When my daughters were young, we used to kneel by their beds and say nightly prayers. One precious night my eldest sheepishly confessed to me before starting. Daddy, I lie sometimes. I told her not to worry God forgives, and I confessed to her most people do, not to worry. At that she started crying and said “Daddy you don’t understand, I lie a lot, a really lot”. We hugged and I tried very hard not to laugh at her innocence.
This morning while having my coffee and time of reflection with God, I found myself saying to my Father, “I’m scared”. What came to my mind was, everybody get’s scared “, my response was a you don’t understand “I’m really scared, scared a lot”. I don’t know if God smiled at my lack of knowledge.
I know the headlines in my morning paper “The Drudge Report”, were such headlines as “Kiss the Dollar Goodbye’, Israel will attack Iran by Christmas, Illinois, citizens afraid to come out of their homes (unprecedented violence), Fights break out as Detroit, citizens stand in lines by the thousands for small government handout checks, Chicago in a violence emergency, Giant Obama carved into golf course with swastika, Global Police, an alliance of all nations, traditional families now a minority while President “endorses’ non-traditional families, thousands in proposed fines for those who cannot afford mandated insurance, IRS to be given wide new sweeping power by Obama initiative , $3,500.00 per year in tax breaks for pet owner expenses, Government says Al Qaeda terrorist currently in the USA and Michael Jacksons Burnt hair up for sale.
What’s next? $75 million to bomb the moon and mankind starts shaving poodles?
This weekend the Governor of Michigan who has lost 637,000 jobs over the past year and is expected to top ONE MILLION, bragged about the proposed creation of a Green State that would create 11,000 new jobs in the next four years!
My personal businesses are suffering, but I’ve always felt comfort and hope saying, “This is still America, we will make it, everyone can if they stay honest and work hard’.
Today, this morning anyway, I just don’t know. Is this still the America I’ve known and loved, or is it turning into something I longer have the same faith in?
I’m scared, I mean I’m really scared.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
J Byron,
I am commenting here in response you made on another writer’s article “The Good Old Days” – a writer who I refuse to interact with any longer.
Your points were excellent. My oldest daughter, who is now 16, commented just the other day how she is starting to realize how good things were for us financially up until she was about 13. She remembered how her mother could just go out and buy a pair of slacks any time she wanted or needed, etc. Currently, things have gotten a little tougher. But I’m glad she asked me that because she is retroactively learning to appreciate what we had and is presently learning to appreciate what we have. Thinking about what you said, these difficult times could actually be a blessing in disguise in several ways, in particular if my kids can learn the value of hard work and the value of a dollar earned.
Also, I found it quite interesting that the other writer chose to eliminate a portion of the email that didn’t conveniently line up with her point. Something she has very recently unfoundedly accused me of.
Peace
Amonite,
But none of these problems can be attributed to any other cause? It HAS to be the fact of a single parent? With Catholic school tuitions costing as much as college tuitions, could the fact that a family afford to send their child there be an indicator that they are in a better socio-economic bracket and that might be part of the reason they score better? Could the fact that both fathers AND mothers work, as opposed to the past, have anything to do with these problems? Just because there is a father and mother living in the house doesn’t mean there is somebody home with the children that live there. And there are children of divorced homes and single parent homes in Catholic school, too. If a parent married outside the faith and did not have a Catholic wedding, according to canon law they are still a Catholic in good standing even though they are divorced because in the eyes of the church, for their purposes, they were never married. So, still think it has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with single parent households? I love the “everybody knows” attitude in your words- “everybody knows” that the lack of a father or mother is to blame for “the majority of behavioral disorders and later-life incompetancies come from not having a father or mother in the home.” Ask around- how many people do you know of any type family that has a good relationship with both parents? How many people do you know who have dysfunctional relationships and commitment issues have parents who stayed unhappily married and aired it for the kids to see. There are SO MANY issues that affect how a child grows and develops that it cannot be laid solely on the doorstep of single parenting. To do so is to put society at risk. And, if there is so much harm being done due to single parenting, why isn’t there a greater swell by the public and civic leaders to protest the images being promoted by Hollywood and Madison Avenue? Why is the trend to shuttle your kids off from one activity to another with minimal parental interaction and leaving others to raise your children? If you think this is just a single parent issue, you’re dead wrong. No, that would mean people would have to change and think about someone else for a change. It’s much easier to blame the single parents for the problems and make those single parents who successfully raise their children to be responsible, healthy members of society into an exception, into those “families (that)rise above circumstances without.” I’m no exception- there’s lots of us. Lots of parents who ” teach their children right from wrong and how to adapt to life” even though they are going it alone for one reason or another. And I see lots of parents of dual parent homes that don’t. The single parent copout just doesn’t hold water anymore.
As for the forest for the trees, I’ve addessed society overall so many times here..PLEASE. Been there, done that. I was talking about months ago while everyone else was still whining about Washington and how they are to blame for everything.
Good points, well said. I admire your tact, but personally I enjoy shaking a wet limb over the head the libs when they pass under, just to be awnry.
There is a forest out there – do not get caught up in the trees.
No one sensibly paints -all- single family homes as broken or -all- two parent homes as whole. But fromt he pattern of history and born out in psychology, the ideal starting point for any family is a two parent home with a strong father figure and a mother figure who teach their children right from wrong and how to adapt to life. Is this a gaurantee? Of course not. Can families rise above circumstances without? Of course. But -in general-, the majority of behavioral disorders and later-life incompetancies come from not having a father or mother in the home. Environment factors and personal choices can, of course, turn any family into a ‘tree’ situation which goes one way or another.
(Yet notice, for instance, that children in christian private schools maintain SAT scores at a 1960′s level, wheras scores in public schools, even with public school budgets rising every year, have been steadily declining since the 1960′s despite access to far more resources/money. Are there children who are ‘trees’ -who score high in the public school or low in a private school? Naturally! But ignoring the forest would willful ignorance.)
One of my favorite sayings is ‘Challenge your preconceptions, or they will challenge you’. This goes both ways. You should not put someone into a box because of their age, disability, job, religion, etc and expect them to stay there – at the same time, reasonable assumptions can be inferred about lifestyles (what are the affects of long-term smoking or drinking on families? Promiscuous behavior? Drugs? etc) through pschology, studies, observation, etc.
But, as pointed out above, none of this was the original point of the article, which was dealing with the -massive forest fire- of issues sweeping through our country. (To which Consti Tution aptly replied: America has seen and has woken up)
I did address change, but why am I not surprised that you did not see that, as you do anything else you can’t argue with.
My point is the same that I have made on many other issues. That making assumptions based on steroetypes is inaccurate and damaging. It is not just damaging to those being sterotyped, but to society as a whole.
The point of the Columbine example is that two parents who are a man and a woman is no guarantee in and of itself that a family is healthy and the children will turn out well, just as the fact that not having two parents who are a man and a woman is not an automatic guarantee that the family will not be healthy or that the children will end up defective. The mother of Derek Klebold said in a recent essay that she “had no idea that there was anything wrong.” There were assault weapons ON DEREK’S BED when the police came to the Klebold home after the attack. They had been making enough noise in the gagrage to be noticed by the NEIGHBORS!!!! Derek had been in trouble with the law and was known to have weapons, as well as emotional issues. Maybe instead of looking for problems within non-traditional familes, maybe more attention needs to be paid to the problems that exist in American families, period, so that danger signs like the ones in Columbine aren’t missed. So that abuse does not go unnoticed. So that educational oportunity is maximized. So a sense of responsibility is instilled into our children. In ALL families, in ALL walks of life. When you paint any group as “good” or “evil”, you miss the good in one and the evil in the other. How about everyone be seen as both good AND bad, until they, as individuals, prove themselves otherwise? Novel concept, eh?
Laura, poopr Laura……
First the article was not about just chilfdren, although one was quoated to make a point. Tha article is about change of basics, principles yhat have made and keep this country strong.
I glad your fine son is not a homicidial maniac like traditional families produce, and that he’s not taught to be a racist or beaten like in”so many” traditional fams. Good job, changing American one non trasitional fam at a time.
PS Obama and his could give a tickers cuss about your non traditional status, he’s doing what is expediant for his base. If he received more power in the other direction he’d through your and yours under the bus along with his former pastor/mentor and others who have been decloacked embassingly.
WOW!
Part of the fear is the fear of the unknown, of change. As knowledge expands and the effects of past actions are felt, change happens. It’s a natural part of life. Things cannot be as they were before…it is up to us to guide that path things take as we move forward.
As far as Obama “endorsing” non-traditional familes…As the head of a non-traditioal family all I can say is it’s about time. There are more of us then there are traditional ones and there is nothing freakish or harmful about us by definitin. This uninformed endorsement of the traditional family (meaning nuclear family) as the only healthy family is so off base it’s not even funny. Doesn’t physical, emotional and mental abuse happen in two-parent families, along with drug and alcohol problems and criminal acts by children? The Columbine boys were part of traditonal two-parent families… And no one thinks that maybe the lack of public support of non-traditional families and the assumption that all children of a non-traditional family are nothing but walking time bombs have no impact toward how those children turn out?
I have raised my son alone, without a father, since before the day he was born. My son has always been surrounded by a network of extended family and friends. He has had the proverbial “village”. He is not a bully, a drug addict, an alcohol abuser, mean-spirited, selfish, hateful, a criminal, a homosexual or any of the other labels that conservatives and the religious right want to plunk on children from non-traditional and single parent families. My son is loved, knows he is loved, is given time attention and devotion. He is not exposed to a revolving door of men or is told that men are bad and that relationships are dysfunctional. There are so many stereotypes about children and mothers of single parent families that are disgusting and insulting, besides being grossly inaccurate.
By “endorsing” us, Obama has publicly denied these stereotypes and put our children on the same pedestal that children of traditional households have long held. My son, and the children of other non-traditional households, are no longer society’s “redheaded stepchildren.” Now let’s attack the REAL reasons behind why our children go astray and become less than productive and positive members of society…
As the buddhist monks would say; “the universe tends to unfold as it should.” Take heart. The sleeping giant that is the American public has woken up to this disaster and will make changes in 2010. Rest assured.