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If you're interested in an answer, read the rather long article. Sometimes it's good to leave the comfortable bubble most of us live in. It says that in the ca
by redis_mlc 6y ago
If you're interested in an answer, read the rather long article. Sometimes it's good to leave the comfortable bubble most of us live in.
It says that in the case of Romania, warehousing children was a disaster on the scale of Dachau in WW2.
Psychology textbooks had to be rewritten afterwards as this level of child neglect was never contemplated - no biological or custodial parents to pattern their behavior.
One observation I'll make is that although adoption is considered a noble act in the US, many other countries consider it be throwing your baby away to be exploited.
People that I've talked to in the Philippines and Indonesia visibly recoiled when I mentioned the word "adoption", so there must be an unfortunate history there.
- Err_Eek 6y ago> One observation I'll make is that although adoption is considered a noble act in the US, many other countries consider it be throwing your baby away to be exploited. Adoption is considered a noble act in Romania
- tdrgabi 6y agoBut we also have a history of adoptions where the kids ended up exploited. After the scandals, international adoptions were banned until recently.
- redis_mlc 6y agoSo why were thousands of children sent to state orphanages, if adoption was normal? There's some kind of disconnect here where it seems like Romanians are brigading on my post without actually reading the article.
- jacquesm 6y agoDifferent times. GP used present tense.
- tsimionescu 6y agoSomething being a noble act does not mean that it is normal, in the sense that it is a common occurence. In fact, the opposite is usually true. There were just so many abandoned children that there were too few people willing to adopt them. Most people prefer to conceive their own children rather than adopting. Eve of those that want to adopt, they will often conceive a child before feeling ready to go through the adoption process, and few people can afford more than one child.
- ido 6y agoMaybe the difference is that the Americans consider adopting (receiving) a child to be noble where as the Filipinos consider giving your own child to adoption negativly? I don't think a lot of Americans consider giving their children to adoption as noble.
- brnt 6y agoI know that of course this Romanian example isn't. We used to send a truck full of help for the Romanian kids two decades back every year or so. But that is not proof it can't work, just like how one bad parent isn't proof all parents are bad. But a skilled government can gather more data and insights than any one individual, so it stands too reason they could produce a program that's better than what many or most parents can come up with on their own. In fact, that is precisely how modern day education ages 4-16 started out. Near universal literacy is one of its fruits. Why not more?
- redis_mlc 6y agoYou should read the article first. What you're saying is the opposite of what the article is about, which is thousands of infants left in state orphanages.
- brnt 6y agoOK, indeed, the slogan "the state can take better care of your child than you can" does not in fact apply to the atrocity that the article covers. That slogan is classical Soviet-style double speak.
- epx 6y agoSupernatural intelligence does not exist and in particular it does not emerge from bureaucracies.
- brnt 6y agoThen what is primary and secondary schooling about? While not perfect, it emerges from bureaucracy and it does achieve things that many parents did not (such as literacy).
- antepodius 6y agoI would argue that secondary schooling is worse the more bureauceacy is involved, and mostly exists as a prison for kids/young adults so society doesn't have to do anything with them. Primary schooling is fine, as long as everyone comes out literate and numerate.