Education Vs Family - Road to the Middle Class

IN THE SLEEPER movie hit “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” the heroine Toula breaks away from her imprisonment in the family Greek restaurant by getting some computer classes at the local college.

That’s a common pattern, a liberal friend told me. Children who don’t get an education are stuck in the ghetto of their family and don’t “get on.”

But for me, a light went off. For if the mission of the university is to break children away from their traditional family community, then isn’t the mission of every liberal program the same? Whether it’s education, health care, or welfare, every government dollar loosens a woman’s tie (and it’s usually a woman) to her family.

Isn’t that just what liberals want?

The question is: how much of a good thing is this, really? We westerners may all agree that it’s important to free women from patriarchal domination. But when does a government program get to the point of breaking up family ties so much that children grow up stunted from lack of parental attention, as Minette Marrin argues.

Increasingly it seems parents can’t or won’t spend time and care on their children. Increasingly both parents are working; increasingly single parents are anxious, harried and time-poor; increasingly children are consigned to inadequate day care and nurseries; increasingly they are offered wraparound educare (promoted by Gordon Brown [and Hillary Clinton]). Increasingly we see the results.

Many of us take it for granted that it is a good idea for adults to have independent fulfilling careers and consign their children to the care of help professionals. But there seems to be a cost.

[H]alf of all toddlers arrive at primary school unable to speak properly for their age. Their numbers are growing. To say this suggests a widespread failure of socialisation is surely an understatement.

When you take people away from their families and put them into institutional settings, be it childcare, school, factory, or office park, you lose something.

And we did not just get here by accident. We got here because the progressive class wanted us here.

The job of conservatives in the next few years is to develop a compelling critique of the liberal world in which we live. Then we should offer the American people a way out of this death spiral. We should offer them family and hope.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.