Standard Parent Question

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
And though its nebulous and just my own biased background, I think a truly good parent, or good life for a child, really has little to do with money once you get past the poverty line. It has to do with family, love, being there for each other. If you're born into that, no matter how young your parents, you have the roots for success in life.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem is, we have to admit that many of us won't be particularly good parents. We may not realize it before we have kids, nor while raising them, nor after what's done is done. Thinking you'll be a good parent is a wonderful optimism that I would wish on anyone, but by my definition, at least, they're probably not all that common.

The problem is, having good roots counts for a lot less than it used to. With the way the economy has been polarizing for so long, with the middle class shrinking and jobs being exported, America is becoming a far less economically secure place for our children than it was for us and our fathers and even grandfathers.

The problem is, for the kids, that they are in a decades-long race to compete with other kids for the good careers, and starting out with the right footing is extremely important.

Public schools are fairly disastrous in many places, even in middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods. A kid lucky enough to go to a top public school is in the vast minority, and has vastly less to overcome than his peers. A kid in a bad school may not only hardly learn a thing, but never really learn how to learn, period, or understand why that's important. He may become part of a milieu that gives him little chance to catch up to peers that are properly educated and motivated, at school and at home.

College costs are going up tremendously, and have been for a long time. Kids who can afford to get into the best colleges, or perhaps even halfway decent ones at all, will likely be a smaller percentage in the future.

I see America as an increasingly competitive place with great opportunities for those properly groomed to take their place at the top, but with some pretty crushing burdens for those elsewhere. It's so much harder to afford a house than it used to be. College is so much more expensive, and getting a college education doesn't really count for that much even when you get it. Social security, medical care, undoubtedly increased taxes to meet the problems of our over-burdened, over-spent society, even the high costs of more and more mandated insurance, are going to be very tough things for people of moderate means to deal with, especially kids fresh out of school.

It seems to me that raising children can't be taken so casually anymore. It's not enough to be a postman or stay out of jail, if you want to own a home, make an okay living, and retire at a normal age and not in poverty anymore. Kids face a different world that I don't think our society has come fully around to acknowledging yet. Deciding to have kids seems to be a much more serious business than ever, and parents having an excellent head on their shoulders, and taking a very active interest in their kids' lives and development, seems imperative now rather than optional, if they don't want to see their kids' be worse off than they are. Kids having opportunities and a lifestyle as good as or equal to their parents probably used to be felt as a sort of American birthright. We can't take that for granted anymore at all, and so popping out kids just because that's the way it was always done before, and because one might as well just do what they like and hope for the best, seems very outdated to me.