A few years ago a friend gave me a self-published book by two of her cousins (sisters) to read. It was about the way they co-ordinated care of their ageing parents while living in different parts of the United States. Not surprisingly, as more people live to a ripe old age and as families are increasingly dispersed, the literature on this subject is increasing.

On the New York Times The New Old Age blog Paula Span, herself the author of one of these books, draws attention to the just published, They’re Your Parents, Too!: How Siblings Can Survive Their Parents’ Aging Without Driving Each Other Crazy. Author Francine Russo obviously thinks there is a largish market out there of baby boomers who a) have siblings, and b) are likely to disagree with each other about how to look after mum and dad.

After interviewing lots of people Ms Russo reckons that siblings will expect each other to behave in these circumstances as they always have: the responsible one to take most of the responsibility, the “successful outsider” to keep his or her distance -- “They’ll probably resist your help even as they complain that you’re not helping”, she says. Like the sisters I referred to above, she has checklists and strategies for avoiding such situations.

From my experience I would say it is in everyone’s interest to encourage the whole family to get involved to the extent that they can -- not only to relieve the main family caregiver, but because it is a filial duty to help your parents, because they need to know that you love them and because it enriches a person’s character. It can be a remedy against a middle-age syndrome where, once the children are off your hands, life can become very self-focused (along the lines of those retirement village ads featuring 60-somethings sprinting along the beach or planning their next overseas trip).

Clearly, someone living in a different state or a different country is going to be able to do very little in the line of caregiving or emotional support, but they may be able to help financially and/or visit once a year to spend a decent length of time with elderly parents. I have seen this work well between two brothers whose widowed mother lived in a nursing home. In the same place I have seen two sisters, both working fulltime and with their own family responsibilities but living in the same city, taking turns to spend time with their mother every evening at mealtimes. In my own family we have managed the same sort of thing.

Unfortunately, the majority of dependent elderly people in such facilities get very little attention from their children, and this situation is unlikely to improve as the two-child and one-child families age. The time may not be far off when squabbling over the details of how to look after mother will seem like a luxury: if only there was a sister or brother to disagree with!

With Michelle Obama heading up a new anti-obesity programme in the United States studies analysing the problem of childhood obesity are coming thick and fast.

Few of them contain any surprises to a person of average intelligence -- like the discovery by Ohio State University researchers that four-year-olds who ate dinner with their siblings and parents, got a lot of sleep and had their TV viewing rationed were almost 40 per cent less likely to be obese than those from less disciplined households.

My guess is that family dinners generally mean a balanced diet and good family relationships -- so less compensatory eating, for one thing. A good long sleep means plenty of energy for the mental, physical and social tasks of the day. And all of that means not much time for lolling about in front of the TV, with its constant invitations to eat more.

“The routines were protective even among groups that typically have a high risk for obesity,” says lead researcher Dr Sarah Anderson. That includes children whose mothers are severely overweight, whose household income is below the poverty level, and whose mothers left school early.

Dr Anderson could not say whether one of the three routines was the most important -- the more the merrier, basically. But her study did show which was the most difficult to implement:

More than 56 per cent of families had dinner together at least six evenings per week, and in 57.5 per cent of cases pre-schoolers slept at least 10.5 hours per night.

TV time was limited to two hours or less among 40.4 per cent of families.

The sexualisation of children’s entertainment has reached a new low with the arrival of an online game in which kids can “hook up” and play strippers and prostitutes with avatars.

One hates increasing the notoriety of sites like My Minx, but it might be just as well for parents to be warned about this free registration, easily accessible trap for youngsters, and to be aware of the brazen defence mouthed by its author -- a Briton named Christopher Evans.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, although the site has features appealing to tweens and even younger kids -- including web links to other tween games such as Hanna Montana, Bratz and Scooby Doo -- Evans claims it is targeted at late teen users who, he told a British paper, are capable of making “their own distinction between a game and real life”.

In the next breath, however, he says the game is about “real life”:

''We try to protect children too much from the real world for too long in this day and age. They cannot be wrapped up in cotton wool.

''The contraceptives and morning-after pills are only one part of the game and we are not encouraging young girls to take them, just reflecting real life.''

(The more often avatars buy and use condoms and morning-after pills, the higher their IQ is rated.)

As if encouraging teens to play in the pigsty of “real world” sex wasn’t bad enough, the game also makes play of celebrity-style adoptions from third world countries: for a 7000 pound adoption fee, avatars can buy an orphan.

I suppose Evans would not have got off first base with this horrible game if the ground had not been prepared by the likes of Bratz dolls and sexualised tween magazines -- and the parents who see no harm in them. It’s the happily boiled frog syndrome again.

(Thanks to Denise Pintado for this tip.)

The New York Times editors have had to eat their recent words dismissing abstinence education as a “narrow, ineffective and fundamentally dishonest approach” not worthy of federal funding or, by implication, any funding whatsoever.

In an editorial acknowledging the important new study showing clearly the greater effectiveness of abstinence-only education compared to other approaches or none, the Times has to concede:

The only program that successfully delayed the start of sexual activity was the abstinence-only instruction. By the end of two years, only a third of the abstinence-only group had engaged in sexual intercourse compared with almost half of the control group.

Predictably the paper, which has an irrational faith in the effectiveness of teaching teenagers to use contraception, makes it’s concession a grudging one, sniping at abstinence advocates for making too much of one study, “misreading” its implications and trying to promote programmes with an ideological agenda about marriage.

This is because one of the criteria for federal funding has been that the programmes must teach abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as the “expected standard” for all school-age children. Well, why not? Where is the well-designed, rigorous study that shows this is less effective than other approaches? Most of the much-touted studies in recent years purporting to show that abstinence-only education does not work are reviews of other studies of widely varying design and quality.

And what about the ideological agenda against marriage, hmm? How many hundreds of years is it since marriage was the accepted context for sex? Only 50 years, you say? Only since the Times editors were, um, teenagers? Golly. Maybe they are all getting Alzheimer’s.

It appears that the Australian government has embraced a campaign to roll back moderate changes to family law made in 2006 giving children equal access to both their mother and father in the event of separation. At the time these changes were endorsed by both Government and the Opposition.

Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland released three reports of reviews of the Family Law Act on January 28. One report by Professor Richard Chisholm, recommends complete dismantling of the 2006 shared parenting reforms.

But shared parenting is only happening in a minority of cases. The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) reports that only 26 per cent of children aged 5-11 whose parents separated after the 2006 reforms were in place are experiencing "shared care time", that is, at least 35 per cent of nights with each parent. Why is this outcome considered by the Attorney-General to be "regrettable"?

The real problem in the Family Law Court is that the court operates in a moral vacuum as it is based on the premise of "no-fault" divorce. But fault has always to be apportioned, and so the “new fault” became the male of the species. There have been some terrible judgements by the Family Law Court in the last few years because the court in practice is guided by moral relativism, not the law as it stands.

It is important to acknowledge that this area of family law is difficult at the best of times and the shared parenting changes of 2006 have to be seen within the big picture. If anything, the reports released by the government show that fathers are still being excluded from their children's lives in far too many cases. Further reform is needed to help turn the tide of fatherlessness.

The Attorney General has proved he is party to a campaign to roll back shared parenting as he released these reports one day before the anniversary of the death of Darcy Freeman -- a four-year-old girl who died at the hands of her deranged father. It is good that we remember and mourn the horrific death of this little girl, who died after being thrown from a bridge in January last year. But we should also mourn the horrific death of 18 month old Oliver Garcia, killed by his deranged mother in a jump from the Westgate Bridge, just eight months earlier.

As one family advocate said, "The timing of the release of the reports by the AG was not unplanned, and that they deliberately released the three reports the day before the anniversary of Darcy Freeman's tragic death in order to play upon and take advantage of her death, so as to manipulatively garner and harness a 'guilt' motivation for change".

Both genders need to work together to reduce and eliminate domestic violence. Such violence against any member of the family, whether by a man or a woman is utterly despicable. The promotion of fatherlessness by the Australian government in wanting to roll back shared parenting legislation is a form of domestic violence against our children. Our children need a mother and a father. Research shows that fatherless children are much more likely to engage in domestic violence themselves as adults.

We must break the increasing generational cycle of violence that is occurring in our society. The only way forward is to reject the demonisation of either male or female, and support values-based education, strengthen families, support mothers and fathers in their marital relationships and turn the tide of fatherlessness.

Guest poster Warwick Marsh is the founder, with Alison Marsh, of the Fathers4Kids Fatherhood Foundation in Australia.

 

How serious is America about parental rights in education? Pretty serious, it seems. Last week an immigration judge in the US granted political asylum to a German family who want to homeschool their children -- something that is illegal in Germany. Germany for its part is very serious about suppressing what it calls “parallel societies” based on religion or worldview -- which is how it sees homeschoolers.

Tennessee Judge Lawrence Burman ruled that, after several years of run-ins with the authorities in Germany, the Romeike family’s human rights were being violated in their own country and that they had “a well-founded fear of persecution” if they stayed there. Burman said homeschoolers “are a particular social group that the German government is trying to suppress” and this was “repellent to everything we believe as Americans”. Strong stuff, and it is not yet clear what political actions may follow.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike are evangelical Christians and their basic issue with the public schools is that they educate “according to an anti-Christian worldview”. They say that textbooks are filled with obscene language, swear words and blasphemy, and are “more about witches and vampires than about God”.

Beginning in September 2006, they kept their three oldest children (they have five) out of elementary school. After one month the police came to their door one morning and took the children to school. They continued to defy the law making school attendance compulsory, paying fines of around US$100,000.

But in November 2007 the Federal Supreme Court ruled that in severe cases of non-compliance, social services could even remove children from home. The court argued that the public has a rightful interest in preventing the formation of “parallel societies” based on religion or worldview.

That was the last straw for the Romeikes and in 2008, at the suggestion of supporters in the (US) Home School Legal Defense Association, they emigrated to the US. Speigel reported last Thursday:

HSLDA attorney Mike Donnelly called the decision "embarrassing for Germany." According to Donnelly, the Memphis court issued a final ruling "that homeschoolers are a social group that is being persecuted in Germany." A "Western nation should uphold basic human rights, which include allowing parents to raise and educate their own children," Donnelly said. "This is simply about the German state trying to coerce ideological uniformity in a way that is frighteningly reminiscent of past history."

Is Germany embarrassed? It’s not clear. Plenty of people are furious with the German government, however, and with the European Court of Human Rights, which has backed Germany’s policy.

London Telegraph blogger Gerald Warner fumes that Europe has become a totalitarian state, and that it is significant the Romeikes did not seek asylum in Britain, where “[e]very possible obstacle is put in the way of homeschooling parents”.

The mentality is that the state – not parents – is the natural controller and shaper of children’s lives and beliefs. When a schoolgirl can be given an abortion without her parents’ knowledge, we know that, while public utilities may have been privatised, children have been nationalised. The Romeikes who fled from Germany objected to their children being forced to follow a curriculum that they believed was anti-Christian. The same would apply in British state schools, where pornographic sex education is increasingly being made compulsory.

In the United States at least one million children are being homeschooled -- not always for religious or moral reasons -- and the figure may be as high as two million. Homeschooling is also allowed in many other countries, albeit under certain regulations -- and not without a certain amount of suspicion amongst some authorities.

Germany may have some respectable historical reasons for its insistence on school attendance, but shouldn't it relax its policy now? If it is afraid of parallel societies, isn't suppression just the way to make them flourish?

Big news today on the sexuality education front: solid evidence from a federally funded United States study that a programme limited to an abstinence message can significantly reduce the onset of sexual activity among young adolescents.

Publication of the study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine comes only days after the New York Times agreed with the Alan Guttmacher Institute that there is “a link between the [recently reported] rise in the teenage pregnancy and abortion rates and the Bush administration’s reliance on abstinence-only sex education programs that bar teaching about contraception.” The Times editorial added, “This is not an unreasonable inference.” And: "The [Guttmacher] study is timely. As part of the broader health care reform effort, abstinence-only advocates are trying hard to restore financing for the narrow, ineffective and fundamentally dishonest approach"

This lofty bias amongst against abstinence education, which has seen the Obama administration stop dedicated funding for such programmes, looks much less reasonable today, thanks to a rigorous study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine.

Their evidence on abstinence education comes from a randomised controlled study (the toughest kind) involving 662 African American middle school students aged between 10 and 15 (Black youngsters being a high risk population) who were followed up for two years in the early 2000’s.

At the end of that time, according to self reports, about a third of the students who had completed the abstinence-only programme had started having sex. Sounds bad enough, doesn’t it? But nearly half of the students who attended other classes -- ranging from no information about sex to safe sex instruction, and including a combination of abstinence and contraception -- reported sexual activity. The best result from these other approaches was a 42 per cent level of sexual activity amongst those in the comprehensive sex-ed group.

The abstinence-only programme involved eight hours of instruction over several Saturdays at four public schools. According to the Washington Post:

The abstinence-only portion involved a series of sessions in which instructors talked to students in small groups about their views about abstinence and their knowledge of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. They also conducted role-playing exercises and brainstorming sessions designed to correct misconceptions about sex and sexually transmitted diseases, encourage abstinence and offer ways to resist pressure to have sex.

The strength of the study has forced some opponents of abstinence education to concede a victory -- if not the war. SIECUS, which promotes “sexual rights” for young people, told the Post it was “exciting” that “we have a new tool to add to our repertoire”. Well, better late than never, huh?

But Advocates For Youth (formerly The Center for Population Options -- which tells you something, doesn’t it?) president James Wagoner grumbled, "There is no data in this study to support the 'abstain until marriage' programs, which research proved ineffective during the Bush administration."

It is true that the new study did not promote any moral perspective but focused on abstinence as a way to avoid pregnancy and STDs. But it is not true that all other abstinence programmes have focused on marriage or were “moralistic” in tone. I will bet there is no evidence that this is the case.

Let the expert who led the study -- John B Jemmott III, professor of Communication in Psychiatry -- have the last word:

"The take-home message is that we need a variety of interventions to address an epidemic like HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy," said Jemmott, adding that he thinks the program would be equally effective among other age and racial or ethnic groups.

"There are populations that really want an abstinence intervention. They are against telling children about condoms," he said. "This study suggests abstinence programs can be part of the mix of programs that we offer."

Usually it is adult children borrowing from parents; sometimes it’s unemployed or sick parents borrowing from children; but either way, this kind of dependency can put a strain on family relationships. Money can be the hardest thing to give. But doesn't charity begin at home?

“I think money changes everything,” says a man interviewed by the New York Times -- a married father of two young children who, with the co-operation of his wife, is helping to support his 62-year-old, unemployed mother. Following separation from a “partner” (during which the younger couple also helped her financially) she had bought a modest home unit, but then lost her job. Her son has been paying $750 a month for her mortgage and helping with other bills.

Mr. Ley, who is a commercial banker, said the exchange of money has pushed him and his mother apart in subtle ways. But he tries to maintain perspective.

“At some point, you have to step back and say, ‘This is your mother, this is family, this is blood,’ ” Mr. Ley said. “And this is what you do when they have something bad happen to them.”

This may not be a typical situation, although it could become more common if the economy does not pick up and older generations suffer the effects of marital instability. Mr Ley, his wife and children are making a substantial sacrifice for his mother, and one can understand his mixed feelings. But his instincts are surely right: if there is a choice between keep a roof over your mother’s head and putting more in the children’s college fund or in investments, mother surely comes first.

The Times polled 708 unemployed adults nationwide and more than half said they had borrowed money from friends or relatives. Younger adults were more likely to borrow -- 61 per cent of those under 45 said they had, compared with a third of those over 45.

Mostly it’s done with great reluctance. In some cases the people stumping up the money (ageing parents, often) have little to spare themselves. And some, perhaps many, or the loans will never be repaid.

So what are the principles at stake here? What about these:

* We have a moral obligation to help our own family members financially if we can, even if it means sacrificing some of our own needs (new carpet this year) or future security (investments, education funds). What is in front of us now obliges us more than what might happen in the future.

* The deficits we are funding should be genuine needs (a modest roof over the head, not a carefree lifestyle for a 25-year-old living at home rent free).

* Whether the needy family member is at fault should not prevent us helping them.

* However, the person borrowing or needing support has an obligation to rectify, where possible, the causes of his/her financial straits.

* In any case, they should make a genuine attempt to repay loans -- if not in cash then by services of some kind.

* Debts should be written off when it is clear that there is no ability to repay, rather than make a person a debtor indefinitely.

This is a very practical issue right now -- what are your ideas on it?

A report from the Pew Research Centre this month draws attention to what it calls The New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of Wives. Statistically, between 1970 and 2007, wives have gained a significant edge over husbands in education and their economic contribution to the home has grown faster.

From an economic perspective, these trends have contributed to a gender role reversal in the gains from marriage. In the past, when relatively few wives worked, marriage enhanced the economic status of women more than that of men. In recent decades, however, the economic gains associated with marriage have been greater for men than for women.

This has led to much favourable comment -- anything that changes gender roles is A-OK with the educated class, and it is they who largely enjoy the benefits of the trend: greater equality between spouses and increased income -- and greater marriage prospects.

But that’s only half the story, and the other half is much more gloomy. As the Institute for American Values and the National Marriage Project joint report, The State of Our Unions 2009, already highlighted, people who are not college educated are tending not to marry. And this has a lot to do with the fact that men in the blue-collar class are losing their jobs (in heavy industry and manufacturing) while women are increasing their share of the changing job market.

Here is how IAV scholar Barbara Dafoe Whitehead put it in a New York Times debate:

The Pew report sheds light on what is happening in two separate and unequal mating markets: the mating market for college-educated women and the mating market for noncollege women. Virtually all of the media attention thus far has focused on what the report tells us about college women. But the more important story is what’s going on with noncollege women.

It is certainly true that the percentage of young women with a college degree now exceeds the percentage of young men with a college degree. Some of these women are marrying down the educational ladder. Nevertheless, the fact remains that college-educated women are only a minority of all younger women, and of course, college educated men are an even smaller minority of all younger men. Thus, of these two mating markets, the one that holds the much larger share of the younger generation is the noncollege market.

For non-college women, marriage is becoming the exception rather than the rule. Their mating pool consists mainly of non-college men. And noncollege men are not attractive as prospective husbands for reasons that are already familiar. Their ability to support a wife and family has been declining for more than three decades, and public policies have done little to reverse this. Moreover, these men may be increasingly reluctant to take on the commitment to marry in the first place.

The ability to marry and stay married is a source of economic advantage. However, as the report demonstrates, this advantage has been moving beyond the reach of the nation’s non-college majority.

Let’s hope President Obama’s new focus on jobs tries to rectify this imbalance against working class men.

A twenty-something New Yorker living in an area of Brooklyn where she finds “the mommy culture run amok” (most residents have children and she does not) complains that she is running into infants in -- of all places -- her favourite bars. Double strollers on the streets and toddlers in cafes are bad enough, she frets, but “bar-babies” are the limit.

No matter what breeders might think, bars are not family-friendly. If I am out drinking and sobbing about a bad breakup, I don’t want my cries to compete with those of an infant sitting next to me. If I go to the bathroom to correct my wayward mascara at the end of a long weekend night, I don’t want to watch a baby being wiped down on the soggy sink counter.

Nor do I want to be scolded by parents like the ones at the Gate, a favorite bar, where friends have witnessed a few mothers with toddlers actually wagging their fingers when young people cursed too loudly or got a little sloppy, while conveniently overlooking the fact that alcohol, blaring punk rock and drunken partiers are not pediatrician-approved.

You can see from these quotes that the woman has a problem with babies, and it’s not that she sees them being abused by their well-heeled parents. No, it’s that she does not want them to intrude on her social life at all just now, thank you. But is she right about the bar bit?

Personally, I think some babies in bars is okay. It is no sin, and, in (say) a cold weather climate with strict public consumption and open container laws--not to mention unaffordable housing for families and the cost of sitters--I don't see why a parent couldn't bring their tot to a bar in order to have a beer with friends. In Ireland it is quite common to have a family booth: a room without a table with the walls lined with cushioned benches. The kids play on the floor while the parents gab and drink.

Laying arbitrary social norms on parents and parenting in order to maintain a singles culture that can be brash, drunk, and crass without any guilt seems a detestable thing to me. Given the bar scene, one must be careful, but my wife and I have often brought little nursing infants to restaurants and sat in the bar for a long while waiting for tables.

It is not my general cup of tea, but there is nothing wrong with it.