Back in 1991 I wrote these words: “No matter how caring and loving, a surrogate care-giver can never replace a mother – or father – in providing security, love and a sense of self-worth to young children. Yet in a
On March 21 hard-core feminist Sarrah Le Marquand wrote a shocker of a newspaper opinion piece entitled “It should be illegal to be a stay-at-home mum”. Yes you read that right. In this uber-feminist rant she said this: “Rather than
Hot on the heels of the annual parade of sleaze and perversion in Sydney tonight, attended for the first time ever by our Prime Minister, as well as Opposition Leader, and with police and other groups in attendance, we have
In a discussion with some politicians yesterday about the well-being of children and various political policies, I mentioned that it can sometimes be difficult to get the right mix. We discussed the recent policy on vaccinations, and the cutback of
Extended periods of day care for young children are not in their best interests. Parents might benefit, but children seldom do. But before I go any further, let me get the objections out of the way first. Some folks seem
Over 30 years ago social analyst Peter Drucker wrote this about the rise and rise of Western daycare, “We are busily unmaking one of the proudest social achievements in the nineteenth century, which was to take married women out of
A brand new survey of what women really want concerning paid maternity leave is most revealing. Contrary to the usual line that basically all women want a paid career, with perhaps family thrown in on the side, this new Galaxy
Last week opposition leader Tony Abbott unveiled his plan for six-month paid maternity leave. He evidently surprised his own colleagues with this, and had to in effect apologise later for not consulting widely on the scheme.
Mother’s Day is almost here. It is a no-brainer to declare that mothers are important. But we live in a no-brainer age in which the very concept of motherhood is now under attack. Thus we must come to the defence
There are two main questions to ask about any paid maternity leave scheme: Who pays for it?, and, How long should it extend for? Perhaps most of the interest settles on the first question. All this will cost big bucks.
The Rudd Government speaks incessantly about working families. The recent Federal Budget was all about working families. Government policy is aimed at working families. So just who and what exactly are these working families?
Three recent Labor Government activities and announcements have shown that the interests of the family are really pretty low on the priority list. Sure, plenty of lip service is being paid to families, but the reality is quite different from
This may be the first time in history that we have forced a generation of kids to be separated from their own parents. The results of this grand social experiment are beginning to come in. And Mary Eberstadt does not
I suppose it is something that we should have expected. It had to come sooner or later. Now our day care centres are being used as hunting grounds for the social engineers. The political radicals are now targeting our toddlers,
We are currently witnessing a grand social experiment, the results of which are not fully in as yet. But the data that is coming in is not good. We are allowing an entire generation of babies and
Should we institute a scheme of paid maternity leave? I am going to argue neither for the affirmative, nor for the negative. Instead, I will seek to argue for a third way. The third way I propose is fairly straight-forward:
The battle over motherhood continues unabated, with a recent controversy re-igniting a long standing debate. In the one corner are those who feel that government policies tend to penalise stay at home mums, while rewarding those who move into the
Commonsense seems to count for little these days. Instead, an army of “experts” are telling us how to best run our lives. Consider the following: Staff at day care centres do a much better job of minding young children than
With over $1.5 billion a year spent on child care by Australian Governments, child care is big business. And with over 600,000 children involved, it affects a lot of people. There is no denying that child care is a
A new survey put out by the Australian National University has found that the majority of Australians prefer that mothers with young children stay home.
The survey, conducted by the International Social Science Survey, found that 65 per cent