Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    
    	The solution is;  NO MASS SOLUTIONS !
    
    Over and over and over, we have tried to solve public problems with
    political solutions mandated for everyone, and funded through taxes.
    This is *NOT* the way!   If people were not taxed so much, they
    would have more resources for solving thier own problems.   They
    would get to apply their own creativity, and would feel ownership
    and control with their own solutions.    What is more, the money
    would be spent more efficiently.
    
    	You can't fix the schools by lobbying washington, or even by
    voting in a better school administration.   The schools for our
    children can *ONLY* be fixed by people, the people with children,
    taking command of the course of their own children's education !
    Each child is *seeking* knowledge, but of course each one is
    different, so we need to *look* at each child with care and deep
    perception, to help provide for the unique needs of each one.
    There is no "program" that can provide "equal" benifits of education
    to all these differing children.   Education cannot be mandated
    from an ivory tower, this is the basic failure of the system we
    have today.   Our quality of education declines as power is taken
    from the parent or teacher, and is passed to the administration, or the
    designers of mandated educational "programs".    The teacher or
    parent are the *only* persons who can see and respond to the needs
    of each individual child.   We have to give them the power to do so.

    	It's a basic mistake to assume that the government can help
    us solve all these problems.  By assuming this we give away the
    power we need to apply our own solutions.   There are some things
    we can all do to help people reclaim these powers, but the first
    step is to realize that *we* have the power !    We have the power
    to provide our children with opportunities.   We have the power
    to recognize the forces which block and frustrate them.   And we
    have the power to help the children deal with these blocks and 
    frustrations, one at a time, without resorting to mass solutions
    or government mandated programs.
    
    		Alan.

    Reply to .0,                                          
    
    Please let me preface this by saying that a pure anything type answer
    will probably not work. That is a pure liberterian, pure socialist,
    pure democratic, and pure republician answers are purely theoretical,
    maybe not even practical in the everyday world.
    
    I'll start with decentralization, which has been brought up already.
    We should decentralize the money process. Taxes, seen and unseen,
    flow through Washington for many different purposes. This has pros
    and cons for women:
    
    In regions where women are active in the governmental process women
    will fare better. In regions that are more conservative women will
    play the parts their local culture dictates, at least, until they
    take part in the governmental process.
    
    As the money begins to flow back into the local community away from
    Washington the community will have to take direct responsibility
    for their fisical actions. Women could approve and support community
    sponsored day care. Even this opens great bags of worms. Those problems
    will have to be dealt with at sometime in the near future anyway.
    
    Laws should be pased to promote clean and clearly defined channels
    for money to flow through. If 1 million dollars is collected for
    10 community day cares centers, those centers should get 95% of
    the collected monies, not 10%.
    
    Perhaps the place to start the decentralization would be to look
    at the Constitution and find what Washington is directly responsible
    for. At last look Washington was responsible for only 18 things
    plus the mysterious general welfare clause.  We could decentralize
    or privitize all the rest of the funtions.
    
    It all revolves around money. Take most of the money out of Washington
    and put it back into the states and counties where it belongs. Of
    course this will require a shift in thought. This may not happen
    in 10 or 20 years but I think it will happen before say 2020.
    
    An idea that has been proposed to do this is called the State Rate
    Tax. Basicly the idea, thought not new, is to have the states collect
    federal/state taxes in proportion to their populations. For example
    Colorado would have less than 1/50th of the federal budget and
    California and New York would have greater than 1/50th. The cons
    side of this would be census metrics.
    
    When the taxes get too high the residents of the states have direct
    access to their elected state reps, who inturn, have more efficient
    access to federal officials than you or me.
    
    Money will be easier to watch if it flows through the State houses.
    Washington has too many different pigeon holes, smoke screens and
    lobbiests for John Doe to figure out. For example Colorado is not a big
    oil state, we have coal, uranium, gold and timber questions that need
    solutions. Coloradians wouldn't need to expend time and energy
    convincing an oil state senator that forest resources in Colorado were
    being squandered. We could go to state reps who will have access to
    more money in this model.
    
    The second and most important resource we have is people, not money.
    Along with Alan I think we should teach children to be responsible
    with their resources, all of them. We should also teach them how
    to guide the governmental process themselves, not to depend upon
    a coached tv personage in the Federal House or Senate.
    
    Basicly it boils down to letting the Feds deal with international
    questions and letting the states deal with domestic questions.
    
    Women are the unknown here. In the last mayoral election in Colorado
    Springs, population approx. 350,000 only about 10,000 people voted.
    Who knows what would have happened if a female activist ran for
    mayor.
    
    Just like others I'm fed up with B.S. When the hole we dig doesn't
    surrender the treasure it's time to dig a hole some where else.
    When our way of government doesn't meet the needs of people, we
    need to change the government till it meets the needs. 
    

    I want to talk about a specific issue.  The two replies are a general
    concept of how taxes should be collected and distributed.
    
    Many women and men have made decisions not to have children.  It
    is a growing reality that there is a large amount of children being
    born to parents who do not have the resources either emotional or
    financially to prepare these children for adulthood.  
    
    These two factors bring into focus the fact that in twenty years
    the majority of the population will be over 55 and that there will
    not be enough young people to provide the services of a mature
    community.
    
    How do we solve this problem?  Replies .1 and .2 are very idealistic
    and not practical in my opinion.

    Reply to .3; JLamotte,
    
    So you don't like .1 and .2. B^) What do you propose?

        With schools having such problems, and with the fears of
    war or economic havoc, perhaps it is an intelligent response
    to not have children.   I think this is sad.   I, too, have doubts
    about helping to bring a child into this world.

    	In financial terms, it used to be that having children was 
    an asset.  Now it's a liability.   Why should they bother having
    kids, after all, they have their own pension plans and won't need
    the support when they're old?   Such economic disincentives are
    something the government *could* do something about.   I don't 
    need any young helping hands on the farm I don't own.   For a 
    fine analysis of the new economics of aging, and the disincentives 
    being given to the "baby boomers", I just read a good book I can 
    recommend;    "Born To Pay" by Phillip Longman.
    
	Old people have "the Grey Panthers" to lobby for their 
    interests, but who lobbies for the interests of the next 
    generation's children?   No one.  They have no spokesman.
    I hope then, that women (and *all* of us) can use their power
    to protect the rights of future generations.

    					Alan.

	Well, instead of encouraging "good" parents to have more
	children, we should make more "poor" parents "good".  Teach
	more about child rearing in high school.  Include classes
	on what's involved having children, and the kids could help
	with a daycare to give them practical experiance with children
	(they could get certificates as qualified babysitters too :-))
	
	Teach about birth control.  Then when they start having sex
	they won't necessarily have children.  I'm not just talking
	about unwed teenagers here, when they do graduate and get
	married, they should still know that they have choices about
	whether to have children.

	And teach women that they have choices with their life.  Getting
	married and having children is no longer the only goal for
	women.

	...Karen

    
    ...how do we decide who's a "Good" parent?...who "ought" to have
    children?....and what "Good" means in the first place...?
    
    --DE
    

    re .7
    
    I don't think we should decide who is a 'good' parent or who should
    have children.  
    
    I see a lot of children being born in the '80s that will probably
    not be productive adults.  Their home environment and classroom
    environment is not adequate to support learning or the development
    of behaviors that produce individuals that can cope with society.
    
    We have children being born, the process is simple.  We don't shove
    these kids in a one-room hotel suite @$1400 a month, we subsidize
    housing @400 a month.  We supplement income only if the recepients
    attend training classes.  We get the children into early development
    programs so that when they attend the first grade they are ready
    to learn.  We develop incentive programs for high school students.
    We work on programs that incourage good nutrition and good health.
    
    We don't know what a good parent is and I don't think we can judge
    that.  But we do know that good nutrition, good schooling and basic
    shelter needs promote positive behavior and learning.

    re: .7 --
    
    Amen.  
    
    I resent deeply the base note's implication that middle-class parents
    are good parents and that all poor people are incapable of providing
    nurturing, healthy homes for their children.  
    
    I won't for a minute try to argue that it's better to grow up poor;
    having money has let me give my kids advantages they would never have
    had growing up in a household like the one I grew up in.  But having
    money is only one tiny aspect of raising healthy, happy, open-minded,
    sensitive, responsible adults.  
    
    I don't think my nice normal and approved of middle class neighbors
    whose daughter [straight-A student interested in engineering] will have
    to pay for her own education at whatever school she can afford because
    her parents have broken the budget to send her barely-passing brother
    to Dartmouth are exactly the kind of people I want to see perpetuating
    society! 
    
    --bonnie

    re:  .9 --
    
    Could you point out to me in the base note where there is an
    implication
    
       1.  Middle-class parents are good parents.
    
       2.  Poor people are incapable of providing nurturing, healthy
           homes for their children.
                                                 
    Then we need to figure out how the good parent who happens to be
    poor can get together $1500 to rent an adequate apartment right
    here in Massachusetts.  $500 first month, $500 last month and $500
    security.  
    
    I resent deeply the way many people poof off the problems of the
    poor and our next generation.  It is a very different world.  We
    cannot say my parents were poor and I am productive.  The circumstances
    have changed and financially poor people have a lot more to cope
    with then the prior generations.
    

    We could start by making birth control and abortion available to
    all of those women who feel that they are not able to properly care
    for a child at that specific time in their lives.  Then people start
    having choices.
    
    We could then focus government priority on the quality of life in
    *this* country and work to improve conditions for us all.  If mothers
    didn't *have* to work to ensure their children's survival, many
    would opt to stay home and raise their children.  The single mothers
    who do get government assistance so that they can stay home and
    take care of their kids live well below the poverty level and are
    generally objects of scorn in society... so we must decide what
    our values are.. 30 billion to feed, clothe and shelter the Contras
    but what of those needy American children?  American children take
    a very low priority in our country.  Teenagers are expected to work
    long hours in jobs that are designed to burn them out (fast food
    restaurants) for wages that are ridiculous. Why?  

    Children should be (as they are in Russia) a precious
    natural resource to be cherished.  The tone of this note disturbs
    me in that children are not objects to bear the burden of a society
    that appears not to care very much about the individuals that comprise
    it.  If we are seeing the decline and fall of the great American
    empire then perhaps short-sightedness, lack of values and poorly
    thought out priorities have brought about a destiny that can't be
    avoided.  If we change those things now, then we will all benefit
    and those future children will have a society worth living in.

    re .11
    
    Your reply is very articulate and says far better what I have been
    trying to say so many times on this and similar issues.
    
    Thank you!

    RE: .11
    
    American *children* are a low priority?!?!?!? *Americans* are a
    low priority! No, no, I'm not trying to say "Buy an American Car".
    
    I'm in total agreement with .11 - The $$$$$$$<etc> we are sending
    to Nicaragua and God-knows-where-else for killing people could
    well be used to help those people who are living on the go**amn *STREETS*
    in this country! Adults, *and* kids.
    
    What else would this money buy? School lunch programs, early 
    eduaction programs for disadvantaged kids,... we can all name
    something, I'm sure.
    
    I suppose if there were Zillionz of dollars available for the
    3-piece-suits to use in playing chess with smaller countries on
    the largest gameboard ever....well, OK , fine amuse yourselves...
    (We'll talk *those* moralities later)
    
    ...But migod! They're hollering about national debt and deficit
    budgets....sending money to other countries for killing...and allowing
     citizens of *this* country to scrape a daily existence off the
    streets....and telling the disadvantaged to pull themselves up
    by their bootstraps...?!?!?
    
    How do we change this mind-set? How do we change the mind-set of
    disadvantaged folks who've given up and have passed that on to the
    kids? How do we change the mind-set of the *advantaged* folks who
    disadvantage their own kids?
    
    Shifting values, yes. But how?
    
    --DE
    
    
    

    Very simple... we care.  We care about people again and we insist
    that our representatives care too.  Too many politicians look at
    government as a way to enrich themselves and their croonies, to
    implement their own personal philosophies and opinions, and to 
    plan the power game... the most dangerous game of all.  We spend
    so much money of defense that soon we won't have a nation worth
    defending.  Carl Sagan's article in Parade Magazine most eloquently
    described the situation the people of the world find themselves
    in.  This situation exist in almost every country to one degree
    or another.  The politicians are so busy throwing stones at each
    other to perpetuate the situation that gives them power that the
    real objectives of government... to care for and ensure the
    continuation of a nurturing society.. are totally overlooked.  Its
    time to face the fact that we are all first and foremost citizens
    of the world.  
    
    We must begin by cleaning our own house and we must
    start seeing each other as brothers, not enemies.  A lot of the
    world leaders are in their seventies and have the attitudes and
    mindsets that came from growing up before WWII.  Well times have
    changed and people have changed.  We now have the technology to
    totally distroy the human species and we have leaders who cannot
    be trusted with that technology.  We must have the courage and 
    personal integrity to put special interests aside and work for the
    common good of mankind.

    Oh, now I see what we're talking about!  I'm sorry, Joyce, I completely
    misunderstood your base note.  I took your remark about the decreasing
    number of children being born to good parents (your phrase) and an
    increasing number of children being born in unfortunate economic
    circumstances to implicitly assume that middle-class parents make
    better parents (since it's the middle class that's having fewer kids)
    and that if we could wipe out poverty, we'd wipe out child-raising
    problems.
    
    I also didn't mean to say that because I made it from a poor
    background, everybody can make it without help.  For one thing,
    I had plenty of help.
    
    The trouble is, I'm a lot less sanguine about the prospects of doing
    anything for the children that isn't a drop in the bucket.  The
    experiences I've had as a mother, the way I've seen my daughter's
    friends treated and the way people react to perfectly reasonable
    requests for help for our most precious resource, has convinced
    me that this society, as a whole, hates and fears children.
    
    Everything that a young person does is automatically seen as wrong.
    They're treated as nonpersons in stores and public places, they're
    assumed to be hostile, oversexed, and drug dependent, and now they've
    even been denied the basic rights of citizens (Supreme Court decisions
    have upheld restrictions on their freedom of speech and their right
    to reasonable search and seizure; don't even get me started on teh
    juvenile injustice system in this country).

    I suspect that this phenomenon is closely related to the incredible
    number of adults who were raised in dysfunctional families, who
    were abused, beaten, and generally hated when they were little.
    How can they be expected to love and treasure children when they
    can't love and treasure themselves?
    
    I'm sorry, I'm afraid that there's nothing political that can be done
    at this point.  You might be able to get some superficial legislation
    through to buy more butter and less guns, though in the present climate
    that's debatable, but you aren't going to be able to legislate love and
    compassion.  I wish you could, but you can't.
    
    Maybe what individual women decide can have an impact, though. 
    I've decided that I'm going to do what little I can -- be present
    as a shoulder to cry on and an alternate role model for my daughter
    and her friends, work in the school system (I'm coaching an OM
    team right now;  maybe next year I can find something even more
    useful.)  
    
    Maybe if some of us care, and help?
    
    --bonnie
    
    

RE: .11

"We could start by making birth control and abortion available to all of those
women who feel that they are not able to properly care for a child at that
specific time in their lives.  Then people start having choices."

My version of that (*mine*, get it???) would read "Birth control and
adoption"...

"Children should be (as they are in Russia) a precious natural resource to be
cherished."

How are children treated better in Russia?  I think if I were going to pick a
country where children are treated valuably, I would pick Israel.

RE: .13 EVANS

"How do we change the mind-set of the *advantaged* folks who disadvantage their
own kids?"

I find this even sadder then disadvantaged people producing nonmotivated
children...  Having everything seems to be nonmotivating as well... 

Jim.

    Lest anyone forget (I know some of us can't),
    it's never "They're poor; I'm not."
    
    You can go from comfortable to poverty in a nightmarishly brief
    period.  All it takes is for your job to vanish--and yes, this happens
    even to middle-class, white-collar, engineer-types--or your health
    to change even briefly due to illness or accident or the health
    of some other family member to be affected.  I know, I've seen it.
    If you haven't, I suggest you read the two part article by Kozol
    in recent New Yorkers about the homeless.  (If you don't subscribe
    and can't obtain it through a library, write to me.)
    
    Part of the reason that many people ignore these homeless families
    seems to me to be that it reminds them too much of how fragile their
    hold on the good life is.  If we can ignore those it happens to,
    we can pretend it won't happen to us.
    
    Which is just not true.
    
    Everybody wants a good life for their kids, even if they didn't
    get a good one for themselves (yes, it *is* possible to love and
    treasure children even if you weren't so happy as a child yourself).
    Every child deserves a good life.  Treating poor people like dirt,
    especially poor people who are kids, doesn't inspire them to aspire
    one bit.

    Fer sure, Lisa. "there but for the grace of <whatever>..etc."
    
    The thing that really gets to me is there's enough money and wealth
    of all kinds for *everyone* to "have the good life". Unfortunately
    we live in a society whose mind-set is "winners-losers", not 
    "winners-winners". I see the latter as a very "Yin" (if you will)
    philosophy, and the former as very "Yang" (again, not totally
    accurate, but you get the idea,...)
    
    Women may hold the key to this...who knows?
    
    --DE
    

    Reply to .13; Dawn,
    
    How do we change the mindset? I think we'd have to change the system.
    The heart of the solution is to get money flowing to the states
    and counties and away from Washington.

    Dawn, Lisa, I agree with you 100 per cent.  
    
    But what are we going to DO about it?
    
    Money flowing from the federal government to the cities and counties
    isn't going to help.  City councilmen, who have on the whole forgotten
    that there for the grace of God go each and every one of us, are
    every bit as hard-hearted as the worst Washington bureaucrat.  Maybe
    worse.  Ever read what goes on in your city council meetings (or
    whatever form of government your town/city has)?  It's depressing.

    Group homes and shelters denied variances that would allow them to
    function in the neighborhoods they serve.  (I was going to speak at one
    of these hearings; at the last minute they changed the meeting time.
    Isn't politics wonderful?) 
    
    School budgets cut, or items that are never added, because programs to
    provide breakfast for needy school kids are "frivolously wasteful."
    That from a man I know and respect and thought would never say a thing
    like that even if he had to bow to hard realities of inadequate
    funding. 

    Money doesn't change the condition of a heart.  I'm not sure what does. 
    
    --bonnie

    This is somewhat of a tangent, and only of interest to some of us,
    but: today is the last day to register to vote in the primaries
    for Massachusetts.

    Things cannot continue on as they are.  The system will defeat itself
    by it's own inbalance.  The system is predicated on tax money
    obtained from the people.  The definition of a depression is that
    the bulk of the money rests in the hands of the few as it is now,
    protected by law in tax shelters.  
    
    Well my friends, whether we realize it or not, we are balanced on the 
    brink of the worst recession/depression this country, no.. this world, 
    has ever known.  It has come about through greed, indifference and 
    dishonesty and it will force much needed change both in this country
    and the rest of the world.  Unfortunately those who will suffer
    the most are those who have always suffered the most... and it ain't
    the politicians.

    Not to beat a dead horse, here, but on some level, we've
    created the government problem. I don't mean us-right-thinking-types
    here [;-)] but "us" human beans in this here country.
    
    *My* feeling is that if the *thinking* changes, the government
    priorities will change. I believe the problem is "how do you
    change people's...err..ideas?....perceptions?...whatever.
    
    Then there's the old military saying "Get 'em by the b**ls and
    their hearts and minds will follow" :-}
    
    Maybe we can just work on our little corner of the world and let
    the rest be what it is...wish I knew...
    
    --DE