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Are only children ruining society? Or are they the only way to reclaim dominance on the global PTA stage?
Cross-posted at Cultural Imperialist
One-Child Fallacy
Greg Piper
In these times of ethnic resentment borne of the recession, it’s easy to find a reason to loathe the Chinese. They took yer jobs! But I’m above those blue-collar bubbas squawking at their congressman to raise tariffs and block miscegenating again. I slant my brow at the slant-eyes because they took my brother.
No, not his organs. You see, I’m an only child, and I hate it.
The U.S. doesn’t have a one-child policy, primarily because it would worsen the quality of our reality TV shows (Barry Obams reportedly consulted Octomom in drafting his healthcare proposal). But in their zeal to copy, coopt and put a 50 percent markup on another culture, Americans collectively slapped on Trojans after the first one slipped through and spent the childcare savings on HDTVs, hot-yoga classes and a therapy fund for Junior’s inevitable mental breakdown.
Your little Atlas is propping up the family’s neuroses all by himself, with no one to confide in and strategize with while making bed forts. You call him “thoughtful,” but I call him lonely, listless and likely to build up resentments while playing with Legos by himself, taking his stuffed animals to bed until middle school, projecting sibling-ness on friends who shouldn’t have to fulfill the role. He’ll be a brilliant writer who overdoses in a Chelsea loft with some steampunk chick wearing a top hat while the Decemberists play on the Bose. (Yes, he’s that pretentious – he owns a Bose.)
That spoiled siblingphobe Jeremiah smugly believes his life would be better without other peer Lewises. He selfishly wants the whole inheritance to himself, like the father of Israel or Kim Jong-un, not to mention a hearty college fund that lets him sail through school without student loans. Contemptible, incorrigible, insatiable – Jeremiah might as well proclaim “I am God” in a decent 1993 movie.
Sure, only children are the creative ones, the geniuses, the rulers – think how much damage Paris could do without Nikki, like Arnold without Danny in Twins. But our country has always regretted putting these “little emperors” in charge. FDR’s economic policies stretched out the Great Depression, and Alan Greenspan’s created the housing bubble. Rudy Giuliani’s downfall ruined the stellar streak of philanderers in politics, and Tipper Gore’s refusal to micromanage Al’s schedule led to An Inconvenient Truth, ManBearPig and the defilement of hotel masseuses.
Worst of all, only children turn us into welfare queens. Call me a pessimist, but my generation is four months away from laying in the gutter eating dirt, taking classes at the University of Phoenix, and suckling the Chinese teat (see, I told you they’re easy to hate). We can’t afford to pay our own bills, let alone for our convalescent parents. With several piddling incomes pooled together and each other’s emotional support, brothers and sisters can take care of their parents without groveling to Uncle Sam and his infinite credit line.
And only children? They have that bloated, bicentennial bastard on speed dial.
One Child Left Alone
Jeremiah Lewis
The Chinese and futuristic societies have it right. One child per one family, one happy little globe unencumbered by the fractious and paralyzing (re)production of children that creates tomorrow’s destroying minions. We’re better off without ‘em, I say, and I have authority.
After all, I was the third in a family of four kids.
Like blacks who can call each other n****r or Naderites can call Ralph N***r, it’s okay for me to hold that parents should be limited to one child per cervix. This policy would have its advantages. Think of the work-sponsored daycare cost reductions, or the reduced need for pediatricians, which is a good thing, given that everyone in the medical profession is now shooting for the ever more lucrative specialized medicines, like those surgeons who operate on the brain via a hole in your foot, or chiropractors. The policy would also give lesbian couples the lucky opportunity to have the status of Twofers, which only our overly happy interracial couples currently hold.
The advantages also extend to the public’s overall mental health. After the one child, you’re done, and back to doing what you do best, which is living for yourself; if you found yourself staying married just so the kid would grow up with a complete family, you can gain your freedom after eighteen years instead of the usual thirty it seems to take most Baby Boomers. And if you and your spouse still love each other, you’re free to contemplate or copulate without the fear of becoming the 60-year old father of a newborn. How awkward is that?
Parenting is its own hassle of joy, involving sleepless nights, endless colic and croup scares, airplane feeding techniques for food that is less appealing than most Erica Jong books, and when they’re older, teenage angst and rebellion. Why subject yourself to more of it than is absolutely necessary to keep the population refill rate in the black?
Siblings offer certain niceties, like serving as blame candidates for the Who Broke The Lamp campaign or splitting chores. But they also are a constant competition, someone to look up to and envy at the same time. Siblings are subject to the first-born hand-me-downs, and many times the last children born get the least parenting, due to Bluth-like exhaustion. And when it comes time to being the dutiful aunt or uncle, buying gifts isn’t multiplied by your own siblings’ addiction to sex without birth control.
Single children are generally better careerists and achievers. They’re winners, because they’ve had to be winners. Being an only child focuses the parents’ collective will, hopes, dreams, and advice into laserlike precision, and the result are children who raise the bar for their sibling’d classmates who are content to settle into the shadows of their betters.
And that is precisely what America needs at this point. Facing the eerie yellow haze of Chinese supremacy and their population control (which results in splendidly choreographed Olympic dances), America needs to make raising one child well-not eight in the glare of a reality tv light-its primary mission in this decade.
One Child Left Alone ought to be America’s official birthing policy; after all, it takes a village to raise a child. Let’s not subject the national village to any more children than is necessary.
It’s 2010, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the American school system. Technological advances that we all take for granted in our homes, offices, and cars have yet to fully make their way into our children’s classrooms. But online education can open doors of opportunity to children around the nation.
In a recent
In school, most children are being taught in the same classrooms where their parents and grandparents learned. Despite a few computers in the back of the classroom, instruction happens the old-fashioned way.
In an age when the nation’s school system is in great need of reform, virtual education can provide enhanced educational opportunities for students.
Online learning can enrich students’ education by providing them access to courses that may not be offered in their traditional brick-and-mortar schools. It also allows parents to tailor their children’s education, giving them the ability to choose the courses that best meet their unique needs and to learn at their own pace.
Online learning also has great potential for helping low-income students. Instead of being relegated to failing and often dangerous schools, online learning can give students access to high-quality teachers from other districts and states and provide them with content from around the globe. Furthermore, it can free up money for struggling districts, because, as Terry Moe and John Chubb point out in their 2009 book Liberating Learning,
While online education is not as widely available as it could be, some states are catching on to this innovative opportunity and finding success.
In Florida, for example, 84,000 students attended the Florida Virtual School, which offers 90 different courses. In Pennsylvania, 7,000 students now attend PA Cyber—a statewide, online public charter school. Both programs have proven to be effective and popular options with parents and students.
Lips also points to the efficacy of online learning, noting:
It is time for more states to realize the benefits of online education and give their students the opportunity for better education. Instead of leaving children behind, it’s time to embrace the opportunities of tomorrow.
Probably not. But one conservative think tank is sounding the alarm.
Adrian Morgan, the editor of Family Security Matters, wrote a long post last week about “The 99″ — a popular comic book series featuring Muslims superheroes who embody the 99 attributes of Allah, like mercy and generosity.
The comic books have been widely praised. As their creator, Naif Al-Mutawa, describes, the books are meant to teach a moderate, peaceful, loving Islam.
“It is finally time that all of us became more accountable for that which our children will be hearing; tiny differences setting us apart rather than celebrating those positive things that bind all good people together,” he wrote in August. “If we allow small-minded men to spout fear and hate in the name of our religion, we will enable them to brainwash another generation as they did our own. And soon, the next generation will fall into a pit of dissonance. To sit by silently makes us all complicit.”
The comics have become so popular that President Obama, speaking at a summit for Muslim entrepreneurs in April, lauded the work, saying “His comic books have captured the imagination of so many young people, with superheroes who embody the teachings and tolerance of Islam.” He joked that, after his Cairo speech in 2009, American superheroes like Superman reached out to The 99. “I hear they’re making progress,” Obama said. From the audience, Al-Mutawa gave a big thumbs up.
That’s a bit nefarious for the taste of Family Security Matters — one of whose contributors, you may recall, called for a “backlash against the Muslim community.” Morgan wrote while the comics are “well-intentioned” and may be “edifying” for “Muslim families,” the president’s interest in the comics is much darker.
“It is bizarre to see the President of the United States endorsing such religiously-inspired products, because they upheld the ‘teachings and tolerance of Islam,’” Morgan wrote. “The POTUS should normally be upholding the Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights, and not be promoting a particular faith, but this president seems to think his desire to create good feelings in Muslims over-rides his need to abide by the First Amendment.”
He goes on:
Are we going to see ass-kicking Christian superhero nuns, called Faith, Hope and Charity, whooping sinner’s butts and sending Satan into Hell? It is doubtful.
This disparity is one of the worst things affecting society at present. Christianity and Judaism do not get featured in mainstream media, but Islam is not only depicted in all strands of the media, it is being promoted by a president who seems to have forgotten what he swore to uphold when he entered office.
If Obama can promote Islam, he should also publicly promote Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and every other faith. The fact that he does not is a very worrying development in politics.
United States – Comics – Arts – Islam – Religion and Spirituality
Palestine Press Agency reports that the Consul General of Palestine in Sweden has complained that some 76 Palestinian Arab girls have been “kidnapped” by Swedish authorities.
The Swedish authorities say that the children were being beaten and abused by their parents, and they have been placed in foster homes to protect them. The consul charges that the girls are being raised in an alien culture with no regard to their native religion and customs.
The consul claims that 20 of the girls have lost their virginity while in their adopted homes. (I don’t know exactly what polling methods he used to determine that fact.)
The diplomat says that the children’s families are the most appropriate places to raise the kids.
A Swedish Arab of Palestinian origin whose daughter was taken away – presumably because he abused her – likened this “kidnapping” and raising the kids in the immoral Swedish culture to the Naqba, saying that Sweden was acting like Israel.
The article says that the children are being taken on the “pretext” of child abuse, but no one really denies that such abuse has indeed taken place.
Which means that the official Palestinian Arab position is that it is better for girls to be brought up with abuse and fear within their own culture than being treated with respect in Swedish culture.
By Barry Rubin
Are your children being indoctrinated? In past Rubin Reports I pointed out that almost the entire social studies’ curriculum of my son’s fourth grade class last year consisted of three topics:
-America has not kept its promises and has been a racist and often bad country. The main example was the World War Two internment of Japanese which was the focus of reading material.
-Immigration is always good (with no mention of illegal immigration or any resulting problems).
-Man-made global warming is a serious threat to human survival.
Other viewpoints—indeed other issues generally—weren’t presented on any of these issues. There was little positive about America.
My son was upset at the portrayal of Israel in Junior Scholastic magazine of September 6, 2010, given to his fifth-grade class to read. So I gave that issue a thorough evaluation, trying to be fair and reasonable in doing so.
Main Article: “Obama’s In-Box” pp. 6-8. An article about challenges facing the President. Most of the short items are balanced—immigration, oil spill, terrorism (domestic only), Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea- in that they present more than one side and avoid partisan language.
There are three exceptions, however:
-The Middle East: This is seriously slanted. After being told Obama wants to make peace the kids are instructed:
“Muslim extremists often use U.S. support for Israel as an excuse to commit terrorist acts. But some Israeli policies, Obama says, work against peace.”
While the first sentence is certainly true, in this context (with no other factors being presented) the kids are being taught that U.S. support for Israel threatens their lives. (Obvious answer: Protect yourself by ending support for Israel.)
As for the second sentence, Obama’s considerable prestige is thrown in to blame Israel for the lack of peace. That’s it. No criticism of the Palestinians. Nothing about Hamas or any hint of anti-Israel terrorism or the goal of wiping Israel off the map.
Do I think this was conscious and deliberate? Probably not. Is it damaging and dangerous? Definitely yes.
-Jobs and the Economy: There’s still a recession, the kids are told, but good news! “In the last two years, the federal government has spent billions of dollars to try to save and create jobs. This has helped pull the nation out of a recession. But unemployment is still nearly 10 percent, and the housing market remains shaky.” An unnamed expert explains: the economy is growing but still slowly.
While the third and fourth sentence provides some balance, this is an endorsement of government high-spending policy. Has this really worked? No contrary view—Stimulus failed; cut spending, recession far from over- is given. Moreover, it should always be pointed out that money being spent doesn’t come from government but from taxpayers.
-Climate Change: This is presented as a major threat to the world. It quotes Obama as saying the United States must act before “the effects of climate change become `irreversible.’” There is no hint that anyone might disagree even with the proposition that minor human actions like cutting auto emissions would make a difference.
Article pp. 2-3: “Beyond the Cleanup: What’s The Long-Term Impact of the Gulf Oil Disaster”
[Important Note: This article is partly balanced by a debate on page 9 over off-shore drilling between the presidents of the National Resources Defense Council and the American Petroleum Institute.]
Message: We must reduce oil use even if this means lower living standards and go to alternative fuels(often unproven) even if they cost more.
Not mentioned: The blow-out was exceptional, deep-drilling was a response to environmental demands. This is almost like saying that the crash of an improperly maintained airplane shows Americans must reduce their dependence on air travel.
Quotes:
“What’s less clear [is] whether this disaster will finally get Americans to reduce their dependence on oil.”
While BP is mainly to blame “Americans also bear at least some indirect responsibility. The U.S. consumes more oil than any other country….This has led to drilling in riskier areas, including ever-deeper sites offshore.” That argument is simply untrue. There are vast areas closer in to shore and elsewhere where drilling has been forbidden by the U.S. government.
Your living standards are too high: “An estimated 71 percent of the oil we use fuels transportation. Most of the rest goes into making products that we often toss out in massive quantities. ”
Quote from fisherman—on National Public Radio (of course)—saying “I don’t see a future for us to catch fresh fish ever again—oysters, crabs.” This is clearly alarmist and is not matched by less extreme quote (terrible damage but we will come back).
Only one proposed solution offered: “President Barack Obama has called for the development of alternative fuels as one way to reduce our dependence. But much more will be needed. Are Americans willing to change their energy habits?”
Article: “We Are Americans Too!” Pages 16-19:
Important Note: The one quote from the play that is arguably balancing is also published as a large cut line prominently displayed: “They don’t know what’s in our hearts. They don’t know that we are loyal.”
Oh no, the Japanese internment story seems to be the main theme of American education. In the play, the father of the family is falsely accused of using his fishing boat to spy and smuggle in supplies for the Japanese army? This is NOT a true story but a PBS play and I doubt that anyone was specifically accused of espionage like this.
The focus is on how badly they are treated, insults, etc. I’m not going over the issue in detail here, only to say that while the action seems wrong and unnecessary from the perspective of almost 70 years later, at the time it was a reasonable thing to do given the lack of information about Japanese immigrant views, genuine fear of a Japanese attack on the Pacific coast, the fact that extensive spying had been done to prepare the Pearl Harbor attack (we now know mainly by the Japanese consulate in Hawaii), the existence of militant Japanese nationalist societies, the legitimacy of the existing Japanese government (in contrast to the usurper regimes in Germany and Italy), and the centrality of obedience to the emperor in the Shinto tradition. None of these points is mentioned in the article and these are never explained in the study of the issue in elementary schools.
I was puzzled by this obsession until I read what Daniel Pipes wrote on the subject. He explains that the subject is deliberately intended as a parallel showing why the main threat is Islamophobia and not Islamist terrorism and similar things. His article also shows additional reasons why authorities implemented an internament policy.
I should also note that the point is never explicitly made that not a single internee was killed, injured, or tortured, adding to the credit accruing to American behavior in the past. Finally, students are never taught about how Americans and others were tortured and mistreated in Japanese internment camps. This would NOT justify similar behavior by Americans, of course, but shows something vital for students to learn: Other peoples often behave badly, Americans and those in democratic countries almost always behave better.
My conclusion is that Junior Scholastic editors are partly trying to be balanced and do a better job of it than much of the mass media but that there are still serious examples of indoctrination on some issues.
Uniquely among the broadcast network evening newscasts, the CBS Evening News on Wednesday informed its viewers that some ObamaCare regulations will result in some insurance companies refusing to sell new policies specifically for children whose parents otherwise might have wanted to purchase such policies. Faced with rules that would prevent the insurance industry from denying coverage to children with preexisting health problems, at least three companies will be discontinuing child-only policies. CBS anchor Katie Couric set up the report: "And it didn’t take long. The insurance industry has already found a way around that preexisting condition provision for children’s policies: Don’t sell any. And that could affect a half a million Americans under the age of 18."
Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson recounted the story of a man who has had trouble purchasing insurance for his daughter because of a preexisting condition, and then informed viewers of the disappointing news that she still will likely not be able to obtain insurance. After noting President Barack Obama’s promise to ban discrimination against children with preexisting health problem, Attkisson continued:
Now reality has set in. Insurers may be barred from refusing kids like Maria with preexisting conditions, but some have found a way around that – stop offering certain policies in the first place, the ones that cover a child instead of the whole family. Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross and Cigna are among the companies announcing that as early as tomorrow they’ll stop selling child-only policies in many states.
A soundbite of Robert Zirkelbach of America’s Health Insurance Plans later explained: "They’re going to have very, very high health care costs that are going to have to be borne out by everybody else who has health insurance. And that’s a system that’s simply not sustainable."
The September 21 Washington Post article "Some Insurers to Halt New Child-Only Policies," by N.C. Aizenman, further quoted Zirkelbach as arguing that selling to those with preexisting conditions "provides a very powerful incentive for a parent to wait until their child becomes very sick before purchasing coverage."
Aizenman further explained that "the pool of children insured by child-only plans would rapidly skew toward those with expensive medical bills, either bankrupting the plans or forcing insurers to make up their losses by substantially increasing premiums for all customers."
Below is a complete transcript of the report filed by Attkisson from the Wednesday, September 22, CBS Evening News:
KATIE COURIC: And it didn’t take long. The insurance industry has already found a way around that preexisting condition provision for children’s policies: Don’t sell any. And that could affect a half a million Americans under the age of 18. Sharyl Attkisson has that story.
SHARYL ATTKISSON: Auto technician Toby Serrano hoped health care reform would cure his family’s insurance ills. Daughter Maria has a history of brain procedures as a young child, a preexisting condition that’s keeping her from getting affordable health insurance. But the family was filled with hope by this unqualified promise:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Starting in September, some of the worst abuses will be banned forever. No more discriminating against children with preexisting conditions. Those days are over.
TOBY SERRANO, FATHER: When health reform passed, you know, it definitely saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
ATTKISSON: Now reality has set in. Insurers may be barred from refusing kids like Maria with preexisting conditions, but some have found a way around that – stop offering certain policies in the first place, the ones that cover a child instead of the whole family. Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross and Cigna are among the companies announcing that as early as tomorrow they’ll stop selling child-only policies in many states. That’s the very type of policy the Serranos were hoping to buy for Maria.
MARIA SERRANO: I feel bad for myself, but then I also think about everyone else.
ATTKISSON: It doesn’t affect anyone who now has insurance, but it does impact the families of an estimated half million children who might have wanted child-only policies. Now nonprofits like this one in the Serranos’ home state of Colorado worry they’ll have to pick up the slack.
DR. JOE CRAIG, THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN YOUTH CLINICS: A new stress, I guess, from the, you know, more demand out there for those that are uninsured. We could find ourselves in trouble.
ATTKISSON: Some insurers say they’d rather lose the small market of child-only policies altogether than be forced to cover kids with preexisting conditions.
ROBERT ZIRKELBACH, AMERICA’S HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS: They’re going to have very, very high health care costs that are going to have to be borne out by everybody else who has health insurance. And that’s a system that’s simply not sustainable.
ATTKISSON: We asked the insurance lobby to provide their numbers and projections as to just how expensive it can be to cover children with preexisting conditions, but they declined to provide any figures. Sharyl Attkisson, CBS News, Washington.
Amy Davidson lands several blows:
[National Review], striking a pose of judiciousness, says that it “cannot say with any confidence” that same-sex marriage would cause “illegitimacy to increase”—though it goes on to imply that it might. But wouldn’t it, actually and almost instantly, cause legitimacy to increase, as more parents of more children were able to marry? The distastefulness of the writers’ claim, repeated through the piece, that opponents of same-sex marriage care about children while gays and lesbians are just interested in themselves and their “desires” is tempered only by its absurdity. If a lesbian couple raising a child got married, after all, then two of those single mothers who so concern National Review might be dealt with in one blow.
Same-sex marriage – National Review – Homosexuality – Lesbian – United States
Last month, James noted the amusing case of a cringe worthy typo in a traffic sign outside a public school in North Carolina. Well, the person responsible for that mistake can rest easy, because, someone in Indiana has done far, far worse:
If you ever wondered how much difference just one letter can make when it comes to a message, ask the thousands of people who drove by a digital billboard near the intersection of Ironwood and State Road 23 between Thursday and Monday morning.
The ad urged people to go to the “southbendon.com” website for a look at the “15 best things about our pubic schools.” That’s right, the billboard said “pubic” instead of “public” schools. The letter “L” had been left out of the word public.
Lee MacMillan of South Bend said his wife spotted the error on Saturday while sitting in traffic.
“She got home and said, ‘I can’t believe it said what I think it said,’” MacMillan recalls.
“So we were out driving around yesterday and sure enough, it had that typo in it. So we took a picture and the rest is history, as they say,” MacMillan adds.
MacMillan posted the picture he took on Facebook
. He also emailed it to his neighbor, South Bend School Superintendent Jim Kapsa.
Responsibility for the spelling error has been claimed by the Blue Waters Group. The company does work for the city of South Bend’s redevelopment commission to promote the city.
“I feel terrible. It’s a mistake we made and we’re guilty of it, and responsible for it. and we take full responsibility for the error,” said Patrick Strickler, president of the Blue Waters Group.
Seriously, does nobody do proofreading anymore ?
