In today's world we can't assume any longer that everyone wants the same version of happiness. We can assume, however, that everyone wants some version of happiness, even those people who seem to love to be miserable. In order to paper over this quandy: of how unique individuals can nonetheless be said to be totally alike, modern "P.C." discourse has leaned upon freedom, as a crutch, as a distraction, as an excuse.

Freedom is not some common denominator. It is a thing, in all of its terrifying reality. Reality most evident by its stubborn refusal to yield to erasure or revision, persisting as it does in "rearing its ugly head" as they say. Freedom is therefore NOT an abstraction, and people do really want it. For all people, it constitutes the right to "be oneself" as the star of one's own life, a deserving role in the network of love and people that bestows any and all meaning, value, and end.

For some significant percentage of people, that freedom consists of raising a family, and keeping a house. A house isn't just a paper cutout made of sticks and foam. It is an environment, which is somebody's rock. Home is a rock, it is a safe clean place of peace and play. Right? Whose job is it to maintain that rock? Whose job keeps the world going? For any family, it's clear what character inherits these privileges. Where one spouse is the elusive "bread winner," where the other spouse is not, it's even more obvious that the job of the glue falls most often into Mom's purview.

"The Woman Behind the Man" most of my life meant to me the spouse of a man. And while spouses in their spousal duties do often stand behind "their men," more than likely it's the case that Mom is the woman who built The Man. This is proven out in the bluntest of languages: Economics. To hire live-in childcare, childcare who also cleans, and cleans in crevices and always on one's hands and knees--to hire this type of care, which encompases roles of a domestic CEO, COO, personal assistant, technician, real estate manager and investor, most breadwinners would need to pay their spouse six figure salaries.

Who is pocketing the difference? The difference between the value that I create, in reality, and the price that I am paid for it. And why, in a functioning market, is there even a gap? A spread to be captured? Why? Because of the invisible hands that clean your toilets, scrub your grout, damp cloth and mop everything, change your diapers, file your mail, register for your activities, pay your taxes, write your emails, schedule your appointments, fold your clothes; and the very visible hands that touch you, love you, and save your life.

Every child is a full-time job, so every couple has their day jobs and their child or children. For a couple with both parents "working," the couple works three jobs together. Where asymmetric earnings come in is just to maginify the dynamic. In a couple with two kids, there you have two people working three jobs, but only one is paid for it. It can still make sense, because the lagging spouse's income may not cover the type of childcare and management that two children require. Moms are out there, greasing the wheels of the economy.

The gap isn't just about moms though, is it? The spread is about more than just moms. Moms are just one of many categories of people for whom it is blatantly obvious that you are invisible. And therein lies someone else's profit.