Hey~
challenger said:
IMO, there needs to be more community stuff revolving around kids, what's so special about parents? Many of them are total morons. Don't get me wrong, I have two wonderful parents who I love and who raised me very well, but not everybody is that lucky, why should they lose out?
I certainly agree that society should be more "child-centered". True, many parents are morons. It's disturbing that you have to have a license to drive a car, but any idiot can have a baby. Having more safe activities for children would be fantastic, not only for those kids whose parents are morons, but also for those kids whose parents have to work 80 hours a week to feed them & keep a roof over their heads.
Adequate childcare is a sore spot with me. I think that if people are working their butts off and paying taxes, there should be safe & affordable, or better yet, free, government sponsered childcare available EVERYWHERE so that they can make a living. For those at or below the poverty level, there is no real "help". The assistance you can get if you're poor is only enough to keep you ever being anything more than poor. It's a vicious cycle. To get AFDC, the cap on how much income per month you can have is $263 if there are 4 people in your household. They count child support, too, so if a woman is having to raise 3 kids by herself because her husband left her(like a dear friend of mine was), and he pays the $420 a month for court ordered child support that he's supposed to, she can't get any help. If you have more than $263 a month coming in, they won't let you have AFDC. $263 a month isn't even enough to feed four people, let alone diapers for the baby or heat or electricity or water. You can't work, because you can't afford daycare, and if you do manage to get a minimum wage job, they take away your assistance because you make "too much" money. If you have a car that you are making payments on, and you barely make enough money to pay that payment, you can't get food stamps, because the car is an "asset" and you can sell it for food, right? Too bad if you need a way to WORK! It's ridiculous.
Yes, definitely, there need to be more safe alternatives for kids, especially poor kids. Why do you think so many end up selling drugs? Turning to prostitution? MONEY. When you grow up not having anything, you don't want to stay that way. If kids have the opportunity to do something, play sports, do volunteer work, even just hang out somewhere where they don't have to worry about getting shot or kidnapped, then they have a lot more self worth, and those bad things are a lot less likely to happen. Why is it so difficult for kids to get to play ball for less than $100 each? It's sickening that in this country they can pay baseball players $5 million for a year, or pay someone $30 million to act in a **** movie, but that half the population, most of them children, are below the poverty level, and will never see a fraction of that money in their lifetimes. We fight and bicker about something as ridiculous as religion, or whether gay people should be able to get married, when there are serious and way more important issues going on right now. If someone wants to get married, then let them. It's no big deal, & it has absolutely nothing to do with you. Same case with religion. There are much more pressing matters to deal with in this world-in this country-but it is going to require the holier than thou types to get down off their high horses and make a real effort to do something about it. Differences don't matter. We are ALL human beings, regardless of sex, religion, creed, or sexual orientation, and it's about **** time people started to realize that.
Sorry I got off on a few wild tangents there, but it all seems to tie together, and my rant mode suddenly decided to kick in.
Love & Blessings, Cerridwen*
