Rebecca Westbrook Toker

Host

Small is Beautiful Chapter 4

Jan 18, 2014·29 visitors

Aaron Meyers

Cohost

Stage· 323 messages

Jan 18, 2014

Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and Green Business Guru Aaron Meyers returns to dissect Chapter 3 of EF Schumacher's seminal work, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. This week, what we've all been waiting for: BUDDHIST ECONOMICS!!!nnFree PDF version of Small is Beautiful at http://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/student/~pdarshan/SmallIsBeautifulSchumacher.pdf

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:00 AM

Hey, everyone.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:00 AM

Lovely evening, isn't it???

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:00 AM

it's the final countdown http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:00 AM

Haha, Rick, It certainly is that...

Aaron Meyers · 2:00 AM

howdy

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:00 AM

How are you, Aaron?

Aaron Meyers · 2:00 AM

not bad, bit sleepy

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:01 AM

Me, too. But I'm having another beer.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:01 AM

Which won't help. :D

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:01 AM

hey Rebecca and Aaron

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:01 AM

I haven't slept well in the last three days - totally tired

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:01 AM

Hey, Rick. That sucks, Bro.

Aaron Meyers · 2:02 AM

so small chapter

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:02 AM

With a Buddhist economic model, there woudl be a better work-life balance and you prob wouldn't have even needed to go in today...

Aaron Meyers · 2:02 AM

but we don't got too many people do we want to wait abit or you want to push on?

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:02 AM

Small chapter, but pithy.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:02 AM

Nah, Dude - we got ground to cover.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:02 AM

i have notes and shit.

Aaron Meyers · 2:02 AM

lol

Aaron Meyers · 2:03 AM

well this ones more your show

Aaron Meyers · 2:03 AM

its got gender issues, that's your balleywick

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:03 AM

Really? Because you're the one that GAVE me this book, back in Hondu-land.

Aaron Meyers · 2:03 AM

true

Aaron Meyers · 2:03 AM

I had a feeling

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:03 AM

And we're saving gender for the last, because otherwise we'll get hung up there and not even get anywhere else.

Aaron Meyers · 2:04 AM

so, honestly the first thing id bring up is that, this isn't that esoteric of a subject

Aaron Meyers · 2:04 AM

we're doing a few of these things now

Aaron Meyers · 2:04 AM

primarily, EF shumacher was one of the first people to posit that work isn't mearly an expense people pay to get goods

Aaron Meyers · 2:04 AM

but rewarding in itself

Aaron Meyers · 2:04 AM

and actually cement it in economic theory

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:05 AM

Well, we're seeing the ends of the industrial model and the ndustrial mindset. We're growing up, and we have to do a real cost-benefit and holistic assessment.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:05 AM

YES!

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:05 AM

YES!

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:05 AM

See, we see work as an "inconvenience"

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:05 AM

Something to be avoided.

Aaron Meyers · 2:05 AM

we're also probably the first generation that has been told to pursue our passions

Aaron Meyers · 2:05 AM

do what you love etc etc

Aaron Meyers · 2:05 AM

all that hippy dippy bullshit

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:05 AM

But it's essential for the human psyche to find important work and do it.

Aaron Meyers · 2:05 AM

generations before us its always been, work sucks, you have babies, then you die

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:06 AM

Yes, and no.

Aaron Meyers · 2:06 AM

do tell

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:06 AM

Work was self-worth.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:06 AM

if you didn't have work, you had no center, no anchor to your life.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:06 AM

And that's still true.

Aaron Meyers · 2:07 AM

right but was that really the message that parents were giving kids?

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:07 AM

Unfortunately, we have a shifted perception of work as merely something poor people have to do.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:07 AM

Yeah. Largely, yeah.

Aaron Meyers · 2:07 AM

I think that's a lot less true than it used to be

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:07 AM

A "good man" worked and fed his family.

Aaron Meyers · 2:07 AM

so show of hands, do people here actually like their jobs?

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:07 AM

it's a central part of the Protestant ethic

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:08 AM

and that's central to our country's value system.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:08 AM

Do you like your job?

Aaron Meyers · 2:08 AM

I fricken love my job

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:09 AM

That's awesome!

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:09 AM

But you worked an awfule long time to get there.

Aaron Meyers · 2:09 AM

anyone else?

Aaron Meyers · 2:09 AM

very very long

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:09 AM

I like work.

Aaron Meyers · 2:09 AM

but ive almost always loved my job

Aaron Meyers · 2:09 AM

at least since peace corps

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:10 AM

Yeah. Peace Corps was a lot of love and a lot of despondency.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:10 AM

LOL

Aaron Meyers · 2:10 AM

I don't think I was ever that despondant

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:10 AM

Dude, when that guy died on me, i tripped out. That was hard.

Aaron Meyers · 2:10 AM

yeah, I didn't see any of that

Aaron Meyers · 2:11 AM

show your work

Aaron Meyers · 2:11 AM

talk about it

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:11 AM

I'm a magnet for messy social-relational issues. it was to be expected.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:11 AM

I went out looking for people with disabilities

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:11 AM

in a culture that thought they were a curse from God.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:12 AM

I was asking for a bruising.

Aaron Meyers · 2:12 AM

too true

Aaron Meyers · 2:12 AM

and that's not really much of an exaggeration

Aaron Meyers · 2:12 AM

literately, curse from god

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:12 AM

Yes.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:12 AM

And that's why that guy died.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:13 AM

he refused the help.

Aaron Meyers · 2:13 AM

"why is my kid blind?" "God didn't want him to see"

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:13 AM

He accepted his "punishment."

Aaron Meyers · 2:13 AM

true story

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:13 AM

Yeah. "Lo que quiere Dios"

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:13 AM

Yeesh.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:13 AM

Anyway, India. And Buddhism.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:14 AM

And Economics.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:14 AM

So...

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:14 AM

there is this thing that happens

Aaron Meyers · 2:14 AM

yes?

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:14 AM

where developing nations contract western materialist/capitalist econometricians to help them develop economic policy.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:15 AM

Which doesn't seem to make that much sense,

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:15 AM

since they have used the same development formula since 1850.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:15 AM

Bring in factories.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:15 AM

Grow urban slums.

Aaron Meyers · 2:15 AM

well most of that is outsourcing

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:15 AM

Drain the people and the wealth from rural areas.

Aaron Meyers · 2:15 AM

less about development and more about cheap labor

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:16 AM

Make them look like the West.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:16 AM

Yes, that, too.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:16 AM

It's nice to call these things what they are.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:17 AM

So, yes - the west sends economic emissaries in to convince the countries that providing the west with cheap labor in centrally located or port cities is the way to achieve wealth for the nation.\

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:17 AM

They keep doing that.

Aaron Meyers · 2:17 AM

its worth noting that this has semi worked in a few cases

Aaron Meyers · 2:18 AM

minor cases

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:18 AM

Name names, Bro - I've got nothing.

Aaron Meyers · 2:18 AM

its goes back to what alan greenspan used to say about india

Aaron Meyers · 2:18 AM

the nature of unskilled labor

Aaron Meyers · 2:18 AM

that it doesn't stay unskilled

Aaron Meyers · 2:19 AM

that's why they have an exploding tech sector

Aaron Meyers · 2:19 AM

the problem is their economy is also more bi polar than ever

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:19 AM

Yes, but still there has to be a pool of cheap, "unskilled" workers to do the thing that no one else wants to do.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:19 AM

Yes. We're agreeing.

Aaron Meyers · 2:19 AM

right

Aaron Meyers · 2:20 AM

and the problem is, you put upward mobility in the hands of limited private sector avenues

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:20 AM

Yes.

Aaron Meyers · 2:20 AM

in a society that is also held back by a caste system

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:20 AM

Upwad mobility is almost always still concentrated at the top.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:20 AM

Yes.

Aaron Meyers · 2:20 AM

so limited ways to improve yourself, and those in the hands of people who come from a caste society

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:20 AM

See: Green Revolution for examples.

Aaron Meyers · 2:21 AM

that means better economy, if youre the right people

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:21 AM

Exactly.

Aaron Meyers · 2:21 AM

and horrible if not

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:21 AM

And untouchables are still untouchable.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:21 AM

I would posit that the same is true HERE.

Aaron Meyers · 2:21 AM

which, they have laws and they don't formally recognize the caste system like they used to

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:21 AM

If you grow up in the projects, your chances of getting out are SLIM.

Aaron Meyers · 2:21 AM

but informal controls are worse than ever

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:21 AM

Yes.

Aaron Meyers · 2:21 AM

think jim crow style

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:22 AM

We don't have a caste system, but we have informal economic classism.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:22 AM

That is still convoluted with racism and gender issues.

Aaron Meyers · 2:22 AM

do tell

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:23 AM

I mean, the glass ceiling still exists.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:23 AM

Even if you're a WASP, as a woman, you're worth 70% of a man.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:23 AM

Economically speaking.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:23 AM

And that's in the US.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:24 AM

In India, SOME women of higher classes have opportunities to study and to choose their own mates, etc.

Aaron Meyers · 2:24 AM

some

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:24 AM

But in many "traditional" families, those doors are still closed to them.

Aaron Meyers · 2:24 AM

though ive heard a lot of stories about arranged marriages having some virtues

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:25 AM

I'm just saying, inequality is everywhere.

Aaron Meyers · 2:25 AM

but even in those cases I think the more progressive situations give the mom more say in the arrangement

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:25 AM

That was what I was trying to get at.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:26 AM

Did you know that our ideas of individualism are a product of industrialization?

Aaron Meyers · 2:26 AM

show your work

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:26 AM

They're a recent and novel development in human societies.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:27 AM

According to Dr. Yuval Noah Harrari, the "family"/tribal structure was very strong and prevalent in all societies up until industrialization.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:27 AM

He shows evidence of individualism being thrown out as propaganda to encourage workers to leave their families and come to the cities to work.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:28 AM

It's a weird concept, because we take these things as absolute truth.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:28 AM

We're indoctrinated.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:29 AM

That's a tangent.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:29 AM

But, anyway.

Aaron Meyers · 2:29 AM

a useful tangent

Aaron Meyers · 2:29 AM

I think we may be wrapping up early given our speed

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:29 AM

Modern economics is ALSO a product of industrial indoctrination.

Aaron Meyers · 2:29 AM

if we're already at gender issues

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:30 AM

Well, i actually want to get back to Buddhist concepts and human labor.

Aaron Meyers · 2:30 AM

okay

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:30 AM

So, Schumacher starts the chapter with "right Livelihood" and the Eightfold path of Buddhism

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:31 AM

Cliff's Notes here: http://www.zazzle.com/buddhism_four_and_eight_poster-228940641614635620

Aaron Meyers · 2:31 AM

give the cliff notes version

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:31 AM

As his justification for WHY Buddhist Economics.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:32 AM

Developing nations make the mistake of trying to consult with or follow the path of western societies.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:32 AM

When they need to develop models that follow their own values.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:32 AM

Westerners view work as an inconvinience.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:33 AM

The ideal is "to have output without employees" and "to have income without employment"

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:33 AM

Which is silly,

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:33 AM

because

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:33 AM

humans fundamentally need to develop themselves through work.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:34 AM

But westerners have taken the discipline and the opportunity for growth out of work, largely

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:34 AM

by employing the "division of labor"

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:34 AM

and mechanization.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:34 AM

So now, much labor is repetitive and "unskilled."

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:35 AM

it's definitely not respected the way it once was.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:35 AM

Think about the early part of teh 20th centruy, and the respect that union laborers and "industry" as a whole was afforded.

Aaron Meyers · 2:35 AM

but eventually people learn labor skills

Aaron Meyers · 2:35 AM

its just the culturation that has to occur with development

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:35 AM

Those were "good jobs." It was an honorable way to live.

Aaron Meyers · 2:35 AM

you have to maintain some semblance of the native identity

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:36 AM

I'm confused.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:36 AM

What do you mean.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:36 AM

Aaron Meyers · 2:36 AM

well the india situation again

Aaron Meyers · 2:36 AM

if they had addressed some of the caste issues

Aaron Meyers · 2:37 AM

or if this was also paired with a more progressive government

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:37 AM

Then what?

Aaron Meyers · 2:38 AM

then the exportation of manufacturing could have been accompanied with a different education policy

Aaron Meyers · 2:38 AM

castes in india are informally perpetuated with tracks of education

Aaron Meyers · 2:38 AM

that are crap or amazing depending upon your family and where you live

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:38 AM

Ah, I see!

Aaron Meyers · 2:38 AM

in a geography where people of better off and worse off castes have lived in the same spot for generations

Aaron Meyers · 2:39 AM

so, as per usual, its about the education

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:39 AM

(Ahem - the same is so unfortunately true here!)

Aaron Meyers · 2:39 AM

accurate statement

Aaron Meyers · 2:39 AM

im sure theres some Oklahoma example you can use?

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:39 AM

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/512/house-rules

Aaron Meyers · 2:40 AM

that works too

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:40 AM

Actually, i want to reference this show.

Aaron Meyers · 2:40 AM

cliff notes version?

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:40 AM

Incredible story about the difference your address can make in your life.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:40 AM

A teenaged girl tells the story of fudging her address so she could get into the better school.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:41 AM

And then the next year, after the school found out,

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:41 AM

and how crappy her school is by comparison.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:41 AM

It's shocking that THIS IS REAL LIFE>

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:41 AM

In the US.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:41 AM

Still.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:42 AM

And, yes, the difference between oK and Texas schools are asounding.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:42 AM

I lived in OK and taught in TX.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:42 AM

Trained in OK, also.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:42 AM

OK is poor.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:42 AM

Texas has more funding.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:43 AM

There are MUCH BETTER programs all across the board,

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:43 AM

but most notable in special ed.

Aaron Meyers · 2:43 AM

texas also has a lot of education issues

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:43 AM

OK is almost third-world in their readiness to deal with kids with special needs in comparison.

Aaron Meyers · 2:43 AM

cuz its very skewed politically and controls all textbooks nation wide

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:43 AM

Texas does have many education issues.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:44 AM

Most of them have to do with testing policy and admin (I grew up there - I am over-tested).

Aaron Meyers · 2:44 AM

but they do control all textbook publishing

Aaron Meyers · 2:44 AM

cuz publishers try to make books for the largest segment of customers

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:44 AM

Yes, they do. And textbooks are increasingly tied to tests. it's dirty.

Aaron Meyers · 2:44 AM

which is texas

Aaron Meyers · 2:44 AM

and everyone else gets to deal with it

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:45 AM

Tests and test-prep materials increasingly carry textbook company insignias.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:45 AM

That's not a stacked deck at all...

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:45 AM

Anyway...

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:46 AM

Buddhist economics is

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:46 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_economics

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:46 AM

a Wiki post!

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:46 AM

"The Buddhist point of view ascribes to work a trinal function: to give man a chance to utilize and develop his aptitude; to enable him to overcome his self-aggrandizement by engaging with other people in common tasks; and to bring forward the goods

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:47 AM

and services needed for a better existence."

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:47 AM

So there it is, folks!

Aaron Meyers · 2:47 AM

well put

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:47 AM

We're missing that in our culture.

Aaron Meyers · 2:47 AM

id like to also re-hash the gender issue

Aaron Meyers · 2:47 AM

and place of women having jobs

Aaron Meyers · 2:47 AM

for not only this talk but for the next

Aaron Meyers · 2:48 AM

we need more women to get full value out of that talk

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:48 AM

But it's an odd dichotomy, because so many people talk about wanting to find meaning in work, wanting to find a job they don't hate, etc.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:48 AM

Okay, so,

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:48 AM

Schumacher posits that women don't need an 'outside' job.

Aaron Meyers · 2:48 AM

in fact that women having an outside job

Aaron Meyers · 2:48 AM

is a failing measure

Aaron Meyers · 2:48 AM

bold statement

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:48 AM

I assume he's speaking in the context of India

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:49 AM

which is a more traditional society.

Aaron Meyers · 2:49 AM

lets assume hes speaking in the context of general economics

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:49 AM

He specifies further that women with YOUNG CHILDREN don't need to be out in factories or working as secretaries while the chldren run wild.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:50 AM

I am a degreed professional.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:50 AM

And i am choosing to stay home with my child.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:50 AM

So I agree -

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:50 AM

but let me explain

Aaron Meyers · 2:50 AM

but heres the thing about that

Aaron Meyers · 2:50 AM

your outside job training was education

Aaron Meyers · 2:50 AM

youre focusing all of that inside

Aaron Meyers · 2:50 AM

and putting more focus on your kids education

Aaron Meyers · 2:50 AM

than even a normal mom

Aaron Meyers · 2:51 AM

so I think you don't count, you just took your outside job and pulled it in your house

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:51 AM

Well, i also happen to believe that babies need their mommies.

Aaron Meyers · 2:51 AM

this part of the conversation is obviously your lead

Aaron Meyers · 2:51 AM

i feel akward having that strong of a position

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:52 AM

And I think that breastfeeding is a super-power that the working world doesn't recognize and definitely damages (because 2 15-minute breaks are not enough to pump and BF exclusively)

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:52 AM

I don't know what the answer is here.

Aaron Meyers · 2:53 AM

entrepreneurship??

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:53 AM

Obviously, to say that moms need to stay home is too much.

Aaron Meyers · 2:53 AM

cottage industries out of the house?

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:53 AM

but I think that SOMEONE needs to stay home.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:53 AM

Yes!

Aaron Meyers · 2:53 AM

i think that someone needs to be in the house, but a parent who feels fulfilled from their job, and brings that feeling home

Aaron Meyers · 2:53 AM

is a better parent when home

Aaron Meyers · 2:53 AM

so its balance

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:54 AM

I think that the male-centered economy has not been friendly to women and families. it doesn't give enough time for healing and bonding and breastfeeding.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:54 AM

Additionally, it is lonesome and hard and dull to be at home all day for years at a time.

Aaron Meyers · 2:55 AM

yes

Aaron Meyers · 2:55 AM

id lose my mind

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:55 AM

I've done it. it's not a journey for the weak.

Aaron Meyers · 2:55 AM

at least until the kid is old enough to play with me

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:55 AM

But the evidence is irrefutable that kids need their parents almost exclusively in the first few years.

Aaron Meyers · 2:55 AM

i think most dads look forward to kids they can start playing with

Aaron Meyers · 2:56 AM

like your kid and legos

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:56 AM

Dayacre just doesn't cut it.

Aaron Meyers · 2:56 AM

and seth

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:56 AM

Yes, unfortunately, dads are a little left-out in the first few years.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:56 AM

but it evens out later.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:57 AM

The thing is, well, look at this:

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:57 AM

http://www.salary.com/mom-paycheck/

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:57 AM

The VALUE of what a stay-at-home mom manages in pretty high-dollar.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:58 AM

It's just not recognized by society at large because it doesn't show up on the GNP or on your taxes.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:58 AM

So, i don't think Schumacher was trying to be demeaning at all.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:58 AM

He said Women don't NEED and 'outside' job

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:59 AM

Subtext: they do ENOUGH.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:59 AM

What they do HAS value.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:59 AM

To take them away from that bleeds away any value they gain from working.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 2:59 AM

So, from that angle, i agree.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 3:00 AM

It's not the whole truth, not the answer for everyone,

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 3:00 AM

but an acceptable statement.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 3:00 AM

Further,

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 3:00 AM

I think that the work of women needs to be better-understood and respected.

Aaron Meyers · 3:01 AM

sorry, i stalled out

Aaron Meyers · 3:01 AM

computer issues

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 3:01 AM

THAT is what will bring greater equality - not expecting women to act like men or measuring everything in purely economic terms (ie, $)

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 3:01 AM

No prob.

Aaron Meyers · 3:01 AM

so we're at the 10:00 mark

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 3:01 AM

I finally finished my thought.

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 3:01 AM

Yes!

Aaron Meyers · 3:01 AM

and we have the finished the thought

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 3:01 AM

This was a good one!