The authors of one of your readings for this week argue that whereas Americans claim to love children, many policies and practices demonstrate quite the opposite. What are you thoughts on this claim? If you agree, then point out several additional examples. If you disagree, provide a few examples that illustrate how Americans respect (and value) children and childhood. Make sure you explain your examples.
Be sure to answer in a new post.
I think Americans, as a majority, love the "idea" of children but demonstrate practices towards them that are detrimental to them. Trends I've noticed in parenting include an overload in activities, pressure to be "successful" Catering to a child's identity to the point that the children have a disproportionate sense of "self" and expectation in regards to their accountability and coping skills. Almost "over loving".
ReplyDeleteI agree with the author's claim that America is actually not a child loving nation. As the author says, it may seem that on the surface we love kids and all; however, when you go deeper and examine our country's laws and systems set up to educate and nurture our youth, we are not at all loving towards the next generation. Coming from a public high school of more that 3,000 students in southern California, I always felt that there was a war against kids. I felt that my school's administrative mindset was that it was usually the kids fault or that the students were to blame for problems on campus such as: violence, low grades, or student apathy. It seemed that the school's solution for many problems was to punish the student, and not to educate or help. This is strictly anecdotal and just from my experience, but all throughout high school I felt that there was an obvious flaw in the system: sit down in a classroom for 1 hour, don't talk to your peers, then go to another class, listen and respect your teacher. I always felt like there was a double standard in student and teacher/administration relationships: you must respect and obey your teachers, yet they do not have to respect their students. Obviously, this is not true for every teacher, but I certainly felt like a lesser citizen just because I was a kid. Children have been taught to accept that they are second class citizens in our society, which I think is absolute bogus. In our country, kids generally do not have a say in their education or life, they must listen and respect authority. I remember thinking and talking about how high school was like prison; based on "controlling" the students, and not educating and opening minds. Authoritative and bureaucratic structures like this seem inherently bad to me, as they create apathy, complacency, anger, rebellion and negative relationships. This is just part of the atmosphere and mindset that our youth grow up with, and it is clearly not as productive or "loving" as it should be.
ReplyDeleteI think you made some interesting points. I went through school here in Butte so it is interesting to read the viewpoint of someone who did not. I think another good reason to consider would be that, as time has gone on, more and more responsibility is put solely on the teachers. Some parents I've spoken with actually resent teachers that require their students finish homework with parental help and supervision. These same parents see it as the teacher's job to provide all aspects of the child's education. Leaving parents only responsible for the financial and emotional well being. Sounds crazy, but there you have it.
DeleteMary Yates 9/5/13 Children
ReplyDeleteI feel that as a society, we are letting our children down in an effort to make them happy. It seems like we only care about what we have and want, versus our children's future needs or long term effects. Every where we look, we see violence and negative examples without any mention of the damage it can create on a subconscious level. Instead of healing, and looking at the root of our problems, we go to doctors for quick fix prescriptions.
Money and politics seem to motivate our reasons for leaving the children in need of services without, while the wealthy have more resources than needed. Is money a logical solution? It seems like we have to have more money in order to take actions while there are plenty of businesses that could donate their facilities when not in use, as well as therapists, doctors, and every day people willing to devote a few hours a week, in hopes of helping a child. Whose job is it to take a stand for our children? What ever happened to pride, respect, and morals? We see less and less of them in today's societies. In my opinion, theories are useless without these things and it is up to us to make the changes needed.
I noticed you said to answer in a new post, i could only figure out how to comment like this. But anyways, i am on the fence with this issue. The author made us sound like a third world country. I cant really argue the statistics. In my opinion it boils down to how less fortunate/poor people are treated. I think the children that are born into this category would be a huge part of what the author mentioned. I don't really think these people are treated differently, there just not given the opportunities that many "well off" Americans take for granted. The author did mention parents that had salary increases did better in school and life. so maybe there is a bigger picture to this, if wealth was more evenly spread the nation would be much better off.
ReplyDeleteThe "epidemic of pedophobia",("Disrespecting Childhood", Ibid., p.46.), displayed a blatant disregard for the respect of America's youth. Although there are efforts put forth to protect children from heinous crimes and to ensure nourishment and health, there is an unspoken liability for the future leaders of this country.
ReplyDeleteChildren are often targeted in advertisement to ensure the future of the brand or company name. One enthralling statistic from the reading, "more than 133,000 children are in juvenile or adult correctional facilities on any given day", shows the lack of proper development and determination of bettering these kids. When deviant behavior is displayed, punitive punishment is enforced rather than rehabilitative alternatives to correcting behavior. There is an equivocation about adolescents that, in turn, results in fear, bitterness, and suspicion. For example, a teen walks into a department store followed by an elderly person- Which one will be closely monitored by the store's associates? This suspicion displays the lack of respect for youth.
Do Americans love children? I love children. I love children that obey and behave; otherwise I despise your child. My disgust towards children needs to be redirected to our society who believes our children our glorious. Our children are revered yet many of our children are in families whose income is below the poverty line? Delinquent children are more likely to be in a family below the poverty line. Children that live in poverty are more likely to not attend college, fail to graduate high school, and participate in criminal behavior.
ReplyDeleteMany of the badly behaving children I’ve tutored in the past come from poverty. These children have social anxiety disorders, have a dysfunctional family, and struggle in their scholastic studies. 16 million children (or approximately 22% of children) in the United States are living below the poverty line according to the National Center for Children in Poverty (http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_1074.html). The majority of these children in poverty are minorities. The statistics are as follows: 11 million are Hispanic, 6.5 million are black, 1 million are Asian, and 12.1 million are white.
Joe Klein, a reporter for Time Magazine, believes the Head Start program is a broken program (http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2081778,00.html#ixzz1UqSuspUQ). A 2000 study by Eliana Garces, Duncan Thomas, and Janet Currie, show the benefits of Head Start progress throughout the development of the child. White children in Head Start are more likely to attend college. African American children are more likely to graduate high school and are less likely to participate in criminal behavior.
If the United States cares about its children, they should work to eliminate the factors surrounding children that live in poverty. We can hardly expect children to behave like angels if they are hungry, cannot receive proper medical treatment, or grow up in a household where the highest education level of the parents is the 8th grade. America has to fix the ever widening socioeconomic gaps that are crippling our nation’s youth.
Apologies for the gaps, apparently it did not like the copy and paste from MS Word.
DeleteThere's a link button in the toolbar above the text box. As for the gaps, mind them.
DeleteAmerican politics believe that the youth of the nation are the future and will make the world a better place and parents want their offspring to live a better life then they did. in the past century, there has been improvement on childcare and education but still seen as inferior due to age and lack of experience.
ReplyDeleteI like how in this article it mentions that "as a society, we love our children-when they are under control". makes it apparent in this report that there is little tolerance for the youth. leading to more incarcerating children acting out. so instead of dealing with the problem in a productive way, juveniles are simply pulled away from the public, where they won't be a problem.
i dont like how the supreme court in 1995 supported
the notion that simply being an adolescent is reasonable cause for authorities to suspect drug abuse and demand urine samples. that's discrimination and to have schools give random piss tests is a clear statement that the government does not care for the rights of the kids who have given no justifiable reason to be treated like a criminal.