Posts Tagged ‘Education’

“Where’s Mom?” Or, “Virtually Invisible in Public Policy Agenda” — The Amazing, Disappearing Word, “Mother”!

If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

I revisited WhiteHouse.Gov/Issues/Families (again) to check my memory or whether the Change we are to hold in our national imagination, did not include — almost at all — the concept of MOTHER in association with the word FAMILY.

I was right, and will demonstrate this for you today:

Despite public proclamations that we are suffering from “father-absence,” in fact, our country’s going to hell fast unless we declare war on fatherlessness (source of society’s ills), I am here to tell you, to the contrary, public policy actually is suffering — and has been for some years now — from “MOTHER-ABSENCE.”

I mean, I went looking and the word is just about Not There! Below (skip down to the color-coded section if you are short on time) I am going to take you by the hand (so to speak) and show you this, from “whitehouse.gov.” If time and fate allow, on another day, I will show you the almost identical phenomenon on the “Family Violence Prevention Fund” website. Possibly this relates to the respectable, and long-established nonprofit having taken its funding from certain government departments (like HHS), or perhaps it relates to its Board of Directors (I did look); it seems to be a sea-change. We’ve gone so Ga-ga over Dada that it has become necessary, supposedly, to eradicate the mere mention of “Mama” from the vocabulary.

I have picked up a similar trend, possibly, in even the National Organization for Women, which I declare HAS helped me considerably in family law matters (no, I am not a member), but which appears in some respects to have dropped the ball. It seems that no one can really picture a world with the word “mother” in it, but instead daycare is in order — only. LGBT rights and Pro-Choice candidates (that means, choice to abort) are the word of the day. The fantastic background, for example, that I see on the California NOW Family Law Page, seems to have languished since about 2005. More on that later. Yet feminism, motherhood, and choice to stay home with one’s own, ARE women’s issues. That topic, I have not fully looked at yet — I am too upset by the current topic.

Women are allowed to exist, just not for the most part, “mothers.” I don’t think this is accidental.

How are we supposed to fulfill our maternal obligations in any personally responsible manner if someone one at the Top Doesn’t Remind us of it (and promise to Reward us for it, too, you know, the carrot and stick routine of behavioral modification? That is, FYI, what our government is doing these days to Fathers. It’s stroking their — egos — verbally, talking them, it hopes, into an upright, erect, and functional position within their families.

Which, apparently, do not include mothers. I mean, can YOU Find it on these pages?

I went looking again, and if you can tolerate my bad taste, off-color sarcasm (which makes me — and I’m a Momma with a bad hair day in progress — a little happier). If you can’t change it, mock it. But I mean, how come this type of talk is being taken seriously? Is our public education system, nationally speaking, worse off than I even imagined? I mean– is it that no one is LOOKING? Or is it that this is now normal talk?

You can either scroll right down past the opening (long) dialogue (again, which makes me feel a little better for having said it) to the portion where I start color-coding a page of the white house web page (I think this is called profiling, but I don’t think it’s illegal) to illustrate just how many times the word “mother” appears on a full blown description of “Families.” and the Obama Administration’s agenda for us.

I know someone who runs a blog called “Mothers of Lost Children.” (wordpress.com in case you were curious). However, this pages talks plenty about “children,” but seems to have lost a grip on the fact that before you get a single child, ANY child, somehow, somewhere, sthere has to be a delivery. And she can be cutt open, conscious or unconscious, she can push it out, with or without help, but THE second that baby comes, alive, out of her womb, SHE becomes technically speaking, a MOTHER. So IO just feel that as a good proportion of the population, and as mother of ALL of the US population, wherever we presently are, the word MOTHER should be statistically a little better represented than it currently is. Below.

Of course the reason I myself am actually LOOKING at these sites, is that I want answers for why my mothering wasn’t good enough for this court system; behaviorally, I committed no crime, obeyed the law, and shared my kids with Dad. I also worked, taught, and educated those girls. I speculate (below, top rant — not summary rant) on what the cardinal sin was. You may not be interested, but I bet the color coded guide to the Family page might be relevant to these discussions. Perhaps — this will show why I got all hot and bothered when a group from Australia surfaced, talking about the issues of domestic violence and poverty, and could actually SAY the word “mothers” in a non-negative sense. (NCSMC).

Well, wordpress takes about 4 minutes to save these days, so here it goes:

I complained about this last April, also

https://familycourtmatters.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/the-disappearing-word-mother-owh-of-the-hhs-and-ace-again/

I know I have been picking on “President Obama” in this blog.

Well, He’s not my Daddy, and he’s not the Nation’s Daddy, He’s not the Father of all the Head Start Children, and He’s not my Webster’s Dictionary or Roget’s Thesaurus. Neither He, nor the Executive Branch of the United States, nor all 3 branches together, not one entity is my Messiah either.

You can’t tell this by reading what the White House has been saying, or taking a good look at some of the HHS budget. We are in Designer-Family mode (designer-nation mode?) Have we ALL forgotten the words, republic? Legislature? etc.? Just because some people have fancier, faster, and more interlaced internet connections (i’ve had to FIGHT even to keep mine on, post-divorce), that shouldn’t eradicate our form of government (of, by for the people, right?) How many people, specifically?

I’m a domestic violence survivor, and a vocal/choral person. My BUSINESS has been paying attention to words, for performance, and for survival. They are indicators, they are signposts, and they can incite people to different activities, including sometimes wars, or genocides. And I have studied some of these, and just as there ARE parallels between PTSD after domestic violence and PTSD after war, there are also parallels between the talk PRECEDING such things as the Holocaust and Rwanda. Hate-talk, broad sweeping declarations, and scapegoating.

I can’t figure out what’s behind scapegoating motherhood as a whole, unless someone really HAS produced an artificial womb, and we will not longer be even needed for the first 9 months or so. Whatever’s behind it, I say, wake up!

Back to our President. He’s NOT my kids, or the nation’s kids, “Daddy.”

He’s the Elected (and not by a landslide, either) President, and sworn-to-uphold the Constitution Man on the Job. I think too many Americans (perhaps we may point to our school systems?) have forgotten that document, along with the Bill of Rights, and have possibly lost our moorings among the designers of the titanic (pun intended) ship of state.

LINGUISTICALLY, I can say that language doesn’t even match biology on many of the white house sites, evidence-based practice or no “evidence-based practice.”

Upholding the Constitution and performing the office of President — and not designing and restructuring families, linguistically or any other way — IS the job description, among other things — detailed in the U.S. Constitution.

ANECDOTAL TESTIMONY

I’m a mother. I’m no longer kicking out babies to shortly thereafter kick out of my house (to go to Head Start, Early Head Start, or offer their poor little selves for a 0 to 5 program evaluation of “how children learn” or “the effect of paternal involvement on school readiness” or such.

I didn’t become a Mom:

undereducated,

poor(relatively speaking), or

unacquainted with responsible MOTHERhood,

Like many of my cohorts, I got more than a bachleor’s degree — and professional experience — before hooking up and settling down, I wasn’t clueless on how life works or how to have a healthy baby.

I also didn’t become a Mom even outside wedlock, which happened mostly to be simply part of my belief system, both common sense and faith.

I also didn’t become a Mom in my teens (or pre-teens), or even 20s, but late 30s, in fact I was 40 for one child. Nor am I at all alone in this statistical profile.

I had not been taught how instinctively to tell when wedlock might turn into a “headlock” which mine did, physically speaking. Maybe a more promiscuous lifestyle, or prostitution for that matter, MIGHT have taught me to judge men better, but I doubt it.

Now I have a rhetorical question, for Father Obama: I realize you are recently a President (although as a Senator — and in 2007, the 10th richest in the US, according to one study I read), you did not START the Fatherhood thing, and we now have a pretty good idea who. (“WE” meaning women who’ve been through what I have. Note. Most of us wouldn’t qualify for spitting out more kids for the 0 to 5 program. One thing I have recently Re-qualified for is Food Stamps.) Actually, I have two questions:

QUESTION 1:

(1) Where’s the Change in the fatherhood propanda? Aren’t we done yet? If not, why not? You are talking just like Bush & Clinton in this regard. The talk matches the budget — you don’t want the kids with Mama, and you consider OUR kids YOUR (communal) property, i.e., the “Property of the State.” While this may be appropriate for a prison uniform (only) or a courthouse, it is NOT appropriate for boys, girls, and adult mothers, or, for that matter, law-abiding fathers.

When about half the US is female, and a GOOD portion of those are OVER 21 years AND mothers, one time or another, Where’s the Representation of this word in the White House Style Sheets? Because I’ve looked, and I see “women” (though not filed, for the most part, under “families”) but I don’t see “MOTHER.”

So rhetorical question one is, that aint’ change — where’s the change in this talk, action, and budgeting?

QUESTION 2:

(2) Since you have now proved how a single MOTHER can get a son into the U.S.Presidency (and married to a Harvard grad), and since

I have now proved how a single MOTHER can get get one intact (female) child into the UC Berkeley, and graduating in the top 3% of her class, despite hell she went through from 2-8 (when I filed TRO with kickout) and MORE hell and abuse (including parental kidnapping — unchecked, unreported, and uncorrected), and I also proved how to get my entire household OFF food stamps and within plain view of solvent — withOUT taking up some of the $XX,000 of state (or is it federal?) public education funds to do so — how come YOU can’t keep YOUR administration out of MY family’s pants, purse, and pursuit of excellence, let alone happiness?

How come you can’t say the word “MOTHER” on the site “FAMILIES” in “WHITE HOUSE.GOV”

I’m now back on a Food Stamps leash (no nonfoods, no cat food, no vitamins, no fish oil, and only certain– higher -riced — stores are acceptable).

While I”m on the topic, we have recently learned that the head of “Office of Child Support Enforcement” (Nicholas Soppa) and “Project Save Our Children” is himself a deadbeat Dad in the employ of — get this – the largest federal department, you guessed it, HHS. Last I heard, he spends his weekends in jail rather than pay that money-grubbing bitch (MOTHER of his children). I doubt it’s that he can’t, or needs job training. He is himself a deadbeat Dad. And how come the HHS refuses to garnish his wages?

Why has “competent single mother” become an unpronounce-able concept? Why have women like myself become a social pariah? Because I might show someone else where certain policies are full of holes

Now, I had myself off that, and my household too, until Family Law had a better program design, a seamless, womb to tomb, morning to night, hospital to hospital (birth/death), nationalized everything plan. I didn’t want to sign up for the educational portion of this, which REALLY, I guess put a monkey wrench in the works — a solvent single mother not on food stamps and off the radar. “Help, help, get her back!” Was the sense I had.

And I was within range of getting off that child support safety (?) net too. I ALMOST made it. I called this behavior “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” which didn’t take $100K a year for me, IN fact, I have since learned, I was making somewhere around what it costs to incarcerate an adult male in my state, for a year.

But I had just not done my patriotic and Personal Responsiblity to JOIN the welfare state. I wasn’t earning enough money to fund a foundation, or REALLOY kick in some tax revenues, NOR was my family, really on welfare and as such providing fodder for the Ph.D. programs’ federal grants to study.

(NOTE: this may sound irrational. Don’t judge until you’ve followed more of the links, posts, and data I have, many of them on this site. I was stunned, too. I felt fiscally clobbered at first, finding out how, why, and pretty much by whom my household — FAMILY – had gotten legally clobbered.)

Anyhow, back to then, me as single mother, daring to pursue happiness without enough government guidance. This HAD to be stopped. I would like to note here, that the guidance counselor (unsolicited), self-appointed, for the job, and just graduated from a government (actually, state) certification program, at which time it became clear that, as wet as (he, coincidentally, not “she” at this point) was under the ears in this category, this was no deterrent. Full of age, gender, pride, and presumption, he jumped, full-immersion style, into my personal business and continued to attempt to run it against my will, even after I (politely) put him out of my house and closed the door afterwards. And said, No thank you.

In fact, it was in this person’s subsequent (again, unsolicited) essays to me, about my sins (what else?), including dire prophecies and psychological armchair insights, (and a medical diagnosis or two of me, or my children thrown in for good measure), that I noticed this linguistic tricks, and perspective-switching talk, such as calling something “dysfunctional” which had already been called “violent” and mentally erasing about 20 hears of my life history, addressing me as if I was a little ignorant child, and a wayward one at that.

Anyhow, several years ago< i was caught in the act of being Personally Responsible AND a Mother, and without a man in the house. I forgot to add, our daughters were seeing Daddy regularly, in fact weekly (unless he skipped by choice). Even though a DV restraining order was in place. We were healing, recovering, and prospering. Horrors! !!!

Enter “Family Law” venue, the reversal of the income growth chart, and back go Food Stamps, eventually. It took a little while, because I fought back. Oh yes, that’s not a responsible motherhood behavior either. No, no.

ANYHOW:

Virtually Invisible in Public Agenda

This should be not taken personally, although I am having a bit of hard time, on behalf of the many, many mothers who became noncustodial as what now seems to be an overdosage of federal fatherhood funding f–ing (excuse me..) “duking it out with” due process in the family law arena.

I have noticed this before. I thought I would visually and statistically SHOW how ODD it is that the word “mother” just went underground, in favor of “father.”

Hey, if cars are going off the road and hitting pedestrians (see my last “can we call it a Day on these “Days”? post), which they are (some of them kids, many of them women), one might look at mechanical system (laws, rules of court). One might look at the gas in the tank (VERY few do this, some do, Liz Richards of NAFCJ.net in the D.C. area being one, also people in StopFamilyViolence.now and some others have finally begun looking at the FUNDING) (see randijames.com also). FINALLY.

How many are also looking, perhaps at the carburetor? It adjusts the mix of gas and air in the inflow right? (I’m obviously no mechanic). How rich is the fuel? Is there oxygen?

Well, the “atmosphere” of the “inflow” (of gas — cf. $$) is the rarefied vocabulary of the tops, decisionmaking intake funnels of these places.

Today, we look at usage. WORDS.

WHERE’S MOM? WHERE ARE MOTHERS?

what did we do, to deserve to disappear?

I have some friends who belong to N.O.W. (I don’t) and we commented on the need to return

this issues of mothers and the courts to the dialogue. The public has a short attention, but it takes a good 18 years at least to raise a responsible father or a safe mother, or (tap on wood) perhaps both genders might make it to 21 without starting a family yet.

I personally feel that keeping the public education system both relevant and engaging MIGHT help in this matter, but that’s my private opinion.

I already did this for FVPF.org. Here, I am doing it for WHITEHOUSE.GOV/ISSUES/FAMILY.

The Message is in the Usage.

The Power of Repetition

WHAT IS THIS, GENDER/BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION PROFILING?

HOW DOES OBAMA/WHITE HOUSE/YOUR GOVT? LOVE THEE?

LET ME COUNT (and Color Code) THE WAYS.

1x PINK — mothers — ONE, and ONLY one, stellar appearance, (not independently of fathers.)
10x BROWN — Families
BLUE — Fathers OR Fatherhood
4x GREEN — PARENTS
13x Grape — Children, Young people
3X RED: — Women. (“Ladies first”)
(Never independent of “and men” or children
3x “and men”/1x “young men”
“President Obama Is/was/are/will”

FAMILY

Progress

Ten days after taking office, the President established a White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, led by Vice President Biden. The Task Force is focused on raising the living standards of middle-class, working families across America.

The President’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided needed support to families enduring difficult times.

The Act protects health coverage for 7 million Americans who lose their jobs through a 65 percent COBRA subsidy to make coverage affordable.
The Act also boosts family incomes by expanding the Child Tax Credit to cover an additional 10 million children in working families and creating a new Make Work Pay tax credit.
To help working mothers and fathers obtain quality child care, the Act includes an additional $2 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, $1 billion for Head Start, and $1.1 billion for Early Head Start.
To fight hunger, the Act includes a $20 billion increase for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps, as well as funding for food banks and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
The Act increases the Weatherization Assistance Program by $5 billion to help low income families save on their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient.
The Act increases job training funds for those who need them most, with $3.95 billion in additional funding for the Workforce Investment system, which will support green job training, summer jobs for young people, and other opportunities.
The Act provides increased income support, including an increase of $25 per week for Unemployment Insurance recipients and incentives for states to expand unemployment insurance eligibility, as well as an extra $250 payment to Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries and new resources for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

Guiding Principles

A strong nation is made up of strong families. Every family deserves the chance that so many of our parents and grandparents had – to make a better future for themselves and their children. Strong families will always be front and center of President Obama’s agenda.

Support Working Families

President Obama is committed to creating jobs and economic opportunities for families across America. And he is restoring fairness to the tax code and increasing child care so that working families have the support they need.

Reform Health Care

President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive health reform in his first year in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctors, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Invest in Education

President Obama is committed to providing every child access to a complete and competitive education, from cradle through career. First, the President supports a seamless and comprehensive set of services and support for our youngest children, from birth through age 5. Next, President Obama will reform and invest in K-12 education so that America’s public schools deliver a 21st Century education that prepares all children for success in the new global workplace. Finally, President Obama is committed to ensuring that America will regain its lost ground and have the highest proportion of students graduating from college in the world by 2020.

Promote Work-family Balance

Millions of women and men face the challenge of trying to balance the demands of their jobs and the needs of their families. Too often, caring for a child or an aging parent puts a strain on a career or even leads to job loss. President Obama believes we need flexible work policies, such as paid sick leave, so that working women and men do not have to choose between their jobs and meeting the needs of their families.

Strengthen Families

President Obama was raised by a single parent ** and knows the difficulties that young people face when their fathers are absent. He is committed to responsible fatherhood, by supporting fathers who stand by their families and encouraging young men to work towards good jobs in promising career pathways. The President has also proposed an historic investment in providing home visits to low-income, first-time parents by trained professionals. The President and First Lady are also committed to ensuring that children have nutritious meals to eat at home and at school, so that they grow up healthy and strong.

**{{President Obama’s parent: REALLY? WAS IT A MOTHER OR A FATHER? IS THIS A PUBLIC SECRET?? CAN WE SAY “MOTHER” HERE?}}}

RELATED BLOG POSTS

MON, JUNE 22, 9:29 AM EST

Fathers Out on the Town

A little more backstory on the famous and exceptional fathers who came to the White House for the “Responsible Fatherhood” event on Friday.

READ THIS POST

SUN, JUNE 21, 10:27 AM EST

Responsible Fatherhood

A special Father’s Day video, and an op-ed from the President on being a responsible father.

Includes video.

READ THIS POST

FRI, JUNE 19, 7:39 PM EST

A Town Hall on Fatherhood

The President hosts a town hall at the White House to discuss the importance of fatherhood and personal responsibility.

Updated with video.

READ THIS POST

READ ALL RELATED BLOG POSTS

FROM THE PRESS OFFICE

FRI, JUNE 19, 4:15 PM EST

President Obama Launches National Conversation On Importance of Fatherhood and Personal Responsibility

FRI, JUNE 19, 9:28 AM EST

Presidential Proclamation Father’s Day

FRI, JUNE 19, 8:26 AM EST

ADVISORY: President Obama to Discuss Importance of Fatherhood and Personal Responsibility

READ ALL OTHER RELATED ITEMS

MY COMMENTARY:

Hey, I had a choice of candidates, and he got my vote, for many reasons. ONE of which was, I felt that perhaps, having been raised by a single MOTHER (translated below into the word “parent”), he might acknowledge, along with me, a single mother who, absent government interference through this family law forum, and despite domestic violence, was shouldering my “Personal Responsibility” without complaining about it, hesitating, or dodging it, either. I’m not anti–work. I also loved my children. In fact, when someone was interfering with me doing this, I actually sought help so I could continue to carry my share of work, and I already was of parenting. When their education was inferior, I also returned to the former, superior brand of it, innocently enough and reasonably so.

MORAL: NEVER, if possible get on one more than 3 governmentally organized radars simultaneously.

Little did then I know what demonstration projects had been projected upon our populace in this geographic area, and how deeply this would trickle down to the courtroom.

WHY did I not know?

Well, if your car ain’t running, would you think of looking at the atmosphere? or its mechanical operation? And how many people would go look at a federal agency (and its history) as well as a host of related credentialing and certifying organizations, and a child support agency, to figure out why this car keeps running off the side of the road (of evidence, facts, and fairness) into pedestrians? ANd yet, so extensive is the operating system these days, that this is about HOW ponderous, how networked, and how invasive and pervasive some very, very basic human processes are.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When I did certain kinds of music, for years, I lived, breathed, talked and walked certain melodies, harmonies, vocabularies. Even in some of my mental down time (including going to, from and sometimes during school, as I took buses), and on weekends, and among my friends, this was what and who we were, enthusiastically so. We knew the jargon, and used it and could discern varieties of practice within it.

WELL, the Family Experts live, breathe, talk, and walk certain jargon with each other too. When Federal talks to Nonprofit talks to University talks to Court, guess what? that’s common air inhaled.

And where’s Mom? Where did she go? Is she hiding under “Women’s Issues?” Maybe. . . . I’ll have to go look (again) Where is the positive, federally promoted ACT of MOTHERING or being a MOTHER?

Even God, and an apostle or two, compared himself in some aspects to a nursing mother, a tender nurse cherishing. Jesus Christ compared himself one time (in grief) to a mother hen. One of his hallmarks (hey– it’s my blog! Did I say no religion? My Government hasn’t said that — they have a national religion (see last few posts) and faith-based advisories too. So, deal with it!) was that he actually NOTICED women that his disciples and others ignored: widows, women caught in adultery, (Where was the man), a broke widow casting in her last mite (for the cause), and old woman stooped over, a woman with a fever, and so forth. The reason I have noticed this is the stark contrast with many buildings, and locations, I’ve been in using the word “God,” and they not only didn’t notice women (except when their services were needed), they didn’t notice when one of the men was beating on one of his women. Or, living with him, they lacked, when he didn’t — same household. Basics.

Where did the concept of Motherhood go?

I gather, it is not wanted. We are to go to work, no matter what the wages and what the future, or hand over our children to a federal program. Alternately, we could seek to enforce child support, in which case, sooner or later, it’s quite likely that any “dude” who woudln’t willingly pay it may protest, and go grab his kids back, in which case she is STILL handing over them kids.

WHOSE CHILDREN ARE THEY?

Look above: they are “our” children.

I want to know why the word “mother” is in disfavor, and whose policy was it to eliminate the usage. As a copyeditor, I know that there are “style sheets” and that these differ with different publishing houses.

As an educator, I read “The Language Police” (about the text publishing industry, telling how self-censorship affects even the proposal level of textbooks, for political correctness. I also know that, as in courts, California leads the way, along with Texas, in this arena).

So, HOW COME a private nonprofit (well-funded) dedicated to prevention of violence against families, including WOMEN, has now gone all gaga over fathers? And how come this reminded me of the whitehouse site as well?

How many people here noticed that the incoming “change.gov” did not have a hyperlink for (correct me if I was wrong), “women.”

How dare anyone talk so much about families, which requires 9 months (usually) of gestation, followed by labor for even one baby, to come to suck air, and sometimes this even can occur outside a hospital or without a doctor, and the child survive, or thrive, yet not say the word “mother?”

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

June 29, 2009 at 8:04 PM

Posted in Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Funding Fathers - literally, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Vocabulary Lessons

Tagged with Education, fatherhood, Motherhood, obfuscation, social commentary, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..

Keeping Uncle Sam Away from Toddlers (IWF article)

For once, I agree with “Independent Women’s Forum”

Brief #22

IWF Policy Brief

Cutting-edge analysis of the news of the day from the Independent Women’s Forum

June 11, 2009

Keep Uncle Sam Away from Toddlers:

The Case Against Government Funding for Preschool

By Carrie Lukas

Executive Summary

The President has suggested that greater federal

government support for early childhood education is an

important component of improving educational

opportunities in the United States and would be an

investment in our human capital. Yet there is little

evidence to support the case for greater federal

involvement in preschool.

While policymakers assume that an investment in public

preschool will lead to improved student outcomes, the

research on the effects of preschool is far from

conclusive. Some studies have linked preschool

attendance with short-term gains in student test scores

and other education-related outcomes, but those

improvements fade over time. Additionally, most studies

that have found significant gains associated with

preschool have focused on lower-income or at-risk

student populations. There is no reason to think that such gains would also occur among the general

student population, which is the target of most “universal” preschool proposals. Still, other studies

have linked increased time in preschool with negative social behavior, which would suggest that

encouraging greater use of preschool could contribute to as many problems as it solves.

LINK:

http://www.iwf.org/files/ccd51591aa7467a111d9f4437830ea9c.pdf

This is better viewed as PDF than on here.

However, as a reminder:

The words School, Education, and Learning are not synonymous, if you think about them.

The attempt of the present (and past) administrations to equate the U.S. Public School Educational system with either Education, or Public, is linguistically and financially ridiculous.

Language is not math. For example, anyone declaring, openly, that

10+10 =/= 20

would probably not become President, Governor, or a U.S. Senator or Assemblyperson. It lacks a certain credibility. It creates a certain cognitive dissonance, until the missing data shows up, such as, perhaps:

10(-15+5)+10=/=20

EVEN a US public school 4th grader PROBABLY (wish I could say this for sure) would recognize that something was amiss with that equation. If they knew the symbol “=/=,” which is unlikely, come to think of it. It is simply my intent — in this blog — to show some of the missing math behind the Linguistic Cognitive Dissonance of Government Proclamations that are getting people killed, or raped, or keeping them artificially on welfare. This is NOT rocket science, it simply takes — like the best most effective kind of learning will — being highly motivated to know, and being willing to remove a few blinders and sunglasses that have made the glaring facts a little less difficult to handle.

Unfortunately, we have had Presidents (plural), and U.S. Senators AND Representatives (I haven’t checked all the “governors” yet) pronouncing a similar epidemic and supposed problem without substantial questioning of it — from the general public. Now, that simply lacks credibility. I posted, after Mother’s Day, the data that “fatherhood” was NOT woefully, federally underfunded in 2009, 2008, or at any identifiable time since about 1995.

There’s perhaps more than one reason it’s sad that “religion” (supposedly) was deleted from the public school system. Now, as a person who has taken some serious hits — literally — under the guise of “wives submit” as from the Bible, I have seen its underbelly. But there are SOME upsides to some of the wisdom in some of these holy writs of the major religions. For example, how sad that all women about to engage in a sexual — let alone marital — relationship, didn’t understand this simplicity:

(I’ll give a version I have no respect for — it even comes across in this one):

GOD’S WORD® Translation (©1995)
A gullible person believes anything, but a sensible person watches his step.

Now, when nearly an entire nation is this gullible, on one of the FIRST places I would look is at the educational system.

OR,

“For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.”

(end of “James 3,” King James Version)

There ARE few areas more full of strife, confusion, and “evil works” that the family law system, as testified to by the family annihilations of people in it, or about to go into it. Unless NAMBLA is your cup of tea. Now, the US is not just the Western hemisphere’s, but the WORLD’s largest (per capita) jailor. The jails are so full that domestic violence offenders and sexual offenders are getting released to re-offend, and sometimes kill, too. Every now and then, we throw an honest professional protesting the corruption in jail, too, just for good measure. (Google “Richard Fine”) or disbarr them (Google Barry Goldstein). Women, sometimes with their children, are fleeing to other countries for their children’s safety. Others are not so lucky.

So, a logical question would be, “what’s the strife ABOUT” and the envy?

As a domestic violence survivor, I will clearly tell you, it was about CONTROL, and there were three primary tools and techniques (let alone the many subsidiary, supplemental ones): 1. MONEY 2. PHYSICAL FORCE (good initially to establish who’s the boss) 3. TIME (wasting mine). The FIRST arena of control was to break down my infrastructure — credit, then bank account. Oh, and transportation.

The physical assaults began when I was already somewhat dependent because of the care of one toddler and one inside me. Parts of my body that were attacked included neck (most frequent), leg (to pull me off the chair), and face/mouth (covering mine, but also nipple, and right after nursing. What KIND of person would do that? I had the bone-chilling experience of hearing/reading the child that was assaulted in the womb later, much later, declare that she remembered being in it. There are few things, short of foolishly getting myself killed (and leaving them without the protection, or a later reference for truth, when they are older and hungry for answers, of “what happened in our family line?”) that I would not do to protect, advocate for, and remove from danger these daughters.

Any male, or gang of males that would institutionalize a policy stating that fathers — all fathers, with basically little discrimination — are important, and all female-headed households are the source of our nation’s woes, is forgetting or deliberately covering up this type of behavior, which I already witnessed, was justified itself on THAT type of talk.

Look: go up in public and try to categorize an ethnic group in the same terms, and see who elects you.

Just as my ex, intent that his side of reality prevail, took my kids (illegally) and cut off all contact, lying before, during and after the process (this is documented, and not slander, I have the signed under penalty of perjury documents) and then continued to break every court order since, with brazen impunity, it seems very “odd” that our fatherhood friendly administration is so intent on getting these little children OUT of their parent’s homes and INTO hatcheries overseen (shall we expect the same level of competence?) by this same government.

There is also a reason that the family courts are continuing the process. I think that therefore, addressing the issues of pre-school, zero to five, head start, and child care, are NOT really tangential to the issue of family court. Continuing with another forgotten proverb:

OR, simply

“…For the love of money is the root of all evil…”

In this blog, I link to search tools, challenge public proclamations about the state of affairs, and have all but begged people to “follow the money.” I just showed you which: Branch/Department, Operating Division of THAT department, and programs UNDER that department, some of this money is housed in. I have posted charts and tables, slowing down the page-load speed, in an attempt to show you the Federal Parentheses transferring money from one group of people (producing RED ink) to another group of people, producing professional, publishing careers. ~ ~ ~10(-15+5)+10=/=20 ~ ~

In this field, WHO — out of HOW MANY domestic violence prevention programs, even the most prominent ones, are actually “following the money?” I learned – the hard way — to look at who is funding THOSE programs, as well as who is on their boards and management teams, and to notice linguistic changes over time. Pronounce after me:

“misogyny”

As to “every evil work,” if you don’t think raping, kidnapping, or killing little boys and girls –whether in school, or in the care of a recently parentally-educated father on a weekend visitation — or shortly after his wife attempted to leave him –is an “evil” work, then, well, I guess you should check out some other blogs that, in an “adult” manner, blame the entire CLASS (gender) of women for the world’s ills, while still taking advantages of their services in bed, in child care, and in the office, and possibly as household domestics.

Or just go back to sleep mentally, and fork over your dollars to the IRS trusting that it will be well-used, and that if you duck YOUR family won’t be affected. Note: the sleep thing can be done at work, sometimes, school (trust me, I did, and still came out in top 3% of my (public school) class), and in a variety of faith-based institutions, MANY of which are driving government policy.

We are approximately half the world’s population; common sense says, there is some variety in each gender. This is not true in Congress, though.

What I’m CONCERNED about is that there may not be much more variety given the trend, in educational options for the up and coming generations. They will not know how to have a stable bond with EITHER parent at this rate, and I have to ask why. The real “gap” will not be gender but haves versus have-nots. MY experience that the ONLY way to level the playing field, was homeschooling, and figuring out a more efficient way (we’re talking simple math: + + – – ) to make a living.

It has been a VERY long time since I equated the monolithic public school system with anything approaching education, as opposed to indoctrination.

What motivated me to find out WHY Family Court AND the child support system uniformly didn’t do their assigned and proclaimed jobs was being slapped in the face (while minding my own business) when they didn’t. It bounced me out of work and back onto dependence. The LAST thing I wanted after leaving domestic violence, and the last lesson I wanted my smart children to absorb: Sell your soul to the highest bidder, and cast your lot with whichever parent is NOT under prolonger, personal fire.

Language is NOT math, yet it does have a FEW logical rules attached, for example as a thesaurus would show, NOT all nouns are synomymous.

When the same President (and Administration) that tells us, an epidemic of fatherlessness just rained down from heaven, and female-headed households are doomed for disaster (Say, what? Are you or are you NOT President?) because struggle and hard times (or emotions) were involved, now says that:

Education = Public School Education only

Head Start actually helps long-term

(and this same President has virtually deleted the concept of ‘motherhood” and the word “mother” from public dialogue)

(and the concept of “educational choice” as allowing charter schools (which are also government-funded) ignoring that “homeschooling” DOES exist (and many times works better), and other such propaganda,

Then we have not only a linguistic, but also a financial crisis in credibility. We have a cognitive crisis becoming a mental health crisis. NOW, I have a question: Who stands to profit from an ongoing source of cognitive dissonance? (let alone “high-conflict” divorces). WHO is profiting from the womb-to-tomb, paid for by the people involved in it (and even others without children) cognitively dissonant proclamation that “Big Brother Knows Best” when it comes to “education.” The more correct word is mass-indoctrination.

Sound analysis of ANY problem comes from looking at the history of it, and linguistics are a GREAT clue.

And as it relates to family court matters — mine — as a single mother, I did not have time to waste, and as a mother (period), I didn’t appreciate having my daughters’ education slowed down while fighting my ex (who did not graduate from college, and at the time was not even working steadily, nor had he an exactly stellar track record as to lawful lifestyle — see prior domestic violence) and a member of my family with whom he’d had a male-bonding moment (who had not himself had children, nor taught extensively as I had, nor for that matter, bothered to report, refer, intervene, or acknowledge that when I filed that restraining order with kickout, there was a collection of weapons in the home, often used to intimidate me out of Independent Woman actions (such as participating in music events without ex present), and talk of suicidality. Which, incidentally, didn’t go away with the piece of paper.

On the pronouncement that I “couldn’t” do what I at the time both had been, and was, I was forced (by a family law judge) BACK into a lifestyle that had already been tried, and found VERY wanting, by my household — not the person driving the situation, which was not even a parent and had no legal standing to do so. When reminded of the “no legal standing” in a firm manner, I was then harrassed by mail repeatedly, and (being busy) was on the verge of taking legal action on this (simultaneously with attempting to renew a restraining order, which that mail in fact was enabling the father to break), only to find myself suddenly in a full-blown custody suit by the person who had attempted to offer his own daughters’ visitation time to this particular couple.

I thus believe that the basic problem in some of these discussions is simply that of common literacy.

The picture below is ONE usage of the word SCHOOL

If you want to understand the public school educational system in this country, in a paradigm, look at this picture:

ot.

NOW: You are the parents of a beautiful child, or several children. You have to work a job (not own a business, learn to handle investments, inherited wealth, were raised in a Senator’s household, are not an attorney as is at least one prominent father’s rights advocate, Mr. Leving (very cozy with President Obama, and hailing from the same state), and because your job doesn’t pay too well, you and/or the partner (spouse) living with you, are going to MISS the most formative years and hours of your beautiful children’s upbringing. Every day, someone else is going to be their “prime-time” trainer and values assigner, and you will get the leftover of YOUR day and of THEIR day to remediate, inculcate, supplement, or HUG them — hopefully. YOu have been taught that this is how life is, and always will be. It isn’t for everyone, but right now, it is for you, and people you associate with you.

In the above picture, would you want your child to grow up to be a little fish in a pack of fish at the bottom of the food chain (almost), or would you want to teach him to be a shark (given only those two options?), and at least swim free for a while, and have some teeth, and respect. Heck, even have a blockbuster movie named after you ‘Jaws.”

Would you want to toss the dice and hope the shark doesn’t get YOUR kid (or rely on prayer), but understand that part of the deal is, darting this way or that IF a shark comes near during school hours (and certain types of personalities ARE attracted to crowds of children, it’s true), while one of their classmates is eaten up instead?

Would you want your child, for reasons of simple survival, to learn by example how to act like the shark and consider other human beings as part of his food chain (whereas, when it comes to humans, they ARE the same species, if not personalities).

This shark was designed to use its teeth, and swim, act, and behave in certain manners. PEOPLE do not have to.

Here’s another type of No Child Left Behind behavior, named after a different animal: Google (images for) “Goose-step. Even the phrase “No Child Left Behind” indicates none are excelling (which is on many levels also a lie, as it only refers to this one system). What a narcissistic mindset. If the government doesn’t do it, it can’t be done, or doesn’t matter. It doesn’t count.

FOLKS:

It’s not about “education” it’s about “Schooling.”

http://johntaylorgatto.com/

(Primary book dates back to 1990, “Dumbing Us Down.” Still true today).

AH WELL, Independent Women’s Forum is MUCH more moderate in its proclamations. Perhaps they are all still married, or have not lost children in the mix somewhere. I’ll stop. . . . No more comments from me below (I think one short interjection, that’s all). See the original site, above.

(BELOW HERE IS QUOTATION:)

“There is also reason for concern that greater government involvement in preschool could actually reduce the quality of

education available to and received by many children, and discourage parents from enrolling children in programs that

reflect their values.”

Depending on how programs are structured, government preschool programs could encourage parents

to switch from private preschool providers to subsidized public programs. The often dismal record of

our public school system in providing children with a quality education in kindergarten through 12th

grade should caution policymakers about the potential quality of public programs for three- and four-

year-olds.

It’s also worth noting that there is nothing in the Constitution that would suggest that providing early

educational opportunities {{LetsGetHonest comment: or any other education…}} is a proper use of federal power.

The care and education of children,

particularly children as young as three and four, should the responsibility of parents, not Uncle Sam.

Introduction

Among President Obama’s campaign promises was to

increase the federal government’s commitment to early

childhood education. Specifically, on their campaign

website, candidates Obama and Biden describe their

“Zero to Five Plan,” which would emphasize not only

expanding educational opportunities to three- and four

year-olds, who are typically not yet eligible for public

kindergarten, but “early care and education for infants.”

Specifically, President Obama pledged to create “Early

Learning Challenge Grants” that would be given to

states to support their efforts providing educational

opportunities for those under age five and to help move

states toward “voluntary, universal preschool.”1

The President and Democratic Congress have already begun to expand federal government support for early learning initiatives. The $787 billion economic

stimulus package (officially entitled the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) included more than $1 billion over two years for the federal Head Start program, which supports educational opportunities for three- and four-year-olds from low-income families, and $1.1 billion over two years for the Early

Head Start program, which supports initiatives for infants, toddlers, and pregnant women. Other money included in the stimulus package for education programs (such as funding for the Individual with Disabilities Education Act and Title I) will also be used by states to bolster early learning

programs.2 (footnotes below)

Individual states are also increasingly creating programs to subsidize or provide preschool opportunities

for parents. For example, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Florida already offer universal preschool, and

numerous other states (Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, South Carolina, Virginia, and West

Virginia) have all considered proposals that would move in that direction.3

Supporters of these programs believe they will better prepare young children for school, improve

student’s education, and lead to better life outcomes. For example, during a speech to the Hispanic

Chamber of Commerce, President Obama argued:

Studies show that children in early childhood education programs are more likely to score

higher in reading and math, more likely to graduate from high school and attend college, more

likely to hold a job, and more likely to earn more in that job. For every dollar we invest in these

programs, we get nearly $10 back in reduced welfare rolls, fewer health care costs, and less

crime.4

Yet as this policy brief highlights, policymakers shouldn’t assume that such results will come expanded

government support of preschool, especially as government’s support expands beyond the low-income

or “at risk” student population.

Does Preschool Improve Student Outcomes?

Those supporting increased government provision of preschool typically suggest that the money

invested in such programs pays off by creating much larger benefits for individuals and society at large.

They claim that high quality preschool programs lead to improved student outcomes and ultimately a

more educated, productive workforce and expanded tax base. Yet a balanced look at the available

research on the effects of preschool should give policymakers pause.

Most evaluations of preschool programs which are cited as evidence of their great potential benefits

have analyzed programs that serve low-income children and those considered at risk of failing to thrive

in traditional public school. And even when studies are focused on disadvantaged populations, the

research is far from a slam dunk in proving preschools’ long-term efficacy. As Darcy Olsen, an

education analyst and president of the Goldwater Institute, writes:

Taken as a whole, a review of the research shows that some early interventions have had

meaningful short-term effects on disadvantaged students’ cognitive ability, grade-level retention,

and special education placement. However, most research also indicates that the effects of early

interventions disappear after children leave the programs.5

The program that is most frequently touted as evidence of the great potential benefits of universal

preschool is the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project. And indeed, this study, which began in the

1960s and has followed an experimental and control group for 40 years, has found meaningful benefits

enjoyed by those who participated in the program on a range of outcomes, including high-school

graduation rates, adult crime, and earnings. Yet researchers caution against assuming that the impact of

this program would be replicated by a universal preschool program serving the general population. As

education analysts from the Lexington Institute explain:

It’s important to note that there were only 58 preschoolers in the experimental group (and 123

in all, including the control group), and all were not only disadvantaged but deemed at risk for

“retarded intellectual functioning and eventual school failure.” They received one or two years

“Several states have

implemented aggressive

preschool programs and

there is little to suggest that

it is paying off in terms of

improving the states’ overall

education climate.”

of half-day preschool and home visitations. This was certainly not a large or representative

group, not even of the disadvantaged populations, and it is a real stretch to generalize results

into a rationale for pouring billions of dollars into public pre-K for all, including the children of

affluent families.6

Evaluations done on Head Start, the federal program

dedicated to providing preschool opportunities for low-

income families, are also not encouraging. Generally,

studies show initial modest gains in terms of student

abilities and outcomes, but those gains quickly dissipate.

By early elementary school, researchers could find no

differences between the test scores of those who had

participated in Head Start and peers who hadn’t

participated in a preschool program.7

Even many proponents of preschool programs for those in the low-income or at risk population have

cautioned against assuming that the benefits enjoyed by that population would translate into similar

benefits for the general population. James Heckman, a Nobel prize winning economist, makes the case

for increased investment in early education programs for disadvantaged populations because of his

belief in its potential for significant payoffs. However, when asked about universal preschool

programs, he reiterated the case for targeted programs, explaining “Functioning middle-class homes are

producing healthy, productive kids. …It is foolish to try to substitute for what the middle-class and

upper-middle-class parents are already doing.”8

And indeed, if more preschool was a surefire way to improve student outcomes among the general

population, one would expect to find ample evidence of that dynamic already occurring. Several states

have implemented aggressive preschool programs and there is little to suggest that it is paying off in

terms of improving the states’ overall education climate. As education analysts from the Reason

Foundation wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

[T]he results from Oklahoma and Georgia—both of which implemented universal preschool a

decade or more ago—paint an equally dismal picture. A 2006 analysis by Education Week

found the Oklahoma and Georgia were among the 10 states that had made the least progress on

NAEP. Oklahoma, in fact, lost ground after it embraced universal preschool: In 1992 its

fourth and eighth graders tested one point above the national average in math. Now they are

several points below. Ditto for reading. Georgia’s universal preschool program has made

virtually no difference to its fourth-grade reading scores.9

Rates of preschool attendance have soared during recent decades. The Department of Education

estimated that, in 1965, five percent of three-year-olds and 16 percent of four-year-olds attended

preschool. By the beginning of this decade, 42 percent of three-year-olds and 68 percent of four-year-

olds were enrolled in preschool.10 Yet the data on important educational outcomes—from

“There is significant

evidence to suggest that

there is a link between the

amount of time young

children spend outside of

their parents’ care and

behavioral problems.”

performance on nationalized tests to graduation rates—has shown no significant gains during this

period, and in some cases have declined.11

There is also cause for concern that encouraging greater enrollment in preschool may not just fail to

produce positive results, but it could lead to some adverse outcomes. Some researchers have found

evidence suggesting that increased enrollment in preschool programs could lead to problem behaviors.

For example, one study conducted by researchers at Stanford

University and University of California, Berkeley concluded

kindergartners who had attended more than fifteen hours of

preschool each week were more likely to exhibit aggressive

behavior in class.12

Negative behavioral effects would likely be particularly

pronounced if the government moves in the direction of

President Obama’s “Zero to 5” proposal to encourage the

enrollment of babies and young toddlers. There is significant

evidence to suggest that there is a link between the amount of

time young children spend outside of their parents’ care and

behavioral problems. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, for example,

conducted a study of children in ten geographic sites who were followed from birth to kindergarten and

found an association between greater amount of non-maternal care and behavioral problems:

The more time children spend in any of a variety of non-maternal care arrangements across the

first 4.5 years of life, the more externalizing problems and conflict with adults they manifest at

54 months of age and in kindergarten, as reported by mothers, caregivers, and teachers…more

time in care not only predicts problem behavior measured on a continuous scale but at-risk

(though not clinical) levels of problem behavior, as well as assertiveness, disobedience, and

aggression. It should also be noted that these correctional finding also imply that lower levels

of problems were associated with less time in child care.13

In summary, the evidence simply does not support the claims of universal preschool proponents that

an investment in early education will pay off in terms of improving the educational and life prospects of

the general population.

Crowding Out Private Preschool Providers

Another reason for concern about the potential for greater government involvement in preschool is the

potential that, as government expands its support for early learning opportunities, parents could end up

having fewer options for their children’s education instead of more. To the extent that the government

creates specific center-based programs or focuses its support on programs provided through the public

school system, policymakers would be putting private schools and early learning centers at a

disadvantage. Parents committed to enrolling their children in a preschool would face the choice of

paying for private preschool or sending their children to a subsidized public option. As a result, many

“Lawmakers would be

better off focusing on

identifying why the

public school system

regularly fails so many

of its charges instead

of expanding its

mandate in education.”

parents who currently pay for private early learning opportunities may switch to enrolling their child in

a public school. This dynamic could result in the elimination of private options, and fewer choices for

parents.

The potential crowding out of private preschool providers in favor of government-run options should

be of particular concern to those who see early education opportunities as critical not just for skill

development, but for children’s socialization and moral development. Given the reticence of so many

advocates of increased educational funding to allow any dollars to reach any organization that isn’t fully

secular (for example, through a voucher or other school choice program), it is likely that many states

would exclude preschools with a religious affiliation from participating in any government supported

preschool program. This means that many parent who currently choose a facility in part to support

their values and provide additional moral education will find themselves with a difficult choice of

forgoing the subsidized service (supported with their tax dollars) or forgoing the moral environment

they had hoped to provide to their children.

Problems with Existing Government Run Schools

Before lawmakers extend the responsibilities of the public

education system to include three- and four–year-olds, it would

be prudent to examine how it is performing its existing duties

in serving students eligible for kindergarten through twelfth

grade.

President Obama himself has been critical of the performance

of many public schools:

And yet, despite resources that are unmatched

anywhere in the world, we’ve let our grades slip, our

schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us. …The relative

decline of American education is untenable for our economy, it’s unsustainable for our

democracy, it’s unacceptable for our children — and we can’t afford to let it continue.14

And indeed, a look at the statistics about our public school system’s performance is sobering. The

National Assessment of Educational Progress, a standardized test designed to assess the overall

performance of American students, regularly shows that the system is failing too many of its students:

in 2007, one third of 4th graders and one quarter of 8th graders scored “below basic” in reading, and

nearly twenty percent of 4th graders and 30 percent of 8th graders scored “below basic” in math. More

than one-quarter of American children don’t graduate from high school. And, as President Obama

noted, the United States often lags behind other developed nations on academic tests despite spending

Rhetorical Questions about the Rhetoric

This was originally my long intro to the Boyhood project post. Then I had mercy on the readers, and split the post in two, saving my sarcasm (and the graphics) for this one, and splitting off the more sensible discussion to the previous post (“Suicide, Incarceration — a guy thing..”)

I have long felt that some of the difficulties the US Lower, and Disappearing Middle Class is experiencing today were intentional and pre-programmed. I have long felt that the monopoly on public education had more causes than even the jobs bank it obviously is. The dysfunction is necessary to the employee / consumer / militaristic economy. If I had to choose between causes, in my 50s plus (without further specifying!), I have debated with friends whether to go after the family law system dysfunction, or the educational system dysfunction.

Again, the word “DYS”function depends on one’s point of view. If that point of view is of having assets sufficient to generate wealth for onesself and one’s offspring (or sufficient to TEACH them how to do this), the “Dys” seems quite optional.

Anyhow I hope today’s post is a break from boredom, and taking ourselves too seriously in the supposed matter of He vs. She.

MEN:

Aren’t you BORED with all the postings about the domestic violence homicide/suicide/familycide statistics, and people who blame it on women (including some of the women killed) for leaving their men to start with? (Same rationale would complain about runaway slaves over a century ago…) Aren’t you BORED with all the pro and con drivel about Parental Alienation (It’s junk science. It’s God’s truth. It’s abuse of children. It’s used to counter valid accusations of child abuse, etc.)

Aren’t even some of you bored with the “promoting responsible fatherhood” news articles (timed to Mother’s Day) reporting it as if it just sprang up unaided from the grassroots folk, or full-grown from the reporter’s sudden discovery of these issues, naked like Venus from a seashell, or for that matter, Athena, fully armed, from Zeus’s head? **

How many of you do not really buy the concept that feminism did the same, fully grown out and supposedly unaided, from women’s own heads?

Not even “Eve” (for you fundamentalist Bible-thumpers, if not readers) just sprang out of Adam’s side, but was surgically (and while Adam was unconscious, in a deep sleep) extracted by God for companionship, not for being treated and trained like a dog….

(Although by the time of this version, ca. 1493 century, before she was fully born, it appears she was getting lectured….). By the time of, say, the Civil War, USA, the desired shape, state, and color of the future “Mrs. Adam” was at least per Steinhardt, pale, naked, innocent, inactive).

Anyone who has been around competent dogtrainers realizes that abuse is not part of this, and that using a single woman individually for a punching bag, or ALL women verbally, for a rhetorical punching bag, and justifying it on some lofty ideal makes — or should! — a public laughingstock.

Kind of like many women have their wombs surgically extracted, for profit, often for frivolous reasons, called “hysterectomies,” and they we are protrayed as “hysterical.” Kind of like children are often surgically extracted from stable households, also for pay and on frivolous causes. Doing this, reporting this, and analyzing this is BIG business: in fact, is driving institutes, centers, and majors in reputable universities around the USA. (But, not the topic of this post).

No, the births of most ideas, & doctrines take time and don’t just drop onto the scene fully-formed! Feminism, like “responsible fatherhood,” has identifiable benchmarks, history, and spokespersons.

WOMEN:

Aren’t you BORED with the: All divorced or unmarried single mothers receiving welfare or protesting abuse are: lying about the abuse;feminazi lesbians intent on destroying, God, country, and the family; and while we’re at it, so is VAWA. Are you bored with hearing how women (unless we are married, staying at home with 2.5 children and not on welfare) are all out to soak their exes and are gold-digging bitches who should’ve remembered their place in society, and in general, poor men? {{Ignoring who went to the factories while men went to war in the early 1900s}} Or that we’re having babies to get child support or welfare? Or that if one woman was caught making up a rape or child abuse report, or abusing a child, therefore we ALL are and should be suspect if we do?

Are you bored yet, with the prolonged conflict, artificially generated, between the government-sponsored Healthy Marriage, Family, Fatherhood rah-rah in the court systems (and associated realms), and the sensitivity-training in the (almost bankrupt, and non-literacy producing) public schools, as to LGBT, how innocuous Islam is and awful right-wing Christianity is (In reality, the latter is drawing closer to the former when it comes to women).

Are there others around who have questioned, like me, whether the REAL “divide and conquer” Family Law policies may not actually be Men vs. Women, but Haves vs. Have-nots? The students with the material studied (i.e, populaces), And have noticed the uncomfortable resemblance between social and behavior sciences (including at times their history) and eugenics, and other atrocities that supposedly the World Wars I & II addressed and are skeptical that our “new, improved” system of compulsory education {design dating back to the Industrial Age, and formatted after Prussian military regime, with a mixture of anti-Catholicism for good measure} will teach children fair-mindedness, and good human values, and is NOT a replication of indoctrination systems from other, prior, totalitarian regimes?

TERMINAL BOREDOM BY RHETORIC

In my personal life, other than the DV, the frightening aspects, the chaotic and backwards financial policy of my years of abuse, the OTHER times I was determined to get out was when being subjected to yet another (long) lecture on:

Men rule, because of their Y chromosome (anatomical reference deleted)
Women should shut up, because they aren’t smart enough to have input into “the big picture.”
It’s been this way since Eve, which you are (when I wasn’t , alternately, “Satan”)

I didn’t put it on my TRO, but death of psyche by conversational boredom was also a hazard of not leaving that situation. No matter, the other valid reasons (including weapons, and use of them, etc.) were on there.

Face to face with this behavior, or publically exposed through the airwaves, it’s not funny. It results in real blood and death. There are similarities between this rhetoric and propaganda preceding genocides, or attempted genocides, in recent centuries. Step ONE is to objectify and dehumanize the targets, and blaming them for society’s woes. The next step is purging. After a while, one becomes sensitive to the pre-purge talk. People become aligned with group identities, losing their own in the crowd and gangs.

Anything that can draw us/you/them all out into humanity, which includes dialogue, embrace, empathy and accountability (ability to sometimes be part of a community, but to have a separate identity from this as well) will help reduce, I believe, the damages.

I used to function in the expressive arts (particularly music).

In the next post, I speak back to some more NON-sense, drum-beating, war-talk on feminism.

For example, overlooking the topic of PTSD in returning war veterans, instead blaming women for trying to protect themselves from it, and their kids, in returning traumatized men.
For example, linguistic confusion with the concepts in the “Declaration of Independence” (let alone Constitution & Bill of Rights) with a concept so vague and all-encompassing as “Patriarchy.” Fools! — King George was “patronizing” (a.k.a. “using!”) the colonies, a.k.a. he was pimping/exploiting them.
As to “Feminazi” (an attempt to associate Feminism with Nazi-ism. In fact, the compass points the exact opposite direction: Wikepedia, for what it’s worth, has this to say:

Usage

Feminazi is a portmanteau of the nouns feminist and Nazi. The on-line version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term as used in a “usually disparaging” manner, to describe “an extreme or militant feminist”.[2]

[edit]Popularization

The term was popularized by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, who credited his friend Tom Hazlett, a professor of law and economics at George Mason University, with coining the term.[3] Limbaugh originally stated that the word “feminazi” refers to unspecified women whose goal is to allow as many abortions as possible, saying at one point that there were fewer than twenty-five true feminazis in the U.S.[6]

In practice Limbaugh has used the term “feminazi” for much wider contexts. Limbaugh also used the term to refer to members of the National Center for Women and Policing, the Feminist Majority Foundation,

and the National Organization for Women, which has over 500,000 members.[7][8][9]

[edit]Criticism

Some consider use of the term “feminazi” ironic because feminists and other political dissenters were among the victims of Nazi concentration camps and Nazi work camps.[11]Gloria Steinem said in an interview, “Hitler came to power against the strong feminist movement in Germany, padlocked the family planning clinics, and declared abortion a crime against the state—all views that more closely resemble Rush Limbaugh’s.”[12] Many prominent German feminists like Helene Stöcker, Trude Weiss-Rosmarin and Clara Zetkin were forced to flee Nazi Germany.

{{Comments: In the “Non-Sense” counterpart to this post, I highlight the VERY militant talk from the masculinity-mongers.

Other than Helen of Troy’s beauty (and was it really her fault?), I feel it safe to say, women are not launching ships and wars.

Calling feminists militant is sort of the pot calling the kettle black…}}

Seems to me that somewhere in there, freedom of religion was a force in some people brought to the U.S. Slavery was another. Fleeing oppression in other countries (or famine) was another. Now, we are exporting oppression from the USA worldwide, and through a variety of institutions. One has to ask, why?

Mythology . . Violence. . .

Suicide, Incarceration? Yes, “it’s a guy thing,” but let’s talk SENSE as to why! (2006, “TheBoysProject.net”)

with one comment

Finally, some SENSE, facts, (vs. rhetoric, or paid-for data), from at least ONE man concerned about the welfare of men and boys (and, as a result, our nation). . .on “The State of American Manhood.“

Thomas G. Mortenson, Senior Scholar, The Pell Institute for the Study of Higher Education, and Higher Education Policy Analyst has my attention, because his talk makes sense with experience AND data. Rather than rhetoric and trying to scapegoat an entire gender, or system, this newsletter is full of charts and data addressing the very real problem.

The 2006 newsletter No. 171, from “Postsecondary.org” is attached as a PDF to this post

If you are limited in time (or patience with my writing style), PLEASE read my quotes in italic blue ( which discusses higher education as the former land-ownership access to the middle class, and participation in the US economy) from Mr. Mortenson’s blog, and the about 24-page, black & white, chart-filled, common-sense pdf. . . . It will help you come this June 20th, cut through some of the propaganda!

I will listen to any man or woman who will acknowledge the problem in a sane and non-volatile manner, and state some of the potential causes more sensibly than to blame an entire gender for wanting, say, justice, or employment, or to protect themselves or their children from violence. Who does not come at the reader with hate, or religious bias, at least that I can see. And whose personal background is not a trail of fundraising and rabble raising with a religion already known to be rough on women.

From his blog, “postsecondaryopportunity.blogspot.com“:

My endowment gift to the Pell Institute is an unrestricted gift to support and advance the research agenda of the Institute. I decided to do so a decade ago because closing the gap in higher educational opportunity between those born into low-income families and those born into affluent families would not be accomplished in my lifetime. In fact this gap has been widening almost steadily since the advent of regressive social policy in the United States around 1980.

My personal motivation for endowing the Pell Institute with my gift reflects my family’s story of what America has meant to us. {{Note: this man spent his own money, not taxpayers!, in attempting to address a social problem}}

Family history has become a lifelong hobby, and I am not done yet with either life or that assignment.

In 1975 I went to Europe to see where my ancestors had come from and try to understand why they left their homelands for America. Of the five places I visited one, in Prussia (now Poland) I knew the motivation to emigrate was to escape conscription into Otto von Bismark’s armies. These were draft dodgers.

But in the other four places I was stunned to find that my ancestors had lived in the shadow of castles. My ancestors were share croppers, or serfs, and did not own the land they farmed. They worked for the people who lived in the castles and owned the land. These places included Sweden (Skane), East Germany (Neuenkirchen), West Germany (Oberderdingen) and Switzerland (Graubunden). My farmer ancestors saw that good farm land was available free or at least cheap in the United States, and so they left and settled in Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota.

When these ancestors came to America between about 1840 and 1880 they came as farmers, and opportunity in the agrarian economy of that era meant owning and working your own land. America provided that opportunity in abundance and my ancestors benefited directly from the opportunities America offered but which were not available in Sweden, Prussia, Neubrandenburg, Mecklinburg and Switzerland.

My ancestors also benefited from the developing educational system America decided it needed.

The modern equivalent to the opportunity of land ownership that my ancestors sought when they emigrated from Europe for America is higher education. Since about 1973 access to the American middle class is through higher education. Other work that paid well in agriculture, manufacturing and some other industries has been replaced with work in other industries such as education and health care, business and professional services, leisure and hospitality services and other service industries that require higher education.

Today both immigrants and natives can prosper only if they have the education and training that only higher education provides. Higher education has become the gatekeeper to the American middle class experience. And under regressive policy choices that access has been largely limited to those that inherit privilege by their birth. The United States is becoming the kind of country that my ancestors fled when they left Europe for the opportunities available in America. And Europe is starting to look more like the progressive America that we once were.

THIS SPEAKS TO ME. I entered marriage educated, well-educated, and took an extra 4 years to explore what the public school and my family did NOT provide for me, a sense of purpose, and faith (“God”) to the education. I already knew to share music was my joy and intention since age 15. But I had no answers or system of reference to what had happened in our own family, including 4 divorces, a sudden death, and why no one ever talked about “God” while they sent the girls (only) to church. There was in fact, almost no talk of life whatsoever, it was just lived, and experienced. No long-term planning, no service orientation, no deep thought as to the “whys” of life ever took place. No talk about relationships, men & women, families, life, community — almost anything. We simply absorbed education and literature, privileged travels and arts & leisure. I sought this elsewhere, in a B.Th., and then settled in, I thought to marriage. It did not occur to search for meaning to parents who didn’t even believe there was a God. My extended communities consisted of professional and school associates, and roommates, etc. v ia work.

MARRIAGE WAS EXPERIENCED AS A DECADE OF INTENTIONAL PUT-DOWN AND ATTEMPT TO “EVEN THE BALANCE” BY CHOPPING OFF PARTS OF MY LIFE AND PSYCHE (AND TO AN EXTENT, OUR DAUGHTERS’ ALSO), SO AS NOT TO EMBARASS DAD. RATHER THAN DAD, AS WE HAD, LIFTING HIMSELF UP BY READING, STUDY, AND EFFORT.

DIVORCE & CUSTODY WAS EXPERIENCED, IN FAMILY COURT, THE SAME WAY. AS I CONTINUED TO SEARCH FOR ANSWERS WHY (IN THIS REALM), I WAS SHOCKED AND DISTURBED TO FIND MY COUNTRY ENDORSING A VIRTUAL STATE RELIGION BASED ON GENDER AND FEAR OF THE FEMININE. LOOKING FURTHER, THE ECONOMY APPEARS TO BE DRIVEN BY — AND ABSOLUTELY REQUIRE — CLASS SEPARATION BY EDUCATIONAL DYSFUNCTION. THE USA HAS BECOME THE WORLD’S LARGEST INCARCERATOR, AND WASTING ITS OWN TALENT. WOMEN ARE FLEEING IT FOR SAFETY AND CIVIL RIGHTS, ALTHOUGH WHERE SAFETY MAY BE IS QUESTIONABLE. IT IS EXPORTING DYSFUNCTION WORLDWIDE THROUGH A NUMBER OF INSTITUTIONS, AND AT PUBLIC EXPENSE.

THOMAS MORTENSON OBSERVES AND DOCUMENTS SOME OF THIS THIS. I HOPE YOU READ.

Note: I am not federally funded, and cannot spend too long adjusting each post, the dysfunction I speak of still affects my life, my daughters’ and my family of origin’s, and it is tending to drain our creative productive energies to fighting over this issue of justice, and the right to keep family secrets (which include a history of DV on both sides, generationally), and in general dumb down and impoverish my own family line. I was in a service industry, one which helped lift people up by empowering them to do music, well, together. That experience, and the music people were exposed to, enriched all of us by the doing.

I had to stop to fight this battle, and hope that we will not continue recycling through dumbing-us-down any longer. As of this post, my own daughter is about to enter a top-notch university in California. That graduation is colored by my need to SKIP it for safety reasons, a recent parental abduction to avoid child support and “win,” and a family refusal to recognize that alternatives to the public school education work, and are viable for single mothers. As well as a refusal to acknowledge the role of fundamentalist-driven misogyny in the current trouble.

Carpet-baggers and profiteers have ALWAYS thrived after war and in situations of strife and chaos. Sometimes they don’t wait to find such situations, but help create them. It is not enough to chase the ambulances, but to actually create the accidents.

Mr. Mortenson appears to notice that the educational system is such, at least for boys (I say, for girls as well, it doesn’t help us, at this point). I maintain, at this point, that it is the accident-creater that is driving this ecomony. Our present economy feeds off dysfunction and dependency, and literally REQUIRES it. Whereas, formerly, it was a credit and pride to a family to be able to feed themselves, and then some.

THIS scholar & newsletter ACKNOWLEDGES: A lot of the “fatherlessness” and disengagement is apparent in part from, the USA having become the world’s largest Imprisoner. THEN, he relates it to higher education for men.

So, Mr. Mortensen here begins by ADMITTING we have a problem, and naming it.

“By a broad array of economic, social, and civic measures, a growing section of American men are in serious trouble. For decades men have been disengaging from the labor force, disengaging from children they have fathered**, getting into serious trouble with the law, disengaging from civic roles, and even killing themselves at record rates. Our traditional notions of economically productive, socially responsible, family oriented, civically engaged and happy adult men apply to a rapidly shrinking share of American men.”

**The typical father’s rights activist would often blame this on either (1) women, for divorcing or not marrying, or (2) the family court system, as well as of course, those feminists. This had my attention immediately it is NOT inflammatory, but acknowledges a problem exists.

Page 19-20:

Incarceration is a guy thing… 90.1 % of those behind bars in the US are men…[Citing 2004/2005 statistics, and Federal/State/Local, as to local, he writes: “These men were in jail for property and violent crimes — acts that deserved punishment.”

FR solution: reduce their child support and increase their re-engagement with the children they fathered, without addressing WHY these people were in jail, or whether their behavior was sufficiently safe. Work-around: fund supervised visitation centers.. THIS author’s solution: Note this history and characteristics of US imprisoning men, and relate it to education. He NOTes that it began to increase rapidly in 1975, and that this is “attributable in part to Rockefeller drug laws in NY State, that introduced mandatory, long sentences for drug use.“

I knew this from reading libertarians who oppose/question drug laws (as well as violence against women laws) poking around the origins of family law, and finding out that one reason low-income people are so streamlined {{via mediation}} through the system (those without money which could be soaked for other services, such as custody evaluators, etc.) was that the courts and prisons were overcrowded because of the drug issues. This is rarely a topic in “responsible fatherhood” press.

As of this newsletter, 2006

of 213 countries, the 5 with highest incarceration rates are, in order: USA (top), Russian Federation (2nd), St. Kitts & Nevis (who?), Bermuda (UK), and Virgin Islands (USA)

Costs of incarceration:

(summarized quote); While experts vary, typically the direct operational costs are in the range of $20-25,000 per prisoner per year. At (XXX) prisoners, the annual costs is in the range of $43.6 BILLION to 54.5 BILLION per year.

For comparison, the annual discretionary (only, not “total”) grants for the Health and Human Services Dept. (2008) of the USA is cited as $40 billion. How many citizens know what that $40 BILLION is going towards? Not even the GAO does, we are now hearing (General Accountability Office), whose job it is to know. And report.

Just imagine if some way were found to avert the criminality — or major and increasing incarceration rate — among American men. . . Perhaps these two figures might be cancelling each other out? Is promoting responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage at the adult level (one figure I heard says, $150 million/year allocated) and in prisons and courtrooms as sensible as addressing foundational issues of the educational system? Is pouring more MONEY into the K-12 system going to fix it, or are there some design flaws? Is the exodus of “religion” from the public life (to be compensated for by allowing religious conservatives to run major US agencies) the problem?

I think Mr. Mortenson may be on the right track. Unfortunately, he’s of retirement age, and others will have to carry on, let’s hope.

So, Consider: “The Boys Project”

I am among many mothers where educational choice became a battlefield. I have a unique perspective from having taught many years before becoming a mother, then homeschooled our own daughters during the marriage, and having forcibly had children jerked in and out of different educational venues afterwards (while continuing, til recently, to teach kids across a spectrum myself). Because homeschooling had been challenged in family court, I continued to read up and try to ascertain WHY an educated (supposedly) adult could come to equate the word “credentialed” with “competent” and remain unable or unwilling to accept evidence underfoot.

~ ~ ~ ~

No, I’m not selling anything. I just found a male person that has something relevant and non-inflammatory to say on boyhood/manhood

This talks about the EDUCATION.

This report below addresses the problem from a different perspective — that of education. Combined with his blog, it makes sense. He tells how public education is failing boys. It is ALSO failing girls, even when they succeed in it, and not addressed in this either is how the shooters, in public schools, are uniformly (to my knowledge) male, and their targets commonly female. Schools are failing girls, too. There is probably a message here about the school system’s assault on individual autonomy.

But, the dialogue (and charts) are at least above the level of “feminazi bitch family-haters, and poor, underfunded fatherhood woes” dialogue typical of the press these days. And some of the Congressional initiatives, too. At least let’s toss into the pot some other factors.

My ex husband, non-college grad, became an education expert a few years after I filed the restraining order. The theme of our divorce, as well as our marriage, continued to focus on repeated put-downs, religiously motivated. The pattern was: I would act, it would be undone, under some external threat or declaration. The result is: action produces punishment, inaction (which would ostensibly appear safer) produces poverty. Nice choice. I think that the public education system failed us both — me, female, through success, him, male through failure, and overall, in manners that have been addressed in other books. This system does NOT support the families, and were it not so politicized to start with, POSSIBLY there wouldn’t be so many reactionary movements to it, giving a bad name to others who simply exited the system because they had a better alternative available elsewhere.

Consider:

A report from ‘The Boys Project” – “The_State_of_American_Manhood“

I forgot where I ran across this one. Who cares? But the authors say I can post if I credit them. So here is A Report from The Boys Project — and it’s not talking about responsible fatherhood (aren’t you BORED with that?), but some very REAL issues that existed before the ones that are being artificially prophesied, and then produced, through my own federal government.

I cannot reproduce the pages on this post, so please look yourself.

They are talking about inequality in the public school classroom.

Now we are on my turf, and there is some truth to this. However, our nation is not going to permit the obvious solution — understanding the insanity between age-separated co-ed grade levels for children, kept in rooms, from K-8th grade at a minimum.

See pages 19 & 20. Scan and enjoy. I will also post from one author’s blog.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What this is:

A Sept. 2006 Newsletter 171, “Postsecondary Education Opportunity,” with the reference to “postsecondaryopportunity.blogspot.com,” which I recommend (and may quote) and “postsecondary.org”
It is a 24-page pdf WE SHOULD READ filled with graphs, statements, and figures not common to the men’s rights/women’s rights dialogue.
Thomas G. Mortenson is a Senior Scholar at the Pell Institute for Higher Education.

Why didn’t Congress vote in 1998 and 1999 to hold a National Let’s Talk About Higher Education Summit with as much urgency and drama as they did about “fathers” per se?

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

June 4, 2009 at 7:05 AM

Posted in Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, History of Family Court, Vocabulary Lessons

Tagged with Education, fatherhood, social commentary, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..

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Posts Tagged ‘Education’

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Posts Tagged ‘Education’

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For once, I agree with “Independent Women’s Forum”

The attempt of the present (and past) administrations to equate the U.S. Public School Educational system with either Education, or Public, is linguistically and financially ridiculous.

Language is not math. For example, anyone declaring, openly, that

10+10 =/= 20

would probably not become President, Governor, or a U.S. Senator or Assemblyperson. It lacks a certain credibility. It creates a certain cognitive dissonance, until the missing data shows up, such as, perhaps:

10(-15+5)+10=/=20

“misogyny”

Language is NOT math, yet it does have a FEW logical rules attached, for example as a thesaurus would show, NOT all nouns are synomymous.

I thus believe that the basic problem in some of these discussions is simply that of common literacy.

AH WELL, Independent Women’s Forum is MUCH more moderate in its proclamations. Perhaps they are all still married, or have not lost children in the mix somewhere. I’ll stop. . . . No more comments from me below (I think one short interjection, that’s all). See the original site, above.

Introduction

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This was originally my long intro to the Boyhood project post. Then I had mercy on the readers, and split the post in two, saving my sarcasm (and the graphics) for this one, and splitting off the more sensible discussion to the previous post (“Suicide, Incarceration — a guy thing..”)

MEN:

How many of you do not really buy the concept that feminism did the same, fully grown out and supposedly unaided, from women’s own heads?

No, the births of most ideas, & doctrines take time and don’t just drop onto the scene fully-formed! Feminism, like “responsible fatherhood,” has identifiable benchmarks, history, and spokespersons.

WOMEN:

Usage

[edit]Popularization

[edit]Criticism

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Finally, some SENSE, facts, (vs. rhetoric, or paid-for data), from at least ONE man concerned about the welfare of men and boys (and, as a result, our nation). . .on “The State of American Manhood.“

No, I’m not selling anything. I just found a male person that has something relevant and non-inflammatory to say on boyhood/manhood

This talks about the EDUCATION.

A report from ‘The Boys Project” – “The_State_of_American_Manhood“

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Short Unique Words (Acronyms, or even EIN#s) Work Better than Phrases. I don’t always tag & quit using “categories.”

ARCHIVES | Posts only (March 2009ff, pick a month). For Pages, see my Tables of Contents, & (as of its date published) Sticky Post ’58 Essays.’

Visitor Count (added 1/29/2018, Blog started 3/2009). Only Counts Home Page.

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[April, 2022] DONATE! To show appreciation and help me Justify Continuing this INVESTIGATIVE BLOGGING Begun March, 2009,** (Not Tax-Exempt: Yet). WHY ELSE? See Apr. 2022 Narrative in 5 text boxes.

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