Who's raising our children?

In thinking about day care (or mass baby sitting) with a touch of conspiracy,  I realized that the idea of the state raising all the children is almost realized.  Day care providers take the role of surrogate parents in a very real way.

With almost no idealistic push at all, parents no longer have any say over morals, religion, ethics, skills, or any other traditional parenting role, this is being placed on the day care.  In order to stay uncontroversial, day care (and schools) sanitize any mention of specific religion beliefs or anything else that can vary from family to family.  In essence it takes away the individuality created by a warm loving home and replace it with a "safe place" that children spend all day.  Since day care is regulated by the government, it is not much of a stretch to "regulate" specific beliefs and morals, completely removing God.

The part I find most odd is that parents are choosing it, and it is not being forced by governmental decree.  I know of several parents who leave their children half asleep at the day care usually quite early so they will not be late to work.  Then they come to pick up their children 10-14 hours later;  for a preschool child this is almost their entire waking day, leaving the parents time enough to bathe and feed the child before sending them to bed to start over the next day.

I have also heard several mothers comment on how they work full time, are full time mothers, and know all about their children.  I do not find this possible.  My wife spends her day with our children, where I see them at lunch and in the evenings. I consider myself to know my children fairly well, but when we compare notes,  I miss more than I would care to admit.  I am not there for all the little advances like trying a new sound or learning to stand in the crib,  I see it after it has happened.  All of my children started saying da-da-da before ma-ma-ma (I don't know why), and then a short time later drop off the da-da-da.  I miss so much already and I am very thankful that my wife has decided that she wants to be a full time mother first.  It is no wonder that parents do not know their children (or that children do not know anything about their parents).


Another point that I find very scary is the cases in court where the grandparents are the day care and successfully sue for custody.  It is only a small leap to say the day care fulfills all the roles of parents and to take over the guardianship of the children they keep.  The only reason a day care cannot do this right now is financial, easily fixed by increasing a tax subsidy that has been in place for many years.

Who's raising our children?  I can answer for me and my family, but I wonder if the day care workers were asked what the answer would be. 

Perfect Parent

I have often wondered what a good parent is.  It seems that the longer I am a parent, the less I know about how to raise a child, knowing how to raise my own children is a day by day learning experience where the required knowledge and techniques are ever changing.  I have tried following advice given by other parents, with limited success,  every bit of advice has to be tailored to that child. I have given up trying to figure out how to deal with them as teens,  that bridge will be burnt crossed when we get there.

The seemingly best advise comes from perfect parents - that ones that have advice for every possible problem, but having never been a parent....  My wife received a video a while ago called "the happiest baby on the block".  This technique was developed by a pediatrician who does not seem to have his own children.  It basically involved tightly wrapping (not rapping though it might give you just as happy of a baby) or swaddling your baby and then making sure that any verbal noise the baby makes is immediately covered up by "Shooshing" which he calls simulating the sounds of the womb so that the baby is more comfortable.  The babies demonstrating the technique give such dirty looks that it is quite obvious that the baby is not happy, just intimidated into making no sounds.

I guess the way to tell if we've been good parents is if our children let you see our grandchildren and would like to raise them themselves.

activism

A few years ago I was looking for a summer job.  I had just  returned to school and I needed to provide for my family.  I found an ad in the newspaper for an "activism" position.  Being naive, I called the number and went in for an interview. l found out when I got there that it was a group interview, not the best indication.  What I found out about activism disgusted me.

This company operated by going through neighborhoods soliciting money for the cause. The cause would change every year or two with the head honcho deciding what the cause would be, so the worker activists had no say in it.  Each "employee" would be paid a percentage of the money brought in that week with the remainder going first to the higher ranking in the company and the rest to the actual campaign such as advertisements. The funny thing is that they preferred to operate in the poorer neighborhoods because they received the larger haul there. 

The activists are really professional beggars in the guise of a cause.  Most of the workers were more concerned about the money than the cause.  They had no moral or ethical desire for the cause, only the promise of easy money if they sold it well.

Not in My Backyard

Ever notice how people will grab onto an idea - especially environmental where it does not affect them directly.  Take for instance the wolves of Yellowstone, which have been re-introduced to maintain the "natural" balance. Tell the ranchers that have hunted the wolves for generations to protect their livestock and livelihood.  Ideas like this one whether be they good or bad are ultimately decided by people who have no direct or even indirect association with the issue other than they consider it to be a "good cause".  I call it my "Not in My Backyard" theory.

The "Not in My Backyard" theory goes something like this.  We as a people will jump onto any bandwagon so long as it does not affect us, so long as we can feel good about it, hense I support it because it is Not In My Backyard.  It becomes a combination of laying on guilt, salesmanship and any other factor that that can be thrown in for good measure.  The actual value of the cause becomes lost by the wayside.

The best example is the prairie dog.  First what a prairie dog is: it is a rodent (think rat) that lives in large community nests called prairie dog towns.  The reproductive rate is incredible, multiple litters a year, each with multiple pups.  This cute little creature can move into a field practically overnight and make it unusable for anything else.  In fact, if prairie dogs live in a field, it is not safe to have horses or other livestock in the field because of the holes these creatures create.  Also being rodents, they carry diseases that can be passed to people (Black Plague) so it is best not to have a large population close by.   Since the main predators of the prairie dogs also go after livestock like sheep and chickens, farmers have reduced the number of these predators like the badger and fox.  I was rather surprised one day to see a car with a New Jersey license plate in Southern Utah with the occupants appearing to be very interested in the well being of these rodents.  I later found out that the majority of political support (though not financial) for the prevention of removing the prairie dogs are from people who are city dwellers and find the creatures of the great outdoors to be a novelty.  Rather than raising the money to buy the land and maintain it for a prairie dog habitat, they would rather raise the money to buy votes (welcome to activism) and force the farmers and ranchers to abandon their land and livelihood for a creature that to them has no value and should be exterminated.   I wonder how these same people from New Jersey would feel if their houses and places of employment were suddenly condemned and they were forced to give up everything they have on the chance something could be done where they are not even allowed to voice an opinion.

In formulating this theory,  I learned that before something can be a good cause,  it must first pass the "if this were in my backyard, would I still support it?" test. If it doesn't, maybe a better solution should be found.

Common Courtesy

I noticed today when I called Microsoft's automated activation line that I had no problem hanging up mid-action (Yes I call the activation line on a fairly frequent basis).  There is no point saying "please" or "thank you" because it has no effect and really feels funny to try to be courteous to a machine.  It reminded me of all the times I have been frustrated because the phone menu takes me is circles (especially any phone company) and it becomes nearly impossible to actually talk to a person. If I have the patience to wait the extended time (the most I have ever waited is 45 minutes), listening to the "your call is very important to us, please wait for the next available representative",  courtesy becomes forced. Not only does it mean that an unfeeling, unthinking machine is "helping" you, you are placed on hold for extended periods of time without the courtesy of hearing a real breathing person who should be able to understand more than mono-syllable pre-programmed machine who does not care if you are on hold, hang up, or speak rudely to it.  With this I realized that courtesy is becoming a lost art, starting with the phone.

Am I offended or did I take offence?

I have often pondered the difference between being offended and taking offense.  First of all being offended (You offended me!) seems to place all the burden on the other person and removes responsibility or choice from me.  This doesn't seem right to me for the simple reason that I have the ability to make my own choices and am the master of my destiny.  I believe in free will and freedom of choices. 

This leads me to look at taking offense. If I take offense, it implies that I choose to take offense.  So is taking offense acceptable?  

The beginning

Well I guess I will jump on the blog bandwagon. Since this is my blog,  I can meander through various topics and be dis-jointed with incomplete thoughts that do not make sense.  I find it easier that way.