From: slkg9733@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steven L. Kellmeyer)
Subject: Re: Hillary Clinton - Family Values?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:42:18 GMT

bets@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Beth Schwindt) writes:

>In <Brv8Gt.64s@news.cso.uiuc.edu> slkg9733@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steven L. Kellmeyer) writes:

>>A real way out to where?  Or do the newly-emancipated 7,8,9,10,11, and
>>12-year olds get to manage for themselves?  Do we set up yet another
>>government agency to deal with the flood of divorcees?  
>>Steve Kellmeyer


>If I understand everything that has been proposed by Mrs. Clinton, an
>integral part of the proposal was that the child seeking emancipation be
>able to prove they could (1) care for themselves and complete their education
>and so on and so forth or

Which means new child labor laws.  12-year olds aren't allowed to work
without parental/guardian permission, and even then, only limited hours.
Option #1 looks like it only applies to children who can get emancipated
status anyway.

>(2) find someone (such as a member of their 
>extended family or a family friend) to take care of them until they were
>of legal majority.

Let me get this straight.  The kid is wise enough to divorce his/her 
parents, but not smart enough to take care of themselves?  Or do you
mean that this is the what most kids will do, since option #1 is clearly
useless to them?  If so, how does this differ from the current method of
a judicial finding that the parents are incompetent, with a legally
enforced move of the child to a close relative or a foster home?  

All Hillary is managing to do (by using the word "divorce") is set up
the false conception that most kids are capable of taking care of
themselves (only adults "divorce"), while not providing any real
functional differences to the system.  She's just giving all of us
a reason to think the problem has been "solved", by implying that these
kids can somehow take care of themselves, and we don't need to worry
our pretty little heads about them anymore.


>That way, the government *wouldn't* be burdened with
>the responsibilty for them. 

Oh, I believe that.  Uh huh. 

>The best example of this (obviously fictionalized, of course) is the tv  
>movie "Irreconcilable Differences" with Shelley Long and Drew Barrymore.
>In that case, the child's parents were divorced, and neither had proved
>to be capable of providing a suitable environment for her.  She ended up
>choosing to live with her mother's housekeeper, while both parents paid
>support and had visitation rights.

I didn't see the movie.  Hollywood endings generally don't correspond
to real life, but it would explain where Hillary got the idea.

>Beth

>-- 
>The brighest day in America will be when education has enough funding and
>the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber....My history
>teacher (from the Wireless catalog) bets@matt.ksu.ksu.edu, bets@ksuvm.ksu.edu

By the by, check child achievement scores on a state by state basis.
Education funding levels have no correspondance to child achievement.
They *DO* however, have a real correspondance to bureaucratic salaries.
Unfortunately, those salaries ALSO have no correspondance to child
achievement.  In short, education has enough money (a teacher with 10
years in and an M.A. can earn 40K for nine months work in most cities;
starting salaries for B.A., no experience is 18-20K, or about the same
as a newbie state's prosecutor).  

Steve Kellmeyer