Community-based child-care providers

A colorful array of childcare and preschool options blossomed in the 1970s as the feminist movement spurred mothers into careers and community organizations nurtured new programs.

Now a small circle of activists aim to bring more order to childhood. Their battle cry, heard in a growing number of state capitals and school reform circles, seeks to create a more standard, state-run preschool system. For young children already facing the rigors of play dates and harried parents juggling the strains of work and family, government is moving in to standardize childhood.

Sociologist Bruce Fuller traveled the country—sitting in preschool classrooms, delving into the birth of universal preschool in California and Oklahoma, and interviewing this robust movement’s eager leaders—to understand the ideologies of childhood and the raw political forces at play. He details how these new progressives earnestly seek to extend the rigors of public schooling down into the lives of very young children. Fuller then illuminates the stiff resistance by some children’s activists, ethnic leaders, and conservatives, who hold less trust in government solutions and more faith in nonprofits and local groups in contributing to the upbringing of young children.

The call for universal preschool is a new front in the culture wars, raising sharp questions about American families, cultural diversity, and the appropriate role of the state in the lives of our young children. How are state governments variably shaping universal preschool? Why does the state want to standardize childhood? Which children benefit from quality preschool? Will civic organizations grow weak as the state comes to run and regulate early education? Drawing on the voices of teachers, community activists, and political leaders actively shaping this debate, Standardized Childhood shows why the universal preschool movement is attracting such robust support—and strident opposition—nationwide.

Best Christmas gift: Time with MUM AND DAD!

Parents should spend more time baking, dressing up and making decorations with their children if they want them to have a truly memorable Christmas. They should spend less time tracking down the latest games console. That is the advice of a leading British charity which has published a 16-page guide, Batteries Not Included, to activities for the Christmas and New Year holiday. The free booklet contains more than 100 simple ideas, including making snowy footprints to show where Santa Claus has been, a treasure hunt and a home cinema evening. Kids are more likely to cherish the memory of such activities than the toys they get, says the society.

It is conducting a two-year investigation into modern British childhood and has discovered that children's No. 1 priority is spending time with their parents. Yet parents often give their kids gifts instead of time, said spokesman Tim Linehan. "We are not trying to write off TV or computer games … but these are more solitary pursuits than the games of the past. Our finding that children have fewer close friends than a generation ago, and that more children have no good friends at all, cannot be dismissed."

Moscow to have 'Year of the Family' in 2008

The government of the Russian has announced a "Year of the Family in Moscow" to run through 2008. The program, which aims to help any family in the city, includes events to educate and prepare young people for creating families and for strengthening family values -- especially among poor families and those with many children. It also aims to prevent children being abandoned by their parents with the creation of a new support center, specialized networks for foster care and the opening of a crisis center for people with children who have subjected to domestic abuse.

Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov says the idea is to support all families who need help, not just those who already qualify because the parents are young (up to 35) or other distinct groups. The year of the family will continue privileges granted to large families, such as free transport and other services.

Because of low birth rates and high death rates Russia's population is in decline. But with the increase in the people's incomes in the 2000s Russia's demographic situation has started to turn around and families increasingly have a second and third child. Russia's fertility rate has climbed from a low of 1.2 to 1.39 in 2006. While still far below the 2.1 replacement rate, it continues to show signs of growing.

Live-in boyfriends raise risk of Child Abuse

Growing up in a home without both natural parents is a well-known risk for a child's welfare and cases of severe child abuse tend to confirm this, as a recent Associated Press article points out. But the article also notes that privacy concerns and fear of appearing judgemental prevents accurate assessment -- and public warnings -- of the risk posed by a mother's live-in boyfriend.

The most recent federal survey of child abuse in the US tallies nearly 900,000 abuse incidents reported to state agencies in 2005, but it does not delve into how rates of abuse correlate with parents' marital status or the make-up of a child's household. Data on the roughly 1500 child-abuse deaths annually leave similar unanswered questions. However, studies have found:

• Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries as children living with two biological parents.
• Children living in step-families or with single parents are at higher risk of physical or sexual assault than children living with two biological or adoptive parents.
• Girls whose parents divorce are at significantly higher risk of sexual assault, whether they live with their mother or their father.

"All the emphasis on family autonomy and privacy shields the families from investigators, so we don't respond until it's too late," says researcher Robin Wilson, a family law professor at Washington and Lee University. "I hate the fact that something dangerous for children doesn't get responded to because we're afraid of judging someone's lifestyle."

Marriage deserves more because it gives more

The continued provision of preferential support for parents and children over other types of unions is vital for society. The ongoing debate in Australia over the access of same-sex couples to social benefits and so-called entitlements is a distraction from the real issue at hand. The real issue is not one concerning any infringement of rights. Rather, it is about what heterosexual Marriage can offer society that other forms of relationships cannot.

Married heterosexual unions are not simply a legal invention with an associated bunch of benefits. Committed, enduring heterosexual unions have an intrinsic value which enables them to provide a number of reciprocal benefits to any society. It is the reason why flourishing societies have always acknowledged the importance of marriage and family and accorded it a level of preferential support. It is a vital part of the social estate.

The social benefits of committed, exclusive heterosexual unions include the generation of children and the raising up of future citizens; a supportive and safe environment for the nurturing of these children; two parents who are biologically connected to their child and who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of that child; two complementary parents who can provide appropriate gender role modeling; and an inter-generational connectedness within families and societies where parents are encouraged to save and provide for their children and grandchildren.

Reference: Marriage deserves more...

MARRIAGE HEALTHIER FOR ALL THE FAMILY THAN COHABITATION

Marriage is the healthiest option despite the fact that marriage is losing ground to cohabitation a new research from Britain confirms. Figures from the Office of National Statistics show this is especially true for men. Women who are married -- or have been -- and have children are the healthiest, unless they are lone parents, in which case they are more likely to suffer a long-term illness. Divorce and separation are also associated with poor health.

Six years of government data on family life show that children are also more likely to develop illnesses if they live in non-traditional family groups. Teenagers whose parents are married, and those who live with just their mother, are more likely to stay in education past the age of 17, than those of cohabiting parents.

The number of cohabiting couples in Britain has increased by 65 per cent in a decade, with a more gradual rise in the number of single-parent families. In 2006, couples in nearly 70 per cent of families were married, but that proportion could drop to less than half by 2014. Childlessness is increasing along with cohabitation: there are over 1.3 million couples living together without children compared with around 854,000 a decade before.

Reference: Marriage healthier...

UNFPA BLAMES SKEWED SEX RATIO ON GENDER BIAS

A United Nations conference on "sexual and reproductive health" in the Asia-Pacific region held at the end of last month highlighted the dramatic sex-ratio imbalance in parts of the region without admitting the contribution of the UN's own population policies to the problem. Papers commissioned for the meeting by UNFPA, the Population Fund, focus on the tradition of son preference in China, India and other countries. The papers treat sex ratios badly-skewed towards males as largely gender equality and gender violence issues requiring a change of attitude to women.

A summary of a paper giving an overview of the problem does not even mention population control policies and the legalisation of abortion as causes. It blames the "opportunistic behaviour of families who want to beget more sons than are biologically determined" by using pre-natal ultrasound and amniocentesis, leading to selective abortion of girls. "In many regions, several generations will be affected by a severe marriage squeeze, regardless of what is done today," says UNFPA.

A paper on the emerging sex imbalance in Vietnam, however, acknowledges government policy on family limitation as a factor in a national ratio which now stands at 110 male births for every 100 female -- about where China was ten years ago. Vietnam has had a population control policy since the 1960s and this was intensified during the 1980s and 1990s. The policy is still "strictly controlled by the government", according to interviews conducted by the researcher. "People try to negotiate the two-child family norm by covertly using scientific methods to select the foetus's sex. Ultrasound is perceived as a good choice not only by the farmers, but also by the state's cadres."

Reference: Sex Ratio Imbalance...

Cyber faithful flock to GODTUBE by the million

A Christian website which allows visitors to chat and exchange religious-themed videos was recently named America's fastest-growing website, drawing more than four million users last month. Texas-based GodTube combines the video clip-sharing principle of YouTube, the social networking feature of Facebook and live webcasting.

Popular attractions include music, comedy (for example, a squirrel singing I Will Always Love You) and heated theological debates. The site contains 25,000 videos with 300 to 500 fresh ones arriving each day. Their content is monitored by a team of seminary students. Members of other religions are invited to participate but they cannot proselytize. Atheists are welcome too, and they may share their point of view "as long as it's done respectfully".

Chris Wyatt, GodTube's founder, said he set it up because churches were having difficulty reaching young people "in a language they can understand". He says GodTube users on Sunday mornings outnumber the congregation of mega church pastor Joel Osteen in Houston. The site is growing so rapidly that it recently launched its own news service. Another spin-off, Godcaster, will soon allow any church in the world to stream its services free.

Autism and the TV: A study case

What have television, bad weather and autism got to do with one another? Quite a lot, according to new research led by Michael Waldman of the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. The incidence of autism has grown tenfold over the past 30 years, from one in 2500 children to one in 166 children in the United States -- with similar levels elsewhere. Apart from general agreement that both genetics and environment play a part in the condition, very little is known about what causes it.

One smoking gun is the growing amount of television and related media watched by very young children, due to the growth of cable TV, VCRs and DVDs in the last few decades. Waldman and colleagues figured the highest rates of TV watching would occur in places where there was more rain and/or snow, and these places would have higher rates of autism. Analysis of data for three states -- California, Oregon and Washington -- showed autism rates were positively linked to levels of precipitation. And data from California and Pennsylvania showed a link between autism and the percentage of households subscribed to cable to TV.

"Our precipitation tests indicate that just under forty per cent of autism diagnoses in the three states studied is the result of television watching due to precipitation, while our cable tests indicate that approximately seventeen per cent of the growth of autism in California and Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s is due to the growth of cable television," they conclude. The researchers also point out their findings are consistent with concern in the medical community about the exposure of young children to electronic media.

A Nun shouts from the Rooftop!

Mother Angelica and the founding of EWTN

The future Mother Angelica was born Rita Antoinette Rizzo on April 28, 1923 in Canton, Ohio, and by 1976, Mother Angelica had written 50 booklets and recorded 150 audio cassette teaching tapes. When she was given the opportunity to make video tape programs for television, she realized the impact television could have in spreading the Faith. Converting a planned garage behind the monastery into a television studio, Mother Angelica founded the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). EWTN began airing programs on August 15, 1981 via satellite to cable companies and home satellite dishes. In 1992, Mother Angelica also founded WEWN to broadcast Catholic programs world-wide via short-wave radio.

EWTN has become a powerful voice for conservative American Roman Catholics, despite its location in the not-particularly Catholic state of Alabama in the Bible Belt of the Deep South. She was frequently seen on the network teaching or taking questions from viewers via telephone. She hosted the highly successful "Mother Angelica Live" television program which aired on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and is currently hosted each Wednesday night by noted Scripture scholar and long time EWTN personality, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J. The show is simply titled EWTN LIVE. Mother Angelica Live Classics can be seen at 8:00pm EST on Tuesday night.

Mother Angelica suffered some health setbacks (especially a severe stroke) now that she is an octogenarian, but she has stabilized according to sources close to her. She was based at "Our Lady of the Angels Monastery" in Irondale, Alabama near Birmingham but moved to a more secluded monastery, which she built just recently, located in Hanceville, Alabama. The monastery can often be seen on EWTN during a live airing of Benediction and Devotions. Mother Angelica no longer makes live appearances on EWTN. Reruns of her old Mother Angelica Live show, as well as reruns of The Holy Rosary with Mother Angelica and the Nuns, appear regularly on the network. Mother Angelica Live, saw St. Michael the Archangel standing in the place where EWTN would later be founded. There are many Catholics who believe Mother Angelica is a modern day saint and attribute their renewed faith to her show and prayers.