isolated.). You have to get used to slow speed of doing things and deadly routine suddenly and basically having to wait for partner while he is out and it is depressing until you do.

One issue is, your partner will not understand your challenges, they are not real challenges from his point of view as an employed person with deadlines and crappy boss nor what it is like - while you will slowly forget what it was like to be at work. That is where nagging wife stereotype comes from - she is supposed to exist for the sake of family which includes partner, but from partners point of view nothing of interest is at home (neither much duty or really fun). Which basically means, it can work but both needs to be aware of this risk and communicate well.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#396

Post by [deleted] »

anovikov wrote: post #383
creepydata wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>neither men nor women really have the option of just "being a housewife." We kind of both have to work....in most marriages, both people have to work. Says who? Sure if you take out a fat mortgage and car loans that require two incomes to repay then, sure, you need two incomes. But you can also just choose to live in a smaller house and drive cheaper cars instead. The issue is the lifestyle inflation that comes with…

I think you are typing this sitting at your comfortable 1% Valley workplace. Nowhere in the world does $55K a year before tax provide anywhere like 'good life'. It means endless misery and generational psychological poverty passed on to your children. Only reason of doing it is if your desire to exert psychological pressure on your wife is greater than even desire to consume. It simply doesn't sound healthy, and it i…

[deleted]

Re: My Family’s Slave

#398

Post by Chathamization »

Mz wrote: post #162
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…

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.

It's not uncommon to find situations like that in some areas. Families where both parents have well paying and intensive careers, and they hire a live-in domestic servant that ends up being somewhat of a substitute parent.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#399

Post by watwut »

justinpombrio wrote: post #384
weberc2 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Ironically, our conservative friends and family have never said a word about whether she works or tends home; they're very laissez-faire about the matter. The fair comparison would be to see how they reacted if your roles were reversed: if she worked and you made her lunch.

Or if he would embroider as a hobby or decided to be kindergarten teacher.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#400

Post by mirimir »

rsync wrote: post #356
MockObject wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear repeatedly that "real wages have been constant since 1970". What started happening around then? Labor follows the same supply demand curves as any other commodity.

"Labor follows the same supply demand curves as any other commodity." Yes, it does. The demand dropped. What you hear about real wages is in reference to the US and other parts of the global north. Those manufacturing jobs moved to the global south and now there is less demand for them here.

Yes. I'd add collapse of labor unions, but that's rather a consequence. The perception of women taking jobs from men also follows from loss of male-dominated manufacturing jobs. Women did that work during WWII, but they were enticed back home afterward.
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