Life Sentence without chance for Parole

PARENT - Job Description

POSITION : Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma, Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop

JOB DESCRIPTION : Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work> variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities! Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES : The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects. Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product. Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION: None. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE : None required unfortunately. On-the-job training> offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION : Get this! You pay them! Offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS : While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition> reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth, unconditional love, and free hugs and kisses for life if you play your cards right. Forward this on to all the PARENTS you know, in appreciation for everything they do on a daily basis, letting them know they are appreciated for the fabulous job they do...or forward with love to anyone thinking of applying for the job.

** AND A FOOTNOTE ? THERE IS NO RETIREMENT -- EVER!!! ** If you are fortunate enough you will become grandparents! by Compostholestoy ...to whom a special thanks goes out from moopig to the Mother of the Year: "RC"

Are We Happy Yet? http://pewresearch.org/pubs/?ChartID=21
Marriage Trumps Parenting as a Predictor of Happiness
Percentage Very Happy by Parental and Marital Status
"Married people are more likely than those not married to be very happy, regardless of whether they have children. Single parents of minors are least likely to say they are very happy with their life.

"Americans have always had a thing about happiness. We all have certain unalienable rights, declares our Declaration of Independence, among them "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
"So then, a couple of centuries into the chase, how are we doing?
"Alas, only so-so. Just a third (34%) of adults in this country say they're very happy, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey. Another half say they are pretty happy and 15% consider themselves not too happy. These numbers have remained very stable for a very long time.
"But some of us are happier than others, and this variance helps to paint a portrait of the kind of people Americans are. It also casts doubt on some of the famous wisdom on the subject.
For example, remember grandma's aphorism about money not buying happiness? Well, brace yourself, but dear ole grandma may have been misinformed. Our survey shows that nearly half (49%) of those with an annual family income of more than $100,000 say they're very happy. By contrast, just 24% of those with an annual family income of less than $30,000 say they're very happy.

"This finding definitely puts grandma on shaky ground, but it doesn't necessarily prove her wrong. It establishes a correlation (two things that go hand in hand) rather than a cause (one thing that leads to the other). There are, in fact, any number of possible causes of this correlation. Perhaps money leads to happiness. Perhaps happiness leads to money. Or perhaps both are influenced by some other, more powerful factor.
Later in this report we'll try to sort out which correlations are most powerful. But meantime, we should note at the outset that all of the findings from this survey should be taken with a general caution.

"Much of the research into the field of happiness -- to say nothing of simple common sense - suggests that at the level of the individual, happiness is heavily influenced by life events (Did you get the big promotion? Have a fight with your boyfriend?) as well as by psychological traits (self-esteem, optimism, a sense of belonging, the capacity to love, etc.). The Pew survey did not look at life events or psychological characteristics. We only looked at happiness by demographic and behavioral traits. But through this admittedly limited prism, we found some fascinating correlations.

"Several of them stand out: Married people are happier than unmarrieds. People who worship frequently are happier than those who don't. Republicans are happier than Democrats. Rich people are happier than poor people. Whites and Hispanics are happier than blacks. Sunbelt residents are happier than those who live in the rest of the country.

"We also found some interesting non-correlations. People who have children are no happier than those who don't, after controlling for marital status. Retirees are no happier than workers. Pet owners are no happier than those without pets.

"The findings are drawn from a telephone survey of a nationally representative, randomly-selected sample of 3,014 adults, conducted from Oct. 5 through Nov. 6, 2005. You can go directly to the full battery of happiness tables by clicking on this index. Here is a run-down of the most compelling findings.
Download the rest from: (Paul Taylor, Executive Vice PresidentCary Funk, Senior Project DirectorPeyton Craighill, Project Director, February 13, 2006, PewResearchCenter)

http://pewresearch.org/assets/social/pdf/AreWeHappyYet.pdf

-and then there is the catastrophic-

Children having children...
Parenting coach reports on Britney's parenting skills.
A new ruling in the BRITNEY SPEARS and KEVIN FEDERLINE custody battle has just come in -- in the court papers parenting coach LISA HACKER testifies regarding Britney's behavior around her children, SEAN PRESTON, 2, and JAYDEN JAMES, 1.
Hacker says in her report that Britney failed to meet with her on three occasions, and on three other occasions that she observed her, "It seems that her choices are dependent more upon what she wants to do at any given time rather than what would be more enjoyable for the children."
She says that neither of Britney's residences were child-proofed and that "during all three of my visits Ms. Spears rarely engaged with the children in either conversation or play."
The parenting coach also says in her report, "[t]he environment at the house ranged from chaotic to almost somber with little communication at all."
Hacker did, however, testify at the court hearing last Friday that after she submitted her report to the court, she made one more visit, and that on that visit Britney acted more positively.
Hacker's report closes, "[T]he problem is that unless Ms. Spears realizes the consequences of her behavior and the impact that it has [on] her children, nothing is going to be successful."
Reports given to the court by court-ordered monitors "generally offer a positive appraisal of [Britney's] time with the children; however several of the observations made by the monitors corroborate Ms. Hacker's concern with regard to the need for child-proofing at [Britney's] home, the appropriateness of the activities selected by [Britney] for these very young children, and the need to child centered sleeping routines for the children."
The court ordered that Britney must continue to submit to random drug testing two times per week for 60 days, and if she passes all of the tests, after that she must only submit to one test per week.
Britney will have monitored visitation twice per week from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m., and once per week from 12 p.m. until 10 a.m. the next morning. Britney has been ordered to childproof her home and submit proof of that by November 2, 2007. Further, the children are not to be transported in a motor vehicle unless they are properly secured in a properly installed child safety seat.
For more on this breaking story, keep checking back here.
Posted October 30, 2007 2:40:00 PM (I lost track of this stream... sorry, just type in Spears, you'll find all the crappe you need for sibling rivalries) >pd

--and for those of you with best intentions-- When living with the Dutch, do as the Dutch do... or else!

Can an Adopted Child Be Returned?
Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007 By PETER RITTER/HONG KONG

Every child is a gift, as the saying goes. But in a case that has stoked outrage on two continents, a Dutch diplomat posted in Hong Kong has been accused of returning his eight-year-old adopted daughter like an unwanted Christmas necktie.

The story, which first appeared in the South China Morning Post on Dec. 9, began seven years ago, when Dutch vice consul Raymond Poeteray and his wife, Meta, adopted then-four-months-old Jade in South Korea. The couple, who also have two biological children, brought Jade with them to Indonesia and then to Hong Kong in 2004, although Poeteray never applied for Dutch nationality for the child — a curious oversight, given that he worked in a consulate.

Then, last year, the Poeterays put Jade in the care of Hong Kong's Social Welfare Department, saying they could no longer care for her because of the girl's emotional remoteness.

In an open letter that appeared in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf on Dec. 13, Poeteray explained that Jade was diagnosed with emotional problems when the family moved to Hong Kong, including a "severe form of fear of emotional attachment."

Adopted children are sometimes diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, which manifests as a debilitating inability to form normal emotional bonds. According to Rene Hoksbergen, an adoption specialist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, even very young children can be affected by the disorder when their needs are disregarded or they are shuffled among caregivers.

According to a spokesman from the South Korean consulate in Hong Kong, the family also said that Jade did not adapt to Dutch culture or food. "They said she had not adjusted to a new home, that there were some problems," he says. But some specialists are skeptical of that explanation as well. "My gut feeling is it's just an excuse," says Law Chi-kwong, an associate professor of social work at the University of Hong Kong. "That only happens when the adoption took place when the child is already six or seven years old. It would not happen to a child they raised for several years, raised in the family."

"She was rarely in her mother's arms," the babysitter said. "I also found it strange that she was so quiet." A babysitter told a Dutch newspaper that Poeteray's wife did not treat Jade as a "real daughter."

While uncommon, it is not unprecedented for an adoption to fail and a child to be returned to foster care. According to The Times of London, an estimated 10% of British adoptions of children under 10 ultimately fail.

International adoptions, which may involve children suffering from neglect or deprivation, can be particularly difficult, according to a U.K. government advisory quoted in the article. According to a 2005 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, young adult international adoptees in the Netherlands were much more likely than native-born adolescents to develop mood disorders and substance abuse problems.

It is impossible to know the details of what happened in the diplomat's household. In his letter to De Telegraaf, Poeteray appealed for sympathy and privacy, saying that, despite what has been written in the media, "We are Jade's parents and we feel responsible for her well-being." Sympathy hasn't been forthcoming in the Netherlands, though; the paper accused the family of discarding the child like "a piece of household rubbish."
Jade's case has also attracted particular attention in South Korea, where international adoption has often been a fiercely debated social and political issue. In the past half-century, more than 150,000 South Korean children have been adopted internationally. More than 2,000 were adopted by overseas parents in 2005, although the government has taken steps to reverse this trend. Some lawmakers have argued for restrictions, or even a ban, on international adoption — and particularly on private adoptions, which may not include rigorous vetting of prospective parents.

As for Jade herself, Cheung says she is now living with an English-speaking foster family and attending a Hong Kong school. "She's living rather happily, and she seems to be a normal little girl," he says. A spokesman for the Social Welfare Department says that the government is working on making future arrangements for her care. Cheung says that he believes the girl will be allowed to stay in Hong Kong despite the fact that she is a South Korean citizen. "The part that I think our government can do is respect the wishes of the child." That will ensure that Jade has a city, if not yet a family, to call her own. (Retrieved from: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1695735,00.html today)