We Claim To Value Workers; That's A Lie. We Value, Vaguely, "Work Ethic."
The white-collar trap.
Good line from an Anne Helen Petersen newsletter, with the full line being:
Our society values parenting, not parents; it honors “work ethic,” not workers; we cherish children in the abstract, but not actual children themselves.
Where you come down on this quote is going to vary drastically based on your ideology and where you come down about a relatively progressive woman saying stuff that feels harsh. We can’t ignore that. Some of this stuff goes into the bucket of “If you hate America so much, fucking leave!” I know some dudes in Texas who use that in rebuttal to literally everything, up to and including “Pasta for dinner tonight?” But I digress.
If you break apart the quote, start with “parenting” vs. “parents.” That’s generally a true schism. Lots of people tell their kids, especially their daughters, that the biggest role they will play in life is being a parent/mom. We talk constantly of parents, absentee fathers, frame it politically, make it the entire purpose of life in some ways, etc, etc. But how much do we really value parents when two-income families are essentially normative for a lot of people now, and you can get sacked in 17 seconds from a job because you put your kid over a KPI and some needle-dick boss didn’t like it.
So yea, I’d say “true” (generally) on that one.
Work ethic vs. workers? Yea. I’m with this too. We love work ethic. BOOTSTRAPS, BABY!! RISE AND GRIND! HUSTLE! We all know hustle culture is complete bullshit, but it’s the culture that powers Instagram and LinkedIn, and those are admittedly two of the five biggest platforms in the world. (Maybe two of six.) But do we value workers? Not really. We pay them like shit, even white-collar often, and expect them to have 2–3 jobs. Thankfully, since a lot of white-collar jobs are easy — not so service jobs, where getting berated is constant — it’s relatively easy to work 2–3 full-time jobs at once and have no one know you’re doing it. There’s lots of articles about this recently. We call it a “trend,” but I’ve been doing it for six years and I’m definitely not trend-worthy. So, eh. But we do value work ethic more than workers, yes.
Children vs. actual children? This one is harder sledding. What it really is? We like babies — cute! — and young children making observations, but we don’t like kids when they get personalities and talk back and cause fusses. That’s less cool for us. And as for education? You just need to realize that education is a way to drive the housing market up. You need to get into XYZ neighborhood to be in “good schools” and thus be seen as “successful” in some way, right? So you overpay to be in XYZ Neighborhood, claim it’s “for the kids,” and in reality it was 55% for the kids and 45% for your status as a couple, and we all know that’s the truth, but we lie and pretend it’s really all about the kids, but it’s not and never has been. It’s about the kids mostly, sure. It’s also quite a bit about status. And in reality, does anyone care about public education if they’re an active parent, apart from needing a place to send kids because they need two income sources? Look at why people flipped out during COVID. It was because they needed a place to stash their kids, mostly.
So, overall I’d agree with that top pull quote.
I want to come back to the workers vs. work ethic thing for a second, though. You get into a bigger discussion about whether the top rungs of the employment ladder even understand what workers do.
Honestly.
I think I’ve quoted this article before, but I shall quote it again:
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