Marriage as Bedrock of Soceity?

[Teacher Terry]

When my 3 boys were older teens I warned them that if they created kids they would not be living with me or I wouldn’t be raising them. My one son who could be trouble said “You would if it was a girl.” I said remember those foster kids without homes-that’s where the kids will be. Luckily no one had any kids they couldn’t take care of. I love my kids but no way am I spending my golden years raising kids again.

[iris lilies]

I really hate saying this out loud, but our friends who are essentially raising their grandson never drew clear boundaries and I am not surprised that their daughter thinks dumping her child off on them is an ok thing, with the daughter retaining all rights but none of the responsibities. Granted, the daughter-mom does have serious life challenges with her mental illness.

Terry, like you, my parents made it clear that they would not be raising any Hrandchildren should
I choose to have them in unstable conditions. I also know that they would have swooped in to scoop up grandchildren in a sudden unexpected tragic situation.

[Teacher Terry]

Sure if the parents died or were too disabled that would be totally different. I just wasn’t going to enable irresponsible behavior.

[iris lilies]

If you look at the people being accused of being "privileged" or "opportunity hoarders", you are generally looking at the elements of society where the old bourgeois values still prevail. Raising children in stable families is a big part of that. So is a certain respect for education and willingness to delay gratification for a longer term benefit.

I remember some professor saying that in an op-ed not too long ago and getting widely and viciously attacked by people who felt such ideas are somehow racist or elitist.

These same ideals are held in many third world countrie, the importance of married parents with children, so immigrants from those places are super important in carrying on our old bourgeois values! Haha, kinda ironic.

[Teacher Terry]

My DIL’s parents were in a serious car accident and hospitalized for a year with rehab. The grandparents raised the kids until they recovered. I would do the same. When my oldest was 7 we bought the house next door to my parents. My mom helped with the kids so I could go to college and I helped take care of my dad who had a massive stroke. We were great support for one another. My dad died about the time I was done with graduate school and couldn’t find a job in our small town. My mom told me not to worry about her and go where I could get a good job. I was blessed with awesome parents!

[Teacher Terry]

This got me thinking of in s town of 80k people how much we helped one another. I babysat for friends and them for me. My mom’s friend watched mine when she was on vacation. We watched a neighbors child for 2 years for a hour in the morning so she could attend college before the head start bus came. They didn’t allow us to drop her off at the school. The last year they slashed her food stamps and she thought she was going to have to quit college. We weren’t well to do but between her dad and us helped with food. Because her financial aid increased which went to tuition they cut the food stamps. We cut down our kids Xmas to help even though we were never extravagant. We were committed to helping her because that’ was her family’s only chance to escape poverty. It was a real sacrifice but I would do it again.

[LDAHL]

These same ideals are held in many third world countrie, the importance of married parents with children, so immigrants from those places are super important in carrying on our old bourgeois values! Haha, kinda ironic.

Sadly, I have fo agree.

I work with a nonprofit that builds houses for low income people, to whom we provide zero interest mortgages. This requires us to find families with decent credit and work histories. We need evidence that they will be able to pay a small mortgage and property taxes on the housing we provide. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find native born families who meet our criteria, but there seems to be no shortage of hard/working immigrant families that can.

[JaneV2.0]

In general, immigrants embody all those lofty ideals that we, as a nation, like to tout as "American." I imagine Canada will welcome many of those this xenophobic administration is turning away, much to their advantage.

[LDAHL]

In general, immigrants embody all those lofty ideals that we, as a nation, like to tout as "American." I imagine Canada will welcome many of those this xenophobic administration is turning away, much to their advantage.

I’m not sure I see bourgeois values as particularly lofty or American. They are the mundane, even boring values of thrift, accountability, family, hard work, paying one’s debts, etc. I would not object to the US adopting a more practical, Canadian-style immigration policy As opposed to the open-borders nonsense currently being bruited about.

[JaneV2.0]

Thus the quotes.

We need a robust guest-worker program, and a humane stance on refugees. As far as the canard about Mexicans flooding the border, the incidence of undocumented immigrants has been in decline for years. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/u...eclining-.html