this will teach the little buggers

I doubt that.

your ideas are half baked.

people would listen to more opinion more seriously if you didn't run off at the mouth with statements like "lock all the parents who can't feed their kids up in factories"

why not come up with some real solutions, and not "don't have kids"

The kids that are here need to be fed.

As long as we're talking about half baked ideas....maybe all the extra food the obese kids of this generation (coming up to half of them, well, at least overweight) should be feed to the children that need the nutrition.

Oh yeah, the working parents who feed their kids would object to taking the food out of their fat little buggers mouths.

I forgot, it's their entitlement of the working parent to give their children coronary disease, diabetes, and kidney failure.

Your guilty of believing somehow I/we are more responsible for feeding these kids then the parents and allowing them to get off as "the poor little parents"

and don't worry I already found plenty of ways to drain my money back out of a dying system while paying the least amount of taxes.

I think you missed the point of my post Green Witch and it would be helpful if you considered it in its entirety instead of cherry picking lines out of context to attack.

I definitely do think a well run orphanage where kids are loved, fed, clothed, educated and kept safe is preferable to a rat infested tenement, dropping out of school, contracting AIDS or getting pregnant when barely past puberty, having kids you can't begin to support, and running with gangs just to survive. Giving a baby up for adoption can be the highest form of love.

Unplanned pregnancies are not the same thing as unwanted or unloved or uncared for children. Neither of my kids were planned and neither were wanted at the exact time they were conceived, but we damn sure fed, clothed, educated, and loved them with everything we had. They had breakfast before they went to school and they had their lunch or lunch money with them when they went to school.

What is wrong with wanting a world where children are cherished and loved and protected and have a fighting chance to become responsible adults? Is that such a terrible concept? I'm realistic enough to know that many kids don't have that. I'm idealistic enough to believe it isn't impossible to achieve for most and policy should be toward that end rather than ensuring that nothing is likely to change for the better.

Invigorating - after all these years I finally disagree wholeheartedly with candide. It's occurred to me he's putting us on, but I think not. Not sure though.

Will have to review the thread, but the post that had me nodding was one of jpb's on page 2.

It's not the kids' fault.
From a purely self defensive view, healthy cared for children are a benefit to our society as a whole, and it behooves us to do it. (Alice Waters for Secy of Food).

I'm fine with cheese sandwiches - a friend of mine once subsisted on cheese sandwiches going through school and has done well in life. But of course, snot that I am, I'd like them not to be velveeta on wonder bread. The whole shame the kid thing is substantially icky.

Oh my, that's just terrible! But I suppose it's guilt I can deal with.

Since you asked me not to pick out your quotes I will not do so, but you whole statement here shows you have no idea what goes on in the real world.
You don't think poor people can cherish, love and protect their children? You don't think these unplanned children have a fighting chance of becoming responsible adults? I think we currently have a president that proves you wrong and there are many examples in this country that are not so high profile.

I grew up in very wealthy suburb of NYC. I saw as much drug use and neglect in that suburb as you would find in any poor city neighborhood. The difference was it was done behind high hedges in big private houses. Should these children have been put up for adoption? True, if some kid got in trouble Daddy's money bailed him or her out- and I think that is what really bothers you- you might have to be the one to foot the bill for some kid's cheese sandwich.

DON"T HAVE KIDS YOU CAN'T AFFORD OR WELL LOCK YOU IN A FACTORY TILL YOUR KIDS ARE CLOTHED AND FED.

Why would you take out the most important thing i've said. Leave this and forget the rest.

Don't you know if we did this there would be no victims.

How about this senario;

Steve- "Hey Joe, What happened to joe and marry?"

Joe- "Those bums?!?! Oh, they had an unplanned pregnancy and now they have to work 40 hours a week at the factory. The kids are doing great though and show alot of promise"

Steve "hey did you hear unplanned pregnancy is down 80%"

Joe- "Hey now that we have extra money let's go have a steak"

Which factory are you talking about? The one that laid her off in its latest headcount reduction, putting her in her dire straits in the first place?

***

Green Witch, that was an insightful post!

Candide... I apologise - I don't know you. Are you completely serious here? Do you really believe this is how the world would work? Serious question. (am I just being particularly dense here....)

edit: I am. Your amigo - OK! Know a lot of folk know you here.

And I grew up pretty poor among a lot of poor people. And I've spent a pretty substantial chunk of my life working with people of very limited means as well as dealing with chemical dependency in all its ugly forms, domestic violence, child abuse/neglect/molestation, etc. etc. I am well aware that income doesn't determine whether or not people love and/or respnsibly parent their kids.

I am not ignorant nor unaware of the problems. Nor do I mind paying for a kid's cheese sandwich. I've been at the school before the sun came up and have seen the little kids huddled next to the door waiting to get in for their breakfast. It breaks your heart.

I would prefer a world in which moms and dads cared enough about their kids to make damn sure that kid never needed somebody else to buy him/her a cheese sandwich to keep him from going hungry though. At least other than in extreme and temporary circumstances. I don't think such a world is impossible to attain.

So sue me.

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
Its getting hard to be someone, but it all works out
It doesnt matter much to me

Yes, I am completley serious.

I propose people are held accountable for feeding there own offspring.

I could use a new camera. How about a camera factory. I will be happy to buy a camera off these people

I grew up with more factories around. It's true that work well done and justly rewarded can foster pride. It sometimes does just in the accomplishment for itself - see craft.

I get it that you're enraged, candide, but a factory solution for sinners won't work.

Personally, I've worked something like 50 years and am in trouble financially. Don't ******* screaming lecture.

Why?

I believe that too Candide - but I also know that some people really have run on hard times and struggle to do that. That's where I think we should help about to those who need it. And the parents who don't do coz they can't be arsed - of which admiteddly I have only met one (and that was pretty sad) - then it's our repsonsibility to help the child.

I have a parent at school who's husband has left her. She receive two types of benefit. Job Seekers and Income Support. Therefore she isn't entitled to Free School Meals. We are a very small community. Her ex has the money, the farm, everything - she has the children and in rented acccommodation. The children are nervous wrecks...... the least we can do when Mom has no money, is help out and try to understand. The lady has a Phd and is trying to get work - she has been earth mother for years and is now in pieces, she's intelligent, but she's an emotional wreck as hubby is ...... well... he is not the most pleasant in the world shall we say!!!!! ........ meanwhile.... it's a struggle for her and her kids. ****, I paid them for a week, and another parent paid them for a week - coz, in a small community, it's kinda what you do. Doesn't make us good people or saints of any of that stuff - just makes us human. The kids shouldn't suffer. She will come good - meantime, she needs a little help from her friends coz her ex has shafted her. Really shafted her.

There are folk who do it for a living - take benefits, fraud, blah blah - which uses your tax dollars - feeding kids I just don't see the same crime - it's not the kids fault. It won't teach them anything by stigmatising the child and making them outcasts in the school or make them believe that getting a free school meal is a good enough reason to work hard so they will be able to pay for their kids meals.

Course, just my opinion. Different country. Different rules I imagine. Differing opinions.

I wish you well.

What if I told you that if we implimented the "Have a kid be doomed to pay for it yourself" program that it automatically freed funds up for the "Work hard and paid taxes your whole life? Worry about nothing past fifty" program.

I'd probably fart.

I get it that people shouldn't ride the system.
But many live with true despair.
And kids, kids..

well, some learn to be users soon enough. Better they shouldn't have to. Yes, yes, I get it versus handouts. But deprivation is slimey.

what if every corporation and high roller paid their fair share of taxes?