A Paradigm Shift in Parenting

National Review Online ^ | 30 November 2004 | Stanley Kurtz

[Calpernia]

You are a real piece of trash aren't you? You troll threads to attack people?

I'm back in NJ taking care of extended family. Do you feel better? Or should I do a Berlen and gas them like a Nazi?

You are on the new side. Shape up or your time here will be short lived.

[DBeers]

My thinking is that the feminist movement really did not accomplish a whole lot. Men simply got women into the workforce on their terms, and got to pay for abortions and write checks for child support instead of taking real responsibility for the children they produce. It's a great deal for men, but it still stinks for women. We have "choice," but if we decide to have the children, we only have lousy choices - quit working and give up our rewarding careers, or have our kids raised by strangers. Nothing about the workplace has changed to accommodate families with children. Feminists were so afraid of women's futures being tied to their children (which would undercut the arguments for legal abortion on demand) that they failed to push for such changes. So women have not really been liberated at all, and children have been hurt.

A real feminist movement would be agitating for more flextime, telecommuting, and job-sharing for women, and for all-day schooling for kids. And for more restrictions on divorce

In my opinion your 'thinking' has some good points; however, you have some misconceptions that show you may 'buy' into some of the morally relative arguments spewed by the left.

By polarizing and or describing groups by the 'labels' often used it is easy to miss the common root cause of these problems -a problem that has always plagued humanity -- TRY using this label that hits closer to the problem -SELFISHNESS. Those of all stripes that exclusively pursue selfish interests are really the problem...

[eyespysomething]

We have real bills, not frills.

Amen.

[Max Combined]

"Shape up or your time here will be short lived."

Like I said, I never noticed the hostility.

[savagesusie]

The children in our family all knew their colors and could count to 10 by the time they were about 2 years old, most were reading by kindergarten, and they also knew shapes, letters, etc. If you spend time with your children, they don't need Pre-K.

My son was so advanced by the time he was in Kindergarden that they were going to bump him up to the first grade. My four year old son was reading at the time.

One on one poses the BEST learning situations with children, esp. when that person loves and cares for the child.

Modern day day-care does not have the ratio of adult to children where it is equivalent to the one on one parent ratio....that is why oldest children are usually the smartest and most successful--they get more one-on-one care and are listening to adult language and not a bunch of baby talk....like at day care. Plus they do not have the stress hormones which occur at day-cares because of separation, etc., which retards learning.

[Veto!]

mother stayed at home and raised five children, and was miserable most of the time and even had a nervous breakdown once. We would have been better off if she had been able to work part-time and get away from us for a few hours a week.

Thanks for saying this. I was a single mom for many years and worked sporadically, staying home fulltime when I could afford to. During one of my at-home periods, my 12-yr-old son polished up my electric typewriter, fixed the cord, and proudly put it on the dining-room table. "We liked you better when you were working, Mom," he said. Lifted a ton of guilt from my heart, believe me.

But those were the days when household help was very affordable. Though I didn't make a great deal, I could pay reliable women to come in every day or even live in. A couple of them stayed for years and really loved my kids. In today's economy, the children would have ended up in daycare, a totally unsatisfactory solution.

[MaineRepublic]

They are trying that in more an more places. I hear families who have to find after-Kindergarten care for their kids trying to get it in their school systems. Those of us with stay at home parents are fine with half day Kindergarten. Why does a 5 year old need to be in school for the whole day?

[valkyrieanne]

My oldest will start Kindergarden in 2 years, and all-day K will be mandatory here that year. Homeschooling is definitely on the table.

Depending on what state you live in, you might not even *have* to send your child to kindergarten, or even first grade. Missouri for instance starts mandatory attendance at age 7.

I think there are good reasons for keeping some children home for K and grade 1. Mom can teach them to read, write, and do arithmetic in a very short time per day, and the rest of the morning (or afternoon, whatever your preference) can be given over to just learning by being at home and with an adult who's engaged and interested - gardening, looking for bugs and toads in the yard, going to the park or museums.

There's plenty of time for them to get down to "book learning." Even for parents who want to send children to school, most kids would profit from staying home till at least 3rd grade or so.

[valkyrieanne]

Like I was saying...if we're talking about the child of a married couple, one parent's employer offering health bennies, kids are dirt cheap. What do kids need? Clothes and food.

I too agree that too many parents use money as an excuse not to have children. However, there are indeed other costs involved in raising kids that parents do need to take into account.

Not everyone has reliable medical insurance through their job. Even when people have medical insurance, they often don't have dental insurance (or good dental insurance.) We have had three children with orthodontia (about $4000 each - they had some pretty severe problems that were *not* "just cosmetic." Bad genes...), and insurance only paid about a fifth of it. Some insurers pay nothing. Routine dental appointments every six months run about $75 to $100 each.

We don't go overboard in any way with lavish lessons, but we do have some children in some assorted lessons, and they aren't cheap either.

Then there is college spending. Ours are exploring low-cost alternatives, but if you own your own home and aren't divorced, and have anything saved for retirement at all that's outside of IRAs, don't expect any "need-based" financial aid.

[mongrel]

Good post. I believe that the unfortunate change in the family goes further back than the 60's, it goes back to the industrial revolution. Before that, it wasn't just the home, it was the home place. Most fathers were also spending their days so that they were accessible to their children. Almost all jobs that men had were home-based or at least within walking distance in the local community. Children helped with the work both inside and outside the home.

Now parents are both absent during the day and spend the entire evening in cars taking their children to every sports and arts program they can find. So we teach our kids to also be self-involved and don't build a sense of sacrifice and care within the family unit.

Mothers AND Fathers need to be more engaged in the home. And there's no reason the mothers should be the only ones to have the opportunity to do that. My wife and I are committed to working less than 120% FTE between the two of us. Right now I'm 80% and she's 20%. I am grateful that I stay home and care for our 1-year-old one day a week. The way we spend time with her differs, but children need that for healthy developmental growth. She is more nurturing, and I focus more on the excitement of pushing out boundaries and discovering new things. In the future I hope we can explore home-based businesses that allow children to also be involved.

[Search4Truth]

Another feminism du jour book.

As long as it is men who are doing the fighting and the dying to defend our freedoms, without which all other arguments are moot, women will never be the equals of men. Nor should they ever think that they should be. For it is feminism that has taught women that men are the measure by which they should gauge their worth as women. Which is one of the great deceptions of feminism that pits women against men and wives against husbands.

Feminist can continue to send women into harms way to be killed, so that the feminists can have their propaganda victories, but it is men who win the wars that preserve our freedoms, which makes women forever the dependents of men.

Feminism is a dying ideology. They can come up with new "buzz words" and constantly try and re-frame and intellectualize the discussions, but the simple fact of life is that women need men, who will be men, and children need mothers.

Increasingly women are rediscovering their purpose and their happiness in life by being the wives of men and mothers to their children, first and foremost. Feminism has distracted women from that fact of life, but no power short of that of the God that created us can change it.

[tiki]

Women got what they asked for, equality. They can work in construction, be in the Army, etc. But in the old days a man could easily make a living wage. After the work force increased men were paid less than they would have been if there had been more competition and mothers who didn't want to work, had to.

[TChris]

The advent of the two income family coincided with...

The advent, perhaps, but taxes absolutely have an impact on such decisions today. To deny this is to deny that taxes have an adverse impact on disposable income. Disposable income is, after all, the whole point. Isn't it?

[Lorianne]

Men and and women do not have to be the same to be equals.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

The feminist movement is all about sex - mostly deviant sex too (fornication and also oral sodomy for men) - and abortion. Nothing more, and nothing less.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Actually the math you describe only applies to people living above their means and well above the poverty line. For two earner families in the lower income brackets, both jobs are important.

Not true. Its the lower income workers who are working almost for free. A second car+gas+insurance+taxes, income taxes, clothes, lunch out, day care for 1-2 children.

These items are pretty much fixed price regardless of your income. These costs don't exist if the wife is at home. These costs can also easily add up to $35,000 per year ($5K for ownership/insurance/gas/taxes on the car, $1K each for clothes and lunch, and $12K for daycare for two, then $16K in income/social security/state/local taxes on that $35K).

Also, it is the lower income worker, not necessarily the female parent, who's income is going to pay for the cost of working in the first place.

Again, not true. There is no "cost of working" for the first worker beyond the basics of transportation to work, work clothing and lunch away from home. Those are the more minimal costs to begin with. Daycare and a rarely used beyond commutation second car are the big ones.

What really drives women working is families desiring huge homes that one worker cannot pay for, multiple pricey cars/trucks, and a desire to spend $2K+ per month on discretionary items, food, and vacations.

In most of the country, a man earning $40,000 per year should be enough to afford a $100K house, a single family car, and a wife at home with the children. People who want more than this, and do not earn enough to support it, are the ones driving the women working kids in daycare phenomena.

[Search4Truth]

"Men and and women do not have to be the same to be equals."

I would think that most women rather be happy and fulfilled, than equal. I don't see equality having brought much of either to anyone. And the freedom of women to do what they choose, has been earned them by the blood, sweat and tears of men. A fact that feminists loath and seek to conceal by any means necessary.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

The advent of the two income family coincided with the explosion of the cost of the nice house in the suburbs with the good school district as middle class whites poured out of cities in the 70's. That house costs two paychecks. Period.

Yep. If you still live in the city like I do (in Philly), your wife can still stay home. My single family home in the city cost about 2/3 of what a similar suburban home would cost, and has 1/3 to 1/2 of the property tax burden. A row house or twin would be much, much cheaper.

It constantly amazes me that people will pay $200,000 for a "townhouse" in the suburbs, when the same thing in the city in a nice neighborhood, labeled a "rowhouse" goes for $80,000. Don't you have a better use for that $120,000 plus the carrying cost of taxes and insurance on that value? I do.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

What you talk about here is a phenomena of about 20-25% of the population back then, and about 35% of the population today. Thats the actual figures for people who have actually divorced at least once or never married.

[Search4Truth]

Materialism has indeed been a factor in driving both parents increasingly away from their children and their parental responsibilities. To their shame they choose things over the welfare of their children. What a tragedy.

I at one time was guilty of the same. But by the grace of God I have realized my transgression and have made amends. A parent's duty to his children is sacred.