What is the problem with our country today?
It is us, we are the problem. Why is that?
What is the difference between this generation and the generations in the past?
Studies have shown that from infant to age five is when we are most influenced and is when our personalities are essentially decided.
The primary difference between generations is that the mothers were raising our children back then whereas now mothers are working to pay someone else to raise our children in a "kid is a number" type of setting known as Child Care.
I'm very much for equality regardless of age, sex, skin, sexual preference, and whatever other issue. And this is not saying a woman's place is the kitchen or house-maker, but think about it, who would you rather raising your children during the most critically important years of their life? An individual who most surely cares for your child, but can they possibly care for as much as your child's mother?
When people hear someone is a stay at home parent, immediately there is a negative connotation attached to them that they are freeloading or using Government assistance. Most of the time the harshest critics are women bashing women for being stay at home parents. "Oh, you don't work? I'm sorry to hear that".
When you put a child in child care, you're facing upwards to $200 a WEEK and those child care workers are not paid well either. If you're fortunate, maybe $10 an hour. So you're paying $750 to over $1,000 a month for someone to raise YOUR child during the most important years of their life.
If a tax break for MARRIED couples who have a child were doled out for families who have a stay at home parent, I would be all for it. I would gladly pay a little more in taxes so the parent is raising their child during those first five years than a child care teacher who has around four children at once to monitor.
Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool
Well, you have a fairly interesting topic here. I don't like your first line - what's wrong with the country? The answer to that ranges from nothing to factors way beyond this rather limited area.
I'm sure you could find extreme numbers of both examples and counter-examples both ways - people raised with stay-at-home mothers and people not raised that way. I tend to think there is a correlation, but a statistically weak correlation in favor of good people with stay-at-home mothers.
As for your solution to this situation, I tend to agree with Gunny, to the extent that there actually is a problem, "we" are not really part of it, so why the hell should "we" be forced to solve it/pay for solving it etc.? I have raised my children, three with the mother not working, one with, all to be solid citizens, arguably more solid than their father hahahaha. And no, my mother didn't work - I got bad all on my own (it kinda reminds me of that old Merle Haggard? song, "Mama Tried"
ooooh, I thought I was just posting a link, not the whole song - oh well .......
I've been a foster parent at times, as well as various Big Brother and mentor programs in past years, so I think I've done way more than just take care of my own. HOWEVER, it was all VOLUNTARY, and that's the way it should be. Raising taxes - you said you'd gladly pay more so the damned government could somehow subsidize stay-at-home mothers, that's just WRONG and bad policy anytime. Of course, if you really wanted to do that, you could do like I repeatedly advocate, have the government go farther into debt - Keynesianly inject that additional money into the economy WITHOUT raising taxes. That would be good economically whether it made any difference in the problem you perceive or not. Myself, I don't think it would help much.
I don't like organized daycare either, and I especially don't like all these stupid hoops a child care provider has to jump through these days thanks to damn government intrusion. Stay-at-home mothers or untrained but loving neighbors, friends, grandmas, etc. clearly are better than these sterile politically correct environments. However, I just don't see that as making much of a difference in the big picture - who and how many turn out all right, and who and how many don't.
Expressing the Good Normal Views of Good Normal Americans.
If Anything I Say Smacks of Extremism, Please Tell Me EXACTLY What.