Friday, January 21, 2005

Here's a Radical Thought: Raise Your Own Kids

I’m currently reading a bunch of Universal Preschool garbage that was just introduced as AB 172 in the California legislature. While the bill calls for voluntary preschool, available to all children ages 3-5, it also seeks to incorporate universal preschool with preexisting day care programs and state programs for infants and toddlers. And this, of course, is the first step toward making preschool mandatory – the transcendent liberal dream.

Am I really a right-wing radical person to believe that parents should raise their own kids and not dump them into state institutions when they’re practically still in diapers? For me, the bottom line is: “If you’re not planning on raising your own kids, don’t have them.” Get a BMW instead. It’s probably cheaper, too.

This brings up another question. Why do people have children in the first place? Is it to raise them for God? (I hope this is, ultimately, the reason why I'm having children.) Or is it for personal fulfillment?

5 comments:

Rachelle said...

I just got down to brass tacks with a friend recently. She kept whining about how she had to work because her husband's self-employed and they couldn't afford benefits. I figured out a few solutions when she told me she was going to put her 3-yr old and 6-mo old in daycare. That's when she said, "I feel like staying home would be a waste of my talents." (She's a teacher!) I tried to tell her how much it would mean to her own kids to have her there to teach and train them, but she wasn't buying it. "I would get bored." I think my own mom is probably the reason I have never felt that way. I know some mothers HAVE to work--I did for a few months of Ben's life. I was miserable. And when I look at Ben's potential, I know for a fact that he is not a waste of my talents. He is my most important work yet. -rlr

Queen of Carrots said...

Right, Amy, don't you know it's a waste of a woman's talents to raise her own children?

And also, that parents aren't qualified to raise their own children and need the state to intervene?

How those two go together I'm not sure, although I suspect the first is supposed to apply to rich people and the second to poor people.

erinberry said...

You've ridiculously oversimplified the issue. Yes, middle and upper class women with husbands who work have the luxury to stay at home with children. What exactly do you suggest for poor and working class women? Something tells me that you'd have a REAL problem if someone suggested that they went on welfare so they could stay at home with their children. Some women actually have to work to put food on the table, for pete's sake.

Anonymous said...

We actually are not middle class or upper class, and I choose to stay at home with our children. We own our own home and we have two vehicles, and we're not on welfare. We live on a VERY strict budget, but we do what it takes to be able to be at home with them. The Lord has blessed me with these beautiful babies and it's my responsibility to raise them the way He would have me raise them and not leave it up to a daycare center.

Anonymous said...

How about the grandparent who acts like daycare for their grandkids because their own children are to damn lazy to be bothered with raising their children? I am a stay at home mother of 3. I run all over to be at everything for our 3 yet my brother in law and sister in law who both work (part time at best)sit at home and let the very willing grandparents do everything. Including give them money to have a better Christmas. In the end I know my children will be well adjusted hard working individuals, cant say the same for the others!