brighid

Agreed! This is also why it is improper to compare the 50's with the 21st century family. What was possible in the 50's is not possible in 2003. We must work with what we have and not long for a by-gone era and attempt to impose untenable desires and goals on today's families. It only serves to worsen an already difficult situation.

I would say that the maturity one gains with a delay in marriage helps to aide in a better family environment. Also, I know many women who chose to marry and have children later in life, after they attended college, lived on their owns, explored the world and worked in a chosen field. Some of those women chose to stay home (but all seem to maintain part-time employment of some sort and/or a home based business) are much more fulfilled (and better parents/partners) because they don't wonder what they could/can do. The mothers that I know that went to college, but married and had children right away and stay home not because they want to, but because they feel "obligated" are rather miserable. They complain about their lack of independence, lack of vital contribution, greater degrees of depression, more marital strife and overall discontent at such a significantly higher rate then the aforementioned group of women that it is troublesome to me.

I would like to have more time at home, even though I presently have a schedule that works for our family, but I do not want to be a SAHM UNLESS I can have a home based business and/or part-time employment (such a personal training and teaching fitness.)

The cost of college alone will make it very unlikely that my family could ever afford the loss of my income and benefits. I think most American families are faced with the same dilemma: their children are unlikely to succeed in an ever demanding world without the benefit of a good elementary, post-secondary and other advanced education. The costs are only increasing and therefore how does a parent meet both long-term and short-term goals of their children? You work and do the best you can, plain and simple!

Brighid

yguy

Seeing as how this organization saw fit to elect as its president (by the biggest margin in its history, no less) Martin Seligman, who has spoken positively of his sexual experiences with an adult as a 9 year old, I find it difficult to understand why anyone would find anything with their imprimatur on it particularly credible.

HelenM

Please link to where he said this or provide specific information as to which book it is in.

Anyway, on what basis do you dismiss everything else he says as not credible, if he did say this? I've read some of his books and they make a lot of sense. His contribution to the field of psychology is very significant.

Helen

fatherphil

it seems that we redifine the ideal to adapt to our shorcomings. does this not devalue us as a whole? since we find ourselves in a world where at home childcare has been made more difficult we no longer hold it as a thing of great value to the child.

i know i did many a thing wrong in my parenting and i would not try to justify the things my mistakes to my kids especially given the fact that they suffered from those mistakes. i fell short of the mark and i hope they can do a better job of striving towards it. i can't see how it would help them to do that my me lowering the target.

Vylo

We are not redefining the values to make up for our shortcomings, we are redefining them to adapt to a changing environment which is often out of our control.

Simply put you can not make up for these supposed shortcoming without coming up short somewhere else, it is beyond our capabilities many people have tried and failed.

Despite the supposed "decline" of family, it is reported that parents and children feel closer today then they did in past decades.

fatherphil

i don't claim that something is not given up to gain the other thing. i just thing that the other thing (stay at home parenting) has been devalued to such an extent that it proves a self justification for us giving it up.

HelenM

It's possible that we may be doing that but what proof do you have that we're simply 'redefining the ideal' to assuage our own guilt?

Helen

yguy

http://www.paedosexualitaet.de/lib/Rind1998.html

The current president of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman, wrote of his positive experiences at age 9 in the 1950s with a newspaper man he met each day on the way to school. The contact that occurred between them, as Seligman noted, would today be labeled child sexual abuse.

I'll bet there are a few things Hitler said that you and I can agree on.

The point is that it seems reasonable to believe the lens through which Seligman and his ilk see child molestation as something less than a hideous violation of a child's innocence is the very same one through which they view all matters psyhological. To say that intellectually these guys are wearing coke-bottle glasses seems a monumental understatement.

Daleth

yguy,
This is the definition of an ad hominem argument... ad hom doesn't mean name calling although it's often tossed about that way here. It is ignoring everything another party says because of who that other party is, or in this case who once represented the other party.

According to this logic, and given how you feel about Clinton, you should also be telling us that you aren't interested in what Americans or the American gov't has to say anymore because Americans saw fit to elect Clinton as their president twice by wide margins.

On another thread you said to me: This was given as an example of what you call "not thinking [one's] own thoughts". If one is not thinking one's own thoughts when writing off everything Fred Phelps says as wrong because of the wrongness of part of his message, aren't you doing the same when you write off everything that comes from the APA because of statements on a single topic by person who was once their director?

BTW, since I never replied to that comment, I don't think like that. In fact one of my greatest person strengths is being able to see the good in people I dislike and the bad in people I like.

brighid

You should know by now that ad hominem fallacies are not legitimate rebutalls. Furthermore, whether or not such a thing is true does not actually make the research separate and independent researchers did as invalid simply because they do not support your yet, unevidenced claims.

Brighid