I think what we're seeing here is some fallout from the radical cultural shifts behind the Industrial Revolution.
It all happened pretty fast, really. Over the course of just a couple of generations we went from a loose network of largely rural communities (roughly 80%) and turned that on it's head. We now have roughly 80% urban and suburban populations.
We don't do anything for ourselves anymore. I kid you not, when we lost power during Hurricane Andrew, I found out that not a single one of my dozen or so co-workers understood how a toilet works. They'd been filling up the bowl for an entire shift believing that, until the power came back on, they couldn't flush the damned thing. One girl actually wanted to page the tech guy and ask if we could use some of the generator power that was running the computers and PBX to do it.
And these were, by no means, unintelligent people. All were competent (ok, most of them) answering service operators.
I think we just got caught up in the idea a couple of generations ago that
everything new is better; that experts would make all of our lives better and easier, longer, healthier and more pleasurable.
And now we're bumping up against a wall. I don't think there's really so much more over-medicating and over-diagnosing as there is more
reporting of it and criticizm of it.
I can still remember when, less than 20 years ago, my very good pediatrician tried to convince me that bottle feeding was better for my baby's nutrition, better for her overall health and sooooo much easier than breastfeeding anyway. Seems astounding now, but he believed it then.
I think we're slowly coming around in the private sector, though the public sector is still bouncing off the walls. I don't think they get anywhere near enough accountability. Whatever they do, however badly they do it or however misguided their ideas, they never suffer the consequences. When their programs and plans fail, they demand (and get) more money and power.
Here's one subtopic that exemplifies what I'm saying. HeadStart.
Don't we all pretty much understand by now that little kids need personal attention from a small group of stable, caring, dedicated adults and older kids? A family or neighborhood setting, in other words. Don't we pretty much all (in the private sector, anyway) understand that the best thing in the world for a little kid is to have a parent or other caring adult at home, available all the time, aware of what's going on in the context of that particular kid's history, temprement and personality? So then, why are the child advocates screeching and screaming for more money and authority to extend schooling down to the age of 4? Don't they read the papers?
And why do we take their word for anything? Their claim to expertise is nothing but a littany of failure dating back to the beginnings of the New Deal. When will we, as a society, start to hold them accountable to at least basic common sense?
There's a little slight of mind going on here. It works like this. We all know we're good parents. When we agree to these programs and policies to better socialize, adjust and educate children, we're thinking of other people's children. You know, that massive army of horrible parents out there? What? Never seen them? They're on the news. But I've never seen many of them in the real world either.
I believe that human beings arrive on this Earth wanting to know absolutely everything, and the best thing we can do as parents is to get out of the way -- just be there to let them know what opportunities are there
-- Dorothy Werner, media liaison for the National Homeschool Association
