Freedom, Rugged Individualism, and Playing Catch-up

     The United States lags far behind the rest of the world in terms of family policy.  In Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter, Joan C. Williams calls our public policy “Family-Hostile” and advocates for five changes that would reconcile work and family tensions:

1. Short-term leaves
2. Good, affordable childcare
3. Regulation of work hours
4. Universal health coverage
5. A tax system that doesn't penalize dual-earner families

     Though I agree with her assertions and conclusions, I think that their implementation will likely take more than a few bills in congress and presidential signatures.  These changes will require altering U.S. ideology – the source and outcome of cultural discourse.  One ideological principle that needs to shift is our concept of “freedom.”  People in the U.S. often view freedom as a product of small government incapable of ‘interfering’ in their daily lives.  However, the assumption that government only complicates individual lives conveniently ignores all that the government makes possible.  For example, government produces and maintains the roads, bridges, sidewalks, and public transportation that allow us “freedom” of mobility.

     This disconnect arises because our concept of “freedom” relies on our belief in “rugged individualism” – the idea that people are self-made and ought to be self-reliant.  This view plays largely into all aspects of popular U.S. culture and discourse.  However, it is a false assumption.  For a variety of reasons, which can be summed up in the word privilege, people are not self-made.  Furthermore, no one is self-reliant.  That is a fallacy of Western rationality.  We, as humans, are profoundly interconnected.  Unless you have planted, grown, harvested, processed, and produced everything you have ever used, you have depended on other people.  No one lives in a vacuum; everyone depends on everyone else.  Why should public policy be any different?

     It is fine to hold “freedom” as an important value in our society.  In fact, I think it impossible to eliminate considering our cultural and national history, and I am not arguing that we do so.  However, in order for the United States to eradicate its toxic family policy and implement some of the programs that would allow positive change, we have to realize that government and interdependence enable, rather than oppose, “freedom.”

     If our nation can come to that realization, we might begin to understand that a federal program funding paid-time-off for its citizens (like programs enacted in every European and many other countries) can allow individuals true freedom:  freedom to choose whether or not they want children, freedom to care for their aging parents or sick relatives, freedom to take care of their families and themselves while giving under-employed individuals opportunities to work and gain experience.  The system we have is not working, and it is certainly not promoting tangible freedom for the vast majority of its constituents.  Systems of social support that honor, validate, and support families – those will provide true freedom for individuals in the United States.