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EDITORIAL October 4, 1999 VNN4863 Comment on this story A New Political Party For Devotees: Mother's Liberation And ROOPA BY RAGHUNATHA ANUDASA EDITORIAL, Oct 4 (VNN) — Having been separated from my parents by ISKCON as a kid has allowed me to recognize the same trend and justifications they hide behind here in America at large. They are doing the same thing as ISKCON who sent mom's off to "sankirtan" for the greater cause with the same results: kids neglected and abused in the institutions that are to care for them. The difference is that its better masked behind the larger numbers of a national society and more carefully justified behind America's religious imperative of economic development-their religion. Anyone who thought the neglect and abuse of guru-kulis and women in the movement was an issue should now stand together on this issue today. It's a second chance to do something. It may seem hopeless to try, but so did our attempts over a decade ago when I first started the ISKCON Youth Veterans Newsletter. Now look at us today. An organization sponsored by the GBC dedicated to pursuing and documenting all 250 pass and present abusers with about 10 completed so far. We have reunions and our own conference as do the women. Another organization is dedicated to providing grants and loans to 2nd generation guru-kulis. They may not be up to par with what everyone would like, but they are a long ways from where we were 10 years ago when condemned by the GBC and belittled by the devotees. The only difference between our efforts then and Mother*s Liberation today is that we now have a network of people ready to stand together to tackle such a cause. This is what Mother*s Liberation is all about. On the preaching front, Mother*s Liberation is part of a greater picture. The premise is that vice and virtue, good and bad activities have an economic outcome-good is profitable, bad is expensive. Today's economic system subsidizes the cost of vices by those engaged in virtue like our families and moms. We request that virtue simply be allowed a small share of its "profits." This principle is headed by Mother*s Liberation. Secondly, those engaged in vice should now cover the full cost of their activities such as smoking and drinking. We spend $100 billion a year on tobacco related medical cost for example. And no, the present tobacco taxes don't come close to covering their medical cost. This is the principle of ROOPA and discussed in later chapters of the book: The Economics of Love. If you would like copies of these chapters, please let me know. If such vices as smoking and meat eating cost society billions, then the preacher who inspires a person to give up the ways of vice is offering society a great deal in economic savings. It comes to millions of dollars in savings to society for every person who becomes a devotee and gives up these vices of smoking, drinking, meat eating etc. These two principles of economic rewards for those engaged in virtue and penalty fines for those engaged in vice recreates varnasrama and the Vedic ideal. All those who would like to see this, please join our efforts. This is the social political platform I present as an outline for us to work from as a devotee led movement of reform. The following is to a young lady and friend who responded to the first chapter, Super Mom. This letter summarizes the issues and purpose of Mother*s Liberation. If you like it, then please send it to others and print out hard copies and pass them out. Raghu Dear E....: Once again, it was a pleasure to read your sound reasoning and sharp retort. I was amused at how predictable your responses, but well stated all the same. I ask right off though, if you like what you hear, join us in this Mother*s Liberation Movement. Your letter started off with the obvious, "don't call me dear," for all forms of respect to our parents, family, neighbors and women are at best corny. More often, they are only seen as degrading -- "patronizing." Don't open the door for a feminist. It's patronizing. Opening doors is reserved for celebrities. Of course, hotels open doors for all of their customers. Its just "common" courtesy. Terms of respect and endearment in this society are reserved for customers at work no matter how insulting they or our boss may treat us. It's always: yes sir, yes ma'am. It's professional. This same treatment, however, is degrading if offered in any other social setting. Well, its OK if writing women on behalf of business. In this case, they are always addressed as "DEAR" customer, though they are not our "girl friend or 3 years old." It's good enough for business, but not for us, the common folk. You see, such "professional" courtesies are reserved for the rich, their business, their events and their families. It should not be used for the common folk, friends, acquaintances, women etc. This is becoming our social protocol. This makes sense given that business is the only recognized sacred cow of our day. Business is its temple, our boss, its head priest, its customer, the devotee and the wealthy, the ones to have attained salvation. The old sacred cows are almost taboo, no longer is it the earth, our communities, our family, women and mom. For the rest of societies mere mortals, one proves their mantle by how will they can "diss" -humiliate and cut others down. We can always count on TV, movies and comedians to offer us hours of entertaining lessons how to diss your friends, family, coworkers and the rest. The media provides us with all the reasons to be so defensive. They give us an endless cast of characters who are either "a dog," or a conniving, manipulative and evil person or just plain old stupid. Where should we begin, Married with Children or Living Color or Cops? Your letter then moves right in to demonizing all mothers because of the few bad-apples. Talk about generalization. Alex Smith who murdered her own children of course being the exception, not the rule to the worlds couple billion moms. You give us dire warning of the back lash to this new "welfare" program. Welfare reform is based upon getting moms into jobs. Mother*s Liberation will do this far more efficiently and cost effectively then any and all other programs combined. Today's present welfare reform is a bonanza for employers. Companies are generously offered hundreds of millions in subsidizes. There's the cash to subsidize the hourly wage. Benefits such as health care and child care are still offered by the government. There is further savings from things as lowered safety precautions required for the other employees. It means more injuries to our welfare moms which of course is paid by Uncle Sam. Have you been reading about all these different welfare reform programs they've been coming up with across the country? It sounds so much like a corporate welfare give away. "Welfare's crack moms" are now suddenly transformed into productive members of society because they "work." Of course work by government definition means any activity that does not include helping your own family. They will never recognize family care as productive social "work" unless its government doing it. A low income mom is just "a crack addict" or at best a stay-at-home, do-nothing mom. Many of these welfare to work programs are community service projects done for nothing more then one's welfare check. There is no other pay. These community projects mean anything but tending to ones own child. Their kids are sent off to preschool so these "crack moms" can now perform worth while menial jobs like cleaning parks, trash cans and the sides of freeways. You would almost think they were trying to punish these moms. All and all, government pays quite a bit to send these moms off to work. Odd how it appears like some corporate welfare scheme. It would be a great deal cheaper and more productive to have mom care for her own kids. This is all we propose, but then, many business interest stand to lose-big. As you say, this will never happen. Yet, is there a more worthy pursuit then bringing our family together again? As for middle class mom's having to subsidize Head Start programs for the poor, well, this is the current system. If middle class moms are not happy with this arrangement, they should demand government to include their kids. Again, we are not talking about introducing lots of new programs and bigger budgets. These programs are already in effect. We only ask that mom be allowed the same right as everyone else enjoys. They should be allowed to bid on these family services for half the cost-if their kid presently qualifies. Why do people have a problem with mom caring for her own child over strangers who charge twice as much? You finish on the mistaken impression that most nursing homes or preschool overhead is spent primarily on teachers. Its not. Head Start programs in California cost $13,000 per child. Using your example of 24 students per class, the government is charging us $300,000 dollars per class. As you pointed out, government only pays $16.00 per hour for your 2 teacher example. What happens to the rest of that $300,000? The rest goes to management and consultants, buildings, buses, janitors, etc. This bureaucracy is all eliminated in mom's home child care operation. That's where the savings are had. That's why she can offer better service though only charging half the price or $7,000 a year. In short, this system would tend to twice as many kids or nearly 50 children on the same $300,000. Each child with their own personalized "teacher," their mom. This system offers a better service for twice as many kids. At the same time, it employs 50 women instead of just two teachers and as such, this offers government far more tax revenue. I hope this clarifies the math for you. Nursing home abuses such as the one used in my essay from Chapter 1 is not the exception as you mentioned but rampant. That's why its so scary. One in 4 nursing homes are listed as having "SEVERE DEFICIENCIES THAT ENDANGER PEOPLE'S HEALTH OR THEIR LIVES, according to a recent federal study. (This means these "homes" are death traps for our parents) Advocates for reform say THAT FIGURE IS LOW, and they note that the aging of the baby-boom generation promises to exacerbate the problem." It gets better. Listen to this: "Two-thirds of all nursing homes in California were in violation of minimum government (sub) standards. 30% were in "grave" violation." Having two-thirds of all nursing homes in violation of minimum standards is far from the exception. Its the vast majority. Are moms really going to be more difficult to regulate or prove worse then today's commercial nursing homes? Its going to take a lot to beat nursing homes bad record. You are right that mom should qualify herself like other nurses. They may not need to learn every ailment known to man. They are not caring for hundreds of patients like other nurses. They are only tending to just one or two. They only need familiarize themselves with the medical requirements specific to their parent. Yes, there is training like any of today's jobs. You point out that this system requires extended family. Mom can't do it alone like in your example of lifting a parent from bed. My grandmother did. She took care of her husband, then her mother-in-law, then her sister. She did it alone. My mother sells insurance. She said 90% of all long term nursing home care in Hawaii is custodial not medical which means feeding, cleaning up after them and other such simple nonmedical services. In this system we present, mom is like any other business. This is discussed in Chapter 3 called Mother*s Franchise. I will send it out in a few days. Mom will also hire employees. Nursing homes charge $50,000 to $80,000 per patient. Hawaii charges a whooping $7,000 a month, $85,000 a year. Mom will tend to her parents for just half this cost or $42,500. Nursing homes pay nurses a lot less, but their bureaucracy eats up the difference. They are a bloated, inefficient operation -- a corruption in comparison to mom. You did not account for this total cost in your "fair" calculations. You only counted the cost for nurses, not the entire fee charged by nursing homes per patient-big difference. Mom can hire her extended family. The family can work together again at long last. The family is the most cost effective system to meet our social, community and family needs. This system simply recreates this natural way of things. It also employs more people. It spreads the money to more families then the commercial models of investor based nursing homes. Therefore more people make better incomes and so government collects more revenue. You asked if I ever cared for kids or a senior "day in and day out." I was a monitor, teacher assistant, in Vrindavan. That's the boarding school in India where your husband also went. I was responsible for and lived with 8 to 12 kids, ages 7 to 14 in one room. I put them to sleep, dressed and bathed them. I took them out to play and chanted mornings and evenings with them for our mediations. We cleaned the school and our cloths all by hand. I was by their side from 3:30 am to 9 PM, 7 days a week. I was 15 at the time. Your husband may remember when I ran the infirmary. At any given time, we had 10 to 15 kids with typhoid, malaria, jaundice and diarrhea. This is what summer would bring with its 100 degree temperatures. I only had a part time helper. I did it all from cooking-cabbage and carrots for there was no other food; to giving their medication pills-on occasion without water. I cleaned up their diarrhea or helped them to the bathroom where they were greeted with clogged toilets and no water. I sponged them down with kopans-Indian underwear because we had no other cloth and poured ice water over their bodies. This was our answer to any fever over 102. I had become so proficient at taking temperatures, I could accurately tell their fever within seconds of feeling their forehead. A couple times, the thermometers read 106. These kids should have died. There was no way to reach the hospital on time so we just soaked them in ice. I was 16 or so at the time. Your husband may remember it well. Did I feel overwhelmed, scared and lonely? Certainly. Did I do a good job? No, I was terrible, but I do know what its like to be in that position. One summer Dhanur dhara sent about 20 of us to the Himalayan's to go "preaching." Prabhav and I were the two monitors to help Niragadev, the only teacher. He was 4 or 5 years older then us. I later find out he was gay. He was there to be worshiped by the kids more then to care for them. Prabhav and I cared of the kids. Almost every one of us got terribly sick, but we ran out of money for doctor, food and shelter. We didn't even have enough money for a return trip back to Vrindavan. He spent the last of it on a telegram to Dhanur dhara, the principle. We where stranded in the Himalayas for couple weeks with no money and very sick before the principle finally got there. We did programs-singing and speeches for Indians-who would feed us or put us up for the night. We almost got beat up on a couple occasions and the list goes on. So to answer your question, yes I know what its like to take care of kids "day in and day out" under duress and with no money while stranded in far flung corners of the world. Now for the "domestic goddess." You have a real problem with her. I'm not sure how or in what context this term was coined. I'm assuming it's negative, invented by someone with disdain for a women's role as a mom. I'd be more comfortable with Mother Goddess-Mata Devi. After all, what is implied by goddess? What does a goddess do:? She's the giver of life, health, happiness, prosperity and good fortune. Such things are nothing short of miraculous. They're divine-a divine power. Does mom give anything less? Just last month, the LA times mentioned a study showing that if a mom's work was done by a professional, it would cost over a half million, $500,000 dollars A YEAR. In ten years, $5 million dollars. Over a life time, how much does she offer us, $10 million, 20 million? Every good mom is offering her family, her husband, her community and her child the equivalent value of a winning lottery ticket. How much would you thank God, your angels and lucky stars if you won a $5 million or a $20 million dollar lottery paid out over 30 years? If I had to find an economic expression to describe my Italian grandmothers, well this would be it. How about a Hilton Hotel prize of $500,000 in service. How thankful would we be for this? This would include, breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole family. Laundry, room cleaning, and arrangements for all family events like weddings, anniversary, graduations, birthday parties, greeting all visiting guest and covering the kids play and sports activities. It would offer counseling, beauty salon, office services like calls, faxing, book work and budgeting. Let's not forget the personalized baby sitting, tutoring, fashion director, interior design and shopping. First aid and nursing would also be included for family and friends. Stressed out, they have a friendly ear, offer moral support and share family history, stories and other one on one entertainment. As a final bonus, we get to make love to a beautiful young lady who loves us and who we adore. How much is this worth? Ask the guys at the strip club. $15 every 3 minutes-hundreds for the evening, thousands for the week. In other words, this Hilton give away would include all the "little" things our beloved wife and mom do for us everyday. What guy would not go for such a deal? This is what the do-nothing, stay-at-home mom does. Hilton Hotel would charge us a half million dollars or more for a package like this. All mom ask for is room and board, a little petty cash, and a helping hand. Often, she does not even ask for appreciation and too often does not get it. This is the world she offers in that little "I love you." This is the value of her offering to be your wife, the mother of our children and a life partner. Why should her work not be recognized in title and pay to Hiltons? It's only because she is so modest? She doesn't really think much of it. It's just natural to her. She enjoys it. She takes it for granted. We should not. Fewer and fewer women are allowed the option of motherhood and fewer and fewer children are allowed that good fortune of having one. The results are obvious: Children with lost lives or expensive government programs to compensate. We have the politicians, media and other experts who absolutely refuse to recognize her. Any mention of honor is met with immediate condemnation. There's the titles like "domestic goddess" and "do-nothing moms" to the nasty comparisons to welfare's crack addicts and Alex Smith. Sound familiar? Why don't they ever choose Bill Clinton's welfare mom or Newt Gingrich as examples of welfare moms? Ironic how the year of "welfare reform" was done when the president of the United States and the speaker of the house and leader of the Republican party where both products of the disdained welfare mom. We didn't have ivy league university graduates leading the countries top political brass, but kids of welfare moms. Recognizing mom for her work is treated as an affront to women. Why is it treated as a zero sum game? If mom is recognized with respect and pay, they try and convince us that all other career opportunities will somehow vanish and all rights gained for women will be lost? Women can still pursue other careers and keep her rights in the work place, even if mom is finally paid for her work. They are not mutually exclusive. If men do mom's work, they too should be recognized. Again, it's not a zero sum game. However, they generally do get recognition and pay. Its called nursing homes, and hotels and preschool. These are men's institutions, a man's way of dealing with kids and family: Pay someone to take care of them. You see, men are smart. When I a man does something, he gives himself titles, postures on how important it is and charges a lot of money. It's nice when mom cooks, but when a guy does it, well, he's a chef. Of course, a chef is a job post at work. True, but even when he cooks at home, its quite a production. You may have heard of it. It's called a barbecue. They spend $10,000 to $40,000 on new patio's and equipment, invite their friends and turn it into a neighborhood event. He may only cook once a year, but everyone body is going to know about it. It's time mom gets this kind of recognition for her cooking and work. She's a chef, and every other work title man has invented for himself when he does her work: secretary, fashion and interior designer, counselor. tutor, beauty solon consultant and the list goes on. This is pretty much all the Mother*s Liberation does. We simply identify all the job descriptions of a mom's work and asked that it be recognized as they would any other professional. That starts by allowing her to bid on her families care like any other professional. Did you ever wonder what motive multinationals could have in getting mom into the workforce? Well, more workers always means lower wages. Take women out of the work force and wages would increase dramatically. Maybe by as much as two to four times as much. Don't think this is lost to multinationals. Women also work harder for less money then a man and they will do so more quietly, submissively and in good faith. How many billions does this save multinationals? As a side bonus, corporate American can replace her home services at a market potential worth trillions. They win all the way around. Did you really think these corporations were just being good Samaritans when they sponsored the feminist movement? No surprise then that the media plays up the joys, drama and glamour of the working women and the drags of love, marriage and children. This society seems to cringe at the idea of marriage. Marriage seems a last resort or after thought to one getting old, an accidental pregnancy, feeling lonely, or the need to settle down in life. How often is marriage recognized to be as eventful as winning the lottery? This society is blind to the value of a mother's love. It's shunned. Our government is so backwards they think it better to put her to "work" cleaning public restrooms and trash cans then caring for her children. How can such a government ever be asked to lead when so blind-so heartless? They have such contempt for mom. How much do these jobs, this "work," compromise the millions in service she would otherwise offer to her community, family and child? Look at your own work as a wife and as a mom. You are offering millions in service. You should be recognized as such. You have brought a new life, a new hope, a new future and a new joy to this world. What else would a goddess do? What goddess could do more? Don't you think our politicians should finally recognize this? Don't you think our men need to finally see the truth, and understand this treasure we call our wife and our mom? How bout our own children? Don't you think our children should know what privilege they were born into to have a loving mom? There is no such thing as family values until our mom is honored. She is the beginning and end of family. Are you ready to change all this? At least we must try. Are you ready to join Mother*s Liberation? About the Author  Other Stories by this AuthorComment on this story Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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