Now, I’m just as jealous of the
yoga-pants-at-9-a.m.-on-Monday-morning crowd as the next frazzled
working mom. But, I’m sorry to say, however delicious charting the
downfall of the wealthy at-home mom may be, we do have to stop for a
little reality check. While the rich, bathed in our attention, are
turning necessity into a hand-wringing sociological event, most women
in this country are just going about their business, much as they
always have.
We — journalists and readers both — simply must, for once, resist
the temptation to let what may or may not be happening to the top 5
percent (or 1 percent) of our country’s families set the story line for
what women’s lives are becoming in this recession.
Seriously. One more trend story about how manicures are too expensive these days and I’m gonna scream. And it’s interesting that this is more prevalent at the big-city papers than it is in the smaller ones, wherechronicling the day-to-day lives of people struggling has always been the mission:
roofing and carpentry, while female teachers often work retail sales,
office work and waiting tables.
The
school district was a major employer itself, hiring many teachers for
the summer school program that helped slower learning students, Lacey
said.
program was cut from 24 days to nine last summer after voters rejected
school levies. The district is deciding how extensive the program will
be this year.
The most gifted teacher I ever knew, the man who taught me about the power of words and whose love of learning and debate made all his students fearless in their arguments, worked construction in the summers to pay the mortgage, and this was in the early 90s, when times were supposedly so good. There has always been a struggle to pay the bills in middle-class America. It’s just that until the prices of manicures start soaring, the punditry doesn’t really notice all that much, and it’s really only a problem when they say it is, right?
A.