Middle class whining in Germany

By Leila Marie Lawler ( articles ) | Jul 02, 2003

Somehow Phil and I have managed to raise 7 children beyond the toddler period without state-sponsered child care (and without a designer pram, although once I had a really sweet portable stroller, the bed of which could go down completely flat, and I drove away from it, leaving it on the curb in D.C. Bummer.).

Why would we do that? It seems to me that there is, or has been until our enlightened age, an elemental desire on the part of most people to leave behind them not only a family name and genetic material but persons, real live thinking loving beings who can take something they've internalized from you on into the future.

And furthermore most people (when they thought of it) have thought it worth the effort and sacrifice of other personal goals to devote themselves completely to those little persons. Not just pram-time but dozens of years.

However, I also think that there are a lot of folks represented by the Germans in this BBC article who have been brainwashed out of any such desire and willingness to sacrifice, but who have no problem producing a few (not enough to keep up the German lifestyle though!) cogs for the state machine.

I wonder how they think the world got to be so populated up until now? Without state-sponsored child care? How was it possible?