Jay Leno made a joke about homosexuals without malice. People are outraged. Leno apologizes.
Note to self: Next time a comedian makes a joke about Mormons, get angry. Demand an apology. Man, I've been such a pushover. All this time, I thought laughing or changing the channel were appropriate responses.
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Wanted: Infantsitter
At my work we have online classifieds where people post questions and advertisements. Browsing this morning, I found this one (quoting from memory):
"Anyone interested in babysitting an infant? My wife is expecting soon, and will be returning to work after 8 weeks. We had someone lined up but that fell through."
Something about this concerned me. I've posted about the stay-at-home vs. two-income household issue before, but let me reiterate that I try not to judge the decisions of individual families. The point of that post was to show how the common argument (that changes in our economic world have forced families into needing two incomes) is bogus as an explanation for the general trend. Certainly, though, there are individual circumstances that might necessitate two earners, or personal reasons that make being a stay-at-home parent not preferable.
I've been following a post on this issue at The Simple Dollar. Although the post and several of the comments are somewhat advocating daycare for children, I think some of the points they make are valid. I especially appreciate that the post advocates finding the best childcare possible.
All that is well and good, but is fishing for random people on the intranet classifieds crossing the line? Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions or judging too harshly, but I would hope few would ever consider placing their 8-week-old infant in the care of an unqualified stranger all day, every day. If I'm wrong, then the state of our society is worse than I thought.
"Anyone interested in babysitting an infant? My wife is expecting soon, and will be returning to work after 8 weeks. We had someone lined up but that fell through."
Something about this concerned me. I've posted about the stay-at-home vs. two-income household issue before, but let me reiterate that I try not to judge the decisions of individual families. The point of that post was to show how the common argument (that changes in our economic world have forced families into needing two incomes) is bogus as an explanation for the general trend. Certainly, though, there are individual circumstances that might necessitate two earners, or personal reasons that make being a stay-at-home parent not preferable.
I've been following a post on this issue at The Simple Dollar. Although the post and several of the comments are somewhat advocating daycare for children, I think some of the points they make are valid. I especially appreciate that the post advocates finding the best childcare possible.
All that is well and good, but is fishing for random people on the intranet classifieds crossing the line? Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions or judging too harshly, but I would hope few would ever consider placing their 8-week-old infant in the care of an unqualified stranger all day, every day. If I'm wrong, then the state of our society is worse than I thought.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Our Allergy Story, Part 1: Learning to Be Abnormal
Mormons like to think of themselves as abnormal. In general, we take pride in stepping away from the mainstream. In every other way, my family is pretty average. We're white; married with two kids; middle-class; paying off our 30-year fixed-rate mortgage; and have two legs, two arms, and two eyes for each person. Yet, I thought I knew what it meant to be abnormal because of my religion. I don't drink coffee or beer and don't swear. Wo is me, my poor persecuted soul! But in the last few months I've learned that I really had no idea what it means to be truly abnormal.
That was until my son was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EE for short), which is a somewhat rare chronic disease that manifests itself through inflammation of the esophagus. The symptoms are brought on because of exposure to allergens. Most people with EE are allergic to multiple foods and/or environmental allergens, so naturally we were concerned. Later we found out what he was allergic to: egg. Phew, what a relief. Just egg? We can handle that. Our life of normalcy lives on!
But who knew that egg is in a lot of foods, and many ingredients most people would not associate with egg are derived from it (see Part II). Our lives quickly changed as we became the "food police" to investigate every ingredient in every food that came even close to going into our son's mouth.
But of course there are worse things that could happen. Having a food allergy isn't the same as being blind, losing an appendage, or getting cancer. Yes, of course there are more difficult things. But this was our first glimpse of living life in a world not made for us.
So what? Our society looks out for the less fortunate, right? Every building is wheel chair accessible. Braille is everywhere, including drive-through ATMs (yes, drive-through). But what I've learned is that the things we do to help the less-normal are really just gestures to make everyone else feel better about being normal.
Stay tuned for Part II: Debunking the Food Allergy Myths.
No, it's not the hottest of topics, but I think after reading it you might be a little bit angrier, if that's what you're looking for.
That was until my son was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EE for short), which is a somewhat rare chronic disease that manifests itself through inflammation of the esophagus. The symptoms are brought on because of exposure to allergens. Most people with EE are allergic to multiple foods and/or environmental allergens, so naturally we were concerned. Later we found out what he was allergic to: egg. Phew, what a relief. Just egg? We can handle that. Our life of normalcy lives on!
But who knew that egg is in a lot of foods, and many ingredients most people would not associate with egg are derived from it (see Part II). Our lives quickly changed as we became the "food police" to investigate every ingredient in every food that came even close to going into our son's mouth.
But of course there are worse things that could happen. Having a food allergy isn't the same as being blind, losing an appendage, or getting cancer. Yes, of course there are more difficult things. But this was our first glimpse of living life in a world not made for us.
So what? Our society looks out for the less fortunate, right? Every building is wheel chair accessible. Braille is everywhere, including drive-through ATMs (yes, drive-through). But what I've learned is that the things we do to help the less-normal are really just gestures to make everyone else feel better about being normal.
Stay tuned for Part II: Debunking the Food Allergy Myths.
No, it's not the hottest of topics, but I think after reading it you might be a little bit angrier, if that's what you're looking for.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Our Generational Debt
It's no secret that the dual earner household is on the rise, and that kids are being put in childcare at earlier ages to allow their parents to work. It's too bad we live in a world where the cost of living has risen so much that both parents need to work. I hear about it all the time. I just heard it on the radio the other day--the "need" for both parents to work.
While this is probably true of many individual cases, I don't buy it as an explanation for the overall trend. From 1951 to 2005, the consumer price index, a measure of inflation, rose 751%. Over the same period of time, the national average wage index rose from $2,799.16 to $36,952.94 (an increase of 1220%).
I'm no statistician, but it seems to me that according to these numbers, the average income in 2005 buys a higher standard of living than the average income in 1951--62% higher, to be exact.
We should expect that average incomes should be going up faster than prices. That's progress. If it wasn't for that sort of progress, we'd all be herding goats and living in tents in the desert. The problem is that we are not happy with that progress. We want more. As a result we are building up our generational debt. We will pay for this debt in two ways.
First, just like financial debt, generational debt has a limit. Once all married couples are dual-earner families, where do we go from there? We are then forced to fall back to the normal rate of growth. After we have acclimated to our artificially high progress rate, this will be hard to accept.
Second, and more importantly, we will pay for it in generations of kids whose upbringing was outsourced. It's difficult to measure the affects of this, and surely there are many that would think I am too extreme. But I feel the result will be (and has been) higher crime, lower self respect and respect for authority, less emotional maturity, and less well-rounded children overall. Thus, the future generation will pay our debt, plus interest.
Let me re-iterate that this is not an attack on any family that has chosen, or needs to, be a dual earner family. Nor I am suggesting that the children of dual earner families will necessarily be bad members of society. But I think the overall trend is inexcusable, and the overall affects undesirable.
While this is probably true of many individual cases, I don't buy it as an explanation for the overall trend. From 1951 to 2005, the consumer price index, a measure of inflation, rose 751%. Over the same period of time, the national average wage index rose from $2,799.16 to $36,952.94 (an increase of 1220%).
I'm no statistician, but it seems to me that according to these numbers, the average income in 2005 buys a higher standard of living than the average income in 1951--62% higher, to be exact.
We should expect that average incomes should be going up faster than prices. That's progress. If it wasn't for that sort of progress, we'd all be herding goats and living in tents in the desert. The problem is that we are not happy with that progress. We want more. As a result we are building up our generational debt. We will pay for this debt in two ways.
First, just like financial debt, generational debt has a limit. Once all married couples are dual-earner families, where do we go from there? We are then forced to fall back to the normal rate of growth. After we have acclimated to our artificially high progress rate, this will be hard to accept.
Second, and more importantly, we will pay for it in generations of kids whose upbringing was outsourced. It's difficult to measure the affects of this, and surely there are many that would think I am too extreme. But I feel the result will be (and has been) higher crime, lower self respect and respect for authority, less emotional maturity, and less well-rounded children overall. Thus, the future generation will pay our debt, plus interest.
Let me re-iterate that this is not an attack on any family that has chosen, or needs to, be a dual earner family. Nor I am suggesting that the children of dual earner families will necessarily be bad members of society. But I think the overall trend is inexcusable, and the overall affects undesirable.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
