When Did We Become a Nation of Kept Women?
by John Reit (September 25, 2006)

As far back as I can remember, I've noticed that society tends to frown upon women who exclusively seek the company of wealthy men. The perception of anyone who values money over true love has usually been one associated with a common prostitute; the “kept woman” being more discrete and less obvious than a streetwalker. However, I get the impression that it's not really accepting financial and material perks from the wealthy is not the act with which society has a problem. The kept women would be just fine, if only their benefactors officially employed them.

I was talking with a co-worker the other day when he brought up the idea that our company should build a day care for its employees. If that weren't enough, he also wanted a gym so that he wouldn't have to go home, change, and drive to his health club to exercise. Now, our company made almost $7 billion last year. And I agreed; yes it would be “nice” if they would open the day care and the gym. But being an average American who must work for a living, has kids, and finds there are fewer hours in the day that he can devote to himself, he misses the principle of the issue – employers are not obligated to take care of its employees.

They are merely obligated to exchange a certain amount of money agreed upon hire. However, in recent decades, Americans have adopted the idea that those who have accumulated wealth and provided employment opportunities should do much more than that. They should pay for our health care, day care, education, etc. Never mind that as Americans, we have the freedom to treat our bodies as we wish, have as many babies as we see fit regardless of our ability to provide for them (financially and emotionally), or alter the degree of our own intelligence. We now expect our employers to correct our mistakes.

My associate's main argument was that if our company did provide day care, those employees with children would be more productive as that would be one less worry. And I agree. If I ran a $7 billion company, I might provide a day care center for my employees – if for no other reason than, morally, it's a nice thing to do. And people with one less worry should be more productive… theoretically. I mean, that was the theory behind Johnson's Great Society. We provided the poor with free money, free housing, free health care, and many more free amenities, yet somehow, most of the poverty-stricken failed to use their lack of stress to become more productive members of society.

That aside, yes, it would be very nice if my employer would provide a day care center. Does that guarantee more productivity and fewer absences? We already provide inexpensive health care, and I continually see overweight co-workers roaming our hallways and people hanging around outside on their breaks smoking like chimneys. These are people that, down the road, are going to end up costing the company more money to correct their diabetes, heart attacks, or lung cancer. Given human behavior as I know it, I would likewise not expect parents receiving free day care to lessen the financial burden on our company by halting all future reproduction activities or curbing their need to take days off.

“Free” does not always result in responsibility.

Again, placing myself in the shoes of a CEO of a successful company, I might provide free day care. But that's not really the point. Whether it's America's employers or its government, we should not expect to be “taken care of.” This nation was envisioned by our founding fathers to let people control their own destinies, relying on the government for only the protection to do so. At some point in the 230 years since our nation declared its independence, we decided to relinquish ours.

We decided to become kept women, pretending we could be free, independent people while pretending to love our sugar daddy. Like the domestic prostitute, we pretend to love our country as long as it keeps giving us what we want and need. But the latter arrangement, just as the former, comes at a price. As long as we rely on others to take care of us and absolve us of responsibility, we lose the ability to provide for ourselves when the time comes. As we get older and less appealing, there's always the possibility that others will cease to feel obligated to take care of us – especially considering the way our federal sugar daddy handles its finances.