A couple of stories in conjunction just struck me a little. The first is an editorial in the Lafayette Journal & Courier. There was recently a forum on child abuse and neglect. According to the editorial:
Of particular concern, according to Marilyn Redmon, director of the Tippecanoe County Child Care Inc., is a lack of nurturing child-care programs for infants and toddlers. While there are some programs locally that fit the description, they fall far short of meeting the need. For example, 320 children are waiting on a list for services offered through the federally funded Early Head Start Program.
The other was a story in the Indianapolis Star about Mayor Peterson’s proposed cost cutting in Indianapolis entitled Earlier Pool closings prompt GOP criticism:
As part of Mayor Bart Peterson’s plan to trim $28 million from the city budget, Indianapolis pools will close two to three weeks early this summer. . . Peterson has said the cuts announced Wednesday could have been avoided if the Republican-controlled legislature had passed his government consolidation plan, known as Indianapolis Works. With that plan shelved by lawmakers, though, Republicans said the reduction plan was crafted to draw the most ire.
It’s a complete apples & oranges comparison, but the availability of city pools strikes me as quite a luxury when basic child care is so inadequate. What we really need, in my ever so humble opinion, are more jobs that pay enough so that one person’s income is enough to support the family. Seems to me that if two parents are working because wages are low and, as a result, we have to subsidize day care, then what we are doing –in effect– is subsidizing the employer paying low wages, and we’re doing it at the expense of our children’s upbringing. Because, by and large, I think a kid going home to a family member every day is going to be better off than one going to daycare.
How to get wages back up? Got me. Seems like unions and child labor laws and the like got us out of a similar situation back in the early 1900s, in the days of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” Whether that’s part of the answer today, I couldn’t say for sure. But how do you like that? I got from pool closings to modifying NAFTA in 3 easy steps.
A pale shadow of the leaps in Otter’s speech to the Greek Council in Animal House:
Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female guests. We did. [Winks at Dean Wormer]. But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few sick, perverted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg, isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do what you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you bad-mouth the United States of America!
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