From: lynch@ils.nwu.edu (Richard Lynch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Bias in Academia?
Date: 2 Oct 92 20:52:01 GMT
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences

In article <1992Oct1.082852.294@news.wesleyan.edu> RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg) writes:
>The next generation is not the personal property of those who procreate it. 
>The next generation is a resource we all need.  They will be the members of the
>human community with whom we must make political decisions; agree about
>cleanliness of air, water, etc.; communicate; share our cultures; and
>ultimately leave with the responsibility for Planet Earth.
>
>"Taking time out" from (e.g.) academic careers to raise children, or funding
>daycare centers or secondary schools, etc. is all service in support of the
>next generation.  It is not equiv. to "taking time out to travel" or "choosing
>to have a boat" because children aren't the personal property of their parents.
>
>Children are only children for a very brief portion of their lives.  For the
>rest of their lives they are the citizens who vote or revolt or serve the     W
>governments of the world;  the folks who drive your busses & trains & fly your
>airplanes, your doctors & teachers & political leaders; the pharmacist who fills
>your prescription; the musician who makes the music that makes you dance; the
>parents who raise the next generation after them.  I can't see how anyone could
>NOT feel inclined to support their learning-years, and those who "raise" them.

While you make valid points, there is a point where one simply says enough is
enough.  Having children has its burdens (eg financial) as well as its joys (eg
emotional satisfaction).  Putting the financial burden on a taxpayer (who is
already under-writing the education) for the daycare of a child that a parent
chose to have (gross generalization, mea culpa) so that the parent can then
choose to work instead of taking care of the child.

I'm sorry, but it seems to me that if you choose to have a child, you take the
responsibility that goes with it.  Asking the taxpayer to pay for daycare so
you can evade this responsibility and go back to work isn't right, IMO.

I'm perfectly willing to pay for the education of a child.
If the parents can't afford daycare so they can go to work, they can take the
responsibility to have the child seriously enough to stay home, or they can
choose a career instead, but I don't want to pay for it.
I want children of my own some day, and I'll be damned if I'm going to cheat
mine (or not be able to afford to have them) to pay for someone else's to go to
daycare so they can go back to work 'cuz they want to, but can't afford it
otherwise.  [And I *am* at the borderline of not being able to afford a child
someday, so this is not rhetoric from somebody who can afford daycare anyway.]

The overall effect on society may well be that people aren't utilized as
effectively in some Orwellian sense of maximizing work output.  But, I counter
that the overall effect could easily be that children of parents not willing to
take their own responsibilities seriously are raised rather than those of
parents who are.

Even in your own analysis, you also overlook the fact that while children are
an invaluable "resource" (which we are already shamelessly wasting) it is not
that case that we don't have enough children.  [I presume all readers have
heard of ZPG.]  Thus, while we need children, and must provide a good growing
environment for them, you have a long way to go to convince me that we need to
make it possible for there to be more children of the kind of parents who want
government-subsidized daycare.
-- 
"TANSTAAFL"     lynch@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.feminism