Mikey wrote:Dusk, you don't have to tell me about the way of the working parent. Both I and my wife work - my wife is a teacher, so most of the stuff I'm writing here comes from the horse's mouth, as it were - and we struggle. There are plenty of times when I have to say goodnight to my daughter on the phone, and it kills me. But I and my wife pay for her medical bills, her food, her day care, her clothes, her dance class, her swimming lessons, etc., etc. - I and my wife, and NOBODY ELSE. I am not knocking anyone for requiring some help, even though I don't get and never will get that same help.
What I am knocking is the EXPECTATION that it is everyone's responsibility to raise a child except for the child's parent or parents. There are situations in which my wife had to say at work late - and be late picking up our own daughter - because a parent who was NOT AT WORK simply forgot what time to pick up their child. There are instances in which parents refused to pay to subsidized, reduced rate for school lunch because, in their opinion, the school should just "do it." This is just another facet of the "not my fault, I won't take on accountability" syndrome which has becaome endemic to our country.
As I'm writing this, I think perhaps you misinterpret me. When I wrote "welfare culture," I wasn't referring specifically to people who receive welfare - I have no problem with that. What I referred to was the mindset that "somebody else" should take care of everything.
I understand Mikey, sorry, I got the gist of what you meant I think. I just wanted to make that clarification and also it's not always clear what people mean when they refer to the welfare state.
