Tag Archives: Feminism

News

UK district judge fired for saying that adopted children do better with a mom and a dad

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Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign

This UK Daily Mail story was sent to me by Dina, and it shows what happens in countries where gay marriage and the gay rights agenda are a little more advanced than what we have here, under the Democrats. (Note that UK expressions like “sacked” and “struck off” mean termination of employment)

Excerpt:

A Christian judge has been struck off after claiming during a BBC interview that adopted children were better off with a man and a woman as parents than with a gay couple.

Magistrate Richard Page, 68, was sacked after 15 years at Maidstone and Sevenoaks courts, in Kent, after objecting to a gay couple adopting a child live on air.

The Judiciary Conduct Investigations Office confirmed that the father-of-three has been removed from the magistracy as a district judge.

They said that the grounds for his dismissal result from comments made on national television which a reasonable person would conclude he is bias against single sex adopters.

The interview came after Mr Page had spoken out against a child being adopted by a gay couple, and would be better placed ‘with a mother and father’ in 2014.

He was disciplined for his remarks, which were made in private to colleagues behind closed doors during an adoption case.

But during an interview, which aired in March 2015, Mr Page repeated his opinion.

He was recorded saying: ‘My responsibility as a magistrate, as I saw it, was to do what I considered best for the child, and my feeling was therefore that it would be better if it was a man and woman who were the adopted parents.’

Yeah, in the politically correct UK, that’s grounds for dismissal. Basically, this is the continuation of a long line of changes in marriage-related policy that were meant to privilege the rights of selfish adults over the rights of children.

It all started with no-fault divorce laws, which allowed spouses who were not “happy” in their life-long self-sacrificial commitments to easily get out of it by filing for divorce for any reason, or for no reason at all. This law was championed by trial lawyers and feminists, who think that marriage is about the needs, feelings and desires of selfish adults. They wanted to make it easier to get out of commitments that were entered into lightly, and they didn’t care about the children.

The next change to marriage policy was making cohabitation equivalent to marriage. Again, feminists and other liberals did not want to undertake a lifelong commitment that would be hard to get out of. They wanted the same tax benefits that marriage allows for temporary arrangements like living together. But living together temporarily is nowhere near as good for children as life-long, self-sacrificial married love.

The next change to marriage policy was redefining marriage to remove the complimentary genders norm, which further disenfranchised children to benefit self-centered adults. Instead of making the central purpose of marriage based on two complimentary sexes creating and nurturing new life, marriage is now about two people having intense emotional feelings of pleasure. Feelings which, by their very nature, cannot provide a stable, lasting environment for raising children.

And now we have gay adoption, which continues the privileging of selfish adults over the needs of vulnerable children. ALL of the social science evidence shows that male-female relationships are more stable over the long-term than same-sex relationships. There is less domestic violence, more monogamy, more fidelity and more stability. All of which are better for children. Children benefit from growing up in a home where a man loves a woman and is faithful to her, and where a woman respects a man, and is faithful to him.

And now we see how far the marriage redefiners on the secular left are willing to go to put the selfish desires of adults above the needs of children for stability. They are willing to terminate the employment of anyone who dares to speak out on behalf of children.

We really need Christians to be diligent in learning how to defend marriage, and to get married and stay married and model successful, loving, stable marriages to the culture as a whole. We need pro-marriage apologetics, and we need marriages that are focused on self-sacrificial love. We need marriages that focus on responsibilities, obligations and expectations, not on fun and thrills.

News

Feminism triumphant: day care workers convicted of abusing children

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Children need their mothers for at least two years after birth, and five years is best
Children need their mothers for at least two years after birth, and five years is best

Northern Virginia is one of the wealthiest areas of the country, because so many rich government workers live there and work in Washington, D.C.. Housing prices are high, and women often join their husbands in the workplace, in order to afford more and better things to show off to the neighbors.

But what happens to the young pre-school children? No problem, say Hillary Clinton and the radical feminists: we can just hand them off to strangers to raise, because children don’t really need a mother in the home in order to do well. After all, we have to make men and women identical, because feminism! No gender distinctions, because that would be sexism, and sexism is bad.

NBC News reports on what happened next:

Previously happy children became aggressive, were afraid of water and even stopped talking after they were abused at a day care center in Northern Virginia, emotional parents testified Monday in Manassas.

The trial of Sarah Jordan began Monday. Jordan is one of two women accused of abusing children age 16 months to 2 years old at Minnieland Academy at The Glen in Woodbridge. Jordan faces 37 charges in the alleged abuse of 13 toddlers.

Ten parents spoke Monday, some in tears, about seeing dramatic changes in their children after they joined Jordan’s classroom.

One after the other, parents testified about troubling behavior that emerged when their little ones were moved into Jordan’s class of toddlers, nicknamed “The Monkey Room.”

Parents said their children became aggressive at home, stomped on their parents toes and became afraid of water. Some refused to bathe, their parents said, and most cried when they were dropped off at the center.

Police say the behavior is the result of Jordan and Kierra Spriggs, who also is accused of abuse, spraying children with a hose and encouraging them to bite and fight each other.

One father, Adam Smith, testified that his daughter “completely stopped talking” once she was in Jordan’s care.

And there are updates on the trials of the two women  who were accused of abusing the children.

This one from the Washington Post:

A judge on Wednesday found a former day-care worker guilty of emotionally and physically abusing seven toddlers who were in her care at the Minnieland Academy in Woodbridge.

Sarah A. Jordan, 31, of Woodbridge, was convicted of seven felony counts of child cruelty and six misdemeanors in a bench trial before Prince William County Circuit Court Judge Tracy C. Hudson.

She faces a maximum sentence of 41 years and is being held without bail until her sentencing, set for May 6.

Jordan showed no emotion as the verdict was rendered. Parents of some of the children wept in the courtroom.

Jordan had pleaded not guilty and denied all accusations that she sprayed children full force with a hose and pitted some children against each other to fight, among other acts.

Jordan worked at the day-care center until August 2013 and was arrested three months later.

Here’s the latest news from NBC News:

A Virginia daycare teacher accused of turning her classroom of 2-year-olds into a “baby fight club” was knocked out by a jury on Thursday.

Kierra Spriggs was convicted of child cruelty and other abusive behavior charges after a two-week trial in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

She was found guilty of four felony counts of child cruelty and two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery, according to NBC Washington. She could get up to five years in prison on each of the felony count convictions and a year for each misdemeanor count.

[…]At trial, witnesses described how Spriggs forced twin sisters to fight each other. They said Spriggs regularly mistreated the kids by stomping on bares toes, dunking them in cold water, and throwing them on cots.

[…]Shanna Greisen said she pulled her 21-month-old son out of Minnieland because dreaded going to daycare.

“He would just cry,” she told NBC Washington. “He would throw himself on the floor, you know. Just, ‘No mommy, no mommy.'”

Ah, but the show must go on, mothers of young children, so no use crying about it. The important thing is that mothers of young children keep on paying taxes to big government. Big government needs their tax money to buy other people’s votes.

Christians on board with feminism

The Gospel Coalition, which has embraced radical feminism for some time, celebrates daycare for 3-month-old children:

After 12 weeks of glorious (and delirious) maternity leave, I returned to my job. I worked out a solution with my boss to return in a capacity my husband and I felt would be wise for our family. While my work may look different than some other moms, I believe I am serving God faithfully in it, by his grace.

Three months, then back to work. All you have to do is claim that God is leading you to do it, (through your feelings), and poof! Divine approval for radical feminism.

My friend McKenzie, who sent me that article, wondered if the Gospel Coalition was just becoming Salon.com for Christians. All you have to do is take an article from a radically leftist publication, add a few Bible verses, and you have something to post on the Gospel Coalition. That’s how far radical feminism has spread, I guess. Once upon a time, women used to value men who had good practical degrees, good resumes, and good jobs – so that they could be stay-at-home moms and meet their childrens’ needs. Now, it’s just follow your heart. There’s no planning for the needs of children.

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News

New study: government run child-care increases negative outcomes for kids

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Canada Political Map
Canada Political Map

I’ve complained before about Quebec, the most liberal and secular province in Canada. Well, one of the things that makes them so crappy is their policy of encouraging women to abandon their young children to strangers in government-run daycare. The government takes a whole lot of taxpayer money, often from traditional single-earner homes, and uses it to subsidize government-run child care. Well, now we have a brand new fresh study to show how wrong this policy has been.

Canada’s radically leftist CTV News reports on the study.

Excerpt:

In a paper released Monday, a group of university researchers say that children exposed to the province’s child-care system were more likely to have higher crime rates, worse health and lower levels of life satisfaction as they have aged than their counterparts in other provinces who didn’t have access to the same type of system.

[…]In their paper made public Monday through the National Bureau of Economic Research, Kevin Milligan from the University of British Columbia, Michael Baker from the University of Toronto, and Jonathan Gruber from MIT in Cambridge, Mass., update work from 2008 to see if children in the Quebec care system kicked their troubling behaviours over time.

To do that, they analyzed four different data sets from Statistics Canada that touched on child outcomes, health and crime rates and scores from standardized tests that are connected to the national Council of Ministers of Education.

What the trio found instead was “striking evidence” that exposure to the program was associated with higher crime rates, with the effects most acutely seen in boys. Boys were more likely to have higher levels of hyperactivity and aggression, the researchers wrote, while girls showed declines in prosocial behaviour, which captures many altruistic activities like donating and volunteering. All of those behaviours fall under the heading of “non-cognitive” abilities, such as impulsiveness and emotional stability.

Exposure to the program was also associated with “worsened health and life satisfaction,” the study says.

There was no such lasting effects on math, science and reading abilities, the researchers write.

By the way, in case you are wondering – yes, that is the same Jonathan Gruber of MIT who was the architect of Obamacare. Surprising that he would be co-author on a study that dings big government.

Are these results unique to Canada? Let’s take a look at a recent study from the UK.

From the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Academics at Oxford University discovered that exposure to some forms of early education contributed to bad behaviour and could be linked to emotional problems.

[…]In the Oxford study, researchers recruited 991 families with children aged three months. Mothers had an average age of 30.

Researchers assessed children at the age of four through questionnaires about their behaviour and emotions completed by teachers and parents. They also observed care provided by mothers and observed non-parental care for at least 90 minutes for those children placed in formal childcare settings.

The report, published in the journal Child: Care, Health and Development, said that “children who spent more time in group care, mainly nursery care, were more likely to have behavioural problems, particularly hyperactivity”.

The study, led by Prof Alan Stein, of Oxford’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, found that “spending more time in day care centres, over the total period was a predictor of total problem scores”.

“Children who spent more time in day care centres were more likely to be hyperactive,” it said. “Children receiving more care by childminders were more likely to have peer problems.”

The authors added: “The findings in relation to childminding suggest that it might be out of home care rather than group care that raises the risk of behavioural difficulties.”

Well, that’s only Canada and the UK. Maybe things are better in Sweden?

Here’s a second article from the National Post (one of Canada’s national newspapers) about Sweden’s government-run universal day care system.

Excerpt:

True, parental leave in Sweden is a generous 16 months. There are no babies in daycare. But when parental leave ends, practically the reverse is true: A full 92% of all children aged 18 months to five years are in daycare. Parents pay only a symbolic amount for this; tax subsidies for daycare are $20,000 per child, annually. Swedish taxes are among the highest in the world, and the tax system was designed to make both parents seek employment in the work force.

[…]Then there are the questions about the social toll Sweden’s childcare system is taking. Sweden has offered a comprehensive daycare system since 1975; since the early ‘90s, negative outcomes for children and adolescents are on the rise in areas of health and behaviour. While direct causation has been difficult to prove, many Swedish health-care professionals point to the lack of parent involvement beyond the first 16 months as a primary contributing factor. Psychosomatic disorders and mild psychological problems are escalating among Swedish youth at a faster rate than in any of 11 comparable European countries. Such disorders have tripled among girls over the last 25 years. Education outcomes in Swedish schools have fallen from the top position 30 years ago, to merely average amongst OECD nations today. Behaviour problems in Swedish classrooms are among the worst in Europe.

Now this idea of government taking children away from families is very popular on the left, because they want children to be “equal”, and that means getting them away from their parents so that the government can raise them “equally”. You can even see Hillary Clinton pushing for it when she talks about “universal pre-K”. Well, maybe it’s time that someone showed her the studies. Not that she strikes me as someone who cares a lot about children, given her support for born-alive abortions and organ harvesting.