One thing you can count on certain elements of conservatism letting you know, is how much they love mothers. Motherhood is the highest calling a woman could aspire to. Indeed many on the Right in this country insist it is the only calling worth answering for a woman. If a woman wants a career she is refusing her place as a caretaker. If she wants to enjoy sex without risking getting pregnant, she is a selfish slut. Why then, do they make it so hard to be a mother?

Forgetting, for just a second, that a single payer health care system would allow for better neo-natal care (though I may want to get back to that) we live in a country that provides not a single day of paid maternity leave for women. In Canada, women get nearly a year. Wrap your head around that for a moment if you can. An entire year to get you through the most physically challenging period of parenthood.  Only Norway comes close to that, but many countries provide at least 12 weeks paid leave. We provide 12 weeks unpaid. So yeah, you won’t lose your job so long as you get back in less than three months, and have fun buying all those diapers and paying your co pays when your baby has a bad cough.

I suppose it shouldn’t be all that surprising. As I mentioned above, there are some powerful elements in this country still that believe women should only be concerned with being wives and mommies. I have nothing against women for whom that is the emphasis for their lives. Being a mother is amazingly difficult and incredibly important work. It should not, however, be the only option for women, and those that want something else should not be punished for wanting a career and wanting to be a mother.

Besides, sometimes it’s not about “selfish” motives like wanting a career. Sometimes families need multiple sources of income because no one is making enough to put food on the table. Are we  going to take away a job from say, a Wal-Mart cashier, and then put her on (horror of horrors) welfare because their new combined income allows for that?

No, I suspect those that make these decisions don’t care about that. Women must be kept in their place. Male privilege must be guarded at all costs and if one of those costs is financially devastating a family, then so be it. At least they will never have to call a woman boss.