Entitlement and Women's Work

A couple of weeks before Christmas I participated in some troll-baiting at Assistant Village Idiot's blog. One of the links he put up led to an article in which a blogger, towards the end of a post on various topics, declared that 70-80% of entitlement spending programs, like Social Security and Medicare, are simply transfers of wealth from men to women.

Men pay into the system, women reap the benefits.

I made some mild comment about the post needing a warning label that certain people's heads(mine, in particular) might explode upon reading such a post. That was all an anonymous commenter and aforementioned troll needed to begin personally insulting me. And, knowing from the outset the type of person I was dealing with, I engaged in some rhetorical, obnoxious troll-baiting. At times, I tried to comment fairly and seriously....but, as anyone who's been using the internet for more than 20 minutes can tell you, it was all for naught.

It's impossible to talk reasonably with unreasonable people.

I won't go into the entire discussion because I tediously repeated my points ad nauseum already on AVI's post.

However, the discussion did spark some more reflections on the nature of the relationship between men, women and finances.

My troll conversation partner stated that most wealth belonged to men. I asked how those men's wives and daughters would feel about such a statement, and he, in the midst of other things, glancingly referred to the sense of entitlement that my comment implied.

I had to think about that for a minute. Do I feel that women are entitled to the wealth their male partners produce? In today's day and age, many women work and have their own assets. They are not necessarily beholden to men for their financial well-being.

On the other hand, a woman like me, who has stayed home for many years raising children , or worked part-time in order to facilitate the family's needs and provide stability and a constant parental presence in the home, depends greatly on her husband to provide for her and the family.

When DH and I had children we had already decided that I was going to stay home in order to take care of them. This was a mutual decision. At first it was very uncomfortable for me. I was used to paying my own way for things and contributing financially to our marriage/family. I paid my own way through college, bought my own car as a teenager, and had been providing for myself since high school. Learning to be financially dependent upon someone else was disconcerting to me.

And it showed. I felt very constrained about spending money. DH and I are not big spenders anyway, but I still felt self-conscious, at first, about buying a new shirt, or a pair of jeans, or a book at the bookstore. In the beginning it felt as if all the money was DH's money and I was some hanger-on asking, "Please, sir...can I have some more?"

DH never made me feel this way....it was just how I felt because of not feeling as if I had any control over the situation and thinking that I wasn't making a real contribution to the family.

I knew that what I was doing was important, but I hadn't yet realized my worth.

I no longer worry about those types of things. When you have been married for a good length of time and have raised your children together and been through family and health crises together....you realize that marriage and family is all about partnership, working together to build something of value.

In the midst of this partnership you come to the realization that "equality" does not mean that at any particular point in time in a relationship that both parties have completely equal burdens and responsibilities and benefits. There is no such thing as a 50-50 relationship. Life precludes it. Many times it is an 80-20 relationship, or a 0-100 relationship. The hope is that those times of inequality flip-flop and the partner who has formerly contributed "more" will be on the receiving end.

To be comfortable with the inevitable inequalities in relationships, you have to trust the person with whom you are in partnership. They have to be reliable and responsible and aiming for the same goal, one that is larger than one person's particular satisfaction. In the context of such a relationship, "mine" and "yours" fades away. There is only "ours" or "the family's".

In that vein...I do feel "entitled"(though that word has negative connotations for me) to my "husband's" wealth...because I don't see it as his. We are working together. He brings in the most money....I provide our family a maternal glue that holds us together. The loss of either of us would devastate our family.....financially and emotionally.

When my husband gives up "his" wealth and I give up "my" opportunities to get my own wealth, we all benefit.

Dying to self, in the service of something greater than oneself, inevitably brings oneself something even better.

Self-sacrifice is ultimately self-serving...in a good way.

maybe more on this later....

Money and Value

I wanted to put out some of my thoughts about The Money Fix. I enjoyed the program immensely and learned a few things I hadn't known before, but one of the most interesting parts was the realization that our money has gone post-modern on us.

This thought has occurred to me before, usually while I am trying to explain to my kids what a debit card is and how we pay for things. I am one of those people who very rarely carries cash. I have been known to use my debit card to buy a soda at a gas station, or buy a couple stamps at the post office. In fact, the only time I carry cash is when I am driving long distances and need money for tolls. For everything else, I use my debit card.

Money, for me, has become a ledger of credits and debits. Our paychecks are electronically deposited. Our bills are paid electronically online.

It's a little dizzying to think about. I go to the store and they move some numbers from my bank account to theirs. They use those same numbers to pay their bills and their employees. Those employees leave work and swap some of those numbers for a hamburger and fries, and then switch some more electronic numbers for a tank of gas.

All this can happen in a single day, and yet what has really happened in this scenario? When we cash a paycheck, actual, hard copy cash is not moved from the large bank in Fort Lauderdale that backs up the paycheck. When I buy groceries no physical cash is moved from the bank to the store. And when the store pays its employees, there is no physical movement of money from their bank to the employee. Those numbers can be turned into cash, if the employee opts to cash their check instead of depositing it, but the cash they receive is just a physical representation of a line of transactions that threaded their way through the state, zig-zagging from place to place electronically until someone decided to turn their electronic number into a physical reality.

It's uncomfortable to realize that if everyone decided to turn their electronic numbers into cash, there wouldn't be enough cash to take the place of the electronic numbers. So then, what do all of those electronic numbers represent if they don't represent actual physical objects?

I mean what is money, anyway? Just some paper with pictures and numbers on it. The only reason it has any value is because we all agree to follow the rules of the monetary system and attribute the individual worth of a particular piece of paper as determined by its markings.

Someone will say,"But the paper is just a stand-in for actual money, like gold." However, that's not true because our money hasn't been on a gold standard since the seventies. Many conservatives want the US to go back to a gold standard, and many people still see gold as a reliable form of wealth, but the dye has been cast and it will never be possible to go back to a gold standard, because there simply is not enough gold to back up the monetary system, not only of our country, but also the monetary systems of other countries.

People who worry about the devaluation of money have been buying gold, and even silver, and stockpiling it as form of true wealth, which is why gold prices have sky-rocketed over the past year and why we have to endure all those Cash 4 Gold commercials on TV. Here's something to think about, though: What makes gold a form of true wealth? Do we value it because it's pretty? Because it makes some nice jewelry?

There are some industrial uses for gold in electronics, but for the most part, gold is a vanity or luxury product. It isn't especially useful.

What would happen if gold lost its luster in the eyes of most people? It would lose its value.

Any form of wealth is only as valuable as the value that people agree to assign to it, and it isn't inconceivable to imagine a time when the utility of a resource, in its relation to people, becomes a measure of its value.

Humans decide what is valuable, sometimes based on supply and demand and sometimes because of the psychology or perception of the market.

We see the direct effects of this principle everywhere, especially here in Florida where our real estate market has plummeted to the bottom of the barrel. Houses have lost enormous amounts of their value, not because they are any different than they were three years ago, but because how valuable a house is has less to do with how the house is constructed and more to do with uncontrollable, abstract ideas.

Is the house in a desirable location? Are there good schools nearby? Are there jobs in the area for people? Do people want to live there?

The answers to those questions have little to do with the actual house and more with the usefulness of what living in that house will provide people; convenience, a pleasant living experience, and proximity to other things that people value.

Value is a property that is in the complete control of human wishes and desires, ranging from the completely necessary to the bizarrely superfluous.

I'll continue more of this later.

Summing It Up

Capitalist Christians--Part Two

Yesterday's post, although dealing with two specific examples and bloggers, was not meant to single them out individually as somehow being more capitalistic than other Christians.

The intertwining of Christianity, power, and money has long been an issue. Anyone remember papal indulgences? Purchasing forgiveness by contributing to the building of a Cathedral, or the local monastery definitely muddied the spiritual waters.

American Christianity, in particular, seems to have such a capitalistic nature that I wonder if it's possible to completely exorcise it from the the flavor of Christianity we Americans know. The dissemination of popular Christian ideas through TV, magazines, books and music lends itself to marketing spiritual truths. No one will buy books unless they are told about how great the book is and how life-changing it will be. Nobody will buy music unless they are convinced that the musicians are super-cool, edgy, and can convey a worshipful experience for the listener. Suddenly proclamation leads to promotion in order to attract buyers.

I don't think most Christian writers and musicians start down this path consciously. It starts with a very real desire to be "relevant". Add that tendency to the fact that there is no sure way to inform Christians about an upcoming concert or conference without paying for advertising and a "nice" venue and the slope gets progressively slippery. Every perk must be paid for. Soon what started as a ministry quickly transforms into a business with employees that must be paid and budgets that must be met.

Is it possible to minister in America without being lured into monetizing your message or music once it becomes "popular"? I'm not sure. The only example I can think of is the late Rich Mullins who reportedly lived on a set, normal salary for a "working man" and donated all the rest of the money his albums made.

Radical? Yes, but perhaps more in line with keeping our priorities straight.