The Rat Race
When it comes to work, the English language lets us down. Every word we have for it is fraught with ambiguity and multiple meanings. A ditch digger goes to "work," but so does a musician with the New York Philharmonic. I'm presumably working when I draw a cartoon, but it seems like too much fun to call it that. It's ridiculous to say that a professional baseball player is going off to work when he leaves home in the morning, but it's equally misleading to say that he's going to his job. "Labor" isn't any more helpful. Perhaps the reason for all this is that work is a relatively new concept in human existence. Cave men didn't go to work, they went out to bonk animals while their women gathered leaves. I think I'm going to have to work at this idea a little more.
posted by John M Crowther @ 8:16 AM
5 Comments:
You say “Cave men didn't go to work, they went out to bonk animals while their women gathered leaves.” Incorrect. We Cave men never bonked animals. We bonked Wo men and then dragged them to our cave so they we could have someone to cook our mastodon meat. Mastadons were too high to bonk. We threw stones at them and occasionally one of our neighbors. And also in my time Wo men never gathered leaves. We tried eating leaves for about three thousand years and it made us all sick. Then someone discovered the tossed salad with radicchio.
"Real work" is a stay at home mom raising children. No pay...hardly any respect, but molding lives of those who will determine our future.
Ellie
When I retired I realized that I was finally leaviing school. I was a good student and I liked school so why leave? I am reminde of a story about one of the Kenndys campaigning at a factory gate. " I heard you've never worked a day in your life"
"That's true."
" You ain't missed a thing" roger
here here Ellie. Odd isn't it? That the most important occupation on the planet receives the least attention and respect.
The Govt. here pays for childcare so both parents can go out to "work". It doesn't make sense. Why not pay the mom to do the job... after all she is best equipped to look after her own children. But what woman wants to live at the bottom of the food chain?
It's time for a change of attitude... the future depends on it.
Great cartoon John :-)
Jean, Ellie, in my opinion the housewife and mother is the unsung hero of this nation. Strange to say that if there is no cash rewards, the job is not honored. Very mixed up world that we live in nowadays.
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