The article below is about ideas for avoiding the consumerism, television and keeping-up-with-the-Joneses which is killing off family life. Firstly, I thought,
I'm a parent, and I'm lucky enough to have time some for my kids, although it's usually only those whose job it is to educate others' children who have the time for this. Would you rather educate your own kids? I didn't think so.
Kids need a lot of lessons on how wild and crazy the real world is, and about how many traps there are and how they can fend for themselves. Nothing is clear anymore, except that kids need a parent at their side to show them the way; how to do stuff, what to avoid, how to behave. That's our biological/genetic calling, anyway. So, we have to keep the lines of communication open with them.
Are we just ignoring this due to economic problems or because we want to ignore this? How many of you have written off the idea of having a family? What're the reasons?
If immigrants have shown us anything it's that you don't need a BMW, or even lots of money, to raise 5 kids; just the basics, love and parenting time. But, since most educated couples feel they still can't afford kids, the government should provide economic incentives and/or time off for child birth and care. Everything is down to economics these days. Kids are the future...blah, blah.
-Costick67 ( 8^P
Here's an important book I found on alternet:
[my comments- Costick67]
William Greider (from The Nation)
This article is excerpted from William Greider's new book, Come Home, America. Copyright © 2009 by William Greider.
As Franklin Roosevelt understood, Americans will postpone immediate gratification and endure hard sacrifices -- if they must -- so long as they are convinced the future can be better than the past. But we face a far more difficult problem at our moment in history. What do you promise people who have been told they can have anything they want, who are repeatedly congratulated for living in the best of all possible circumstances? How do you tell them "the good times," as we have known them, are not coming back? Americans need a new vision that helps them deal with reality, a promising story of the future that helps them let go of the past.
Here is the grand vision I suggest Americans can pursue: the right of all citizens to larger lives. Not to get richer than the next guy or necessarily to accumulate more and more stuff but the right to live life more fully and engage more expansively the elemental possibilities of human existence. That is the essence of what so many now seem to yearn for in their lives. People -- even successful and affluent people -- are frustrated because the intangible dimensions of life have been held back or displaced in large and small ways, pushed aside by the economic system's relentless demands to maximize yields of profit and wealth. Our common moral verities have been trashed in the name of greater returns. The softer aspects of mortal experience are diminished because life itself is not tabulated in the economic system's accounting. [nor is proper parenting. This is going to come back to bite the government. Good parents make good citizens (usually) , or would they rather have anti-establishment rioters?]
The political order mistakenly accepts these life-limiting trade-offs as normal, as necessary to achieve "good times." At earlier periods of our history, the sacrifices demanded by the engine of American capitalism were widely tolerated because the nation was young and underdeveloped. The engine promised to generate higher levels of abundance, and it did. But what is the justification now, when the nation is already quite rich and the engine keeps demanding larger chunks of our lives? [they're hoping to pump up our petty personal greed/jealousy to keep us working like slaves. So, just ignore their caterwalling.]
What families, even those who are prosperous, typically lose in the exchange are the small grace notes of everyday life, like the ritual of having a daily dinner with everyone present. The more substantial thing we sacrifice is time to experience the joys and mysteries of nurturing the children, the small pleasures of idle curiosity, of learning to craft things by one's own hand, and the satisfactions of friendships and social cooperation.
[it’s all competition and survival.]
These are made to seem trivial alongside wealth accumulation, but many people know they have given up something more important and mourn the loss. Some decide they will make up for it later in life, after they are financially stable. [i.e. never, or in the next life.] Still others dream of dropping out of the system [you don't have to drop out to benefit from a different life perspective. Just don't buy the consumerist/greed hype.]. If we could somehow add up all the private pain and loss caused by the pursuit of unbounded material prosperity, the result might look like a major political grievance of our time.
More important than all the other losses is that people are also denied another great intangible -- the dignity of self-directed lives. At work, at home and in the public sphere, most people lack the right to exercise much of a voice in the decisions governing their daily lives. Most people (not all) are subject to a system of command and control over their destinies.[like what communism was supposed to be.] They know the risks of ignoring the orders from above. Not surprisingly, many citizens are resigned to this condition and accept subservience as "the way things are," and their lives are smaller as a result. Many find it hard to imagine that these confinements could be lessened, even substantially removed, if economic organizations were informed by democratic principles.
...
The challenge, as John Maynard Keynes wrote long ago, is how "to live wisely and agreeably and well" [sounds good. Avoid consumerism, etc.] once desperation and deprivation are no longer the driving forces of our existence. As the British economist predicted, the old economic problems of scarcity and survival have been solved, at least for developed nations. People should put aside the old fears, Keynes suggested, and learn how to enjoy life. Free of want and worry, we face a new challenge: to discover what it means to be truly human.
That wondrous pursuit is what I recommend as the alternative to our old definition of progress. In the years ahead, Americans will suffer unavoidable losses of familiar pleasures and be compelled to alter some deeply ingrained habits of material consumption. These painful adjustments can be endured if the people are confident the country is progressing toward a more fulfilling transformation. The essential trade-off could be expressed on a bumper sticker: Smaller Cars for Larger Lives [or no car at all.]....[and the story goes on]
___ the end
This stuff will all be part of a piece I'll do on surviving the crisis, because it ain't goin' away.
-Costick67 ( 8^P
do we pay enough attention to parenting?
If we work so much and so hard that our kids hate us (for not being close to them), we have to bribe them with gifts or wait till they take off, never to be seen again. You say 'well, I'm providing for them', but do they need the BMW, or do you? Kids seem to get in the way of our all-important 'personal lives'.I'm a parent, and I'm lucky enough to have time some for my kids, although it's usually only those whose job it is to educate others' children who have the time for this. Would you rather educate your own kids? I didn't think so.
Kids need a lot of lessons on how wild and crazy the real world is, and about how many traps there are and how they can fend for themselves. Nothing is clear anymore, except that kids need a parent at their side to show them the way; how to do stuff, what to avoid, how to behave. That's our biological/genetic calling, anyway. So, we have to keep the lines of communication open with them.
Are we just ignoring this due to economic problems or because we want to ignore this? How many of you have written off the idea of having a family? What're the reasons?
If immigrants have shown us anything it's that you don't need a BMW, or even lots of money, to raise 5 kids; just the basics, love and parenting time. But, since most educated couples feel they still can't afford kids, the government should provide economic incentives and/or time off for child birth and care. Everything is down to economics these days. Kids are the future...blah, blah.
-Costick67 ( 8^P
Here's an important book I found on alternet:
[my comments- Costick67]
William Greider (from The Nation)
This article is excerpted from William Greider's new book, Come Home, America. Copyright © 2009 by William Greider.
As Franklin Roosevelt understood, Americans will postpone immediate gratification and endure hard sacrifices -- if they must -- so long as they are convinced the future can be better than the past. But we face a far more difficult problem at our moment in history. What do you promise people who have been told they can have anything they want, who are repeatedly congratulated for living in the best of all possible circumstances? How do you tell them "the good times," as we have known them, are not coming back? Americans need a new vision that helps them deal with reality, a promising story of the future that helps them let go of the past.
Here is the grand vision I suggest Americans can pursue: the right of all citizens to larger lives. Not to get richer than the next guy or necessarily to accumulate more and more stuff but the right to live life more fully and engage more expansively the elemental possibilities of human existence. That is the essence of what so many now seem to yearn for in their lives. People -- even successful and affluent people -- are frustrated because the intangible dimensions of life have been held back or displaced in large and small ways, pushed aside by the economic system's relentless demands to maximize yields of profit and wealth. Our common moral verities have been trashed in the name of greater returns. The softer aspects of mortal experience are diminished because life itself is not tabulated in the economic system's accounting. [nor is proper parenting. This is going to come back to bite the government. Good parents make good citizens (usually) , or would they rather have anti-establishment rioters?]
The political order mistakenly accepts these life-limiting trade-offs as normal, as necessary to achieve "good times." At earlier periods of our history, the sacrifices demanded by the engine of American capitalism were widely tolerated because the nation was young and underdeveloped. The engine promised to generate higher levels of abundance, and it did. But what is the justification now, when the nation is already quite rich and the engine keeps demanding larger chunks of our lives? [they're hoping to pump up our petty personal greed/jealousy to keep us working like slaves. So, just ignore their caterwalling.]
What families, even those who are prosperous, typically lose in the exchange are the small grace notes of everyday life, like the ritual of having a daily dinner with everyone present. The more substantial thing we sacrifice is time to experience the joys and mysteries of nurturing the children, the small pleasures of idle curiosity, of learning to craft things by one's own hand, and the satisfactions of friendships and social cooperation.
[it’s all competition and survival.]
These are made to seem trivial alongside wealth accumulation, but many people know they have given up something more important and mourn the loss. Some decide they will make up for it later in life, after they are financially stable. [i.e. never, or in the next life.] Still others dream of dropping out of the system [you don't have to drop out to benefit from a different life perspective. Just don't buy the consumerist/greed hype.]. If we could somehow add up all the private pain and loss caused by the pursuit of unbounded material prosperity, the result might look like a major political grievance of our time.
More important than all the other losses is that people are also denied another great intangible -- the dignity of self-directed lives. At work, at home and in the public sphere, most people lack the right to exercise much of a voice in the decisions governing their daily lives. Most people (not all) are subject to a system of command and control over their destinies.[like what communism was supposed to be.] They know the risks of ignoring the orders from above. Not surprisingly, many citizens are resigned to this condition and accept subservience as "the way things are," and their lives are smaller as a result. Many find it hard to imagine that these confinements could be lessened, even substantially removed, if economic organizations were informed by democratic principles.
...
The challenge, as John Maynard Keynes wrote long ago, is how "to live wisely and agreeably and well" [sounds good. Avoid consumerism, etc.] once desperation and deprivation are no longer the driving forces of our existence. As the British economist predicted, the old economic problems of scarcity and survival have been solved, at least for developed nations. People should put aside the old fears, Keynes suggested, and learn how to enjoy life. Free of want and worry, we face a new challenge: to discover what it means to be truly human.
That wondrous pursuit is what I recommend as the alternative to our old definition of progress. In the years ahead, Americans will suffer unavoidable losses of familiar pleasures and be compelled to alter some deeply ingrained habits of material consumption. These painful adjustments can be endured if the people are confident the country is progressing toward a more fulfilling transformation. The essential trade-off could be expressed on a bumper sticker: Smaller Cars for Larger Lives [or no car at all.]....[and the story goes on]
___ the end
This stuff will all be part of a piece I'll do on surviving the crisis, because it ain't goin' away.
-Costick67 ( 8^P
