“Everything was better in the past” is a phrase you surely heard at some point. While I do not agree completely with this statement I still think there is some truth to it. The one subject which bothered me a lot during the past few weeks was the discussion in Germany to increase day care for children while disposing of the so called “Betreuungsgeld” which is a support for parents who choose to raise their children themselves at home. This increasing habit of people to just put their children in day care is in my opinion, one of the main issues of today’s society.
Thinking back at my own childhood, I remember a lot of very good memories. While both my parents did have jobs my mother chose against working full time and only worked until just after noon so she could then take care of me. My father worked full time, but I still saw him regularly since he usually came back for dinner. He even refused a promotion because it would have forced him to work irregularly. Now of course someone still had to take care of me in the morning but fortunately for me, I still didn’t have to experience day care because my aunt took care of me. I was practically raised entirely by family members and until today I believe this is the best way for children to grow up. When looking at society today I notice that the value of family is slowly but surely decreasing. More and more couples get divorced or don’t marry at all. Children are raised by complete strangers in a group of completely random kids up until the point that later on when they become adults they will have absolutely nothing from their parents. Is this really what we want as a society? Marrying (or don’t even marrying) having children together just to then immediately get rid of them?
Of course, there is an explanation for this child dumping. Nobody has time to raise children today because everyone is busy with pursuing their career and self-realization. While I don’t think there is anything wrong with that I do believe that you have to choose: Do you want a happy, working family or do you want a career and a lot of cash to sit on? When you listen to today’s „business-parents“ you could get the impression that you can have both but this is a complete utopia. You cannot work full time and raise your child at the same time, this will only end in disaster later on. At this point one really has to wonder if we have become so narcissistic that we let our jobs take this much control of our life’s. I may sound rude and harsh and I am aware of this, but to me it will never be a possibility to put my future children in day care because to me it just seems like a very arrogant thing to do. When I see parents voluntarily giving their kids away just after they are born, it just seems like they don’t want to be absent from their job to take care of their own children. A lot of parents do it because it seems like an easy solution, but let me say that the easy solution is never the best solution. Family is such an important element, but it takes something which a lot of people seem to fear today: responsibility. Have you ever wondered why we seem to have so much trouble with today’s youth? When speaking to some of my teachers I often hear that teaching has become a lot harder during the past few years because children have become disrespectful. Why did they become disrespectful? Because very often their parents are too busy to just give them one moment of their life to teach them the essential rules of behavior.
So yes, I do find it to be a bad decision to dispose of the „Betreuungsgeld“ in Germany. I do find that parents who still choose to raise their children the right way should be supported. Children need their parents and not some strangers who can’t even really take care of one child because they have to focus on a whole group of them. Don’t let your job rule over your life because at the end you will eventually come to realize that the joy you get out of a successful career will never compensate for the misery of a broken family.
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Thanks a lot for reading this week’s post! I really appreciate every single reader and if you’re interested you can read some of my other articles as well. If you want you can share my posts with others I’d really appreciate it. You can also find me on Facebook as well as Twitter (@VitoVolpe9). I hope you have a great week and I see you next Sunday for an all new post in German or in two weeks for a new post in English!
just thoughts 