A 10-year-old Makes a Death Threat Against President Bush

This is one of the saddest news I have heard recently:

A 10-year-old Atlantic City boy allegedly made a death threat against former President George W. Bush this week, sources say. The fifth grader, who attends Dr. Martin Muther King, Jr. School in Atlantic City, called the George W. Bush Presidential Library near Dallas, Texas earlier this week. The boy left a voicemail saying that he was going to kill the former president, sources confirmed to NBC Philadelphia’s Ted Greenberg.

I dislike former President Bush as much as the next person but it is tragic that anybody - let alone such a small child -  would make death threats against him. What's wrong with this boy's parents? I mean, obviously a 10-year-old child's only way of discovering that a former president is "bad" is from his parents. It isn't like such small boys would get together to discuss Bush's economic policies or the Patriot Act. Do the parents who have robbed the poor kid of his childhood realize what they have done? The boy has his entire life ahead of him to worry about politics. Shouldn't the eleventh year of his life be dedicated to worrying about whether he'll get a new bicycle for his birthday and whether his Little League team will win the season?

When I was growing up in the Soviet Union, my parents did everything they could not to rob me of my childhood by voicing their discontent with the regime in front of me. Now I know that they hated the system passionately. They abstained, however, from discussing their dissidence in my presence because they realized that this would be a burden too heavy for a child to carry. A 10-year-old doesn't understand the intricacies of our political reality. Many adults fail to comprehend them, so it's no surprise that a fifth grader would arrive at a conclusion that since Bush is bad he needs to be killed. 

I hope that the kid's irresponsible parents will realize what they have done and start controlling what they say in front of him.

"Gratification Disorder"

Reader Marina wrote the following comment to one of my posts:

There is little worse than these crazy mothers who have little else to do in their lives than to creep all over their children's lives, post countless pictures of them all over the net and inform the whole planet of every time the babies poop, have a fever or do something menial. I sometimes almost feel it should be illegal. Here is something else that blows your mind. As you know, some children start to masturbate as early as their toddler years. Well, guess what? Turns out it is a disorder with an actual 'scientific' name attached to it - Gratification Disorder! Get it? Gratification is a disorder! So, as I was trying to find some info about it online, I came across a psycho stay at home (of course) mother's blog, whose daughter has such disorder. Well, the crazy observes her daughter like a hawk and documents it all in the blog (http://gratification-disorder.org/)!!!!

At first, I  didn't believe that this was possible. But then I checked out the link, and it's all true. There are psycho quack "doctors" who diagnose what is a completely normal behavior in a child as a "disorder." Being gratified is a disease for them, so you can imagine the quality of these "medical professionals." There are also insane parents with no life of their own who - instead of trying to achieve an orgasm of their own for a change - engage in creepy voyeurism of their masturbating children. And then post detailed accounts of it online.

I'm rarely rendered speechless but in this instance I was. Are there any social services in this country at all? If this is not an occasion when they feel they need to interfere and prevent such an egregious instance of abuse, then I don't know what their mission is. This mother is literally trampling the poor child's sexuality into the ground. Imagine the host of medical and psychological problems the kid will experience when she grows up. 


Is anybody still wondering why there are so many adults who are incapable of experiencing sexual gratification? 

Cannibalizing a Child's Life

Have you noticed those creepy Facebook pages and Twitter accounts where women use pictures of their children instead of their own as avatars? I've always been completely creeped every time I would see a huge, bald head of a baby sending tweets couched in very adult language. Amanda Marcotte writes very well about this phenomenon:

This generation leaches itself of sexuality by putting the innocent face of a child in the place of an attractive mother. It telegraphs a discomfort with even a minimal level of vanity. Like wearing sneakers every day or forgetting to cut your hair, it is a way of being dowdy and invisible, and it mirrors a certain mommy culture in which its almost a point of pride how little remains of the healthy, worldly, engaged, and preening self.

Amanda believes that this happens as a result of 

this growing pressure for women to compete in the game of self-sacrifice and self-abasement to prove their motherly love.

I have to say that, as much as I like Amanda's article, I'm not sure she is right here. All this self-sacrifice is just for show. In reality, what such mothers do by assuming their children's identities is cannibalize those kids' existences. A child is denied any life of their own outside the all-consuming Mommy. She has appropriated the baby's life and will now live the baby's life instead of him or her. On the popular new show Toddlers and Tiaras we see parents who exorcise the frustrations of their drab existences by decking their poor toddlers in all kind of ridiculous adult clothes, covering them with make up, and exhibiting them to the public like little animated dolls. In the blogosphere, we read breathless accounts of parents who report ecstatically on how well they manage to control their children's every breath. On Dr.Phil, we hear how mothers of teenagers are praised for invading every inch of their children's lives.

Women engage in such cannibalizing efforts more often than men. This happens because women frequently renounce any attempt at having a life of their own. Carving out an identity, finding your place in life, getting people to value your contribution to the world is hard. It requires a daily effort at personal, intellectual, professional, and spiritual growth. Who needs all that trouble if you can simply cannibalize the existence of a small child who has no power to resist you?

Entitlement and Parents

I read the following comment at College Misery today that made my hair stand on end:

I recently learned my parents gave my younger brother $40, 000 so that he could buy part of a regional airport. These are the same parents who paid $50,000 less for my college education than they did for his, and who told me two years ago that there was no way I could live with them or borrow money from them since they didn't have any.

Some people's sense of entitlement is really scary. They forget that the moment when they reach the age of 18 their parents don't owe them anything any more. If your parents are willing to support you financially after that, that's great. They are not, however, obligated to do so in any way. They have the right to dispose of their money, the money that they made for themselves, in any way they wish, and nobody, in my opinion, has the right to dispute their choice and feel resentful about it.

If I were to discover tomorrow that my parents gave $40,000 to my younger sister so that she could buy an airport or anything else, I would be very happy on two accounts. First, that my sister had the money. And second, that my parents were in good financial shape that allowed them to make this kind of gifts to whomever they chose. As I was growing up, I was always told by my parents, "The only money that is truly yours is the money you made." This was a very valuable lesson as it taught me never to desire or begrudge anybody else's money.

Many people tend to see their parents as property that belongs to them and that has no life, will or desires of its own. Parents are people, too. They are responsible for their children's well-being until the children reach the age of majority. After that, they have no financial obligations to their children. 

What Makes a Good Father?

I was talking to a group of rich friends once.

"My father is giving me a BMW for my birthday," announced the banker's daughter.

"I went on a shopping spree last weekend and raked up a $10,000 credit card debt," said the lawyer's daughter. "My Dad grumbled a little, as usual, but of course he paid it off."

"My Daddy keeps offering to buy me a condo, but he says to find one that costs under $250,000. Now I need to get him to approve the one I chose that is $310,000," said the businessman's daughter.

Then everybody looked at me.

"My father called me last night to discuss the first chapter of my dissertation," I said. "We talked for two hours, and he gave me a lot of useful advice."

There was a general pause.

"My father doesn't even know what my research is about," said the banker's daughter finally in a small voice.

People often seem to think that giving everything to their children has to do with giving them every material object they might desire, every new toy or gadget that might come on the market, every piece of luxury there is. But does that really make them good parents? Is that what their children really need? I'm not talking, of course, about those cases when parents fail to keep their children adequately fed and clothed. This is abusive, and I don't condone it. However, does giving children more financially is a substitute for talking to them, hanging out with them, discussing their interests and issues, having fun with them?

My father always helped me out financially as much as he could while I was a student. Still, he will never be able to give me a trust fund, a car, or a condo. Things he gave me were intangible but a lot more valuable, in my opinion. He taught me never to leave the house without a book, to question every received opinion, to be scrupulously honest about money, to see myself as a valuable individual whose point of view matters and who should always demand being treated with respect, to be professional, responsible, and hardworking, to set the highest standards possible for myself academically, professionally and personally. I could continue this list ad infinitum.

It's not the material stuff that matters, people. It really isn't.

Toddlers and Tiaras

In this horrible, horrible show called Toddlers and Tiaras, a mother whose tiny daughter didn't win the beauty pageant says: "If my daughter lost, it means she looks like a dog."

That makes sense, I thought. She must be a dog if her mother is such a bitch.

Repairing an Aspie Child

Recently, helicopter-type parents have found a new reason to feel sorry for themselves and victimize their children: autism. Television, newspapers and Internet journalists cater to their needs by offering endless advice on how to "deal" with their child's autism. Here, for example, you can read a very typical example of such an advice-filled article. Parents are told that there are many ways they can "repair" their broken children. They are told to drag their poor, miserable Aspie kids to all kinds of therapies, activities, sports teams, etc. As a 34-year-old Aspie, I almost had a panic attack while reading this litany of activities that any person with Asperger's sees as pure and undiluted torture.

The most shocking thing about such posts and articles is that they completely disregard the simple fact that autistic children are human beings in their own right. Nobody ever asks the question of whether these children actually suffer from their way of being. The parents are uncomfortable with an Aspie child. Ergo, the child must be miserable as well and in urgent need of repair. All the therapies aimed at socializing these children cater only to the needs of parents who want a "normal" child.

Why should we necessarily assume that if a child sits staring at the wall and rocking for hours, she isn't enjoying herself? I know I was. Why should we necessarily believe that if a child stays in his room for several days classifying the items in his herbarium, he can't be happy? I know I was. Why should we assume that if a person stays completely silent for two weeks they can't be having a blast? I know I did. The only people who are bothered by these manifestations of autism are parents who see their child as some kind of a project in need of being constantly perfected.

The best thing parents could do for a child with Asperger's is leave her or him in peace. Stop trying to improve their lives. Simply accept that they have a different vision of what constitutes an enjoyable existence. And who is to say that your vision of a good life is making you any happier than their vision makes them?

Is It OK to Hate Kids?

Recently, the feminist blogosphere has been abuzz with endless discussions on wheter it's OK to say that you hate children. You can read the contributions to the discussion here, here, and here. In case you don't feel like wading through this endless exchange of posts and comments, I will summarize it briefly. Some people have stated that they dislike having their peace and quiet invaded by screaming and misbehaving children. Especially if you go to a very expensive restaurant, for example, you are paying to have a certain kind of ambiance and might not want it disrupted by other people's children's tantrums. As a result, many people say they hate kids. Other people say that this position is misguided and oppressive.

In my view, the problem does not originate with children. It's the inconsiderate adults who often inconvenience others, while the children get the blame. The day before yesterday, for example, I witnessed the following scene. I went to the gas station next to my house to buy some stuff. A woman with a little boy of about 4-5 years of age was in line ahead of me. She hoisted the child onto the counter and decided to use that shopping trip as an opportunity to help the child develop his counting skills. She gave him her purse and had him figure out how many paper bills and then how many coins he was supposed to pay for their purchase. Of course, this took forever. Soon, quite a long line formed behind me. This was a gas station, so many people were obviously in a hurry. An older gentleman behind me was struggling to hold a heavy box of soft drinks. Everybody was getting visibly annoyed, although nobody said anything. The cashier was getting frustrated as well.

The intentions of the woman who caused this scene were obviously good. She was trying to teach the child an important lesson. The problem is, though, that she was doing it at the expense of others. Besides teaching the little boy to count money, she also ended up teaching him that it's fine to inconvenience others. This is how we end up with a new generation of completely self-involved kids who honestly believe they are the centre of the universe.

I applaud parents who choose to take their children to real restaurants instead of stupid McDonald's and disgusting places like that. I think it's a great idea to take kids to "adult" spaces such as coffeeshops, museums, theatres, libraries, etc. It is the parents' responsibility, however, to prepare their children for entering such public spaces. I'm sure this would be a great educational opportunity from which everybody would benefit.

Why Do We Need to Believe that Men Are Inept?

Patriarchal societies limit the areas where women can apply themselves and excel to the private sphere. Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen and Church) are considered specifically female pursuits. The sphere of Church does not, of course, need women as pastors. they are only needed as sheep ready for indoctrination. The "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" scheme would not work, however, if women did not receive some compensation for limiting themselves to this sphere. The compensation that the patriarchy offers women for limiting their opportunities in the public sphere is the belief that at least in the private realm their competence is absolute and cannot be challenged by silly, incompetent men.

In this respect, a commercial of Hanes socks comes to mind. A woman comes home to discover her husband dipping their son's feet into a weird white substance. It turns out that the man is tired of  socks that don't fit and is using the substance instead. The woman rolls her eyes and takes out of the bag a pack of Hanes socks that she throws at her husband with a sigh of exasperation. This commercial presents men as fools who are so inept in the simple tasks of daily life that only a smart, competent mater familias can deal with these mundane problems.

The same happens with many sites, books, and articles that offer parentting advice. Here are some prime examples from an article that teaches mothers of newborn children how to handle and manipulate the father of their baby into loving the child and helping to take care of her or him.

1. "Your partner may feel less confident than you do in caring for the baby’s daily needs. He may want to watch you diaper, bathe or feed the baby before he tries to do these tasks on his own. Or you might end up learning these baby basics together. Either way, compliment his efforts, and see them as one more reason to give him a hug and one more moment when you can share the miracle of your infant." Now, why should any of this be true? Why should a man necessarily be "less confident" in attending to HIS child's daily needs? Why is it somehow assumed that a woman is born with the knowledge and confidence needed to change diapers and bathe babies? New parents, who never had an opportunity to change a diaper before in their lives, are on a completely equal footing when their baby is born. It is possible that the father will learn to do these things faster and better than the mother. Also, the idea that a man has to be cajoled and complimented into caring for his own child is very strange. The whole tone of this piece of advice suggests that the father is some sort of an overgrown baby who needs to be parented by his partner.

2. "Comments such as “He has your eyes!” or “Wow! I can tell he has your sweet smile!” help your baby’s father appreciate how much you love about him. In front of your partner, share the good news with your friends about the “family affair” that you and he have begun, a true partnership in parenthood. Doing so will send him a message that you need and love him - a sure way to help him feel great." The question of why a grown man (who hasn't just got through a pregnancy, hasn't given birth recently, and is not breast-feeding) needs to be helped to feel great remains unanswered. There is nothing wrong, of course, about saying the things listed here. What bothers me is the suggestion that they should be said with the purpose of manipulating men, instead of being offered spontaneously by BOTH new parents to each other, irrespective of gender.

3. "Put yourself in his shoes: You’ve been given so much of the attention during pregnancy; now it’s time for that attention to shift to how “we” are doing as a new mom and dad. Let your partner know what you’d like him to do and accept his telling you his needs too. This is new territory - although he may know which salad you like at a restaurant you always go to, he may not know how important it is to you that he give the baby a bath." Poor man, it really makes me feel sorry for him. He must have felt so neglected every time he heard people say to his pregnant partner: "Wow, you've grown so huge. How are you feeling?" He really needs to be compensated for all this 9-month long loss of attention. This inept fool is so concentrated on his feelings of resentment for not getting enough attention that he is incapable of realizing that a baby might need to be bathed periodically.

4. "Intimacy means different things to different people. But one way to boost your emotional satisfaction as a couple for the rest of your lives together is to marvel at the miracle that is your child. Set the stage now: Share your feelings about the baby as you bathe, diaper and hold her together; then never let those feelings go as your baby grows." Note the reference to "setting the stage." This is one of the most long-standing patriarchal ideas: the woman's power lies in her talent to play act and  manipulate. It's a great way to get what you want and feel good about proving that there are some areas where you are smarter and better than men.

Gender Disappointment

Elle has an interesting article about a disturbing trend among soon-to-be parents. This trend is called "gender Disappointment" and has to do with mothers being unhappy with the gender of their children to the point of severe depression and fantasies of giving up for adoption the children with "the wrong gender." For the most part, the preferred gender that these mothers strive for in a variety of truly weird ways is female. They want to have a daughter at any cost and feel very disappointed when a son gets born instead.

Some of the methods these women use to conceive a baby of the "right gender" are truly outlandish. Just think of the level of desperation one has to achieve to turn her sex life into the following freak show: “Have your [partner] give you a ‘sample.’ Catch it in a cup or condom. Add warm lime. Do not warm lime in microwave—warm in hot sink. Then layer egg white (with a pH of 9 to 9.9) on top. You then incubate it for an hour…and insert it into yourself with medical syringe. Lay with hips raised.”

Elle's explanation for this trend is, of course, informed by the ruling patriarchal culture: these women prefer to give birth to little girls because female lives are so much easier than male: "Women envision a brighter future for their daughters than they do for their sons. Boys are practically the underdogs these days, having fallen behind girls on nearly every measure of academic achievement, from college attendance to high school graduation rates. According to books such as The War Against Boys and Boys Adrift, they are in danger of becoming, as Christina Hoff Sommers has written, “tomorrow’s second sex." Of course, they have to quote the completely insane Hoff Sommers on that because no reasonable individual could support this weird point of view. What mother can possibly envision "a brighter future" for her daughter when we still suffer from pay inequity, violence against women, the culture of rape, etc. is beyond my comprehension.

The real reason for this trend is hinted upon by the language used by these gender-frustrated mothers. This is what one of these obssessed women says: “Taking her to ballet class. Painting her nails with pastel glitter. It will make me feel complete, without a doubt.” This is another one's fantasy: “I didn’t buy the boy anything,” she says. Instead she stocked up on pink paraphernalia for her daughter, already named Cassandra. “I bought her jewelry and a little bracelet with her name on it. I was planning her first Halloween. She was going to be a little ballerina.” What they miss about having a daughter is buying cute pink clothes and turning tem into cute little ballerinas. And that's pretty much it. It's easier to see a little girl as a cuddly little toy. If you have a son, sooner or later you will have to recognize that this is actually a human being. A girl, however, is not accorded as much independence and as much personality as a boy by our patriarchal society. So these mothers keep going to incredible lengths to produce a girl-toy for themselves.

Often, these gender-obssessed women get their dream daughter and, of course, become disappointed in the whole experience: "In the end, my expectations of what it would be like to mother a daughter were not fully realized.” Eliza and Jamisyn don’t like to play with dolls, don’t enjoy ballet. “Neither is really frilly,” Lewis laments. “They don’t want to do the things my mother and I did. I have to shake myself and say: You got what you wanted. So why do I feel this longing still?” In the meantime, Lewis is trying to accept her daughters as they are. “I’ve tried not to take it out on them, but there have been pangs of anger, of disappointment, pangs of, I went through all this, and now you’re not cooperating? Didn’t you read the instruction booklet on how to be a daughter?” Imagine what this poor woman went through when she discovered that in spite of being female, her children are actually human beings, not gender stereotypes.

** Thank you, Marina, for bringing this to my attention!

Progressive Dr. Phil

I haven't had a chance to watch Dr. Phil for months. So today I come home, turn on the television and hear Dr. Phil say the following: "The children in daycare have better cognitive skills, better linguistic skills, and better preparedness for school than children of stay-at-home mothers." And then he repeated it several times.

Dr. Phil also said that the important thing is not to spend every single waking moment of your day hovering around the child. What matters is the quality of the time you spend with the child. Of course, it's obvious that parents with no life of their own can never provide the same quality of care and parenting when you are unfulfilled in most areas of your life. There was also a really judgmental and nasty housewife who, as everybody agreed, was extremely sanctimonious and hysterical and offered an interesting contrast to calm, composed and well-spoken working mothers. It is obvious, of course, that the participants were selected on purpose so that their personalities would fit in with the message of the show.

Altogether, the show was aimed at defending, albeit pretty tentatively, the right of mothers to have lives and careers of their own.

I was pleasantly surprised by hearing these things from a TV screen. Of course, all of these facts are completely self-evident but nobody wants to say them out loud because of the deference towards the patriarchal system that hates the idea of women in the workplace. The simple fact that children of working parents have all these cognitive advantages is the truth that has been concealed for way too long.  Now that even somebody as conservative and anti-women as Dr. Phil has finally said these things out loud, one can hope  that they will come into public discourse a lot more forcefully.

So this week's feminist hero so far: Dr. Phil.

Bullying

One of the best things about being a professor is that you only have to be at work 2 or 3 days a week. So I can stay home and watch Dr. Phil. Today, he is having a show on school bullying and is being as uninsightful as usual.

Yes, bullying is bad. Yes, the bullies are wrong and are very insecure. What is the point of making an entire show on the subject if you have nothing else to add to the topic? Dr. Phil was talking to a woman who was bullied from grade school all the way through high school, even though she attended several different schools. She said that today her personal life and everyday behavior were still deeply affected by the bullying. She feels unattractive and insecure and can't have a normal relationship with a man. All Dr. Phil could respond is that she should suck it up, forget about the bullying and stop being defined by it. It's easier said than done, of course.

A more insightful approach to the subject would be to analyze why some children always get bullied even when they keep changing schools. These are obviously children with very low self-esteem that are being set up as perfect victims for bullying by the way their parents treat them. Some parents scream at the children, ridicule them, make fun of them, make them feel worthless, subject them to constant control, intrude on their privacy, even beat them and then act all surprised when the kids  are subjected to the same treatment by their classmates. Some people need a child who is a constant victim and knows no other role. It's easier to manipulate, control and subject such a child. Of course, later they discover that other people follow in theiir footsteps and victimize the child in the same manner.

Parenting: Fashion and Style

The New York Times has published a very interesting article discussing the influence parental fears have on their children's independence. The article makes a very important point that parents who don't let their children walk a couple of blocks to school and prefer to drive them there instead actually put their children in a  lot more danger than letting them walk by themselves ever would: "Critics say fears that children will be abducted by strangers are at a level unjustified by reality. About 115 children are kidnapped by strangers each year, according to federal statistics; 250,000 are injured in auto accidents." 

I wish the article discussed the psychological consequences of helicopter-style parenting, but still it's a good, thoughtful piece that discusses a very important issue. That's why it's so surprising that the New York Times placed it in the "Fashion and Style" section. The logic behind this placement of the article is difficult to fathom. Do the newspaper's editors watch too much reports about the lives of Britney Spears and the like, which makes them believe that children are a fashion accessory? Do they consider parenting to be as trivial an issue as fashion? Do they think that parenting is by definition a "female" topic and has to be relegated to the "female" section of the paper?

It's funny how the New York Times offers pride of place to Ross Douthat's weekly inanities but relegates a truly interesting piece to the depths of a secondary section that concentrates on mere trivialities.

Crazy Stuff

It's scary to imagine what's going to happen to children whose parents would put them into this $2000 crib.

Then they would go on Dr. Phil to ask why their child is behaving all crazy. This is a huge childhood trauma just waiting to happen.

Biederman's ADHD Scam

I've been waiting for this for a long time. Paul Solomon reports that "Harvard child psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic drugs in children, has been caught up in controversy since a Congressional inquiry by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2008." I was horrified when I first heard this con artist spouting off about how perfectly normal it is to prescribe antipsychotic drugs for children as young as 2 and diagnose Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (a completely spurious diagnosis that is making a fortune for quacks like Biederman and pharmaceutical companies) and bipolar disorder (imagine diagnosing that in a 2-year-old) in such tiny kids.

According to Paul Solomon, at the hearing aimed to investigate the bribes that Biederman received from pharmaceutical companies to present these vile ideas as scientifically valid, the following exchange took place:

Biederman appeared at a deposition on February 26, 2009, and was questioned by several lawyers for the states, who were claiming that makers of antipsychotic drugs defrauded state Medicaid programs by marketing their medicines improperly. At the deposition, Biederman was asked what rank he held at Harvard.

"Full professor," he answered.

"What's after that?" asked Fletch Trammell, one of the attorneys.

"God," Biederman responded.

"Did you say God?" Trammell asked.

"Yeah," said Biederman, after which there was a moment of stunned silence.

You can read the rest of Paul Solomon's great article here.

Of course, the man who is capable of giving antipsychotic meds to toddlers couldn't have said anything other than what he did. Biederman and people like him have been playing god for decades. At the behest of pharmaceutical companies, they come up with nonexistent diagnoses to feed people more and more needless and dangerous pills.

The idea that people who find social situations difficult must have some disorder and need to be medicated is offensive in the extreme. The idea that if you have trouble concentrating on what you do you also have a disorder and need to pop pills for the rest of your life is equally idiotic. The attempt to diagnose 2 and 5-year-olds with bipolar disorder are so cynical that they defy belief. I saw an investigative report program about a 5-year-old who was diagnosed with schizophrenia because he dressed up as a superhero and went to church dressed like that (A 5-year-old pretending he's a superhero, wow, that is so unhealthy).

People like Biederman are not as much to blame here, in my opinion, as the parents of these poor kids. Biederman is just out to make himself a fortune by poisoning kids he doesn't even know. As for the parents, however, it's terrifying that they would prefer to have any kind of a wild diagnosis attached to their kids instead of working on bringing them up. They zombify their kids with Ritalin and other poisons instead of talking to them and spending time with them. It's easy to blame all of the child's problems on some fictitious "disorder". Taking responsibility for your child's actions would be much more difficult and painful. Who needs that? Let's pump 'em full of chemicals and make Biederman a fortune in the process.

Working Parents

It's so much easier for government officials to thump their chests about how much they worry about the welfare of the working parents' children than to actually do something about it. There is a series of very obvious measures that the government and companies or universities could undertake that would be helpful and beneficial to everybody.

For example: why not establish on-site daycare facilities in workplaces? The expense would be minimal and the benefits huge. Parents could spend more time with their children, they will concentrate all the better on their work if they can go see that the kid is ok at any point. Employees with children would not try to leave the workplace at 5 p.m. on the dot because they have to get to daycare before it closes. And the government could offer significant tax breaks to companies who do this. If it's true that, as Alberta's Finance Minister claims, children benefit so much from being close to their parents, why isn't she doing anything to promote such measures?

Another set of important measures (also pretty cheap and easy to introduce into the workplace) as proposed by my reader mom of seven: "Better working conditions for nursing mothers, including pumping breaks and pumping rooms. Better maternity leaves to allow them to get breastfeeding well established before they have to return to work. Getting insurance companies to cover things like good quality breastpumps that would allow moms to work AND BREASTFEED." Sounds great, so why isn't anyhting being done about this? Why is it accepted as gospel truth that the only way to rear children is to stick women in the home? The government could reward companies who adopt such measures with tax breaks if it wanted to do something productive for a change..