I was responding to a thread by tamz whose boyfriend has kids who are demonstrating a tad of hostility by using the shower she shares with him on weekends.  I'm not sure where her 7 year-old son is in the picture.  Anyway, I thought it would be unhelpful to put my opinion on that thread, just as it was when armyof1 wanted to wake up in the morning and make pancakes for her boyfriend's kids. 

  Anybody's welcome to disagree with me.  I just thought it was unproductive of me to tell people off when I thought (and it is just my opinion) that the stuff that they were doing was harmful to children.  So I'm keeping it over here, where people don't have to listen.  I spent a lot of time thoughtfully responding to singlDad's points, which he challenged me to do.  I have repeatedly requested responses to my points.  All I get is "we'll agree to disagree."  That's good too, but what I have been seeking all along is the opportunity to refine my own thinking.  

  When I am wrong or unclear, and I have been, often, I don't mind being told.  But nobody is obligated to either read or respond to these points.  In the future I will make note if I am responding to a particular thread so that it isn't confusing.  It's hard to strike a balance between making things clear and attacking somebody.  I figure that if somebody trudges through thousands of words to get to the last posting, they aren't going to be ambushed by my opinion, and they can just return to the other boards if they don't want to hear it.  I also think reading through the whole thing will make clear that I am not attacking them personally, I am just frustrated with the universally callous attitude towards the children's pain in these situations.

Me and my best friend are reading your thoughts... You are a poet... she posted a questions and I responded .. I could not really help her but thought you all would give a different perspective ... WOW!  Your responses are intense ... more than we expected from a family education site ... -

I understand that I am offering opinions on things that I am not observing, as are others who are responding. An outsider's perspective can help you understand what your situation really is, but sometimes outsiders are clueless. I mean to say that you know your own situation best.

    Sometimes as I read the posts here, I think that it is like watching somebody park the car with the children inside on a railroad track. I can't just stand by and let it happen without saying something. But I get over-emotional and just look like a crazy woman. So I'll keep it over here. I do appreciate your very kind responses.

Once again, I thank you.  I will only put the conventional morality responses over here, so that when people see it, they won't be so blind-sided.  I wonder if one of the women who I was corresponding with felt that she was deceived by my kindness when she had time to read this philosophical position.  She disappeared from the boards.  It may have nothing to do with this.

    My little girl is in a new stage of her life. She is learning so many exciting things. She spends a good part of the day in an enriched learning environment, with mentors providing scaffolding for her as she develops new skills and incorporates new information into her intellectual schema. (I learned that from a child development course on TV.) She is also enhancing her social skills, learning to get along better with others from differing backgrounds, to express her needs and opinions appropriately. She is learning to share things with other children who are about her same age.

    I know there are some parents who think that they can provide these experiences at home, but I just don't think you can do as good a job as the professionals, who have a facility and equipment that you just don't have at home. I don't think we parents understand developmental stages of children as well as the people do who have spent years studying. The people who want to do it themselves claim that knowing your own child is more relevant. They think that they can provide enriched experiences themselves just using things at home, or community resources, but I don't think that is enough. They think that there is more value in a nurturing home environment, but I think kids are going to have to deal with lots of stimulation and a fair amount of chaos sometime in their lives, so they might as well be exposed to it now.

     They have a point about developing a strong maternal attachment. I think that children really benefit from knowing that their parents are really concerned about their well-being, but I don't think you have to be with them all the time for them to know that. And I read that they are smarter if they have multiple care-givers.

     I think, at the end of the day, when my little girl climbs under the covers, she knows how much her Dad and I love her, even if we haven't spent more than a few minutes thinking about her that particular day. We have other obligations that take up our attention, you know, and that's really OK. She probably hasn't spent a whole lot of time thinking about us, either. That's just the way things are in today's world. And there is a special word for the people that you go home to at night. When you are 19, like my little girl, they are called roommates.