Thursday, February 17, 2005
Newsweek Strikes Again!
A few days ago, I read an article in Newsweek while in Borders. If I felt the urge to pay Borders for the magazine because I read an article in it, then I would also feel the urge to sue Newsweek, demanding financial compensation for the space in my brain occupied by the inane whining they call journalism.
The entire article was about how hard it is to be a mom. Ok nothing new there. Now of course society changes and every generation is confronted by new expectations. This is an interesting subject. If Newsweek had taken a sociological angle on raising kids in a hyper-meritocracy, that may have been interesting.
Alas, the article was all about how demanding children are, and how women can’t have full lives outside their families, and how you can’t have it all….yada yada yada. And this horrible situation is, you guessed it, SOCIETY’S FAULT. Society has created the awful difficulties in raising children. And the solution is, and I hope you guessed this, GOVERNMENT SPENDING. If only we had cheap high-quality daycare and host of other free services women could have it all.
The ludicrous idea here is that these people have had something done to them. They chose to have children. Yes, having children is a choice not a right. I am not going to have any pity for a news anchorwoman who complains that life is too hard. Please. If you want to run IBM someday you will sacrifice free time, vacations, and a social life in order to get there. If you want to raise decent kids you will sacrifice some part of your career, free time, and social life and put the time in to raise them. No amount of government spending is going to change this. And no amount of government spending is going to alleviate your responsibility for your own decisions.
Say it with me: There is no such thing as a free lunch.
The entire article was about how hard it is to be a mom. Ok nothing new there. Now of course society changes and every generation is confronted by new expectations. This is an interesting subject. If Newsweek had taken a sociological angle on raising kids in a hyper-meritocracy, that may have been interesting.
Alas, the article was all about how demanding children are, and how women can’t have full lives outside their families, and how you can’t have it all….yada yada yada. And this horrible situation is, you guessed it, SOCIETY’S FAULT. Society has created the awful difficulties in raising children. And the solution is, and I hope you guessed this, GOVERNMENT SPENDING. If only we had cheap high-quality daycare and host of other free services women could have it all.
The ludicrous idea here is that these people have had something done to them. They chose to have children. Yes, having children is a choice not a right. I am not going to have any pity for a news anchorwoman who complains that life is too hard. Please. If you want to run IBM someday you will sacrifice free time, vacations, and a social life in order to get there. If you want to raise decent kids you will sacrifice some part of your career, free time, and social life and put the time in to raise them. No amount of government spending is going to change this. And no amount of government spending is going to alleviate your responsibility for your own decisions.
Say it with me: There is no such thing as a free lunch.
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While in agreement that government spending is not the correction to "society's" problem, I have an alternate solution: disciplinary actions carried out on your children. Society is in no way responsible for my children (if I so *choose* to have them). If I lived in China or the fantasy world of Logan's Run, perhaps things would be different. As it stands, my children would be a direct representation of my parenting. If I teach them no morals, then guess what? Chances are they are going to develop them somewhere else. Where you may ask? This is where "society" comes into play. If I force my child to develop morals and values and a decent mindset for living elsewhere ["Society"] besides the home in which they were raised, then I effectively have failed as a parent. If you don't want your kid to be a turd, then raise them correctly.
# posted by 
: 3:57 PM
: 3:57 PM
DW wrote, "If only we had cheap high-quality daycare...women could have it all."
According to this anti-daycare website, high-quality daycare is an oxymoron!
According to this anti-daycare website, high-quality daycare is an oxymoron!
# posted by : 2:39 PM
: 2:39 PM
I am not sure we need more "disciplinary actions carried out on your children" There is plenty of that done in the courts and that is usually too late to help the situation. But I think we agree that there is a responsibility problem. Maybe forcing parents to be responsible for the damage their children cause could help create incentives towards good parenting. If a child commits a crime how often is the parent held responsible? When should they be?
Truthfully there may not be a legal incentive that can stop parents from being useless. There is a point in time when too many people have made too many stupid decisions, and the culture is irredeemable.
Truthfully there may not be a legal incentive that can stop parents from being useless. There is a point in time when too many people have made too many stupid decisions, and the culture is irredeemable.
While I would not agree totally with your denial of disciplinary actions carried out on the children, I would only reinforce it with this: disciplinary actions that can be used (and ultimately effective), could be something as simple as stern warnings, spanking, denial of privelages and the like. Disciplinary action in no way has to be physical. If parents have a problem with complacency, then that needs to be recognized and remedied. I would think that a child's actions as represented in 'society' are a direct representation of the parenting skills (or lack thereof), like I said before. Once you identify the problem, try to solve it.
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# posted by : 6:01 PM
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