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Veteran vs Mother is great like for like comparison. Fairly obvious that mothers get a worse deal.
War sucks. Therefore, social norms and economic incentives are disproportionately generous towards veterans. Doesn't matter if they never saw action. Doesn't matter if the profession has lower mortality rates than logging or fisheries. They're heroes and must be thanked for their service every 5 minutes. They get holidays, movies, medals and awards. Free healthcare, free college, VA checks as pension and discounts at every store.
What do mothers get ? A mother loses between 5-20 years of her life depending on her involvement with the kids. Career women are forced into a ceiling. Pretty women lose their beauty. Complicated pregnancies can come with a lifetime of physical and emotional trauma. We used to treat mothers like heroes. Communities pitched in to help during the difficult years. To raise your children into well-adjusted adults was a source of pride. Not anymore. Now, the incentives have reversed. Media has stopped portraying motherhood in a positive light and perceived standards for parenting have reached impossible levels.
women != mothers. Society has empathy for beautiful young women, not for neurotic mothers who're at their wits end.
It's carrots and sticks. We can talk about sticks that coerce young women into become mothers. But, there need to be more carrots for mothers. Maybe we need stop asking what mothers can do for society, and start asking society what it can do for mothers.
In the US, at least, this is not true. The GI Bill is not "free college", you only get (cheap) healthcare and a pension if you did a full 20 years ( or are classified as disabled,.which granted, has turned into widespread grift), and "discounts at every store" is a gross exaggeration. Maybe a free coffee on Veterans Day.
The reflexive "Thank you for your service" does annoy the hell out of me.
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