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ani - I so agree! Education is just a part of the solution. Maybe the Chinese "solution" might work for welfare, altho' it's a little heavy-handed!
Well, I think folks should be able to have as many children as they want, even tho I personally felt in my own life that zero population growth was very important, so I decided not to have more than 2 children. As it turns out, I was able to only birth one child, and became stepmother to 4 others, so I guess I helped average out the population growth, lol.
But I believe folks should create the families they feel they want and can care for. Responsible families do that! If they can afford (financially, physically and emotionally) to have six children, then I say - Good for you!
The problem we have is with people who don't see the world in terms of consequences and they don't feel any personal responsibility-for themselves or to society. I have heard the "reasons" and "excuses" for nearly half a century now and you know what? I do not care to hear it any longer. Either people act responsibly or they don't. Period. And those who don't should NOT be rewarded.
It seems handouts are all some segments of our society understand. So if the behavior of children is directly tied to the parents getting a handout, maybe that will CLICK. Nothing else seems to work.
Now- we all have known basically good kids who have gotten in trouble. I am not talking about that type of behavior. I am talking about repeat offenders who have proven as juveniles that they are antisocial and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. These are kids that have offended more than a dozen times b/f age 18. We see it over and over in this county and instead of standing around and wringing our hands - it is time to get to the core of the issue and come up with a strategy that takes the responsibility for raising decent kids back where it belongs - AT HOME.
Well, I think folks should be able to have as many children as they want, even tho I personally felt in my own life that zero population growth was very important, so I decided not to have more than 2 children. As it turns out, I was able to only birth one child, and became stepmother to 4 others, so I guess I helped average out the population growth, lol.
But I believe folks should create the families they feel they want and can care for. Responsible families do that! If they can afford (financially, physically and emotionally) to have six children, then I say - Good for you!
The problem we have is with people who don't see the world in terms of consequences and they don't feel any personal responsibility-for themselves or to society. I have heard the "reasons" and "excuses" for nearly half a century now and you know what? I do not care to hear it any longer. Either people act responsibly or they don't. Period. And those who don't should NOT be rewarded.
It seems handouts are all some segments of our society understand. So if the behavior of children is directly tied to the parents getting a handout, maybe that will CLICK. Nothing else seems to work.
Now- we all have known basically good kids who have gotten in trouble. I am not talking about that type of behavior. I am talking about repeat offenders who have proven as juveniles that they are antisocial and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. These are kids that have offended more than a dozen times b/f age 18. We see it over and over in this county and instead of standing around and wringing our hands - it is time to get to the core of the issue and come up with a strategy that takes the responsibility for raising decent kids back where it belongs - AT HOME.
ani - Some of the "worst" offenders have rap sheets as thick as the Manhattan phone directory! Those are the ones who need to be dealt with forcefully. Maybe their parents need to suffer the consequences of being stripped of all benefits (no food stamps, housing or welfare money) for 90 days or so while any remaining kids in that home are placed in foster care for an equal period of time with no visitation rights! Sleeping in a cardboard box and going hungry for a few weeks may engender development of some parental responsibility!
ani - Some of the "worst" offenders have rap sheets as thick as the Manhattan phone directory! Those are the ones who need to be dealt with forcefully. Maybe their parents need to suffer the consequences of being stripped of all benefits (no food stamps, housing or welfare money) for 90 days or so while any remaining kids in that home are placed in foster care for an equal period of time with no visitation rights! Sleeping in a cardboard box and going hungry for a few weeks may engender development of some parental responsibility!
I feel at the end of my rope with this situation of juvenile delinquents and the revolving door at the court house. Attacking the elderly is so over the top that it warrants some over the top responses.
I have a question I wish someone would answer for me, EM. We have been pouring money down a dark seemingly bottomless pit with all these federally sanctioned (regulated) programs that are supposedly designed to help "at risk" children. To what end? Why do we continue doing this? It is not working! So what do we do? We ante up yet MORE MONEY. The parents dont feed the kids so we give them lunch. Oh, gosh, they are not getting breakfast, either, so we feed them breakfast. And then we design special programs for 4 year olds cause the kids are already BEHIND at four. How the hell can that be - that children who are FOUR are already BEHIND? Why are they behind? Because they are sat in a corner while momma shoots up all day? I mean - really. WHY?
How can someone say that a child is behind at age four? And if they are behind at age four, then why the hell aren't we doing something with the parents who have allowed a child to be ignored, malnourished, abused - WHATEVER - by age four?
I wish someone could answer that for me. If a child is already doomed by age four, then why are we not intervening with THE PARENT?
I feel at the end of my rope with this situation of juvenile delinquents and the revolving door at the court house. Attacking the elderly is so over the top that it warrants some over the top responses.
I have a question I wish someone would answer for me, EM. We have been pouring money down a dark seemingly bottomless pit with all these federally sanctioned (regulated) programs that are supposedly designed to help "at risk" children. To what end? Why do we continue doing this? It is not working! So what do we do? We ante up yet MORE MONEY. The parents dont feed the kids so we give them lunch. Oh, gosh, they are not getting breakfast, either, so we feed them breakfast. And then we design special programs for 4 year olds cause the kids are already BEHIND at four. How the hell can that be - that children who are FOUR are already BEHIND? Why are they behind? Because they are sat in a corner while momma shoots up all day? I mean - really. WHY?
How can someone say that a child is behind at age four? And if they are behind at age four, then why the hell aren't we doing something with the parents who have allowed a child to be ignored, malnourished, abused - WHATEVER - by age four?
I wish someone could answer that for me. If a child is already doomed by age four, then why are we not intervening with THE PARENT?
ani - I look at the world today and it makes me glad that I was born (1952) when I was! Life, really was simpler then! (I feel like I'm talking like my parents when I speak like this!) It's this rush,rush,rush - "I want and want everything right now... world". It seems nowadays, that every parent wants their kids to know their times tables and read Tolstoy as they exit the birth canal. What's the rush anyway?
I didn't learn to read until I was in the first grade. I started kindergarten in September 1957 when I was still 4. That lasted until January 1958 when I started 1B. Schools by me had these semester long sequences back then. I was in the slow group of readers because I was so young, but by the time 3rd grade came around in Sept of 1959, no one could "outread" me! I can't understand the criteria they use in judging a 4 year old's performance as being "so behind" that it's a "major factor" in determining their success in life. That thinking, along with NCLB is turning out to be an educational disaster in the making.
More money is not the answer! A lot of places thought it would be, and I hate to break it to them, but if you spent $100,000 per student in some of these schools, the test scores would still be in the toilet. Two-parent involvement in a kid's life is still the best measure of success along with judiciously-applied discipline. What society in general, needs to do to make that happen, is a nebulous area indeed! But the current methods stink to the high heavens!
Until children are being raised by responsible people, nothing is going to change. If a child is "at risk" at four, then let's figure out how to either help the parents be better parents or let's get the child out of the household. In many of these cases, kids only have one parent. In many situations, one or both of the parents are in jail. That's according to various reports I have read. In some situations, the g/parents are trying to raise kids whose parents are nowhere to be found. If folks need help with children who are out of control, then let's do that when they are 6 or 10, not wait til they have committed a dozen crimes and then beaten up an elderly man as their last act b/f they finally get booked and dragged to jail.
Agree this absolutely starts with the parents. Where are they as their kids are growing up to be punks? Are the kids getting involved with sports, after-school activities and sharing meals with the family, or are they wandering the streets with other punks and learning the bad ways?
I swear to you my oldest is 8 and already I can see some kids in her class (ok they got moved to another class recently, but....) that will absolutely grow up to do this unless someone intervenes and does it fast.
Agree this absolutely starts with the parents. Where are they as their kids are growing up to be punks? Are the kids getting involved with sports, after-school activities and sharing meals with the family, or are they wandering the streets with other punks and learning the bad ways?
I swear to you my oldest is 8 and already I can see some kids in her class (ok they got moved to another class recently, but....) that will absolutely grow up to do this unless someone intervenes and does it fast.
I am sure you are right. The thing is - what kind of intervention? It seems to matter little what the school tries to do if the parent is really the problem.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEmissary
ani - I am always outraged when I read these stories but there are some factors which create them in the first place. It isn't a matter of race! When was the last time you read of Bill Cosby or George Lopez holding up a 7-11 store? It's mainly economics. We have had a permanent subclass of poor people in this country for most of the 20th century. Unfortunately, state and federal subsidies help to perpetuate them in their current forms. Some of this state's policies are p*ss-poor in this regard. What gives, with CMS schools using an abstinence-only policy for so many years? It's "failure" produces parents and babies. Will Medicaid pay for an abortion for the pregnant 16 year old daughter of the 32 year old welfare mother who wants one? I don't believe so! But they'll happily pay for formula and food for her kid after it's born. Does Planned Parenthood make visits to high schools to hand out condoms to the boys? I doubt it! Policies like this, produce vast quantities of "unwanted kids" with overwhelmed teen-age parents and thirty-something grandparents who don't have a clue! This happens in rural as well as urban areas. These kids are the ones who grow up to be the "thuggies" of the urban areas and the "trailer-trash meth-lab operators" in the "sticks".
What's the answer? Education of all parties involved! If you want "welfare mom" to get off of it, perhaps paying for her to go to school to better herself might be cheaper than paying down the road for all those kids she might have that will end up in jail. When you weigh the costs of the education (a couple of thousand dollars for welfare mom) vs the ($26,000 to keep her teen-ager in jail for a year in Mecklenburg County) it does make economic sense. Better family planning on both the state and federal level couldn't hurt either!
Emissary, there is the NJ solution to this. Once you are on public assistance, any children that you have are your problem, not the state's.
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