I was on another forum earlier and one of the posters was expressing her disdain for current western culture and it's views on family. Her exact words were "We live in a culture that loves babies and hates children and that disgusts me." She had her own reasons for feeling this way but I think everyone could interpret it in their own ways based on their experiences. Her major reason is that she is someone that had her tubes tied and she adopted 3 school-age children as opposed to infants and she was met with sneers and jeers because it's popular to only adopt babies. She has also encountered people who want money spent on programs that emphasize care for infants but those same people vote against funding for schools and youth programs. How do you feel about it? Do you believe our culture loves babies but hates kids?
Yeah. Much as it loves the unborn but hates the mother. Our government funds pre-natal care and the care of babies under a year, but after 6-weeks postpartum, moms are without insurance. And after the year, babies are without too. Our society spends so much time thinking of, spending for, and watching babies. But not too many people think that those babies will one day be kids, and then adults. Not too many think of education, health care, household, and clothing needs for children. But we go gaga for babies. WTH? I want to be a foster momma one day. Not so I can hold those cute little babies, but so I can be a positive force in the lives of the forgotten: KIDS.
Yeah, that prenatal care and infant care really gets my goat..then it stops when the kids reach a certain age as if suddenly they've become independent entities that can forage for their own food and shelter. If you are going to offer care for children, it should be for all children not just kids under a year...heck 16 year olds are still growing and developing and they deserve the same amount of concern. Alot of it is state to state...luckily my state has Healthy Start for all children until they turn 19. However, federal programs like WIC end when they turn 5. Hello? 5+ is when they need the most food to feed their nonstop energy!
I think the age is thinking about kindergarten. Then they get USDA-approved slop (unless you are lucky enough to live where the school has a clue) in free-reduced lunch. I think our culture also misses the boat with what exactly a parent's job is, and that is to raise a functioning ADULT. too many people really do raise KIDS, who never grow up.
i don't think we *hate* children, but it's true we focus on the baby much more than the child, espescially as the kid gets older. and that's a very good point, drumminmama.
Yeah, I've noticed this, too. There are thousands upon thousands of kids waiting for a good home, yet if you choose to give you baby up for adoption, you have the cream of the crop of waiting parents to pick from. I mean, it's a good thing that there's people to adopt those babies who come from unstable homes, but the older ones need care and love, too. I plan on at least being a foster parent to older kids when I'm done university and have been working for a few years. The biggest reason you hear people say why they don't want to be a foster parent to or adopt older kids, is because they say, "they have too many issuses. They're unhappy." Yeah, and they're going to get better by sitting there as a child of the state? All most of them need is a warm, loving home and someone who genuinely cares about them.
No, I don't think our culture actually cares for either. If they did, and IF ws had a "baby centric culture" we would have a "breastfeeding is the normal" culture, and ALL medical schools would have to educated all doctors on how to properly feed infants, we would have a "make your own choice about injecting your baby with Mercury and virues" culture, so people wouldn't feel they "had to" vax and maybe brain damage their children to "protect others", we wouldn't have a "lop the end off of a baby boy's penis, just cuz "society" says it's acceptable, ane he won't remember it or even feel it as a baby" culture, our boys wouldn't be subjected to mutilating "cosmetic" surgery a day after birth; we would have a "rock, nurse, and love your baby to sleep, preferably in your own bed" culture, but we have a "Trainers" who tell us our babies needs are to be ignored and that they should be left to cry, mercilessly, and pathetically, from birth, so "We" can get our 'full night's sleep"'; we would have a "free maternity leave for at least 3 years" culture. We have NONE of these things. Our culture gives lip service to loving babies. In reality babies are no more wanted or VALUED by our culture than older children. Take a baby into a resturaunt or onto a plane and see the looks you get, only to see that our society does NOT value babies at all.
that's really true, maggie. Too true...... But at the same time...and I have noticed this with Leane and other kids out there. When they're really little, they get so many "aw, she's/he's so cute" comments, even when they're freaking out and crying. But as they get older, people are give more dirty looks because they can't 'get their child under control.' But in the adoption sence, it's still very true that society prefers babies over older children, all of which deserve love.
in my personal life i am dealing with a girl who has had 3 children in 5 years and is 5 months pregnant with another when the latest is only 6 months old.... her excuse she loves babies... this would be no problem if she suppoted herself and her children but instead she recives welfare and foodstamps and 3 other governmant programs... no one has said anything to her about how shes making life hard for her children no one has made any atempt to help the older children deal with this instead they trow her a baby shower congralute her and wisper behind her back....
geez I'm so sensitive now after having Abryn. your post almost made me cry. I am going to adopt one day and I think what I'm gonna do is just pick a random child, without knowing who he or she looks like or how old they are. because they all deserve to be loved. I'm a libra, too, so there's just no way I could look at all of them and choose only one as "the best" and leave all the others there. I believe this, too. Our culture is all about ME, and money. the only people who seem to get any respect are the retired, or the young people who make lots of money. for the most part, people don't respect children. a see a lot of parents who have kicking a screaming children, yet they keep making them do whatever it is they don't want to. you'd never see them doing that to an adult. and there's a lot more I could point out.
