Mitt Romney Is Not Kind To His Dog

Victor wrote:

Quote :

I honestly think that both play critical parts of the formation of conscience and empathy--or the lack thereof. I also believe that while overly strict parents, and especially ones who subject their children to violence, can certainly influence the moral and intellectual development of their children in a myriad of negative ways, overly permissive parents who allow their children to do as they please can have the exact same impact. Both can be largely to blame for creating antisocial little monsters of various kinds (though the former are clearly responsible for creating more true sociopaths). And I also believe that nature inoculates many people from the destructive effects of cruel and overly permissive parents.

Completely right on, in my view.

There was an article in a teacher's journal that the first principal (the best one) at the first school where I taught insisted that each member of the staff read. It had to do with studies that had been conducted to see which parenting styles were most helpful to children as students. They divided the parents into three groups: authoritarian, or very strict ones where rules and discipline were paramount; permissive, where children had very few rules and were allowed to do whatever they wished; and authoritative, an in-between style where some limits were set, but children had both freedom and responsibilities within those defined limits. The study showed that authoritative parenting was more important to a student's success than income levels, than whether or not both parents worked, or even whether or not both parents were married and living in the household. As a single parent, I was especially glad to see the last group. My children were 6, 8, and 10 when we separated. They were all honor students and now have at least two degrees each.

My children had authoritative parents both before and after our divorce - and from their dad and step-mother as well as from me.

Ann,

You can be very proud.of your own children and the others you inspired along the way.

My parents wanted me to be a teacher.
I decided to become a nurse instead, then after two years of college decided to marry--my free thinking at work here.
We, Dave and I, taught at church and we had fun and the kids loved us.

A teacher can make such a difference. I wish my kids could have had a teacher like you.

Hear hear, Alice!

I am a Roman Catholic who went to catholic school for part of his formative years and public schools only in the U.S. I had to attend church regularly and my attendance card was stamped. I had to attend mass and religious education at school as well. the result? Although I am a very spiritual person and still consider myself Catholic, I very, very seldom attend mass (I prefer to go to Church, pray and light a candle or two from time to time and I pray at home regularly). I respect the Church and respectfully disagree with some of her teachings; I am ruled first by my conscience, and know too well that it is a sign of pride. Forced indoctrination has never sat well with me (did I mention I am a Romantic at heart and admire rebels with a clue and a worthy cause?). But I am not rebellious by nature. Is it possible that we are not cut from so different a cloth after all?

Ann,

Better you as a parent than a whole village of authoritarian or permissive parents. Authoritative parents rule! Two authoritative parents, whether in the same or separate homes, are the best possible chance any children can have. And I suspect that genetics also played a part in your children's success.

P.S. I'm still calling for an Annie/Alice ticket--Just don't invite anyone who has previously served in ANY prior administration to advise you or to serve in your administration.

Victor,

I am not a bit surprised. I have often said there are two true religions--the Adventists and the Catholics.

They both have worldwide schools and hospitals.

In spite of being reared with the notion that Catholics were the mark of the beast, I love Catholics. My former boss and his daughter are very good and loyal friends.

My sons were raised Catholic and attended Catholic school until middle school; one almost through high school. They weren't thrilled, but I felt they had a good education and learned respect for teachers and school.

10/1/2012

I'll never forget Mother Superior and Sister Agatha...

Cheers...Joe.......

If someone were to ask me today, "What is your religion?" I would probably say I have none. I was brought up in a very strict fundamentalist home. Reading material was restricted to the Bible. Anything else was worldly. I could recite Bible verses and they were so imprinted in my memory that they remain to this day.

Just this week, a Sunday school song sprung to mind. The words are:

"Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world,
Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in his sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world."

As a child, I thought that Jesus only loved the various races when they were children and that that changed when the children grew older. The derogatory remarks attributed to other races by adults meant that they were no longer good people. They were Godless, Heathens, substandard in some way and needed salvation. But, I wondered, how could they change the color of their skin? To be good, they had to be White. Were they forever damned?

Children are impressionable. What they learn in Church and in the home stick with them. Leaving home, learning new things for some was the education needed to become an independent thinker. College was frowned upon since it was said, “They teach things that turn children against God.” They feared higher education. Keeping people ignorant was to preserve the values they believed were right. Many of those values in my view are wrong. Bigotry is just one example. Religion has been good for some. It gives many something to cling to and provides comfort and hope. For others, it can be a detriment.

The Presbyterian congregation that I grew up in was not a fundamental or literalist group, but it did follow the doctrine of predestination, and the concept of an elect. God was all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere, and if children were "bad," it meant they were born for an eternity of Hell. In the Old Testament, there are rules for sacrificing animals. Usually there were two - one was slain, its blood poured over the altar. The other was dressed in garlands of flowers, which represented the communities sins. It was then beaten and run from the community, taking the sins with it, and outcast, never to return. These were not literally practiced in that Presbyterian congregation, but the psychological aspect was there - beneath the surface, and unconsciously carried out. In my own family, I became the scapegoat, the "bad" one, even though my "badness" mostly involved things like not doing my homework, or "dawdling" with the dishes when it was my night to clean the kitchen. And I had too vivid an imagination and liked to tell stories, which was too much like lying according to the rest of my family. Then, when I was almost fourteen, God took my little brother, and I was puzzled. Bob was the best of us. The concept of a sacrificial lamb was too much over my pre-adolescent head for me to consciously connect those things, but I started to get angry with God, especially at church. I had been taught His wrath, but new nothing of His love.

I slept over at a friend's house one Saturday night, and went to church with them the next day. They were Episcopalians, and it was my first experience of what Episcopalians call the Eucharist, which is the equivalent of the Catholic Mass. It was a life-saving experience for me. Our neighbors were Episcopalian. I got permission from my parents to attend church services with them, and eventually, when I was sixteen, attended Inquirer's classes and was confirmed. My parents were not happy about it, but by then, my older brother was in college, so I was the only child left at home, so they reluctantly allowed it.

When I was twenty, I married a Methodist, but we did not begin attending church until our children were old enough for Sunday School. I knew there was no chance of converting my husband, but I did get to know the new rector at my old church, and he loaned me a couple of books, one explaining the "new" concepts for interpreting the Bible according to what is often called the JEDP method, which proposed that the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Bible, were compiled from four different sources, rather than having been written by Moses. The other was a book that summarized the ideas of the Lutheran theologist, Paul Tillich, and I began to see that God was not a punitive, angry old man, but a force of Love that guided humanity in a positive, evolutionary direction. As the children got older, and we started attending services regularly, I started teaching Sunday School. That continued until my divorce, and it immediately became apparent that the minister was not going to upset a family whose ancestors had been in that congregation for generations, or their son, who was currently the church's director of finance, over a sixth grade Sunday School teacher who was no longer a member of that family. I started getting angry again, and became disillusioned with organized religion altogether. It was not until my retirement, and move, here to SA, that I started attending the Eucharistic services at a nearby Episcopal church. I made quite a few friends there, and became very involved, mostly on volunteer basis, but on occasion, as a substitute for the communications director, whose husband's job took them away on a regular basis. The only problem was that the churches in this diocese are mostly a part of the evangelical movement that began in some Episcopal churches back during the late seventies, and are very literalist. When the national church started moving toward encouraging women to enter the ministry and accepting gay priests, it created an uproar, and my liberal views kept coming into conflict, so I no longer attend.

I miss the Eucharist. Over the years, I had learned of the power that can come from a sense of participation mystique that can occur within a group during a liturgical service, and the release it can provide for those who are attending. When I first joined that little parish, that mystique was alive, and the community was influenced by it and focused on the love of God, just as that first Episcopal church in my home town had been. The Presbyterian congregation in that same town had been focused on the fear of Hell. These days, that fear and dissension has pretty much taken over that little group here. I have learned that for the power of the service comes from a sense of a loving community as much as it does from the liturgy itself. It's sad, but humanity is moving forward, and if the institutions cannot move with it, they will eventually die out. In the meantime, were are left without a viable myth to guide a living ritual.

What I did get from my Presbyterian background was that each person born is born with a purpose, and our life quest should be to discover that purpose and live within it. When we do, we can maintain a sense of joy, even in the middle of crisis. We still get angry, and cry when we are saddened, but that underlying feeling doesn't ever go away for very long, and we can find it inside just by getting still and recentering.

Just me.

it is very interesting to read about your religious backgrounds--Thanks , all who shared.

It occurred to me that times affect my leanings. I always tended to lean to the right, always
voted for a Republican president until the financial collapse of 2008.

I, then voted for Obama.

What would you have him do? Stand up and say, "It is high time for you lazy bums to get off your comfortable duffs and get to work. Your children can just starve, I am not a Socialist, I am a realist."

It seems like he has been put in an impossible situation. Fix the mess and please the "Get government out of our lives" crowd at the same time.

Having been a chairperson at a local church has opened my eyes to how demanding and absolutely impossible folks can be.

The poor pastor had a time. When he arrived people began to work on him. He should cut his hair shorter, preach on different subjects, stand still while he talked, everything he did was to be done the way they wanted it to be done--the only problem was there were 400 of them and but one of him.

If a far right leaning person loses his/her job, do the rules change? Maybe the wrong folks lost their jobs.

Why can't we put aside our ideologies until the crisis is behind us?

Just curious, as usual.

The biggest thing, I think, about sharing our backgrounds, is that others get to see where our perspectives come from - and our political perspectives are closely intertwined with our religious perspectives - which is why we have to have laws about separating the two.

Just reading over these past posts gives me insight into why many of the participants view things the way they do. It is an important part of "seeing the whole elephant."

Annie

Much of my career was as a "turn around" agent for grants that were failing. I understand what it is like to enter a failing situation. The stress on me was unbearable at times. My mother begged me to change jobs when she visited me. She said the money was not worth it. She was right, but I didn't know it at the time. When it comes to the final analysis, it is not how well you did at work but how well you did in your personal relationships that counts. That is why I am proud to see President Obama spend time with his family. It sets the right example.

Back to turning things around with bulldogs snapping at your heels. I did that for three years and the first two were misery beyond belief. Everything that should be simple is a struggle and it pours over into everything. There's no one to trust. Everyone is watching for the slightest failure to damn your entire work.

I have great admiration for President Obama. You should see the hate mail my republican friends send to me - just got another one today. They are filthy. Reminds me of the cartoon that was sent to me of a red convertible with a lady in it and a bird flying over pooping in her hair and the caption - too bad it wasn't a flock.

DK,

The hateful emails are very helpful and I now welcome them
They stiffen my spine and make me more loyal to Obama.
I may begin answering them with:

Thank you for your passionate email.
You have reminded me of how much Obama has to put up with.
I will support him again this year.
If you should need help, I want you to get it.
You have worked very hard for what you have . I don't want you to lose anything.

Have a great day!

I stopped paying attention four years ago, and just hit the "spam" button whenever they appeared. I figure people who know my feelings and continue to send hateful messages are not really being friendly. Ohter people problems are about them, not me, so, I usually pay them no mind and just get on with whatever I am doing, which, at the moment, is about reaching my goal of adding 3000 words to Chapter Three to Daniel's Daughter.

My iphone keeps sending its little "You've got mail" beep (there it goes again). I'm thinking I need to move it to the front room, or take my netbook with me and go there myself, or I will not meet that goal.

Love you guys anyway.

Annie

Good idea, Anne. Deleting them is easier than responding.

This whole month I have gotten once a week four big, glossy, mail post cards about how terrible our president Obama has been. I decided to write upon them, "Return to Sender' with the words Hail to Fox News ...your leader! Please do not send me this trash again. I doubt it will do a bit of good. I get three phone calls a day telling me how bad our president is. Vern Buchannan is at the head of it, his picture is there. I have no respect for him or Connie Mack. I do not answer the phone.

Love,

Betty

10/1/2012



Just think it'll all be over in 32 days,

the nightmare will end and it'll all

seem like a dream..........

Cheers..Joe...