The traditional family

[Paidiske]

I agree that people who are struggling need support not judgment and I don’t think information itself has any connotation like that.

And yet in your very first post in this thread you described such households as "second best," and suggested that they are involved in the breakdown of society. If that's not judgement and shaming, I don't know what is.

They penalize people who find it hard to work and have no choice but rely on unemployment benefits. Many people especially older ones not yet eligible for old age pension are stuck on unemployment benefits. It does not discriminate about those with mental health or substance abuse issues who cannot meet the obligations yet cannot get Disability Support Pensions. So, they are forced into activities to get work which is beyond them and when they fail, they are penalized.

This has nothing to do with parenting, though.

Yes but they are forced into work through the “Parent Next” program which requires them to get work. If they don’t meet the obligations, they too are penalized. When their child turns 8, they lose parenting payment and go onto Newstart unemployment allowance and are subject to the same obligations as the unemployed despite still having more or less the same childcare obligations.

The above scenario with Parent Next which takes a mother off parenting payment while their child is still young and forces them onto Newstart describes option (c). Especially when they are single mum's who have no help with kids.

By the time a child is eight, they have grown beyond even what you have identified as the period during which it is critical that they have a biological mother as a caregiver for much of their time. Most eight year old children are in school, which does significantly change childcare obligations. As such, suggesting to parents whose youngest child is eight that they might seek employment - at least part time - rather than rely on government payments is not unreasonable by any measure.

That is the problem I see with a plural and relativist society where we have to allow for varying moral positions.

Or the strength of such a society. Diversity and variety are a benefit to us, not a weakness.

 

[stevevw]

And yet in your very first post in this thread you described such households as "second best," and suggested that they are involved in the breakdown of society. If that's not judgement and shaming, I don't know what is.

I think you will find I said that those households are still good. I didn't mean 2nd best as being derogatory but rather but rather in research terms are shown not to be as ideal. I only showed research results for showing that these households were associated more with family break

This has nothing to do with parenting, though.

It does if the people in those situations have a family. Work and the ability to earn a decent income effect families socioeconomic. But if you go back to your original statement you were not just talking about parenting when you said
My argument stands. The government shouldn't be trying to push people into or out of the workplace, but enabling people to flourish in the circumstances which are best for them.
I was using the examples of the government using their policies for pushing people in and out of work through Job Active. This was in relations to my previous comment about the importance of why research is done to help inform policy making.

By the time a child is eight, they have grown beyond even what you have identified as the period during which it is critical that they have a biological mother as a caregiver for much of their time. Most eight year old children are in school, which does significantly change childcare obligations. As such, suggesting to parents whose youngest child is eight that they might seek employment - at least part time - rather than rely on government payments is not unreasonable by any measure.

I agree but the article I used that linked the importance of a stay home mum was referring to policies that were trying to push mothers into work bu putting their young children below 8 into child care rather than support them in being able to be at home to look after their child during those important years.

Or the strength of such a society. Diversity and variety are a benefit to us, not a weakness.

I think that is two different things. One is about diversity as in culture while the other is about values as in what is best according to the facts. Facts are not changed due to relative views on what is right or wrong.

 

[Semper-Fi]

The Family is a God ordained institution,
of course it is a prime target for Satan.

 

[Paidiske]

I was using the examples of the government using their policies for pushing people in and out of work through Job Active. This was in relations to my previous comment about the importance of why research is done to help inform policy making.

Jobactive is specifically for unemployed people seeking government support. While the details may need some tweaking, I have no problem with the government making that conditional on one looking for work.

I agree but the article I used that linked the importance of a stay home mum was referring to policies that were trying to push mothers into work bu putting their young children below 8 into child care rather than support them in being able to be at home to look after their child during those important years.

That's not what's happening in Australia, though.

I think that is two different things. One is about diversity as in culture while the other is about values as in what is best according to the facts. Facts are not changed due to relative views on what is right or wrong.

I still see allowing for diversity as a source of strength rather than a problem. Requiring everyone to conform to a narrow vision of what's "best" is unlikely to equip us to respond well to changing circumstances.

 

[stevevw]

Jobactive is specifically for unemployed people seeking government support. While the details may need some tweaking, I have no problem with the government making that conditional on one looking for work.

So you have no problems with a government using policies to push people in and out of work.

That's not what's happening in Australia, though.

I didn't think we were restricting things to Australia as that has been fairly arbitrary. Certainly at least for western nations where feminism has been more popular. But even Australia's policy towards mothers has been inconsistent, sometimes helping mum's and families and sometimes working against them.

The Howard government brought parenting payment and family tax in to help single mum's without work stay home and look after their child. They introduced the baby bonus a lump sum for new mum's to help with expenses. Then they reduced the edibility for family tax which forced a lot of mum's back to work to cope regardless of the age of their kid/s. Some single mum's had more than one child and when they cut family tax when a child turned 6 it cut their income putting pressure on them to get work even though they may have had another child or two under six where they needed to stay home.

Also family working women on low incomes who became pregnant were under pressure to go back to work asap denying their babies and toddlers important time with their caregiver especially in two parent working families. Then in recent years they have replaced a lot of the support for stay home mum's and remodeled it into a paid parental scheme which now supports a model of young mothers working rather than staying at home.

So the emphasis has shifted from supporting mum's to be at home even with their babies and young kids to one of the working mum only allowing a brief time off after birth and then forcing them back to work. So government policy can and does shape the stay home mum's ability to stay home to look after their kids regardless.
Abbott's message to mothers: get to work

I still see allowing for diversity as a source of strength rather than a problem. Requiring everyone to conform to a narrow vision of what's "best" is unlikely to equip us to respond well to changing circumstances.

But your conflating two different things all the time. You keep implying that situations like single mum's or families without a father are just a good and healthy part of a diverse society. This undermines any effort to try and help people through supporting them because if we don't recognize that these situations are in need of support then we wont know to help them.

Diversity in a society is about peoples different healthy lifestyles, beliefs and practices but not supporting lifestyles that are harmful and unhealthy. We don't say that kids that sit on a computer all day is part of the normal diversity of modern society. We recognize that as a problem that needs to be helped to change. The same with fatherless families. We recognize the research shows that these families have certain issues for children and try to lend support. That doesn't mean we reject these families as not being a part of society or look down on them.

 

[Paidiske]

So you have no problems with a government using policies to push people in and out of work.

I have no problem with a government requiring people who are receiving government benefits because they are unemployed, to seek employment.

So government policy can and does shape the stay home mum's ability to stay home to look after their kids regardless.

Of course it can. The default would be that the government gives no payments or tax breaks to parents; but there is a lot more support than that. One can argue about how much support is enough and what form it ought to take, but we can't expect governments to endlessly support parents not to work. If parents want to not work, they need to take some steps to make that sustainable as well.

But your conflating two different things all the time. You keep implying that situations like single mum's or families without a father are just a good and healthy part of a diverse society.

Probably a lot better and healthier than a society in which those households aren't able to exist.

This undermines any effort to try and help people through supporting them because if we don't recognize that these situations are in need of support then we wont know to help them.

"Support" doesn't mean trying to penalise single parent households. It means making it easier for single parent households to flourish.

The same with fatherless families. We recognize the research shows that these families have certain issues for children and try to lend support. That doesn't mean we reject these families as not being a part of society or look down on them.

But again, support means making those situations workable. I mean, what are you going to do otherwise, force those single mothers into marriages?

 

[FireDragon76]

Jobactive is specifically for unemployed people seeking government support. While the details may need some tweaking, I have no problem with the government making that conditional on one looking for work.



That's not what's happening in Australia, though.



I still see allowing for diversity as a source of strength rather than a problem. Requiring everyone to conform to a narrow vision of what's "best" is unlikely to equip us to respond well to changing circumstances.

I don't understand the problem some people have with pluralism. Pluralism is merely recognizing the reality of the world we live in and reacting realistically.

And I really applaud you for standing up for people coming from "non-traditional" families. There is no excuse for labeling those people as defective or problematic as a follower of Jesus. Using scientific research to stigmatize the same families is also deeply problematic, and is the sort of thing that many totalitarian regimes have done in the past.

 

[Paidiske]

Good grief, Scripture is full of instructions to care for the widows and those without fathers, and yet we have this kind of attitude to single-parent families now, despite that often not having been the choice of the women concerned!

 

[FireDragon76]

Good grief, Scripture is full of instructions to care for the widows and those without fathers, and yet we have this kind of attitude to single-parent families now, despite that often not having been the choice of the women concerned!

Caring for the poor, the stranger... the marginalized is the only redeeming ethic I see left in the Bible for the modern age. It's also something Dietrich Bonhoeffer grew to appreciate as the only way God could speak to us in a post-Holocaust world.

Oh well... keep the faith.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Caring for the poor, the stranger... the marginalized is the only redeeming ethic I see left in the Bible for the modern age. It's also something Dietrich Bonhoeffer grew to appreciate as the only way God could speak to us in a post-Holocaust world. And yet many Christians shun this ethic.

Oh well... keep the faith.

Dean Heinrich Gruber didn't shun it, but yet he still held to a more mainstream Christian evaluation of our 'post-Holocaust' world.

 

[FireDragon76]

Dean Heinrich Gruber didn't shun it, but yet he still held to a more mainstream Christian evaluation of our 'post-Holocaust' world.

I'm not familiar with him.

"Mainstream Christianity", what you seem to call fundamentalist/conservative/evangelical orthodoxy, in my mind was condemned at Auschwitz. It's simply not possible to take "old time religion" seriously, since so much of it was complicit in the wholesale destruction of an entire people by actively supporting a dangerous demagogue who promised to punish the enemies of traditional culture (sound familiar?)

And BTW, history repeats itself. Evangelicals have yet again sold their souls to a demagogue for 30 pieces of silver. "Fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice... you'll never fool me again." (to quote former president, George W. Bush)

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I'm not familiar with him.

"Mainstream Christianity", what you seem to call fundamentalist/conservative/evangelical orthodoxy, in my mind was condemned at Auschwitz. It's simply not possible to take "old time religion" seriously, since so much of it was complicit in the wholesale destruction of an entire people.

And BTW, history repeats itself. Evangelicals have yet again sold their souls to a demagogue for 30 pieces of silver. "Fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice... you'll never fool me again."

Time to become familiar with him. But I'll leave up to you to do so since you seem so ardently devoted to your own point of view rather than exploring anything else ...

 

[FireDragon76]

Time to become familiar with him. But I'll leave up to you to do so since you seem so ardently devoted to your own point of view rather than exploring anything else ...

Well this yet again illustrates the contrast between people who genuinely follow Christ in his example of service to those on the margins, like @Paidiske, and people who champion religion as an "ism".

And as long as humanity continues to idolize this "ism" as their golden calf, they will continue to crucify Jesus all over again.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Well this yet again illustrates the contrast between people who genuinely follow Christ in his example of service to those on the margins, like @Paidiske, and people who champion religion as an "ism".

And as long as humanity continues to idolize this "ism" as their golden calf, they will continue to crucify Jesus all over again.

I think Gruber illustrated the contrast of which you speak ...

 

[FireDragon76]

I think Gruber illustrated the contrast of which you speak ...

No doubt (I just looked him up, like Bonhoeffer he was part of the Confessing Church). But I don't think discounting Bonhoeffer as a theologian and prophet lends much credence to whatever cause you are advancing.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No doubt. But I don't think trashing Bonhoeffer as a theologian and prophet lends much credence to whatever cause you are advancing.

Who said I trashed Bonhoeffer? I didn't even refer to him in what I said above. I'm beginning to think you use this "thrash and trash" tactic as a rhetorical device to see if the person you're talking with will react against it. Otherwise, you're just being brash and jumping to conclusions, conclusions that I in no way offered or even alluded to.

I actually rather like Bonhoeffer as well. But with your attitude, who cares that I do? You don't!

 

[FireDragon76]

Who said I trashed Bonhoeffer? I didn't even refer to him in what I said above. I'm beginning to think you use this "thrash and trash" tactic as a rhetorical device to see if the person you're talking with will react against it. Otherwise, you're just being brash and jumping to conclusions, conclusions that I in no way offered or even alluded to.

Gruber was a more conservative Christian, and you seem to suggest that's preferable. I'm saying zeal and fear drove conservative Christians to support fascism, so it's not unproblematic.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Gruber was a more conservative Christian, and you seem to suggest that's preferable. I'm saying zeal and fear drove conservative Christians to support fascism, so it's not unproblematic.

And I'm saying that since you don't know the first thing about Gruber, and that you'd need to know about him before making any kind of evaluation about him, even in comparison to Bonhoeffer (bless him!), you have no room to tell me I'm wrong or hold some odd-ball set of values ...

... no, if anything, you seem to be grabbing for just about any detraction against what I'm saying that you can think of, even if you don't know the first thing about it. And this essentially means that you're talking out of your hind end. I'd suggest you stop doing that, especially since I know you're too educated to be excused for doing so.

 

[stevevw]

I don't understand the problem some people have with pluralism. Pluralism is merely recognizing the reality of the world we live in and reacting realistically.

And I really applaud you for standing up for people coming from "non-traditional" families. There is no excuse for labeling those people as defective or problematic as a follower of Jesus. Using scientific research to stigmatize the same families is also deeply problematic, and is the sort of thing that many totalitarian regimes have done in the past.

Yes that is the key, using research to be bigoted and discriminatory. That is a different thing and has a different motive which is destructive. Otherwise used in proper context research can be very helpful in identifying how we can find better ways to do things. Jesus hung with the outcast of society and actually condemned the Pharisees and high priests as hypocrites for looking down and judging people.

But I was speaking about pluralism as in the way modern society uses subjective morality. In this sense it can undermine biblical truths. Christians believe in the laws/morals of God. But modern secular society likes to think there is no objective morality so therefor have no basis for measuring what is right and wrong morally. This can open the door for rationalizing what may be seen as wrong in Christian eyes as being OK and even good to do. Abortion is one example.

There is no excuse for labeling anyone as defective and problematic. There is a saying love the sinner but hate the sin. Taking a social justice approach to community support means that it is often the disadvantaged who are being oppressed in some way by the system which is making it harder for them to get by and therefore causing many problems like poverty which lead to other issues. Therefore it is not just the individual that has to make changes more so the system. In fact systemic causes are more relevant in why people end up disadvantaged so we need to change this otherwise people will keep being pushed down.

 

[FireDragon76]

Yes that is the key, using research to be bigoted and discriminatory. That is a different thing and has a different motives which is destructive. Otherwise used in proper context research can be very helpful in identifying how we can find better ways to do things. Jesus hung with the outcast of society and actually condemned the Pharisees and high priests as hypocrites for looking down and judging people.

But I was speaking about pluralism as in the way modern society uses subjective morality. In this sense it can undermine biblical truths.

You are entitled to your religious beliefs, but other people are entitled to think they are ridiculous or absurd. That is pluralism.

I'll take my "subjective morality" over debating the merits of other peoples lives in the first place.

Christians believe in the laws/morals of God. But modern secular society likes to think there is no objective morality

This is more an evangelical fundamentalist strawman than a fair treatment of what modern, non-Christian people actually believe.

so therefor have no basis for measuring what is right and wrong morally.

How about the principle of harm? That one goes back to long before your Bible was written down.

There is no excuse for labeling anyone as defective and problematic. There is a saying love the sinner but hate the sin.

And people like me are sick of hearing it because its a cop-out excuse for bigotry.