Sunday, April 07, 2013

“We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents”

Wow.  Just wow.

19 comments:

Mike Thiac said...

No wow Darren. Typical. It takes a village and the other bs.

Ellen K said...

Let me guess. Children are now "owned" by The State. I remember a story called "The Children's Hour" about how children were owned back in the bad old days of the USSR. I guess this is also driving the idea that if a 5 year old says he's a girl, the parents have no say in how that kid is addressed. Of course, this also subverts the rights of girls who are born girls to have privacy in dressing rooms and bathrooms based on what may be a whim or just a young child's imagination. More and more it seems that educrats are imposing their political and social agenda using children as guinea pigs.

Steve USMA '85 said...

Wowza

mmazenko said...

You know you are misinterpreting this. Clearly, her words were poorly chosen, but the idea is about promoting responsibility for children even when they aren't our own offspring and especially if their parents neglect that responsibility. You know there have been those moments and those kids over the years for whom you are a far more significant role model. And as a teacher you have embraced that role - the idea that you feel a responsibility for the well being of a child even if his parents don't. Wing nuts like Glenn Beck are making a big stink about this - but it's a red herring and nothing but a sound bite. Come on, D.

Darren said...

Are you saying she spoke "inartfully"? I agree with the *other* comments above. Libs always know better than parents how to raise someone else's kid--that's why here in sunny California, I'm not allowed to give a kid an aspirin for a headache but we must let a kid leave school for a "medical procedure" (abortion) and we're not *allowed* to tell the parents that *their* kid, the one for whom *they* are responsible, has left campus.

As far as red herrings and sound bites go, let me know when you on the left can explain and justify "binders of women". Just saying.

mmazenko said...

That's not the point of her comments, and you know it, even if you want to take advantage of "in-artful" words to take a shot at "libs."

Again, don't lump me in with the "binders of women" crowd. You know my politics to know I am not aligned with the far left.

They are as full of it as you when they take advantage of sound bite politicizing.

Darren said...

When I see you attacking them besides when I goad you to, I'll believe you're serious about that.

C T said...

OK, let's be generous here. Maybe she isn't trying to weaken the idea that children belong to their parents. What is she pushing for then? We already fund public education at a very high level. We have Medicaid, Head Start, free/subsidized school meals and snacks (even during the summertime when school is out), food stamps, child tax credits, etc. What more does she want?

Now to be less than generous: I suffered the nausea, I suffered the career disruption, the nights of nursing, etc., and I recoil at any suggestion that my children are not mine to raise and teach according to my own ideals of achievement, responsibility, and morality. Except in situations of actual abuse or pernicious neglect, we individual parents, rather than some media/academia consensus, should be the architects of our children's youth. After all, we sacrificed to actually HAVE them. We live with them and clean the crud from their noses and deal with their varied personalities with all their delightful and not so delightful characteristics. She is promoting Marxist, anti-family ideas, and I don't want her or her ilk any where near my children's developing sense of society, family, and self.

Darren said...

Can I get an "amen!"?

Left Coast Ref said...

How in the world can you say her words were poorly chosen? This was obviously an ad for MSNBC that was taken IN CONTEXT from her mouth. She is the epitome of the elitist left that thinks that parents that instill belief in God in their children are evil and the "state/community" needs to make sure those kids are reined in so they don't permeate through society. She's a joke.

My children are my most important things. Teaching them to love God and love others is my job. She can butt out of my business.

Mike Thiac said...

As long as you make no claim of nursing Austin, Amen! :<)

mmazenko said...

CT, don't fall prey to misinterpretation.

This woman is not in any way implying or meaning that your child does not belong to you or is not yours to raise and teach. She is calling out to society to feel that children aren't "only" the responsibility of a parent, and that we should all feel a responsibility to create a world in which they can grow and succeed. The basic idea is that - for example - in my school district 80% of property owners don't have school age children. However, it is absolutely imperative that they all feel a shared responsibility to support the schools for other people's children as much as their own. It's really that simple and not anything remotely as subversive as all the other commenters are making it.

allen (in Michigan) said...

How in the world can you say her words were poorly chosen?

How else can lefties respond but to claim the clear meaning of what the woman said was somehow misrepresented, taken out of context or that her words were poorly chosen?

There are some positions which lefties reflexively understand is going too far: confiscation of privately-owned firearms, explicit support for cradle-to-grave welfare and the preeminence of the state's claim on children.

They may believe without any doubt in those positions but they know better then to be too explicit about their belief. Their inferiors wouldn't understand how fine everything would be were all those positions the law. So they lie.

Now MSNBC, in pursuit of evil profits, has screwed the pooch and what's left but to try to minimize the damage?

maxutils said...

I'll take a different take ... since when do children 'belong' to any one? I'll go with 'parents are responsible for' ... but I find it shocking that someone woud support ownership of another human being ... especially someone who is black ...

Darren said...

mmazenko, that's a nice spiel you put out there--but it's not what she *said*. You could argue that she spoke "inartfully", but I think she meant just what she said.

It's you who's bending into pretzels here, not the rest of us.

mmazenko said...

Yes, D. And sometimes my seven-year-old laughs when I misspeak and tell her to get pajamas on when I really meant get dressed for school. And, you're old enough to remember the episode of the Brady Bunch when Greg learned about living by "exact words." You can pretend that this woman is part of some Marxist plot, but I think you're smarter than that.

At least that's what 47% of us believe about binders full of women. Or so I heard from Condaleeza Rice's "husband" George W. Bush.

Exact words, Greg. Exact words.

Darren said...

These weren't words spoken off the cuff. These were planned, prepared, rehearsed. It was a commercial, for chrissake.

pseudotsuga said...

Are we to believe the WORDS alone or the CONTEXT of the words? If one looks only at the words, it is easy to dismiss them since we can ignore the context in which they were spoken.
If one looks for context, we have additional information with which to judge the intentions of her words.
Good communication requires looking at both--and in this case, including additional information which has come up today, what she said and what she meant are the same thing--children are best raised by the state.

Darren said...

This post is pretty clear on the subject:
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2013/04/harris-perry-our-kids-arent-just-ours/