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| "Oh, and pick up some Trojans while your out. Thanks honey." |
Heck, I may as well kick of the first "baby step" towards Christendom with one that is sure to offend.
This post is directed at men whose wives work outside the home. Prepare for tough love.
When I say you are a pimp am I just using hyperbole? Nope.
Is it really pimpin' to have your wife work outside the home? Yep.
Am I saying that it makes her to some degree a .... er uh... yep.
Am I saying it makes you less of a man? Yep.
Ask yourself this question:
"Why did my great grandfather not need to send his wife out to fish for a paycheck but I do?"
There are a dozen excuses you might give, but it is unlikely that any of them are valid. Which is why I don't think the statement "Stop Pimpin'" needs qualifiers attached. It's like saying the sky is blue. Well, sometimes it is purple during a sunset or grey during a storm, but in general, we don't need qualifiers every time we say that it is blue. Nevertheless...
The Qualifiers:
Obviously some women are forced to take on the traditional role of men by working outside the home. My mother worked for a paycheck outside the home for all but my first 2 years of life. She was forced to do the job of a man because... there was no man around. You see it was the mid 70's and the flowery fields and the age of aquarius were calling... The man of the house just couldn't be tied down by the baggage of a wife and 4 kids. So there was no choice for my mother. And neither was she being pimped, for the simple fact that there was no man around. This situation is a valid qualifier, and there is no shame in a mother working in this situation. In fact, I respect my mom more than any living person for her courageous actions. She is a lioness not to be tussled with.
There are times of hardship where strange things need to be done. But we should still see them as being strange. Some people may find themselves starving so bad they are forced to eat shoe leather for instance. If it gets that bad for your family, I recommend your wife going out and bringing in a paycheck. Perhaps you become a paraplegic and your wife needs to provide the income. Notice the trend here? These are all extreme cases.
Many cases don't even need qualification, because they do not apply. Such as when a wife is working in the context of a family business. Selling beer at her husbands brewery, or bread from the counter of the family bakery, or driving a tractor mowing hay on the family farm... these are all situations where a wife's role as helper is being fulfilled, not ignored. By working within the husbands calling, she is working inside the home not outside of it.
So there are exceptions. There are some good reasons. Yours isn't.
Go ahead and try to say it is. Please, by all means, leave a comment and tell me how your wife has to work. How your children have to go to daycare. How you just simply have to have that second paycheck because things are more expensive now than they used to be... and after all we need two cars... and cable TV is really expensive... and we need to have vacations...
Please let's not kid ourselves men. (no pun intended) In nearly all cases, if our wives are being pimped out to bring back a paycheck, it is because we as men are simply chauvinist pigs who are too lazy to take the leadership role in the family. We could take charge, but it would mean a lot more hassle and responsibility for us. It is much easier to let the woman take over. What's that? She is over by the tree talking to a snake about an apple? Oh well, what can I do anyway? May as well let her eat it. It is God's fault for giving her to me anyway, not mine. I guess I may as well eat it too then. Perhaps she can sell apples and I can get a new Porsche with the cash? Sweet!
This is a chauvinistic view of wives because it treats them like objects, and it assumes that their role is not as good as the husbands role. This is the failure of feminism: it glorifies the (perceived) role of the husband and degrades the work of the wife in the home. Feminism tells wives that they are not as valuable as the husband if they are homemakers whose joy is to raise children and bake good bread. What a lie! Just as men and women physically have differences and neither is "better" (although I have my opinion about that), neither are the roles that we are designed for "better" or worse than each other. In fact I would say it is quite obvious that the hand that rocks the cradle in fact does rule the world. There is no greater calling on earth than motherhood. Which is why the greatest human creature who ever lived is a mother. By telling women they must leave the home in order to have fulfillment, feminism has told fish that they need to walk on land with 2 feet to have fulfillment. It is a lie which ironically despises women. Like calling baby killing "family planning", feminists call their hatred of women (and of the feminine) "women's liberation".
Why should Catholic men buy into this evil mentality? The world is totally lost when it comes to family matters now. So why should we assume we can do as they do and it is not going to end badly for us? Let us start to cherish and respect our women.
Do what I did in 2002. Tell your wife to quit her job and come home. If she is on contraceptives of any kind, throw them in the trash. Apologize to her for treating her like an object. Apologize for the children you just murdered, then go to confession.
Now that you are a man, you can begin to treat your wife like a fellow worker in God's vineyard, instead of treating her like an object to be used like the pimps of our culture treat their wives. Now that you are a king, you can recognize your queen for who she is. Overall, this is a baby step you will never regret. It will improve your marriage, and it will separate you from the worldliness that surrounds us in a real way.
Next up:
Be a man, not a dog with a random leg: No more contraception!
Not sure if you know this, but the folks at Blogger were trying to "improve" things about two weeks ago, and the 'new and improved' comments now have lost the option to "subscribe by email". If you want that option back, you have to go to settings and switch to "Embedded Comments".
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thank you for this post. It is spot on. I would like to add two things:
(1) I know nannies who tell me heartbreaking stories about how the toddlers they watch end up missing out growing up with mom because she is at work. On top of that, the toddler becomes more attached to the nanny than mom, and cries when mom comes home.
(2) The Popes of the last 150 years in their Catholic Social Teaching encyclicals have made it clear a root problem in women working outside the home is not just Feminism, but capitalism, which seeks to obliterate the Just Wage. It is the Just Wage working conditions that enabled our grandfathers to be the sole bread winner.
Pope Pius XI said it nicely:
"71. In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family. ... Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity. It is an intolerable abuse, and to be abolished at all cost, for mothers on account of the father's low wage to be forced to engage in gainful occupations outside the home to the neglect of their proper cares and duties, especially the training of children. Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately."
"Why did my great grandfather not need to send his wife out to fish for a paycheck but I do?"
ReplyDeleteThere are a dozen excuses you might give, but it is unlikely that any of them are valid.
Could the simple reason be that to sustain the same standard of living as your grandfather, you need 1.5 incomes in today's dollars? This has nothing to do with the morality of the choice, but is entirely about the economics of the situation.
For example, in 1960 a new house cost (on average) $16,500. Average income was $5,600 / year - so a new house cost roughly 3 years incomes. Ever since 2004, the average price has been up over $200,000 for a house, but our average income is $26,000 - roughly 1/8th of the cost of a house.
To dismiss these economic facts as 'invalid', then labeling those that take them into consideration as 'pimping their wives' does much injustice to your argument.
I am not saying that people need to re-prioritize, and that more 'stay at home' moms (and better families) would be a good thing for society. However, you seem to be very dogmatic in your judgments, without being willing to walk in other peoples shoes.
What about those living in celibate (or infertile) marriages - is the wife working outside the home a sin, or 'pimping'? What about women who's gifts are more in the workforce, and the man's gifts suite the home-life better? Are the 'disordered', and judged by your standard? Are they guilty of prostitution?
Prepare for tough love. It appears you preach your Catholicism, not out of love, or to heal a sick patient... but out of a desire to condemn those who use their talents (which God has entrusted to them, not you) in a way that you don't like. Your accusations of pimping speak volumes about your own heart in the matter.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks for the Pius XI quote! Very nice addition to my post. I love how he ties this phenomenon to the problems of capitalism.
The nannies you mention: how sad is that! Although a nanny is perhaps better than daycare. My wife once reflected that modern daycare is like how some birds raise young... by "cresh" raising in groups. a few females guarding a large brood of chicks while the other females go out to hunt or breed or whatever. Good for birds I guess, but humans seem to have gotten by pretty good for 10000 years without acting like the animals in this way.
Bob,
ReplyDeleteDid I strike a nerve?
Your excuses, as I predicted, are lame and invalid.
And contrary to your claim, I did not say all economic factors are invalid. A huge portion of my post was devoted to QUALIFIERS. As I said, economics CAN get bad enough that a wife may need to step out and bring in a paycheck. My point is that conditions ARE NOT THAT BAD for anyone you know. Go ahead and give hypotheticals all day, but show me a real family like yours or mine, and show me what they spend their money on, and I will show you a family that does not NEED 2 incomes.
"labeling those that take them into consideration as 'pimping their wives' does much injustice to your argument."
Nothing you have said disproves my point. A man who sends his wife out for money is a pimp. A man who out of necesity sends her out for food or shelter (basic necessities) is not. It is as simple as that dude.
"you seem to be very dogmatic in your judgments, without being willing to walk in other peoples shoes."
Ironic that you (from a 2 parent family) would say that I should walk in other peoples shoes. Do you have any idea how silly that sounds to me coming from you? If you understood the absolute evil of a broken family the way I do, perhaps you would not question why I am so "dogmatic" about the structure and function of marriage and family.
"What about..."
I gave exceptions Bob. The main one being my OWN MOTHER. There are as many situations as there are broken or stressed families, so there is no point in running down every exception.
"What about women who's gifts are more in the workforce, and the man's gifts suite the home-life better?"
That is impossible. And as an aside, I have shied away from using Man/woman. What I am talking about mainly is Wives, and in particular mothers. In both cases, their gifts are for work in the home whether they think so or not. Just like their sexuality is meant to be attracted to men whether they think so or not. If a man wants to be a woman and stay home all day while his wife goes out and gets a paycheck, then he is a pimp extrordonaire!
If a couple is infertile/no kids, then the wife still needs to work within the "home". By that I mean she needs to work under the husband. That may mean working in the husbands office or working for his medical practice, but as his helper, she should not (unless there is grave reason) work for another simply for money.
The fact that this is controversial for you is simply amazing to me.
"Prepare for tough love. It appears you preach your Catholicism, not out of love, or to heal a sick patient... but out of a desire to condemn those who use their talents (which God has entrusted to them, not you) in a way that you don't like. Your accusations of pimping speak volumes about your own heart in the matter."
You are simply atributing motives to me. You dont know the first thing about what goes on in my heart, so why go there?
The exact sort of language and attitude I used in this post is what convinced me to do the right thing back in 2002. The truth is the truth, and for some people (like me) hearing that they are pimping their wife out so they can have the upgraded cable package and an extra car is EXACTLY what they need to hear from another man. I HAVE walked in the shoes of the pimp I mock in this post. I was one and I changed. And I hope other men will change too. If this post helps even one man to change or encourages one to keep it up, I acomplished my goal.
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ReplyDelete