QUALITY OF PARENTING AND TEACHING

Benefits of 24 in 4:
Saner, Safer Schools ... Real Work Ethic ... Racial Harmony
Firmer Families ... City Revival

Child Care Costs: Current and 24 in 4

What does childcare really cost? Consider the factors below. Yours may be higher or lower.

Immediate cost in weekly hours

• 2.5 Preparing offspring for delivery to childcare
• 2.5 Time to deliver and pickup
• 7.0 weekly with personal income of $10 per hour
• 12 hours weekly

Downstream variable cost

• ? Illness due to communal diseases, time and money
• ? Missed work to be with unnecessarily sick child
• ? Missed work due to provider's failure (annual average of 8 days)
• ? Time lost due to misunderstanding from poor bonding
• ? Time lost due to lack of trust through the years
• ? Time lost due to possible abuse
• ? Time at risk if child becomes social misfit, outcast or deviant
• ? How much time does child care cost?

Childcare is very expensive in short-term and long-term costs; and these costs are measured in more than dollars. Parents, however, don't have to be away from their children. 24 in 4 is the answer.

With 24 in 4, parents can reduce childcare cost, possibly overlapping work time so that a babysitter is used for a few hours. Or, maybe there is no need to be a missing a parent at all!

With 24 in 4, parents could observe Dear Abby's admonishment, "If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money." Many parents rely on money-backed gifts to buy better children. Economic review in this "time-invested" or "time-devotion" paradigm reveals the unfairness of relying on materialism: The parent who buys a gift costing two hours of time instead of giving a four-hour afternoon to a child has not given a bigger gift. Why do people work overtime? Is it the money? Or, the fear of job security? With 24 in 4, people will not worry that quality family time jeopardizing career security.

Dear Superwoman

A 1995 study "billed as the most comprehensive analysis of U.S. women's attitudes about family, workspace and society in more than a decade" found that most women want to both work and mother, that is, to be a provider and a nurturer. Their greatest worry is balancing work and family responsibilities. High on their list of concerns was (1) finding more quality time for family and (2) volunteering more time for others. Also cited was disappearing employer benefits.

Under our present necronomic employment laws, these areas of worry will worsen, not improve. Under the better democracy and capitalism of the 24 in 4 program, women and moms can be superwomen and supermoms. They can have more time for self, family and community.

If employed, they will have more time and money for family and career. Discrimination because of having parental responsibility will be less. If unemployed, they will be given the chance to be breadwinners and role models.

The glass ceiling will break from necessity. A 40% reduction in the workweek is a 40% promotion rate. Would you rather work 40 hours at $10 an hour or 24 hours at $16 per hour? Would you rather be a clerk for 40 hours or an assistant manager for 24 hours? The playing ground will be more even. The glass ceiling will be higher or missing. "Mommy tracks" will be unnecessary.

Dear Parents,

If your mortgage, loans, and credit cards were refinanced to 1% interest, would you take the dollar savings as a reduced workweek? This is but one of many ways that we can save money if people will take their savings in a reduced workweek to provide work opportunities for the unemployed, underemployed and misemployed.

1. With the onset of the 24-hour workweek, two wage-earner families will be able to juggle schedules to provide the best childcare--selfcare. Do you trust others more than yourself to be concerned with your children? Can you expect good childcare from agencies forced to hire minimum wage employees?
2. With the 24-hour workweek, the paths to SuperMom and SuperDad will be clear and simple. Would you like more time with your children?
3. With the 24-hour workweek, eldercare will be better than Medicare. You get tax credits for your health insurance payments.
4. With the 24-hour workweek, the unemployed welfare recipients will be pulled into the workforce to learn the work ethic.
5. With the 24-hour workweek, there will be more time and real value for the family. You will be able to help your child at school with more time and healthcare credits.
6. With the 24-hour workweek, your children can find useful, safe part-time work from which to learn the work ethic that will be the foundation of their happiness and your security--how safe is any person or pension if one's succeeding generation doesn't want to work?
7. With the 24-hour workweek, older children can leave home so parents can be empty nesters not birds with permanent hatchlings.

Parents, do you raise your children to care for you in your old age? If not, who will? The children of other parents raised in the same way? The government?

With more time for children, we can raise them to respect us. Respectful children manage parent's retirement for the parent, not the child. With more time, we can spare the rod without fear of spoiling our retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert S. Barnett

The 24 in 4 program will create more time for both teachers and parents to be better at what they want to do. More free time is not enough--an un-rehabilitated criminal should not be released from prison. Similarly, many teachers are guilty of wasting time by misleading the students.

At one time, many businesses employed teenagers. Over the years, businesses have chosen increasingly to rely on machines. Why? The declining quality and attitude of students. Horror stories abound. The rule is that one has to unteach what was taught in school before they become an asset.

Too many teachers convince students that they should start at the top rather than the bottom. Such misled students can't work at the bottom, middle or top. Students need to learn and feel, in their minds and hearts, the inspiring words of Dr. Martin Luther King:

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

A student lacking this attitude is a taxpayer lost. Revenues for schools are diverted into helping those lacking the work ethic.

How can teachers expect sufficient tax receipts for raises and pensions if they are not creating working taxpayers? If the work ethic is not taught first and foremost then all other teaching is wasted. Teachers careers and pensions are worthless because they teach workless ethics.

For the education system, it will not be enough to increase public support and parental involvement if the teachers' goal is not creating working taxpayers for the future. Too many students have been taught that they are "ok" without having to work to establish that they are "ok." By neutering the drive for excellence, teachers create the conditions by which no one wants to help the student, now or in the future.

Teaching "feel good" is easier than teaching the standards on which good, sound and lasting problem-solving skills are based. Teachers don't teach how to fish but how to talk about fishing. Too many think they are teaching a person to fish for themselves. They are not.

In summary, if you teach a person self-esteem, you affirm him for a day. Teach him to work, and you affirm him for a lifetime.

Sincerely,

Robert S. Barnett

1. Would childcare be better if parents had time to provide it? Y N
2. Would teaching be better if parents had time to participate? Y N
3. Women can better be great mothers and great professionals with 24 in 4? Y N
4. 24 in 4--Does it offer the quality time that family values need? Y N

Warning: Anyone found stealing lifehours will be forever banned from participation in and rewards of Better Democracy and Capitalism.

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