Letters to the Editor

• Want some cheese with that whine?

  [Read the article: Why are parents miserable?]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Lori wrote: "I'm with Warner on this one. Most of the parents I know, myself included, find the issues surrounding parenting -- concerns about quality education, healthcare and childcare especially -- to be the real source of their angst."

  Great, so you want your kids to be smart and healthy, yet you are looking to the government for the solution? Therein lies the reason why parents bitch and moan so much today. We have eschewed personal responsibility and want the government to take care of it for us.

  Was the education, healthcare, and childcare systems really better back when we were growing up? No. They were not appreciably better or worse.

  The only thing that happens to have been appreciably different a generation ago was the family unit. But, rather than look at what we as citizens have done to alter the state of kiddydom in this country we sit on our ass and complain the government is not doing enough.

  The statistics on out of wedlock births, single parents, divorced/remarrieds and the like are pretty damn stark. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote the position paper to JFK on the situation in inner cities, the out of wedlock birth rate was in the 30s. Today it is in the 70s in inner cities and in the 30s nationally. One can build a compelling argument that the programs of the so-called "Great Society" aided and abetted the rise illustrating yet again the unintended consequences of well intended government programs. (Note I said "aided and abetted" and not that they were a "root cause.")

  If a kid had a kid in the 60s, then there was a family onus to care for one's own. Now the desire would be to get their own place and apply for various government programs. To some having a kid is seen as a ticket out of a lousy family situation. Unfortunately for them, they don't realize these transfer payments are not going to be a panacea. You still will have to get off your ass and parent; you still will need to come up with your own sources of income.

  I have four kids. My wife chose to exit the work force to stay home with them. I am fortunate in that I make a decent income, but we still had to make some financial adjustments to get that done. My wife and I are both active in our children's lives. My wife was on the school committee. I have served on boards of selectman and on finance committees and have also coached 20 seasons of my children's youth sports programs. I know have trouble sleeping trying to figure out how the hell I will afford college for the four of them. I need to come up with $11,000 in a couple of weeks for the first semester of my oldest son's freshman year.

  Worried about your children's education? Read to them. Enforce homework schedules. Review their homework.

  Worried about your child's healthcare? Get a job with solid healthcare benefits.

  Worried about childcare? Alter your lifestyle, make do with less, and establish flexible working hours to be there. Establish child care cooperative with like minded parents.

  Of course we worry about our children. It's what parents do. The difference was that our parents looked to themselves for the solution rather than bitching and moaning the government wasn't being a sufficient provider.

  WE had them; WE have the responsibility to take care of them. Government solutions should be the recoure of last resort, not the primary protecter of our youth. That's the parents' job. If you don't want the job, don't have the child.

  Permalink Monday, July 17, 2006 08:36 AM