Posted on 11/23/2011 5:53:54 AM PST by Kaslin
Will Michelle Obama's efforts as first lady help or hurt American children and the nation in which they live?
When speaking about her "Let's Move!" program to fight childhood obesity, Mrs. Obama often explains her vision of government as parent -- the Big Mother who will teach children the important things their derelict real moms and dads do not.
Big Mother made an early appearance in 2009, when Mrs. Obama talked to bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services.
"Their fate isn't set yet," Mrs. Obama said. "We still have everything in our power because the other beautiful thing is that kids change quickly. Their habits are easily broken. They are so malleable, and they're waiting for the right information, the right opportunities, and once they have it, they just go."
"Many of the children in the public schools, they take this information, they understand it," said Mrs. Obama. "They apply it to their lives, and they push their parents and their families to be different. That's one of the reasons why we start with kids oftentimes. They are ready for change sometimes when we're not."
How young are the "malleable" children Mrs. Obama wants the government to teach lessons they can "push" on their parents?
How about "little itty-bitty babies"?
In June, Mrs. Obama visited CentroNia, a daycare center in Washington, D.C. She went there to announce the "Child Care" division of "Let's Move!"
"Our full-day program for children from birth through age 5 lays the foundation for school readiness by working to develop the whole child in a dual-language environment," says CentroNia's website. Its 2010 annual report says the center received 36 percent of its 2009 funding from government contracts.
At this government contractor "for children from birth," Mrs. Obama said she saw babies eating fish at a family-style meal and talked about how these meals developed the babies' "souls."
"I mean, one of the things we watched upstairs -- babies, little bitty babies eating salad and fish and strawberries and mashed sweet potatoes, and loving it, because that's what they're used to eating," said Mrs. Obama.
"And they serve their meals family-style," said Mrs. Obama. "Babies. Little itty-bitty babies, right? They were serving themselves, using the tongs, learning manners, having conversation -- not with real sentences or anything -- but all the expression that goes along with sitting at the table and having a glass of milk and passing the food.
"The ritual of sitting down and reintroducing that activity into the life of kids, it also helps them balance what they eat, because ... the meal isn't just about feeding yourself physically," said Mrs. Obama. "It's about feeding your emotional soul."
Again, this practice is designed to change the family via the school.
"Just like the songs that they sing here start to echo throughout their homes, all of these healthy habits that the kids here are learning will also find their way home, and these young people, as small as they are, will become leaders in their own homes, because they're going to ask for things that their parents never knew they would even try," said Mrs. Obama.
In October, speaking at the White House, Mrs. Obama again stated her view that government schools will shape the next generation in a way akin to what parents once did.
"When many kids spend half of their waking hours and get up to half their daily calories at school, you know that with the food you serve and, more importantly, the lessons you teach that you're not just shaping their habits and preferences today, you're affecting the choices they're going to make for the rest of their lives," she said.
"That's why we start with kids, right?" she said. "We can affect who they will be forever."
Mrs. Obama's defenders will say: Hey, wait a minute. She just wants these schools and daycare centers to teach children to eat the right foods and exercise.
But that is not all Mrs. Obama and her husband are trying to do.
When Barack Obama was an Illinois state senator, he supported S.B. 99, a law to strip all mention of marriage from the state's sex-ed classes and mandate those classes begin in kindergarten. In a presidential debate in New Hampshire in 2007, Obama agreed with John Edwards that it was OK for a second-grade teacher at a public school to read students a story about two princes entering a same-sex marriage.
A little reported section buried in the massive Obamacare legislation authorizes grants to states and organizations "to carry out personal responsibility education programs." The issues these programs are authorized to teach about include "dating, romantic involvement, marriage and family interaction" and "parent-child communication."
What kind of marriages and families do you think Obamacare grantees will teach children about?
Once American public schools -- which had children only part of the day, and starting only when they were 5 years old -- worked with parents to teach children the same basic values they learned at home: Love God, love country, love family, know the history of our nation and civilization, aim to become a hardworking, self-sufficient individual.
Little, itty-bitty babies who eat "family-style" meals at government-funded centers will not only learn government dependency but also the false morality that will keep them there.
“Many of the children in the public schools, they take this information, they understand it,” said Mrs. Obama. “They apply it to their lives, and they push their parents and their families to be different. That’s one of the reasons why we start with kids oftentimes. They are ready for change sometimes when we’re not.”
When I hear people spout nonsense like this, I assume they’re idiots and stop dealing with them because they’re not worth the mental effort it takes to figure out why they’re so stupid.
Communists, Nazis, and totalitarians in general understand that getting to the children is the best way to “transform society”, because the parents become irrelevant to passing on their values and love of freedom.
HOMESCHOOL!
No reason to limit it to kids.
Michelle Obama is bad for every American.
I’m not a NASCAR guy, but I’d still BOO Michelle Antoinette if I had a chance.
Jill Biden was just collateral damage.
I agree, the best thing is to ignore them
SHOCKING! I can't believe it!
Well, except that that's the way my kids learned to eat AND without any prompting or involvement from the government because it's what we as parents wanted for our kids. Had we wanted something different that's our prerogative. Unfortunately Barry's wife doesn't understand that her choices for her family or her kids shouldn't be imposed on the rest of us.
This from the fat-a$$ idiot who almost ate Paula Deen’s TV show out of house and home while she was a guest.
In the first place, babies don’t eat all that stuff. Toddlers and preschoolers might, to some extent, although I’ve had children who couldn’t successfully chew and swallow any foods until over two years old.
And in the second place, I don’t believe for a moment that the regulations for a government-funded daycare allowed preschoolers to serve themselves from home-style cooked foods. I think this is a pure fiction, pretty much like Michelle’s entire life is.
And now, I have a lot of sweet potatoes to cook, mash, and freeze while they’re $.20 a pound!
You're right. I assumed she was using the term "babies" in the broad sense (!) in which people often refer to all little humans.
Speaking of sweet potatoes, I should get going on my own before the morning's gone.
Mother Superior.
I heard it was hard for MO to say “superior” after “mother”...
but that’s just a rumor.
Yes, but I think it's ideological, too ... "little bitty babies" safely in the custody of the loving State ...
In Michelle's culture, of course, it seems offspring are "babies" until their first felony conviction as an adult.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.