Rise of the Public Family (long)
[email protected]
From the Washington Home Education Network (WHEN) list:
This was meant to be disturbing. If you don't like
being disturbed, don't read it.
=dr. john=
LOOKING BACKWARD AT THE RISE OF THE PUBLIC FAMILY
Looking back over the last century, most scholars would
assign the rise of the Public Family System to the
early decades of the 21st century. Although a number of
developments in the 20th century forshadowed the Public
Family--especially the Public Education System and
widespread daycare--it was really the economic changes
surrounding the Second Energy Crisis of 2010-2013 that
caused a cascade of events, in which it is possible to
discern the true rise of the Public Family.
Early in the century, a series of rolling blackouts
forced businesses to move to a 3 shift, 24-hour
economic model. Many families with two wage earners
found husband and wife both working at night. No
longer able to work, sleep, *and* care for their
children, many families turned to the burgeoning
Nightcare industry to provide parenting expertise.
"Parental authority", already undermined by public
education and displaced by the public servants
(educators and advertisers) who managed the child's
peer group, was joined by "parental affection", which
was now confined to a few hours of visitation a week.
The interest of children in their biological parents
changed to fit the societal realities of their lives.
Although the "Family" lived on in public mythology, the
reality was that approximately one-third of a whole
generation of children grew up who had been raised
almost entirely by public servants.
A two-tiered economic system developed, in which middle
class couples worked two jobs in order to pay for
private daycare, education, and nightcare, while poorer
families managed as they always had, using an informal
network of family and friends to get by less and less
well--with occasional tragedies involving children
confined to their cribs and left alone by desperate parents.
During the 2020s, a series of crises transformed the
emerging Public Family system. A wave of hysteria
followed the highly publicized case of a child
affectionately known to millions as "Baby Theresa".
Baby Theresa's biological single mother worked two
shifts and the third as a hooker to pay for their
one-room apartment and to support her amphetimine
habit. The Energy Independence Act of 2015 had already
introduced government-subsidies for Nightcare. In the
Baby Theresa case, the combined public fears of
widespread addiction to amphetimines among workers and
a fear of unfit mothers led to the legal placement of
Baby Theresa and other children in the government
system, and the establishment of "parental standards"
comparable to those in effect in the government-
regulated Nightcare/Daycare industry.
Throughout the 2020s and early 2030s, government
regulation increased for both Public and Private
Families. Richer families employed new categories of
professionals such as parent-evaluators alongside the
long list of tax accountants, lawyers, teachers,
doctors, and so forth already needed to run a household
and raise children. The burden of raising a Private
Family and demostrating compliance with parental
standards increased so that the practice began to
decline. Wherever private parents met, jokes about the
horrors of "portfolio audits" were exchanged.
Enthusiastic private parents joined their local Parent-
Government Partnership Program (PGPPs).
Private Families still continued to be common among
some conservative Catholics and the more radical
Protestant churches. But mainstream churches, by and
large, tended to support pro-Family policies. These
churches had long been effectively arms of the
government, as they administered the charity programs,
pastoral care programs, and church-run
Daycare/Nightcare centers needed to support three-shift
working families. These programs, administered by the
Department of Faiths, provided government matching
funds to churches that complied with government
guidelines on hiring practices, inclusivity standards,
revised their scriptures and teaching to be compliant
with hate-suppression guidelines, and had a certified
pro-family policy.
During the troubled 2030s, "The Great Rollback", social
tensions increased alongside agitation for expanding
the Public Family System. President Al Bush-Kennedy (a
scion of several famous political families) and his
wife "Tupper Bird" were the first husband/wife team to
serve four consecutive terms from 2033-2048. During the
third Bush-Kennedy administration, their comprehensive
social program, called "The New Cradle," finally made
the advantages of the Public Family System available to
all, whether economically disadvantaged or not.
Orphanages, Juvenile Delinquent homes, "Totalcare
Centers" (Daycare/Nightcare/School/Hospital/Nursing
Home), were all merged and rationalized in a single
administration, The Department of Family. The Family
Security Tax was introduced to allow all workers to
contribute to the support of children. In return, the
government sent parents pictures and letters from
"their" children. Parents could apply to the Department
of Family to receive children matching their
specifications as closely as possible.
The New Cradle required bypassing the opposition of the
now discredited U.S. Supreme Court, where a cadre of
conservative justices tried to block the new pro-Family
Reforms. But, as supporters of the New Cradle pointed
out, a legal system based on Common Law was inherently
Anti-Family, so it could hardly be expected to reform
itself. The U.S. Constitution was amended so that a
two-thirds majority of both Houses, with the
concurrence of the co-Presidents, could override any
court decision. These years also saw the demise of the
hated Electoral College system, and the integration of
"Local" and "State" governments and their respective
courts into departments of the Federal government. The
reduced waste and redundancy greatly improved the
efficiency of governing.
During the Great Rollback and Second Gulf War that
followed it, it became commonplace for spouses to work
in different parts of the country. Competing in a
global economy was tough, but America rose to the
occasion by creating the most mobile economy in the
world. Without children, parents could work anywhere,
anytime. The 2050s are looked on as a sort of Golden
Age, in which happy Public Families worked hard and
patriotically to make American Corporations once again
the most profitable in the world.
But behind the glowing happy faces in the holo-movies,
trouble was brewing. Spouses who never saw each other
and had no children were beginning to doubt their
identification with the social values and constructs
known as "parenting". For at least a generation,
the primary relationship between spouses had been over
the Net. One of the key reforms of The New Cradle had
been 20 minute conjugal breaks for life-partners who
had not seen each other in at least 7 days due to work
schedules, both of whom were employed by companies with over
50 workers. (Conjugal breaks were not conducted in
person, of course. Sex in person was no longer the
norm, as most persons used Personal Companion Devices
[PCDs] connected to the Net.)
The suicide rate, hidden drug addiction, and
psychological disorders were symptoms of a deeper
underlying problem--the self-image of Parenthood
imposed by society on its members. After a series of
powerful books, such as _The Parental Mystique_ and
_Silent Crib_, the Parent Liberation Movement was born.
Bonding Partners were to let go of the confining social
roles implied by an unattainable ideal of parenthood.
The movement stressed that Parenthood was not an ideal,
but a trap that denied the essential personal autonomy
of the partner, and insisted on an unfair, unattainable
role model of self-sacrifice.
The 2060s saw a number of countercultural movements.
The "Back to Bed" movement, commonly known as "The
Humpers," attempted to re-introduce same-place sex.
Although they added a certain ambiance to the decade,
the Humpers had little impact in the long run, as their
ideals were impractical and two-parent child rearing
did not leave enough time to earn the income to make it
feasible. Few corporations were prepared to hire
workers who wished to remain together, or who were
unavailable on demand because they were raising
children in their spare time. The Humpers did, however,
develop an underground network of mid-Nannies to assist
in homeparenting, and also The Semen League to assist
with artificial insemination for parents who were
forced to return to work in separate cities before
starting their families.
A more enduring impact of the 2060s came from the
non-violent Family Rights movement, which addressed the
inequalities between the Public Family System and the
Private Family System. The triumphal "Great War on
Elitism" was eventually followed, in the 2070s, by
Affirmative Parenthood, in which the remaining private
families (the richest 10% of the population) were
obliged to send some of their children to the Public
Family System, unless they agreed to forgo the Governement
subsidies for Private Families. Most private families
who could chose to pay the Family Security Tax and
forgo the subsidies, but keep their children.
As a result of the upheavals of the 2060s and 2070s, a
new movement begain to coalesce. At first it was
largely illegal, but slowly gaining support. The
"homefamily movement" advocated "taking back our kids"
and raising them in a parented home. Two rather
diverse groups pioneered the homefamily movement. On
the one hand there were religious fringe groups like
Neo-Roman Catholics** and some extreme Protestants, who
had always covertly raised children, often while the
government turned a blind eye to the practice. The
other group giving initial support to the homefamily
movement were leftovers from the "Natural Family"
movements of the 2060s. They were commonly derided as
"Kid Huggers".
** To be distinguished from the more numerous and
government-approved American Catholics.
The 2080s are mostly remembered for the return of the
Public Family System to the private sector. Private
enterprise has always been more effecient at raising
children than the Government could be. After her
landslide victory in the election of 2080, President
Hunt-Rockefeller ("The Great Liberator") started a
program of privatized parenting. Corporations, which
had already contributed to the daycare and nightcare of
infants and ran the privatized "public" schools,
brought the efficiency of the marketplace to parenting.
Biological parents received vouchers for their children
allowing them to place the children in any corporate
program they wished, provided the child met the
standards for and was accepted by that program.
The profound interest of private business in the
outcome of childrearing--today's children are
tomorrow's workers--guaranteed the best upbringing for
all children. Companies were able to achieve
unparalleled loyalty in the workplace, as well as
efficient assignment to jobs. After all, with access to
the best testing technology and years worth of
documentation for each potential worker, they could
hardly make mistakes. A lively marketplace also
developed whereby companies could exchange workers in a
fair and economically efficient way, for whatever the
market would bear. This benefited both the workers, who
were placed in the job most fitting their talents, and
the company, which could manage cost reduction
flexibly.
As we look forward to the 22nd century, from our
vantage point in the late 2090s, a number of trends are
apparent. The natural trend of societal evolution
suggests that we have travelled from Public Education
to Public Family. I would like to suggest that beyond
this lies an even more glorious system, the Public
Individual. In both the case of Public Education and
the Public Family, the government supplied the critical
first steps, eventually turning the job over to the
private sector. Public policy could be brought to bear
so that harmful and dissident individuals, especially
those supporting the homefamily movement, could be
reformed and made to support socially productive goals.
Clearly the government cannot stand idle and allow
certain individuals, who have no proper training and no
economic stake in the future worker, to continue to
harm even one child and deprive industry of even one
worker by raising them improperly in--God forbid--their
own home. A Child is a Terrible Thing to Raise.
Redistribution permitted.
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
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<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>Yahoo! Terms of Service.
This was meant to be disturbing. If you don't like
being disturbed, don't read it.
=dr. john=
LOOKING BACKWARD AT THE RISE OF THE PUBLIC FAMILY
Looking back over the last century, most scholars would
assign the rise of the Public Family System to the
early decades of the 21st century. Although a number of
developments in the 20th century forshadowed the Public
Family--especially the Public Education System and
widespread daycare--it was really the economic changes
surrounding the Second Energy Crisis of 2010-2013 that
caused a cascade of events, in which it is possible to
discern the true rise of the Public Family.
Early in the century, a series of rolling blackouts
forced businesses to move to a 3 shift, 24-hour
economic model. Many families with two wage earners
found husband and wife both working at night. No
longer able to work, sleep, *and* care for their
children, many families turned to the burgeoning
Nightcare industry to provide parenting expertise.
"Parental authority", already undermined by public
education and displaced by the public servants
(educators and advertisers) who managed the child's
peer group, was joined by "parental affection", which
was now confined to a few hours of visitation a week.
The interest of children in their biological parents
changed to fit the societal realities of their lives.
Although the "Family" lived on in public mythology, the
reality was that approximately one-third of a whole
generation of children grew up who had been raised
almost entirely by public servants.
A two-tiered economic system developed, in which middle
class couples worked two jobs in order to pay for
private daycare, education, and nightcare, while poorer
families managed as they always had, using an informal
network of family and friends to get by less and less
well--with occasional tragedies involving children
confined to their cribs and left alone by desperate parents.
During the 2020s, a series of crises transformed the
emerging Public Family system. A wave of hysteria
followed the highly publicized case of a child
affectionately known to millions as "Baby Theresa".
Baby Theresa's biological single mother worked two
shifts and the third as a hooker to pay for their
one-room apartment and to support her amphetimine
habit. The Energy Independence Act of 2015 had already
introduced government-subsidies for Nightcare. In the
Baby Theresa case, the combined public fears of
widespread addiction to amphetimines among workers and
a fear of unfit mothers led to the legal placement of
Baby Theresa and other children in the government
system, and the establishment of "parental standards"
comparable to those in effect in the government-
regulated Nightcare/Daycare industry.
Throughout the 2020s and early 2030s, government
regulation increased for both Public and Private
Families. Richer families employed new categories of
professionals such as parent-evaluators alongside the
long list of tax accountants, lawyers, teachers,
doctors, and so forth already needed to run a household
and raise children. The burden of raising a Private
Family and demostrating compliance with parental
standards increased so that the practice began to
decline. Wherever private parents met, jokes about the
horrors of "portfolio audits" were exchanged.
Enthusiastic private parents joined their local Parent-
Government Partnership Program (PGPPs).
Private Families still continued to be common among
some conservative Catholics and the more radical
Protestant churches. But mainstream churches, by and
large, tended to support pro-Family policies. These
churches had long been effectively arms of the
government, as they administered the charity programs,
pastoral care programs, and church-run
Daycare/Nightcare centers needed to support three-shift
working families. These programs, administered by the
Department of Faiths, provided government matching
funds to churches that complied with government
guidelines on hiring practices, inclusivity standards,
revised their scriptures and teaching to be compliant
with hate-suppression guidelines, and had a certified
pro-family policy.
During the troubled 2030s, "The Great Rollback", social
tensions increased alongside agitation for expanding
the Public Family System. President Al Bush-Kennedy (a
scion of several famous political families) and his
wife "Tupper Bird" were the first husband/wife team to
serve four consecutive terms from 2033-2048. During the
third Bush-Kennedy administration, their comprehensive
social program, called "The New Cradle," finally made
the advantages of the Public Family System available to
all, whether economically disadvantaged or not.
Orphanages, Juvenile Delinquent homes, "Totalcare
Centers" (Daycare/Nightcare/School/Hospital/Nursing
Home), were all merged and rationalized in a single
administration, The Department of Family. The Family
Security Tax was introduced to allow all workers to
contribute to the support of children. In return, the
government sent parents pictures and letters from
"their" children. Parents could apply to the Department
of Family to receive children matching their
specifications as closely as possible.
The New Cradle required bypassing the opposition of the
now discredited U.S. Supreme Court, where a cadre of
conservative justices tried to block the new pro-Family
Reforms. But, as supporters of the New Cradle pointed
out, a legal system based on Common Law was inherently
Anti-Family, so it could hardly be expected to reform
itself. The U.S. Constitution was amended so that a
two-thirds majority of both Houses, with the
concurrence of the co-Presidents, could override any
court decision. These years also saw the demise of the
hated Electoral College system, and the integration of
"Local" and "State" governments and their respective
courts into departments of the Federal government. The
reduced waste and redundancy greatly improved the
efficiency of governing.
During the Great Rollback and Second Gulf War that
followed it, it became commonplace for spouses to work
in different parts of the country. Competing in a
global economy was tough, but America rose to the
occasion by creating the most mobile economy in the
world. Without children, parents could work anywhere,
anytime. The 2050s are looked on as a sort of Golden
Age, in which happy Public Families worked hard and
patriotically to make American Corporations once again
the most profitable in the world.
But behind the glowing happy faces in the holo-movies,
trouble was brewing. Spouses who never saw each other
and had no children were beginning to doubt their
identification with the social values and constructs
known as "parenting". For at least a generation,
the primary relationship between spouses had been over
the Net. One of the key reforms of The New Cradle had
been 20 minute conjugal breaks for life-partners who
had not seen each other in at least 7 days due to work
schedules, both of whom were employed by companies with over
50 workers. (Conjugal breaks were not conducted in
person, of course. Sex in person was no longer the
norm, as most persons used Personal Companion Devices
[PCDs] connected to the Net.)
The suicide rate, hidden drug addiction, and
psychological disorders were symptoms of a deeper
underlying problem--the self-image of Parenthood
imposed by society on its members. After a series of
powerful books, such as _The Parental Mystique_ and
_Silent Crib_, the Parent Liberation Movement was born.
Bonding Partners were to let go of the confining social
roles implied by an unattainable ideal of parenthood.
The movement stressed that Parenthood was not an ideal,
but a trap that denied the essential personal autonomy
of the partner, and insisted on an unfair, unattainable
role model of self-sacrifice.
The 2060s saw a number of countercultural movements.
The "Back to Bed" movement, commonly known as "The
Humpers," attempted to re-introduce same-place sex.
Although they added a certain ambiance to the decade,
the Humpers had little impact in the long run, as their
ideals were impractical and two-parent child rearing
did not leave enough time to earn the income to make it
feasible. Few corporations were prepared to hire
workers who wished to remain together, or who were
unavailable on demand because they were raising
children in their spare time. The Humpers did, however,
develop an underground network of mid-Nannies to assist
in homeparenting, and also The Semen League to assist
with artificial insemination for parents who were
forced to return to work in separate cities before
starting their families.
A more enduring impact of the 2060s came from the
non-violent Family Rights movement, which addressed the
inequalities between the Public Family System and the
Private Family System. The triumphal "Great War on
Elitism" was eventually followed, in the 2070s, by
Affirmative Parenthood, in which the remaining private
families (the richest 10% of the population) were
obliged to send some of their children to the Public
Family System, unless they agreed to forgo the Governement
subsidies for Private Families. Most private families
who could chose to pay the Family Security Tax and
forgo the subsidies, but keep their children.
As a result of the upheavals of the 2060s and 2070s, a
new movement begain to coalesce. At first it was
largely illegal, but slowly gaining support. The
"homefamily movement" advocated "taking back our kids"
and raising them in a parented home. Two rather
diverse groups pioneered the homefamily movement. On
the one hand there were religious fringe groups like
Neo-Roman Catholics** and some extreme Protestants, who
had always covertly raised children, often while the
government turned a blind eye to the practice. The
other group giving initial support to the homefamily
movement were leftovers from the "Natural Family"
movements of the 2060s. They were commonly derided as
"Kid Huggers".
** To be distinguished from the more numerous and
government-approved American Catholics.
The 2080s are mostly remembered for the return of the
Public Family System to the private sector. Private
enterprise has always been more effecient at raising
children than the Government could be. After her
landslide victory in the election of 2080, President
Hunt-Rockefeller ("The Great Liberator") started a
program of privatized parenting. Corporations, which
had already contributed to the daycare and nightcare of
infants and ran the privatized "public" schools,
brought the efficiency of the marketplace to parenting.
Biological parents received vouchers for their children
allowing them to place the children in any corporate
program they wished, provided the child met the
standards for and was accepted by that program.
The profound interest of private business in the
outcome of childrearing--today's children are
tomorrow's workers--guaranteed the best upbringing for
all children. Companies were able to achieve
unparalleled loyalty in the workplace, as well as
efficient assignment to jobs. After all, with access to
the best testing technology and years worth of
documentation for each potential worker, they could
hardly make mistakes. A lively marketplace also
developed whereby companies could exchange workers in a
fair and economically efficient way, for whatever the
market would bear. This benefited both the workers, who
were placed in the job most fitting their talents, and
the company, which could manage cost reduction
flexibly.
As we look forward to the 22nd century, from our
vantage point in the late 2090s, a number of trends are
apparent. The natural trend of societal evolution
suggests that we have travelled from Public Education
to Public Family. I would like to suggest that beyond
this lies an even more glorious system, the Public
Individual. In both the case of Public Education and
the Public Family, the government supplied the critical
first steps, eventually turning the job over to the
private sector. Public policy could be brought to bear
so that harmful and dissident individuals, especially
those supporting the homefamily movement, could be
reformed and made to support socially productive goals.
Clearly the government cannot stand idle and allow
certain individuals, who have no proper training and no
economic stake in the future worker, to continue to
harm even one child and deprive industry of even one
worker by raising them improperly in--God forbid--their
own home. A Child is a Terrible Thing to Raise.
Redistribution permitted.
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
<http://rd.yahoo.com/M=190462.1393721.2979173.2/D=egroupmail/S=1702505202:N/A=551015/?http://www.debticated.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
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Subscribe: [email protected]
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<http://homestead.com/WaHomeEdNet/WHENmain.html>http://homestead.com/WaHomeEdNet/WHENmain.html
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the
<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>Yahoo! Terms of Service.
[email protected]
Helen, this was an interesting story. It does make you think about the
direction of things in our society and wonder whether we're heading into a
better time or a worse one. But homeschooling does give me hope...seeing it
catch on more and more with people who at one time thought it was bizarre.
One other question...I'm not getting any email from the group today and
I don't know if there's something I should do to make sure I wasn't
accidentally taken off (or it could just be more weirdness from AOL). I did
get one private email...can someone email me directly and tell me if it's
just a quiet day on the list? Thanks...
Lucy
direction of things in our society and wonder whether we're heading into a
better time or a worse one. But homeschooling does give me hope...seeing it
catch on more and more with people who at one time thought it was bizarre.
One other question...I'm not getting any email from the group today and
I don't know if there's something I should do to make sure I wasn't
accidentally taken off (or it could just be more weirdness from AOL). I did
get one private email...can someone email me directly and tell me if it's
just a quiet day on the list? Thanks...
Lucy
[email protected]
In a message dated 5/3/01 10:13:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
LASaliger@... writes:
<< One other question...I'm not getting any email from the group today >>
Helen, I wrote this the other day so I don't know why it only posted
today. I am getting the digest form for now that you're forwarding...thanks!
Most of the other stuff still isn't getting through...just a couple once in
a while. Thanks!
Lucy
LASaliger@... writes:
<< One other question...I'm not getting any email from the group today >>
Helen, I wrote this the other day so I don't know why it only posted
today. I am getting the digest form for now that you're forwarding...thanks!
Most of the other stuff still isn't getting through...just a couple once in
a while. Thanks!
Lucy