… who has never been a parent.
“I Love the Kids in My Life. And I’m Raising None of Them.” (Glynnis MacNicol, NYT, 9/7/2024):
I have no children of my own…
In America, there is a persistent, pernicious belief that the only way to be invested in a child’s life is to be a parent — and, for women, to give birth to that child. (Ella and Cole Emhoff, among others, would like a word.) In a country that offers so little support to parents, this often feels like a not-so-covert argument for taking women back to a time when they lacked control over their bodies and their finances.
To understand the extraordinary commitment it takes to parent — because you see it firsthand — and decide to direct your own time elsewhere…
If he/she/ze/they has never been a parent, how can he/she/ze/they be sure that he/she/ze/they “understand” anything about being a parent?
Separately, I love that the editors allow “a country that offers so little support to parents” to be presented as a statement of fact. The U.S. provides 13 years of free education/daycare to parents who don’t want to deal with their kids. The U.S. also provides taxpayer-funded breakfast and lunch at school for parents who choose to not work or, as in Palm Beach County, to all parents. The U.S. forces the childless to work longer hours and pay higher taxes to subsidize parents with lower tax rates. The childless are even forced, under threat of imprisonment, to pay taxes to subsidize college and, new with the Biden-Harris administration, loan “forgiveness” (transfer to the general taxpayer). How is that “little support”? What more could the childless do for us parents? Buy us a new Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna every 3 years?
Circling back to the main theme, we’re informed that we should defer to experts selected by the legacy media and not commit the sin of “doing our own research”. And it turns out that the NYT-selected expert on parenting has some experience… as a babysitter.
Here’s the author in 2018 (a childless cat lady with no cats?):
Thanks Philip for reading NYT so we won’t have to.
Seems that NYT diminishes their potential reader pool by given their readers not productive reproductory advise.
The lion kingdom feels the burden of all the women who told us to get lost for 40 years, when property tax comes due. Still better off than their ex husbands paying child support.
She certainly isn’t the glamorous Glynnis!
For tax year 2024, the IRS also provides taxpayer parents with a $2000 child tax credit per child under 18 y/o plus, depending on MAGI, Earned Income Tax Credits of between $4213 and $7830. So, a parent with three children under 18 y/o, could collect a cash payments totaling $13,830.
Dear Phil,
Thank you so much for highlighting the importance of children to our country. Joe and I have always prioritized children above all else and that has paid off in spades…just look at the wonderful accomplishments of Hunter! In addition to a very successful business career representing multinational companies (particularly those in Ukraine), he has a wonderful family. Though he did bang up his dead brother’s wife, he has more than redeemed himself with his gift to Joe and me in the form of granddaughter Navy Joan. Joe and I haven’t yet had the joy of meeting her yet (we’ve been so busy sleeping on the beach in Rehoboth), but Joe says sometime really soon and I believe him.
Best regards,
Dr. Jill Biden.