Sometime in the 1980s, and it was applauded at first. They occupied the major portion of a ground floor in one of the buildings at HQ complex. They also built a playground outside with mini swings, see-saws, etc. The day care seemed to want to show it was as "progressive" as our agency. One PC example was to show the kids the experiences of others of the opposite sex. To that end, they put on skits. One day a man left early to take his son to a MD appt. At the day care center, he saw is son wearing a dress. He went nuts. He made the good point that society condemns absentee fathers for not providing guidance for their children, especially the male offspring. He said that although he's not the primary custodian, he goes above-and-beyond in teaching his little one as to how a man is expected to behave, and then he sees him sashaying around in a dress. The day care's practices in being "progressive" ceased and was replaced by the more traditional ways of day care.
Wait until he finds out that the kid has signed the contract to have a sex change operation. Our culture has intentionally be changed so that people have to contract out the rearing of their own children. In my area they are opening up Pre-K "schools" (aka Taxpayer Funded/Government Controlled Day Care.) Gotta get 'em while they're young and impressionable.
So one day when I was around 6, I said to myself, “self, I am bored. Looking around for something to get into I found a magazine, some paper doll cutouts on the back of the mag and feeling the urge to be artistic I suppose, I proceeded to cut them out. Dad walked in, saw me cutting out paper dolls and this young boy learned very quickly and in a very harsh manner that boys do NOT do girl things. Thinking about it later on in life, if I had grabbed a saber saw and cut dolls out of a piece of wood and maybe even cut a finger off, it would have been far better than using paper and scissors. I left home when I was 12 but not because my dad didn’t insist on raising a man.
It's a relief to see I'm not the only senior who does not approve of this. I don't know how widespread it is, but locally daycare centers accept children 'from birth.' It's like the only roles parents have is to bring children into the world, and provide financial support.
I don't know what the answer is. You (in the editorial sense) can tell people to "make sacrifices, " but: 1-That's always easy to do when you're talking about someone else's life, and 2-The baseline cost of living is elevated by the 2 Wage Earner household. I'll tell you the worse effect, in my opinion. My mother did not work, so when I was not at school, I was at home. I had my own surroundings, my own toys, my own space, etc. There were times I was bored so I had to find something to do...maybe pull out that old erector set and build something different. But most of all, I had a place to just "be." Kids don't have that. They have no time or place to decompress. "Shared custody" is the worse, in my opinion, with both parents participating in this form of psychological abuse. No wonder we've lost any sense of The Greater Good. Kids are raised in an environment where no one really cares about them, so why should they give a crap about the rights of strangers?
A book titled "Your Bible and You" was originally published in 1950- long before I was born- and this topic was addressed then, as it seemed there were already parents who took a 'Gotta have everything' approach. The author stated people should put their children above 'things.' One of the worst examples I heard about was when a baby died in a daycare under mysterious circumstances, the parents were referred to as 'wealthy professionals.' Awhile back when I read that on average, a year of daycare costs more than sending a kid to college for a year, I thought it was a mistake- til I did some checking. Unbelievable what some parents can and will pay to have somebody else take care of their children. So it's not only about people who must work for financial reasons. I also agree with what you said re: worse effect and still worse. And another complication: how are young people NOT supposed to become materialistic creeps when they learn from infancy that money and stuff matters more than them?
A slight aside: I've seen well-paid divorced couples argue over whose turn it was to buy their kid shoes. So you got 2 adults telling their own child the he does not matter because they don't want to spend $30 out-of-turn. I wanted to tell them to let me take the kid to the store...I'll buy him some damned shoes and tell him that he is important.
I'd like to just interject here that many parents aren't working to buy new electronics; they are working to put food on the table for those kids. I could do without the broad-brush judgements on people.
I suppose those are preferable to the ones bringing children into the world and NOT providing financial support.
I'm not good at finding archived material, but an article on a local news website approximately 2 years ago made my already-strong opposition even stronger- it stated many parents start 'shopping around' for daycare even before they conceive their babies. In other words, a two-part conscious decision: the decision to have children, and the decision to give the responsibilities for everyday care to someone else. And as it does seem some have difficulty reading entire posts and only notice one part, I am NOT referring to situations where there is actual financial necessity, but commonplace situations that are a matter of priorities.