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Why Can’t Mothers Work If They Have Children?
Question: I
understand you have a rule that women cannot work if they have children under
eighteen years old.
Richard: It
is not so much a rule as a preference. In some cases in Stelle we must bend
this rule. For instance, if a woman comes into The Stelle Group and she does
not have a husband because of divorce or death, and yet she and her child are
very worthy individuals with the child being well along in his school work
and knowing how to behave towards other people, then it can be arranged for a
substitute mother to guide the child in the school system so that the mother
can work to support her child and herself. That happens to be a strain on us
right at the moment because we do not have enough substitute mothers to go
around. We bend according to the advantages that we can see for all concerned
and we must balance to things as they really are, but we have a preference we
will follow and we have good reasons for it.
Question: Wouldn’t
it be better if each individual woman decided for herself whether to work or
not?
Richard: Such
a decision not only concerns this individual woman, but the economics of the
community as well. If her working deprives the child so that he becomes a
second class person in comparison to the other children, then having them in
Stelle is of no advantage to anyone. Sociologically speaking, anyone who is
going to be a problem to us later is not needed by Stelle at all. (12-1972)
Will Women in Lemuria
Only Be Allowed Certain Jobs?
Question:
I noticed in reading your book something that puzzles me because the
liberation of women in the last thirty, forty years in this country, and
probably it’s spreading all over the world, is I noticed about this City of God
after the turn of the century, when that’s formed, it seems like there’s a
statement in there that’s contrary to everything that’s happening to women
now. It implies that women are going to be nothing but wives and raising
families and not working like they are now.
Richard:
Nothing but? I think people have been depending for a long, long time on good
motherhood in order to —
Question:
I know, but how are you going to get women to change the way they are now
when they are invading all kinds of things in society and different
positions?
Richard:
I’m not going to try to do that. Not me. (05-19?? TAO)
Q: I find it hard to reconcile some of the things that you said
in The Ultimate Frontier about
limitations on occupations for women and so on. Perhaps if women really find
out what they are as women, they may even be allowed to what you consider to
??. You have to find out what you are not sometimes to find out what you are.
And it seems to me that the limitations of what you say and do in this
community ?? I cannot reconcile it with how you talk now—
RK: I did not say that. Dr. White told me, and this refers to the
Nation of God. One of the reasons for those limitations of women getting into
the commercial aspects of the community is that there will be so little work
to do because things are supposed to be so put together that items that you
buy at the store in the way of furniture and automobiles and homes, what
have, just go on and on and on for generations. They do not have to be
replaced constantly as they are designed now. The system is not to be
designed where everybody is running around like “chickens with their heads
cutoff” trying to keep up with the basic necessities. Under those
circumstances, it is stated that we should get back to the Lemurian economy
was where the average work-week was twelve hours. Under those circumstances,
there is barely enough for the wage earners to do, enough work to go around,
so the women are, essentially, to be eliminated from the commercial aspects
of “bringing home the bacon.”
That does not mean that
women cannot gain the experience in practically anything they want to do as
long as they do not do it for gain. Going to college is going to be a big
item in most people’s lives. Under those circumstances, so much time was
given to learning that much of it will be spent in the university where
people can learn how to really understand about biology and nuclear physics
and the healing arts, history, philosophy; to become truly acquainted with those
ideas so they understand them.
Under the Lemurian system,
and as I understand how we will have to work toward it in the new nation,
that as a person develops himself to be in a public function—a governor or
mayor, eventually working himself up to the possibility of being a candidate
for governor of his province or maybe the head of the nation—that his wife
has to go through the same special training that he does. This means up to
about age thirty-five going to school so that she is also a part of that team;
not just the man who is in the administrative position all by himself. His
wife is also part of that and she must understand about all of the aspects of
how that nation is to be run, how she is going to fit that in with rearing
children and other questions. That will be one of the requirements. It is not
to diminish the possibility of women doing the things that they want to do
but to keep them out of factories and the stresses of the commercial
situation so that they are in a better framework for rearing children which
is by far the more important task than having a trade to earn a living.
In the first place, a
woman, in all the kinds of things she does, generally develops a proficiency
of many areas of living whereas a man concentrates on some specific trade. He
may know everything there is to know about machining but she has to know all
about properly rearing a child, things about nutrition so she and her
children and husband are kept healthy; all the little chores that go along
with running a household. There is far more scope and, let’s say, a broader
opportunity to learn many kinds of things and bring them into balance as
opposed to the guy who just does his one thing.
Women have tended to have
been the arbiters of civilization. It seems like historically, the idealist
of how civilization should be put together have been the men, but the ones who
actually make it happen have been the women. I am not saying that is the role
they should have but that is how it turned out. Whatever characteristics
seemed to be developed by males as opposed to females that seems to be how it
worked out. I do not know if anybody has ever imposed that or tried to grab
those rules for themselves; it just seems that is inherent in the masculine
and feminine characteristics.
So, what Dr. White and the
best estimate of what He was trying to say was, don’t try to promote women in
commerce. That is not where they are going to have their greatest strengths.
Those are not the things they are going to be doing which is going to give
them a better chance at fulfilling themselves as human Egos and serving
mankind in the best way.
Q: Other than that, how do reconcile the unfortunate thing that
generally goes along with that sort of situation? Shouldn’t an Ego take
advantage of things that are held up as the things that are most important? I
think that the—and think that women end up doing because they don’t and not
the commercialized ?? should be—
RK: I think that results from men “blowing their horn.” They keep
convincing themselves that this is really great stuff. But, you know, about
two-hundred years ago, when most people were either farmers or involved in
some cottage trade or cottage industry, they were home. They were with their
children, with their wives all the time whatever they were doing. At least,
they had the other ones around them. Now, they have to somehow bolster
themselves and say, “Wow. This is really great. I go off early in the morning,
I get up before my kids, I spend an hour getting to where I was going to go,
do ridiculous things all day long that nobody can care about ten years from
now, come back home fighting possible death on the freeways until you get
back home again. By that time, the kids are cranky and ready to go to sleep,
you have some kind of a hurried dinner with them, you have little fights with
them, and then you sit and doze off in front of the television. Somehow, they
have got to tell themselves—they have to convince themselves—that this is
really a great thing and they are really excited to do this in order to kick
themselves out of bed every morning. I don’t think they really want to do
that. I think they would really prefer to be home and have some way by which
to earn a living in the presence of their family where, instead of being
divided from their wife for such a long period of time, she is always there:
a friendly voice to talk to because generally you marry a friend, somebody
who you can count on rather than having to be wary of what you say to every
single person around you because they are possible competitors for the better
paying jobs somewhere down the line. I think we are in a sick situation, and
if we look at the idea of a Lemurian Philosophy and the Nation of God in the
future and take with us our present views of modern life, it is going to look
wrong to us.
It is going to require an
entirely different viewpoint on the parts of men and women. Let’s say you
have to start developing it here in Stelle so that we can go into the new
Nation of God with a better appreciation of how men and women should be
relating and it sure as heck is not supposed to be a commercial relationship:
“I’m bringing in more money, you are bringing in more money or the one person
who is working is bringing in enough.” The whole works has gotten distorted as
a result of that. My generation, your generation, the younger generations
around today, have all been brought up in the context of regarding the proper
way of doing things in the most advanced, modern way of doing things in a
highly industrialized society. I don’t think industrialization is entirely
compatible with humanness.
I think we have to put
commercial activities and industrial activities and technological activities
in their proper place and it is not at the top. We can’t do without them. We
would be greatly diminished if we do not have them. But, right now their
importance looms too large in our consideration. It is going to take quite an
important turn-around in our appreciation of what really matters. And what
matters first is humanness. The kids should not be coming in somewhere forth
or fifth down the line. They are supposed to be number two in a person’s life
and their spouse is number one as far as persons are concerned and material
considerations are concerned.
So far as spiritual
considerations are concerned, I think one’s relationship to the Higher Beings
such as Christ or God really takes top priority and few people have time to
give the depth of consideration to that in our present society that they
should have. So, we are looking forward to a different kind of thing. And
then what Dr. White says, which sounds like harsh conscription now, then just
comes across as, “Well, naturally,” but when you first read it in The Ultimate Frontier, it sounds
pretty hot. (11-1981)
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