Tag Archives: Parenting

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Quebec citizens dissatisfied with expensive government-run daycare

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IMFC researcher Andrea Mrozek writes about a new survey in the Montreal Gazette.

Excerpt:

For 16 years, the Quebec government has been providing highly subsidized daycare. Canada-wide and indeed internationally, this $7-a-day system is praised as a leading example and the path to follow.

The question is whether Quebecers actually feel that way.

Our recent poll about Canadians’ daycare desires shows some interesting results in Quebec (imfcanada.org/daycaredesires/Quebec). When asked what Quebecers ideally prefer for children under age 6, a competent caregiver or a parent, 70 per cent of Quebecers say a parent.

In short, a clear majority of Quebecers believe that the best place for children under 6 is with a parent — in spite of having a provincially funded system that gives preference to daycare centres.

A second surprising result also emerged. When given options about how governments should help parents with child care, almost half of Quebecers polled (45 per cent) said money should go directly to parents. This option was placed next to other options like subsidies to childcare centres, child-tax deductions or providing funding exclusively for families in need, among others.

Surprisingly, more Quebecers believed that money should go directly to parents; by way of contrast, 25 per cent of Canadians outside Quebec said governments should provide cash payments directly to parents.

These poll results leave us with a lot to think about with regard to how governments enact childcare policy. Seven in 10 Quebecers believe the best place for a child under six is with a parent. Yet the government’s public policy on that point does not remotely reflect this desire.

In fact, when the government introduced its policy of subsidized daycare, other family funding and programs were cut. Scholars have shown how other family benefits were cancelled as Quebec ramped up spending on institutional daycare.

Some may think the Quebec program is very popular simply because so many parents use it. That may not be the case. Anytime a government provides a service at lower-than-market costs, it provides an incentive to use that service. The reality is that child care is actually very expensive, regardless of who provides it. When the government provides it, we are all paying for it through increased taxes.

In our poll, we asked simple and somewhat idealistic questions as to where children under 6 are better off. “What is best for children” is not necessarily the same as asking about what is possible for families. The two ought not be confused, of course. There might be many parents who think their presence would be better for their kids, but they simply cannot afford to stay home. Personal circumstances are just that, personal, and they vary from family to family.

Still, there should still be a place for idealism — for a blue-sky view of how we would like things to go. And public policy should assess opportunity costs and unintended consequences. Where public policy is divorced from citizens’ desires, it does taxpayers a disservice. In effect, it means taxpayers are paying for something they would rather not use.

Quebec is the most liberal province in Canada, and it only survives because it receives massive transfers of wealth from the other business-friendly provinces. But that doesn’t stop them from sneering at their enablers, or from passive expensive socialist programs. But they do serve as a lesson to us – government doesn’t do child care better than moms and dads. And we shouldn’t be paying them massive amounts of money them to do things that they don’t do well. The ideology of feminism isn’t more important than the needs of children.

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Grindr for heterosexuals: new Pure mobile app facilitates hooking up

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Dina sent me this disturbing article from the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

Young people looking for no-strings-attached sex who don’t want to go through the rigmarole of chit-chat online are looking forward to the launch of a new app next week.

Pure, which has been described as ‘bringing Seamless to the bedroom’, offers sex on-demand by simply asking users their gender and the gender of their preference, whether they can host and then shows them potential partners who answer ‘Okay’ or ‘No Way’.

Pending approval by Apple’s App Store, Pure’s intentionally soul-less and potentially dangerous approach to hook-ups has no profiles, no chat sessions before-hand and deletes unfulfilled requests after an hour.

Markedly different from more traditional internet dating sites such as Match.Com and OkCupid, Pure is also a departure from newer apps for anonymous sex hook-ups such as Tinder and Bang With Friends.

All these apps and sites require some kind of profile and online conversation to get to know the potential date better.

However, Pure, created by Roman Sidorenko and Alexander Kukhtenko removes all of that and simply provides two people who want to have sex based on their image online the ability to arrange a meet-up.

I see this story as the final conclusion of a trend I say when I was in my 20s where men and women were unable to evaluate the opposite sex for the responsibilities of marriage. Although young people said they wanted to get married, the way they did it was by choosing the best looking person available. There was no concept of courting, which is putting a person through their paces to see if they can actually do the job that marriage requires of them. I have literally been told by women that they can tell if a man is a good provider based on his appearance. If he is good looking then there is no need to investigate his academic credentials, his resume, his savings and so on. The tingles and peer approval, according to the criteria seen in the culture, are everything she needs to know his balance sheet. This app is the next phase of that, with pleasurable sex taking the place of slow, steady evaluation.

Now it is so bad that people actually want to have sex with people based on a photo. Honestly, this is so far from where I am and what my plans are that I think that it is pointless to even consider marriage at this point. The rules of this society are going to be made by people like the Bro-Choice man and the Duke University athlete hook-up woman. As women keep choosing men based on appearance, government is going to grow and grow to subsidize their behavior with free condoms, free breast enlargements, free abortions, free single mother welfare, and (for the feminists), free IVF. Why would I get involved with an enterprise like marriage where half the women are Sandra Fluke and the other half disagrees with Sandra Fluke, but is too cowardly to say anything about it for fear of “judging” and being seen as “divisive”. If no one is standing up for courtship and marriage, then why should I feel obligated to risk what I have? It seems like people are just not serious about real marriage. Bills, duties, obligations, intimacy, faithfulness.

There is never going to be evidence that shows that anonymous recreational sex is good for marriage or parenting. People can do it if they want to, but it doesn’t help anyone like me who really wants marriage and parenting done right. The truth is that premarital sex is bad for marriage and parenting. It reduces marital stability and quality. It puts children at risk for many dangerous thing, for example child neglect, child abuse and poverty.  If I lowered my standards and married someone in her 30s after she had lived a life of binge-drinking and hooking-up, it would put the quality of my marriage and children in jeopardy. I would not be able to trust such a woman like that with the responsibilities of wife and mother. I would be paying for a marriage and children, but not getting the kind of marriage and parenting that counts for God.

I don’t mind if a woman wants to go on the “photo-only hook-ups” path through her 20s and early 30s, but I’m not obligated to make those choices (WRONG choices) work out for her. Chivalry means picking a good woman who is struggling while doing good things, and helping her to do good things. Chivalry does not mean picking an immoral woman and trying to make her happy. That’s not chivalry, it’s stupidity. Marriage is not something you do with someone who chooses recreational premarital sex partners based on photographs. Period. Marriage is not compatible with that level of stupidity.

News

William Lane Craig offers advice to Christians considering marriage

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This post is a 3 in one: one lecture, one question and answer, and another lecture – all on different topics. My friend Neil S. requested this so I’m posting it.

I got this lecture from the Reasonable Faith web site.

Dr. William Lane Craig is the top living Christian apologist and debater in the world today, and has 2 Masters degrees and 2 Ph.Ds. He also has scores of academic publications including books from Oxford University Press, etc.

The MP3 file is here. (14.5 Mb, about 41 minutes)

Topics:

  • the stresses of ministry on marriages
  • the Christian position on divorce
  • balancing marriage with academic pursuits
  • the importance of marrying the right person
  • Dr. Craig’s politically incorrect advice for choosing a spouse
  • Advice for men: Marry someone who believes in you and who supports you in your calling
  • Advice for women: Be the kind of person who can commit to being a helper and supporter
  • Advice for men: Beware of the career woman who will put their career over supporting you in your calling
  • Advice for women: Be careful about marrying if you think that your goals are more important than your husband’s goals
  • Advice: Don’t try to find the right person for you but instead focus on learning about marriage and preparing for marriage
  • Advice: Flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, love and peace
  • Advice: God intends for sex to be within the bounds of marriage, so you need to guard yourself against unchastity
  • Advice for men: be careful what images and movies you see with the goal of keeping your chastity
  • Advice: your highest responsibility after your relationship with God is your spouse, and your studies are third
  • Advice: it’s better to drop classes or give up your graduate studies entirely rather than destroy your marriage
  • Advice for women: understand that you have to work at the marriage in order to help your man finish his studies
  • Advice: set aside a period of the day for communicating and bonding with your spouse
  • Advice: cultivate the ability to talk with your spouse on a personal level, and maintain eye contact
  • Advice for men: do not break eye contact with your wife, and also hold her hand when communicating
  • Advice: do not be embarrassed to seek out a marriage counselor, but make it a good counselor
  • Advice:  don’t just be doing stuff for your mate, but also be vulnerable and transparent with your mate
  • How your relationship with your wife helps you with your relationship with God
  • How do you handle the rebellion of children without being overbearing and authoritarian?

There is a period of Q&A at the end. There is another piece of advice that comes out in the Q&A for women: take an interest in your spouse’s work even if you don’t care about it, and ask him about it every day and try to understand it. Go to the man’s workplace and see what he does. Go to his presentations. Get involved in the man’s ministry and help him in practical ways. Another piece of advice is to not paper over the differences – it’s good to argue, because it means that problems are being confronted and worked through. Husbands should have a good male friend to talk to, and wives should have a good female friend to talk to.

I like how Dr. Craig has thought about how to have a successful marriage, how to choose the right woman, and how to love his wife. I like how he calls out men on the chastity thing. I think that chastity is more important for men than for women, because it’s the men who take the lead in choosing and pursuing the right woman for their plan.

Secondly, here is my previous post on Dr. Craig’s advice for married couples, where he gives 5 points of advice for married couples.

Here are the main pieces of advice Dr. Craig gives:

  1. Resolve that there will be no divorce
  2. Delay having children
  3. Confront problems honestly
  4. Seek marital counseling
  5. Take steps to build intimacy in your relationship

And here’s the controversial one (#2):

2. Delay having children. The first years of marriage are difficult enough on their own without introducing the complication of children. Once children come, the wife’s attention is necessarily diverted, and huge stresses come upon you both. Spend the first several years of marriage getting to know each other, working through your issues, having fun together, and enjoying that intimate love relationship between just the two of you. Jan and I waited ten years before having our first child Charity, which allowed me the finish graduate school, get our feet on the ground financially, establish some roots, and enjoy and build our love relationship until we were really ready to take on the responsibilities of parenthood. The qualifier here is that if the wife desperately wants children now, then the husband should accede to her wish to become a mother, rather than withhold that from her. Her verdict should be decisive. But if you both can agree to wait, things will probably be much easier.

Third and finally, here is a previous post on Dr. Craig’s advice for choosing a good spouse, with illustrations from his own marriage.

For example, Bill’s first story about Jan occurs early after their marriage while he is working on his first Masters degree at Trinity:

And it was also at that time that I began to see what an invaluable asset the Lord had given me in Jan. I remember I came home from classes one day, and found her at the kitchen table with all the catalogs and schedules and papers spread out in front of her and she said, “look! I’ve figured out how you can get two Masters degrees at the same time that it would normally take to get one! All you have to do is take overloads every semester, go to all full-time summer school and do all these other things, and you can do two MAs in the time it takes to do one!”

And I thought, whoa! Are you sure you really want to make the commitment it takes to do this kind of thing? And she said, “Yeah! Go for it!” And it was then I began to see that God had given me a very special woman who was my supporter – my cheerleader – and who really believed in me. And as long as she believed in me, that gave me the confidence to dream bigger dreams, and to take on challenges that I had never thought of before.

If you want to hear another Christian husband talk about how his wife supports him, listen to this lecture called “Giants in the Land” with Dr. Walter Bradley. It’s actually my favorite lecture. I also really like his testimony lecture. If you’re looking for guidance, these are some of the people I would recommend.