[quote=bearishgurl] She doesn’t seem to take into account that middle-class families in 1975 lived a VERY spartan lifestyle compared to MC families of today (and even compared to some families currently on public assistance with a Section 8 grant)!
(snip)
There were no real “standards” to graduate from a public HS – the “teacher’s favorites” and “jocks” graduated doing almost no work and with a bad attendance record. There was no afterschool care. There were no health or dental plans in place for children. At that time, Title IX was new which allowed girls to participate in some boy’s sports. Divorced and unwed dads never got custody of their children, even if the mom was a flake, drug addict, prostitute or all three. There was nothing preventing one parent from withholding child visitation from the other parent, which deprived countless children of the other parent. In CA, many dads never even realized they HAD children and (unknowingly) lost them thru adoption, because the law didn’t require the mom to name them as the father and notify them! When they found out about the adoption (thru friends/relatives and tried to take custody of them during or directly after the process, they were denied and told by the court that they “failed to offer to pay for prenatal care, failed to bond with the child, failed to support it and bring it into their homes,” etc. How could they do any of these things when they never knew the mom was pregnant or she refused to talk to them during her pregnancy? In a nutshell, the above was nearly the exact language of a whole host of statutes in CA that have since been repealed. Yes, the lives of children have been greatly improved since the early/mid seventies.
As I stated on the “shadow inventory” thread, Tyagi’s book reviews overwhelmingly showed little sympathy for parents who were attempting to live a life which was more than they could afford.
I thought Warren was intelligent but her speech often “victimized” the “poor, overworked, overspending parent” who is currently “trapped” in suburbia-ville and unable to survive on two incomes. I was left wanting to hear about her take on “personal responsibility” but that never materialized.[/quote]
I could spend a whole lotta time with a point by point rebuttal here but I will just leave it at hogwash. I was there.
