greed – mom's musings

No travelogue tonight Friends. I just have a couple of things on my mind that I feel like sharing before getting ready for book club.

Earlier this week I was reading the newspaper and came across two interesting articles on the same page, and while both had to do with money, the stories were totally different. One was about how more women are getting into the Avon and Tupperware businesses on the side. Why? To make extra money to supplement the family income. I then saw a short piece about a man who didn’t understand all the hoopla about his bonus. After all, he deserved it, by golly! The thing is, his company has lost BILLIONS, and he got a 75 MILLION dollar bonus. Huh? Here are moms peddling plastic while this guy is raking in millions. I’ve read that the income gap is widening, but this is ridiculous. By the way, I can’t remember the name of his company, but I’m not making this up. Really.

I’m picking up mssc54’s lament about the number of mothers having babies out of wedlock. It’s astounding to realize that 40 percent of America’s babies are born to single mothers. Don’t take my word for it; check it out for yourself. I just do not understand this. Call me an old fogey or whatever else you want to throw my way. But before you do, check out the research on child development, and you’ll learn that study after study confirms that children with two parents in the home fare better in every way: emotionally, socially, psychologically, physically, and financially. Yes, I know there are two-parent homes where abuse and neglect are regular happenings, but still….Don’t take my word for it. The studies are easy to find, and they all say the same thing; babies raised by single mothers (and it’s usually the mom who’s raising the child) are more likely to live in poverty and suffer the consequences (often long-term) that go along with that.

This phenomenon (single mothers), long a concern in psychology and sociology circles, has now captured the attention of the media. A couple of weeks ago I happened to catch part of the evening news, and an interviewer was asking a young single mother WHY. Why did you opt to have this baby out of wedlock and keep him? She said that it (motherhood) was something she purposely sought and that the reason she didn’t want to get married was because she didn’t want to be cumbered with a husband. She, however, wanted to have a full life, one in which she experienced all sorts of things, including motherhood. The baby was looking at the camera in big-eyed curiosity. I wonder when his daddy-ache will begin or how he’ll react when he begins school and gets asked/teased about his father. But hey, does that really matter as long as his mother feels fulfilled?

Only one more thing. I’m wondering why so many people feel that it’s necessary to take potshots at President Obama. Lately some columnists have been giving him a hard time for having what they perceive to be a condescending attitude towards Americas and perhaps too much of an empathic one with some of the folks he’s been visiting overseas. President Bush got bashed for having too much of an ethnocentric, “we’re #1” attitude. Can any high profile person avoid getting slammed by the cynics?

My next post will be more upbeat. I just had to get this stuff off my chest. Does anyone have any answers to the above???

Has the world gone mad? That’s a question I find myself asking DH a lot lately. He’s used to it by now and knows that there’s no easy answer. He probably thinks that I read the “wrong” things and that I think too much. Is that possible? I don’t know. Below, in no particular order, are some things that are stressing me out today.

I’m not going to go into a long diatribe about Octomom today, but I’m still wondering how a single welfare mother of 14 children can take care of all of the physical, emotional, social, and financial needs of her family. A person’s thinking has got to be somewhat “twisted” to even consider bringing another child into the world when you already have six that you aren’t able to provide for, without assistance from the government, that is. It also strikes me as funny that she’s decided to pursue a Master’s degree in counseling. Counseling. Wonder who her clients will be and what kind of help she will provide.

Also on my list are the employees at Clemson and USC who have received big bonuses and raises while those on the lower echelons have not. To add insult to injury, tuition has soared, supposedly because of “costs.” Costs of what? The raises and bonuses of a select few? While I’m on the subject, why does a college education cost more in SC than in any other southern state?

Moving along, I read a great editorial last week about the legislators in SC who can draw pensions that are nearly 50 percent more than their salary for the rest of their lives. On the other hand, state employees who retire after 30 years of service can expect to receive a pension equal to 43 percent of their former salaries. Huh??

Then there’s the guy (Madoff) who bilked people out of millions of dollars, leaving many of them penniless, who is still considering how to keep his family fortune solvent. He’s deeply sorry for the pain he’s caused. Hmmm. He’s 70, so maybe he can spend the rest of his life in prison pondering just how severely his actions have hurt others.

A couple of weeks ago, a child in Sumter died of starvation. He was 18 months old and weighed nearly nine pounds. I saw a photo of his parents in the newspaper and couldn’t help but notice that his mother had a weave in her beautifully coiffed hair. When my grandson was born a month ago, he weighed in at 9 lbs. and 9 oz., big in terms of a newborn, pathetically small for an 18 month old.

While some children are starving, America also has a huge (pun intended) problem with obesity. According to Feldman in Development across the Lifespan, 15% of American children are obese, a rate that has tripled since the 1960s.

Lest we forget, there’s Darfur. No, I can’t go there today. I find my throat closing up just thinking about the horror of life there.

Should I mention the AIG “issue” or let it pass for today? Think I’ll wait on that one until after I see what happens in Washington this morning.

I can’t resist mentioning that some folks are gravely concerned that Michelle Obama has been baring her arms in public. “It’s simply not done,” they exclaim. Well, apparently it IS done. She’s the first lady and she can go sleeveless wherever and whenever she pleases. Quite frankly, I’d probably follow her lead if I had arms like hers. But I digress. What I want to know is why people zero in on something like her arms when people are being slaughtered in Darfur, bilked out of the fortunes by preying vultures, and starved by their own parents?

Is it just me, or has the world gone mad? Has it always been this way, or am I just awakening to the vileness of some of my fellow humans?