Values @ MindSay 
family
What is this world coming to?
You wonder with every story on CNN or FOX or any other channel "what happening to our children?" Teen pregnancies, children hitting teachers, rising numbers of meth users, and so on and so on..... Could it be the PARENTS are to blame? You know the same ones who cheat on each other, lie to each other, and abuse the same drugs we are trying to keep our children off.
I was taught that we teach by example to our children. The problem is that parents these days can't do this because they themselves are breaking every rule, commandment, or law made. Now what?
The basis of family values is RESPECT. What happen to this fundamental concept of teaching your children to respect not only themselves but others. Let's repeat that important concept, The fundament concept of teaching family values is teaching your children RESPECT. Children should learn this from birth. Boundaries, love, trust, and honesty are core concepts that all children need and desire.
Sometimes life does throw you some curve balls. We know that. I myself have had many a curve balls thrown at me. Am I perfect....of course not. I will never say that I am. My marriage of 21 years failed, and was failing for many years. This was not for lack of trying, but was for lack of seeing. Seeing the many signals, cues, and large signs that would have had most running for the door. Again, they say "hindsight is 20/20." I really think that I remained because of what I was taught from my own parents. "Marriage is not easy and takes a lot of work" resonated from my parents (whom have had their ups and downs over the last 50 years, yet still together). But what you find is that one person working on a marriage and the other only complaining, does not make a marriage work. So what you have left is a broken marriage and one doing and seeking more and more ways to get out, breaking every rule and commandment known to man. In my case, it was my ex who owns a hat that summarizes it all. It read "Sneaky Pete". How apropos! Now there is more to that story which I will share later, however, more importantly what does the actions of one parent or both parents tell our children? That is the question. They say children are resiliant, however, has anybody ever tested that theory? I really don't think so.
As parents it is our responsiblity to demonstrate or if that is not always possible, offer support to our children so that they can move forward in this world knowing right from wrong, truth, and, most important, how to respect themselves and those around them. Wow, just three things, three very simple concepts that would change the world. Amazing isn't it?
How, you ask? There are millions of theories. Some of those theories are out-of-this world. The first step, most of you already know, is quite simple. Realize.....REALIZE... that the moment you become a parent that THEY COME FIRST. Sounds easy, however, the major problem of most failed marriages or failed parenting efforts is that they forget this first step. Some parents reading this are thinking "no kidding". However, you will be amazed at the many that scoff at that statement, stating some excuse, conclusion, or theory that the most important person should be themselves or their spouse. I am not saying ignor yourself or your spouse, I am saying YOUR CHILDREN COME FIRST. I am talking about giving of YOUR TIME, YOUR LOVE, and THE SETTING OF BOUNDARIES. These are concepts that a school cannot give nor should they be expected to do so.
In my 21 year marriage I could not comprehend how this did not come naturally to my ex-spouse. It takes a lot of "inner strength" to place yourself last. To me and most of you it is a natural normal mind frame, placing the needs of those you love and treasure first. Unfortunately, the problems this society faces is that most parents out there "don't get it". Sad, but true. The ironic thing is that they are the first to complain about the world, other people's children, or even their own children. Again, it is very sad situation, but overwhelmingly true.
Now, if you are able to understand that your children come first, your children will also see this. Respect, RESPECT, comes from them seeing this, knowing they are loved, seeing the time you spend with them, understanding (sometimes not liking) the boundaries that you have set. Simple.... not really, but anything worthwhile takes time. Practice does make perfect and if one, strike that, if all parents can or attempt to place their children's needs first, maybe, just maybe we would see so much in this world change. I can say without a doubt your children will.
One ticket for the show in Charlotte, N.C., sold for $2,565. Are you SERIOUS?
Forget The Police, Justin Timberlake or Bruce Springsteen. The undisputed hottest concert ticket of the year is for 14-year-old pop star Miley Cyrus, star of the Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana" TV show. Read more.
~ B
Women have come a long way...
Positive and social changes developed to assist women in making responsible choices, and to also weigh the negative impact on our culture and society caused by the irresponsible sexual behaviors among the poor.
Thanks to our social evolution, feminist struggles, and to scientific breakthroughs, women have more than adequate birth control options to prevent unwanted pregnancy, accidents, and out-of-wedlock babies. And yet, the vast choices and options created for women, according to the United States Center for Health Statistics, are exercised, for the most part, by responsible, conscientious, educated, and working career-oriented American women.
There is no excuse for a female in this country to say that she cannot afford any of the birth control options available to her. Poor females and mothers have access to her choice of contraception, and at no cost through Medicaid at doctors' offices and at local clinics. Working women fought to have their employers pay for their birth control options through company insurance benefits, for working women and men want to exercise their birth control options. (www.nytimes/2007/03/17/health)
Although there are plenty of Family Planning offices in all communities across America, it may not be excessively forward to say that they have not been doing a very good job, for this country has the highest teen pregnancy, birth and abortion rates of any industrialized country. More than ten years ago, and based on the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, 49% of all pregnancies and 31% of all births nationally were unintended at the time of conception.
It's now 2007 and a majority of mainstream women who have fought for pro-choice, condoms, safe sex and birth control, truly wanted to give poor females the option to elect whether or not to bring a child into this world, yet we find that they have not won the fight against irresponsible sexual behaviors, nor preventing mistakes, accidents and out-of-wedlock children.
Two-thousand-seven, and poor people continue to neglect their birth control options. They continue to exercise poor judgment by bringing more children into the world, while living in the lowest income brackets. Obviously they are oblivious to the negative effects their lack of sexual control and responsibility will have on the child and on our society.
Most poor people do not consider if their home is large enough or the right environment for their children. They do not consider if they can afford the emotional and financial expense that's attached to having more children. They are not considering what their work schedules, if any, would be like.
Is it presumptuous to say that our society has been paying too high a price stemming from these negative and self-destructive attitudes, which seem to be skyrocketing? The growth in this culture of irresponsibility in America has increased dramatically in the past twenty years. The proof is in the vivid portrait the statistics reveal.
Emma Goldman (6/27/1869) was the first lady to fight for women's reproductive rights. Her pioneering work for the liberation of women identified birth control as an essential component in the larger battle for women's sexual and economic freedoms.
The fight for women's healthcare concerns and options was largely accepted and practiced by mature, married couples who'd grasped the common sense and the skill to determine whether they were financially, emotionally, and spiritually prepared to bring a child into this world. Educated and responsible couples practice some form of birth control method with thought to the well being and future development of the child.
When responsible adults think about increasing the size of their family, they keep in mind how the child added to their extended family will grow and thrive. These two critical elements have everything to do with care, love and support, and helps create a unique family. Healthy sexual behaviors are based on shared personal values and respect for one's sexual partners.
In addition, children who are reared by supportive, accepting parents with whom they can identify with, tend to develop into self-aware adults capable of formulating long-term goals. They often engage in a constructive self-criticism and cherish their relationships with others. (Psychology Today 2000)
Conscientious and educated women and men choose to be parents, fully aware they can both afford to support the child, and are not forced nor obligated to accept government aid or child support.
Why is family planning practiced primarily by mature, stable, middle-class, working-class married couples? In contrast, poor adults are to a great extent, incapable of taking proper care of their children.
Considering the struggle and efforts by Emma Goldman, the Suffrage Movement, the Modern Feminist Movement and perhaps even some members of the Radical Movement in creating choices and options for women, how is it possible for this country, which disseminates widespread information to be "sabotaged" or undermined by adults who lack sexual control and a clear sense of social responsibility? Why are low income, single females and welfare mothers not required to exercise the same responsibilities, as educated and mature women? ("The most violent element in society is ignorance." Mother Earth Publication 1906-1917)
Most poor, single or welfare mothers continue to show their ignorance about the available options open to them. They do not ask themselves if they themselves are mentally stable or properly educated to bring a child into the world. They do not ask themselves if they have the necessary resources to be single and/or welfare mothers. They do not ask themselves if they will need help, nor where to get help, based on shared agreement and understanding with the father? Do they seek financial assistance from the state welfare agencies, and if they do, she is confessing that she has limited or no means of support? She knows that she can get government assistance, and that child support benefits are all just around the corner, at her disposal.
Although the message of behavior and responsibility is clear to educated women, the irresponsible and uneducated females have a long way to go before they connect the dots and realize what their actions are saying to the rest of the generation of responsible, stable and educated women. They have a long way to go to realize what their irresponsible behaviors, lack of sexual control say to society, the Court of Law, the state, and our government. Their careless actions are saying that they are incapable of controlling their childbearing reproductive functions, and are incapable of competing in the job market, and that they are weak.
Females who have children with no regard to their financial status, or mental and emotional stability cannot support their offspring without outside State assistance. Responsible women do not rely on State, government or Welfare assistance. They use common sense, knowledge, discipline, and responsibility and know when not to bring a child into the world if they cannot afford to.
Unquestionably, this is a major fault in our welfare system which leans toward encouraging, females with limited support and resources, to bring more children into the system, and provide poor people with incentive to avoid work. (Www.huppi.com)
The welfare system discourages females to finish high school, attend a community college, improve her education (basic skills - reading, writing, communicating effectively, etc.) The welfare system discourages recipients to study a trade or apply toward a vocational skill, which are the keys to financial independence. The system does not help welfare mothers to understand how critical it is to think of the well being of the children. Teenage mothers are at risk of perpetuating the cycles of poverty and school failure, while their offspring are at risk for low-birth weight, poor access to healthcare, poverty and early childhood developmental problems. It's time to stop the culture of victims which is so much in vogue.
The welfare system encourages females lacking the finances and schooling, to continue to have children, without the responsibility of some day paying back the monies and benefits they received, and worse, to continue having more offspring.
The state welfare and the government agencies never ask females on low incomes: "Can you honestly afford to have another child?"
Many folks view this cycle of ill-advised excessive births, as a form of child-abuse. The resulting offspring often drop out of schools, become involved in gangs, drugs, and other dangerous activities, including becoming parents themselves at far too young an age (children having children), thus perpetuating the downward spiral of despair and poverty. Our prison system is the witness to these social failures, and it's very costly to America.
In 2002, there were nearly 3.5 million poor persons living in this country, and an additional 13 million children are born out of wedlock each year.
While work and marriage are steady ladders out of poverty, the state welfare remains antagonistic and twisted to both. Major programs – food stamps, public housing and Medicaid, continue rewarding idleness and penalizing marriage. (Www.heritage.org)
What shape would this country be in if welfare did not exist? How many children would not be born to mothers who cannot afford to support them? Would a smaller number of children come into this world as "accidents" or mistakes? Would irresponsible females consider their choices and exercise birth control options? Would health officials painstakingly report a growing surge of abortions? The answer to these questions is but a simple matter of responsibility and sexual control.
What else can the concerned people in this country do to get the message out? How else should we educate or inform the poor and deliver the power of birth control into the hands of all? The existing technologies and information are available at no expense to them, so the problems are surmountable. The necessary missing ingredient might just be to inculcate a sense of personal responsibility, and real caring toward children, and the country as a whole.
Once upon a time, a great president, John F. Kennedy, said: "Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You….Ask What You Can Do For Your Country".
Society is tired of taking care of other people's children because they claim they are "pro life" until birth. Then, after the child is born, they could care less what happens to the child once they receive their welfare monies and benefits.
Society is tired of the inactivity of the so-called welfare reform plan (that was very much intended by our former President William Clinton) meant to control overpopulation, and reign in poverty, limiting irresponsible habits and saving America millions of tax dollars.
The heart of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 is the expectation that both mothers and fathers work to support their families and will rely on welfare only as a temporary last resort. (www.accessmylibrary.com)
End the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage. Prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establish annual numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies. Encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families, changing sexual behavior for the better and returning to the original condition of traditional family standard.
Cornerstone - A Place Revisited
Once upon a time, if a female had an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, society treated her like an outcast. To make matters worse for women, birth control methods were quite limited, there were little if any employment opportunities, and there was no Social Security Act.
In 1973 the Supreme Court felt that it was unreasonable to punish a female for illicit sexual intercourse resulting in an unwanted pregnancy. (Roe vs. Wade) The court's decision was strongly influenced by the sexual freedoms, and the ideas and struggles of educated men and women.
In kind, The Supreme Court further decided to protect women against unwanted pregnancies, by providing us with the most advanced and readily available contraception technologies possible. Years have passed since this Supreme Court decision, and yet we have a high rate of unstable, uneducated and irresponsible adults overburdening this country with unstable, dysfunctional children, at times giving America the impression or resemblance of being a bleak, third world country.
One last mention about Ms. Emma Goldman . . . Emma believed that the law that denied women access to birth control information was acting out social economic injustice, and was keeping women down with its unjust use of authority. During her time, Emma could not be kept down. She continued to fight the battle for women's control over her body. She believed compassionately in the struggle against the social economic and political conditions that fostered and reinforced inequality.
Yes, we have come a long way, but it's clear, we still have a long way to go . . .
Many illegal immigrants showing up at tax preparation offices around the country say they hope that filing a return will create a paper trail that could lead to citizenship one day.
This should be seen as great news for everyone concerned about illegal immigration in the United States. Paying taxes and sharing the burden of funding government services is a clear demonstration that the illegals have a desire to become members of the larger community. In addition, this development should torpedo the notion that illegals are little more than parasites that have attached themselves to the United States in order to feed at the trough of government social services.
The single best way to defeat the threat of the Other is to transform the Other into one of Us. The payment of taxes is an important element of shared civic responsibilty. The vast majority of illegal immigrants have demonstrated a desire to work and a desire to better themselves and their families. These are some of the values that form the foundation of the American middle class. We could do far worse than attempt export these middle class values to Mexico and Central America.
The University of Phoenix has what it calls an “Academic Vision” which consists of four questions:
Do our students know what they should know?
Can they do what they should be able to do?
Are they developing values appropriate to their professions?
Are they better able to achieve their life and career goals?
These are curious questions. The first two and last seem to refer to a time after students receive their degrees, while the third seems to refer to the time during which they are pursuing their degrees. But how would one get answers to these questions?
The first two and the last would seem to require knowledge of how well students do in their lives after graduating. If Uop keeps track of its former students and acquires this information, it certainly hasn’t published it. So how well does Uop fulfill its vision in these respects? Nobody knows! So what good is the vision?
But these three questions don’t concern me very much; it’s the third that boggles my mind. It implies that different values are appropriate to different professions.
What? Is a different set of values appropriate to accounting than MBAdmin? How would one know? How would anyone know what they the different values are? Is there still a different set of values for psychologists? What about college professors or college administrators? Is the set of values appropriate for professors not appropriate for administrators? Where are all of these sets of values to be found? Certainly they must exist if they are going to be taught to students. In what courses are they taught? And what if, in answer to the forth question, a student decides that the best way to achieve his life and career goals is to lie, cheat, and steal? Would those values be appropriate? Many businessmen seem to think that they are.
Of course, there are no answers to these questions, so what’s the point of this “academic vision”? It has none; it’s completely nugatory, and its mere existence raises questions about the intelligence of the person or people who wrote it? No person who commits such nonsense to writing should have an association with an educational institution; his/her ability to think would clearly not suffice. Such a person could be induced to teach nonsense without ever raising a even a whimper. And students are not educated by being fed nonsense.
When this academic vision was first presented to me, I asked my esteemed facilitator how one would know what values were appropriate to various professions. The question apparently was way over her head, for she answered by telling me that Uop had developed a course in Business Ethics sometime after the Enron fiasco was revealed. Of course, that was not an answer to my question. But I let it go and then asked if such a course would have existed if the Enron fiasco had not happened. Her answer was that she thought not. So much for Uop’s teaching of values and academic vision. As far as academic vision is concerned, Uop is as blind as a bat.
©2007, John Kozy, Jr.
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