Home Alone and Unhappy; Reflections on the State of U.S. Children

Zenit.org ^ | 1-29-05 | Zenit.org

[Salvation]

I have long thought that child care and the feeling of kids being abandoned has contributed to the rise in child anger, hyper kids, over-medication of children and the list goes on and on.......

[k2blader]

Agreed.

It only harms our nation when people are more interested in money than their own children.

[maine-iac7]

When my children were little - back in the days of stay-at-home-moms - the neighborhood was full of kids playing together up and down the street -

Today, the neighborhoods are eerily quiet - the kids warehoused in daycare.

a child's birthright is a parent in the home.

I was fortunate to be able to stay home with my boys for the most of their younger years, but found myself having to work after my little girl was born.

I went to one daycare after another, looking for one I could feel comfortable leaving her in. I would come home in tears, thinking I simply could not leave her in any of them

So I started my own day care - and had a ball. And made more money than had I been working an outside job and then had to pay dare-care on top of it.

She now has 3 little girls and she is a stay-at-home mom. And it shows...

[Anti-Christ is Hillary]

Yes and this is want that wonderful movement called "woman's liberation" did. It started with my generation called "the latch-key kids". It has only gotten worse for the kids.

[conservative cat]

My older two children stayed with my mom during the day when they were younger and my ex and I worked. Now, my current husband stays home with our toddler because I make more than him and have better benefits. We are both totally against daycare.

[thoughtomator]

Lived through it. It's even worse than is being presented here.

[tina07]

Couldn't agree more, stayed home with mine, never could have put them into what I call 'a kiddy-kennel'. Many might be forced to work due to the high cost of living, but then many don't need those humungous mansions with one or two kids or that Lexus SUV. I have thought it for years that the decay of society, in regards to kids, for the last 15 yrs. or so started when Mom left the home.

[gardencatz]

Along with this, many Americans have been imbued with the idea that to create an "authentic self" complete autonomy is needed in beliefs, opinions and choices in life. Thus, teaching children how to behave becomes forbidden and parents are transformed from figures of authority "into facilitators, cheerfully escorting the child's own unique self into maturity.

This is quite possibly the stupidest "theory" about raising children I have ever seen. Who thinks up this nonsense? My children are quite welcome to become their "own unique self" when they're old enough to be on their own. Until then, they will be given moral guidance and shared family values. We're a one income family in a 2 income world and we struggled for most of those years. There were times when my husband would work a second job so I could be with our boys. Now that they're older (one is just out of the Coast Guard and the other just starting at the local community college), both of them say having me home was more important than the stuff their friends got (even if they didn't think they felt that way at the time).

It's interesting, though that as the spoiled boomers children are having children, there's almost a reverse exodus back into the home. They won't regret it as the perks are priceless...you just can't get open-mouthed jelly-kisses in the secretarial pool (okay, maybe you can in this day and age).

[TruthConquers]

You are so right. I lived it too, but as a boomer being left to watch my younger brothers every summer from the age of 12 on up, starting in 1967.

And no values either. Dad was a big atheist.
My parents were putting each other thru college.

One of my brothers died of AIDS in 1990.
The other has never had the courage to marry.

I still marvel at what my parents were willing to do to their childern, as I watch my daughter grow up.

Somehow, God found me and I got saved in my late twentys.
Married, stay-at-home mom, homeschooling our daughter.

There will be a bigger crop of people just like me coming into adulthood.

[Coleus]

Children need a nuclear family with a mother and a father and the mother home when the children are home especially during the middle and high school years.

[CBart95]

"a part-time research fellow". Swell. Well then, it's gotta be true. Why have we been so blind?

[DennisR]

...and the Dems just love Head Start and want to expand it to what - birth?

[maine-iac7]

and the Dems just love Head Start and want to expand it to what - birth?

Actually, their wording is :from age 0 to 18" - in other words, monitoring from pregnancy thru age 18 - they consider our children as belonging to the state...and are still implementing "home health visitors" that will have the authority to do just that...

[Anti-Christ is Hillary]

LOL. I am an affront to the woman's movement. Married and I don't have a job. I stay at home clean my house, work in my garden and yard, do my husbands laundry and cook his dinner. And I don't have any children. Their heads are exploding. I can hear it now "what kind of woman are you?"

[DennisR]

Scary. And the sad part is that so many Americans are more interested in watching "American Idol" than watching what the Dims/Libs/Socs/Comms are doing to this country.

(My apologies to all "American Idol" fans. :) )

[Anti-Christ is Hillary]

My mother wasn't one of those "woman's libers", but, my father got all caught up in that whole mess. I was a latchkey kid along with my little brother. My sperm donor (father) didn't want the "responsibility" of children and left. Mother had to get 3 jobs to take care of us with no help from the pot-head sperm donor (father). I learned how to change diapers very early age and as soon as I was 8 I was old enough to stay alone with him.

I broke my finger when I was 10 and didn't want to call my mom because I knew that she couldn't afford to come home early so I sat there on the couch for 3 hours until she came home from work to take me to the hospital. Boy did I get in big trouble for not calling her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was one of the only times I saw her cry.

[k2blader]

Good for you, and your daughter too!

Parents like you give the rest of us hope. :-)

[aruanan]

One of the most moronic ideas to come down the pike is that children somehow benefit by spending a lot of time with others of their "peer" group who are just as clueless as they themselves are. Children who spend most of their time with adults, learning how adults interact (presuming good adult behavior), learning how to interact with adults, aren't missing out on their childhood, they're learning how to be adults, and that is the business of childhood. It always was this way until someone invented the concept of childhood as a gigantic stretch of time to be enjoyed before having to become an adult. As a result, we have childhood extending up through the twenties, especially among those who want nothing to do except make a lot of money and recreate.