Friday, November 2, 2007

What's a Working Family?

I'm sick and tired of hearing this political label for blue-collar status: Working Family. I get more and more upset every time I see that printed or stated.

Today, I saw a flyer from my local state representative, Rep. Arthur "Art" Turner. One of the highlights was, "property tax relief for working families."

There seems to be a stereotype about white-collar professionals as people who go golfing instead of going to work, have martini meetings, lunch meetings at 5-Star restaurants, fly first-class, cheat with their hot secrataires, and don't get their hands dirty during the day.

What does my wife do all day, Rep. Art Turner? What do I do all day? We're not a working family? JD and I drop my wife off at work every day before 8am, sometimes closer to 7am. We then pick her up between 5pm and 7pm. She often brings work home so that she can see JD for a couple of hours, put him to bed, then will work for another hour or two. The same goes for weekends and she's always in contact with her Blackberry. As for me, I just sit around eating bon-bons while JD sits in front of the TV eating spoonfuls of sugar.

I have a great deal of respect for the blue collar worker. As the service manager for my family's auto service center, I saw how hard these guys work, not only with their hands but with their minds. Mechanics are some of the most underpaid workers out there. But to tell me that they work for a living and that my wife doesn't gets me hot under the collar every time.