The Association for the Right of Children to Their Parents

This association's Bo C Pettersson's  letter to the editor of the Time international news magazine in response to a feature article titled "Why Merkel Is Not Enough" in the January 30, 2006 issue of the mag:

Dear editor,

The following comments came to me in response to your article "Why Merkel Is Not Enough", published in the Jan 30, 2006 issue of the European edition of your magazine:

Your feature article on women's situation in Germany was apparently based on the premise that domestic work is of little or no economic value.

That is a gross misunderstanding. Domestic work is highly valuable, even in pure economic terms by reducing the cost of living of the family and enabling the income-generating parent to concentrate more fully on his/her role.

Based on the cost of looking after, say, two toddlers in a public day-care facility in my country, a home maker doing that job instead makes a contribution worth - at least - US$ 34,000 a year, enough to force her money-making partner to pull his socks up to keep up.

If your assumption were correct (that female participation on the labour market is key to higher prosperity), then China, North Korea, Cuba, and the now defunct Soviet Union and East Germany would be the most prosperous nations the world has ever seen. The fact that none of them has ever come close should indicate to you that there is something seriously wrong with your hypothesis.

Whatever Germany does, I can only hope it does not copy Sweden's solution, which has converted what initially looked like an attractive option (public childcare at a near-give-away price) into an oppressive necessity for both parents to work outside the home to make ends meet. At enormous economic and social costs.

Sweden is not the role model in social engineering it is widely believed to be.

Yours sincerely,
Bo C Pettersson | E-mail: bo.pettersson@rb-teknik.se | Postal: Ormbergssvängen 19, SE-724 62 Västerås, Sweden | Phone: +46 21 134 157 | Fax: +46 21 136 692.

Phone: +46 220 331 23, +46 21 330 620 | E-mail: mailbox@barnensratt.se. Web: www.barnensratt.se/