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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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To: Lane3 who wrote (212772)7/20/2007 5:57:26 PM
From: Sun Tzu  Read Replies (4) of 794042
 
>> I would argue that a large part of the reason for that is that, in a free country, there is little that we can do about poor parenting except jawbone about it.

I disagree. There is much that we can do about it. For starters, in almost all industrialized countries maternity leave is between 6mo to 2yrs. In New York it is 5 days! A couple that I personally know got a bill for nearly $400k because the woman had triplets and the pregnancy got complicated (as is always the case with triplets). If you were them facing this problem, what would you have done? Ask for an abortion ahead of time?

Secondly, exhausted and time starved people make for poor parents. Few people would willingly choose work over their kids. They do this because they have a lot of financial obligations ranging from $100k student loans to medical expenses to daycare or child education funds and so on and so forth.

The more affordable and effective you can make education, medical expenses, daycare, transportation, and safety concerns, the more likely it is that parents will have to work fewer hours and can focus more on their kids. If I don't have much money, I would consider moving to smaller home in a poorer neighborhood. But I will not do that if I am worried about drug and gang problems in that neighborhood. What could I do then? Likely I'd move out of city far enough that I can afford a healthy setting. But that would mean I'd have to drive to work for 3hrs everyday add a 9/10hr workday (more if I am still paying hospital or university bills) and how much time is left for the family?
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