'Justa' homemaker
Smith, Beverly
tive; they tend to look with suspicion on something new like statehood. Thus, supporters of the present commonwealth status argue that the choice would mean the loss of the island's Spanish...
...She lives in Calgary, Alberta...
...If a mother at home says that having no personal income is difficult, society suggests she go out and get a job...
...I am not arguing that I am a better mother than others, or that raising kids at home is better than day care...
...Allowing women to enter the professions was right, but it moved only halfway...
...next to D.C...
...Women have to be seen not only as equals of men but as equals of one another...
...I've been making these points in letters to officials for some twenty years, and in that period things have actually gotten worse...
...The premise seems to be that since we are not "working," we have no costs to offset: our children eat for free, play with free toys, get clothes and housing at no cost...
...On my street there are two rooms at home with children, four morns who work full- or parttime outside the home, and two who do salaried work from their homes...
...It's partly a matter of culture and tradition...
...the thousand miles of ocean between the island and the mainland contributes to the cost of everything made and sold on the island...
...Some have written me saying the choice of being a homemaker is naive...
...But that's okay...
...There's irony here, in that what was traditional, a societal norm, is now seen as aberrant...
...a plethora of additional economic assistance from Washington...
...greater access to capital (Puerto Rican companies now depend on expensive bank loans rather than on corporate bonds...
...The truth as I see it is that I'm driven to follow through on what 1 believe, and that one particular feminist belief has led me to lobby Canadian government officials, write letters to editors, appear on talk shows, and research three books...
...My children are also equal...
...Women's work has value wherever it happens...
...We babysit for each other and bake for each other...
...and New York City, AIDS is the highest per capita in the United States...
...If this way of thinking makes me a radical, so be it...
...They cite the following problems: Less than 3 percent of the island's students speak English fluently, and ~hey do so only because they have lived on the mainland...
...Though some islanders disparage that heritage--as nearly four hund red years of slavery, exploitation, and poverty--it nonetheless has a strong pull on educated islanders who identify with the language but not the history of imperial Spain...
...But these slights are not the bottom line...
...Canada subsidizes the daycare expenses up to $6,000 per child per year till the child is fourteen--this to "offset the cost of working...
...All because I'm Justa...
...She provides goods and services that enable both the paid workforce and the next generation to function...
...I earned honors in school and university and I've taught school to (literally) thousands of kids...
...Not at all...
...We cheer one another on because as neighbors we see when one of us is getting overstressed (and we all are from time to time...
...The expenses of child-rearing were once recognized in tax law, but today parents can no longer deduct children as dependents, and the family allowance we once received has in many cases disappeared...
...The major women's groups in my country (and, it seems, in the United States), do not agree on whether to value homemakers...
...Today--unless we can freely choose where we want to be--we are chained to the office desk...
...If a man says Commonweal | | February 27, 1998 he's had a hard day at the office, people sympathize...
...In my country that ranks me slightly above garden soil in the social hierarchy...
...one of them had already won several feminist awards at age twenty-one...
...When I publish something I often use my initials, "B.G.," instead of my name, "Beverly," so that people will judge my work, gender excluded...
...Some use nannies, some use sitters, some depend on day care...
...But in my country (and elsewhere) her preference is not honored, or rewarded, if she chooses to be in the home...
...A woman's place is not in the home, it's wherever she wants to be...
...One woman in my position took to signing her first name as "Justa," as in "Justa Housewife...
...But I want in...
...the island's strong labor unions will deter new business ventures, and U.S...
...Thus, supporters of the present commonwealth status argue that the choice would mean the loss of the island's Spanish heritage...
...In current Canadian law anyone who has a blood relationship to a child cannot be granted money for caring for the child, even though most surveys show that a blood relationship is a fairly good predictor that such a caretaker will love and stand by the child...
...I'm up for it...
...Maybe I'm a curse...
...I seethed when I learned I could not get life insurance and was not permitted to contribute to our national pension plan...
...It's true, the room-with-a-job is (probably) contributing to the gross domestic product, and she's helping create jobs by paying for child care...
...Beverly Smith 'JUSTA' HOMEMAKER One Canadian's fight for recognition W y kids tell me that I may not have been a rebellious teen-ager but now I'm making up for it...
...Why shouldn't I be allowed to define mothering and homemaking as my job, my career, and still be treated as a grown-up...
...I have received encouragement as well from Parents Rights in the United States, Unione Intercontinentale Caslinghe in Rome, Great Britain's National Assembly of Women, and the World Movement of Mothers in Paris...
...It's true that women were once more or less chained to the sink, and that was bad...
...To say women now have value because they can do what was men's work still says that only what was men's work has value...
...the school system itself is on the brink of disaster...
...But (a) she is getting paid for her work, and (b) what the mom-in-the-home does also has societal value...
...Still, Puerto Ricans who want to keep their language could do that, even with statehood...
...the number of murders on the island rivals that of New York City, which has twice the population...
...and significant political representation in Congress that would help to transform the island's colonial status to one of full citizenship...
...Speaking strictly as a feminist, I think that belittling women's work in the home was and is wrong...
...I applaud as loudly as anyone when the specialist heart surgeon is a woman or when a woman is appointed a judge...
...As my mother says, the one issue that can fire up even the meekest of women is a threat to her child, and so I guess it's at least partly maternal drive that is fueling me...
...labor laws will raise the price of doing business, discouraging new investment...
...Two Canadian women's groups, Kid s First and Mothers Are Women, have officially backed my complaint, and Endeavor Forum in Australia will support it with a matching one against their own government...
...People deserve options, as many a "working mother" would agree...
...That's a cultural and political change...
...if it is in the home in a very traditional role, it is as good as any other role...
...basically it's the children who need the help and who benefit, and all children are equal...
...Still, the arguments for statehood and its benefits seem convincing: Statehood would mean a precisely defined relationship with the United States and the rest of the world...
...So it was a shock when a store clerk told me she couldn't accept my check because I didn't have a job, and again when my credit card >,'as refused because I didn't have a note from my husband...
...Beverly Smith is a freeqance writer, a former teacher of French in grades seven through nine, and the mother of four children, ages seventeen through twenty-three...
...I am a feminist by conviction...
...Whatever it takes...
...D Joseph D. Policano's most recent article for Commonweal was a rep~Jrt from Germany (February 13, 1998...
...Who supports this cause...
...better if women all have independent incomes, in part to brace themselves for divorce or widowhood...
...If a nurse says she isn't paid enough we took at her salary and credentials and try to figure out what would be a fairer wage...
...Friends, and as such mutually supportive...
...unemployment is at 10.5 percent (which is historically low...
...Full-time mothers are often excluded from official meetings about childcare (they're only for operators of day-care centers), and generally aren't invited to meetings about women's issues, attended only by women working outside the home...
...My problem is that I'm a homemaker...
...Out of culture flows policy...
...If a woman says the children have given her a hard day at home, she's a whiner...
...My formal complaint to the United Nations accusing my government of official discrimination against homemakers has been accepted and will be heard by the UN's Division for the Advancement of Women, an arm of the Commission on the Status of Women, when this body meets in New York March 2-13...
...Commonweal | 2 February27, 1998...
...I don't begrudge women with paying jobs the help of the state to rear their children...
...My government officially funds only the women's groups that ignore the needs and rights of homemakers...
...My husband tells me I'm a more ardent feminist than most of the women he works with--a comment I'm not sure is meant as praise...
...Those against statehood also argue that the island is not ready for the rigors the transition would impose...
...Caregiving by morn or dad or grandma doesn't have to be better than day care to make my point, it need only be recognized as comparably safe and competent...
...darn it, I'm used to a little respect...
...We have lost monetary value on the tax form as dependents of spouses: Whereas in 1957 a married man could deduct one-third of his income in support of a spouse at home, the deduction now allowed is less than one-seventh of a median income...
...Not so those who speak for women...
...I seem to have imbued my kids with my convictions...
...In Canada and many other lands the entry of most mothers into the paid workforce is a fact of life, and day-care facilities have sprung up everywhere to meet the need...
...But there is no matching help to morns who raise their kids at home...
Vol. 125 • February 1998 • No. 4
