http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Ottawa+summer+anomaly+heat+wave+without+smog/1731520/story.html

People are multi-faceted. As with the poll, where there are only two choices possible, I think you have set the question up in a very limited way. An either / or scenario, which oversimplifies the issue not to mention people.

I think that politicians are responsible for representing the people, to serve them. Her opinion clearly indicates her support for some constituents, and not for others. This is judgmental – absolutely not her job – and divisive.

There is no complexity in these perspectives and arguments and as we all know human lives are complicated and rarely, if ever, fit into the slots that bureaucracies make for them. That’s what makes the conversation so important, and judgments, the idea of a permanent solution, that a truth about how to raise families exists, so harmful. There are always exceptions, and successful ones, to whatever one imagines the majority, the mainstream, the people who are doing it ‘right’, to be.

We could look at other communities in which children spend time with both of their parents, taking part and learning from them. Maybe we should try an argument for both parents staying home, or taking their children with them wherever they go, in order to raise them properly. But that’s just not practical, is it?

Obviously, though, great topic!

Who’s Murdoch??

Both my parents always worked while growing up, and I turned out fine.

Murdoch is free to have an opinion – which, if you read up on her personal history is a direct contradiction of the choices she made – but as a government official her job is to make things better for individual families who live as they believe to be best. Over-simplification of the issue – for example the comment about LCD tvs, which assumes consumerism as a motive, and driving a bus with one’s feet (which is quite possibly offensive to physically challenged people whose vehicles are necessarily modified for them) – do not really foster discussion nor negotiation between people of varying perspectives; these side bars encourage polemical thinking. Working is also about fulfillment, about expanding a circle of social contacts, about contributing and community building. There are varying degrees of work: part-time; job-sharing; one day a week; night shifts and so on. Where does the line get drawn and who gets to make that decision? Moralizing from the government is out of line. Thinking that she is free to impose her own values affects not only which support programs are created (including tax breaks for families, government subsidized day care, etc.) but who qualifies for those programs. Close-minded politicians are unwelcome, IMHO.

So there. Back to the thesis!