Message-ID: <9705028652.AA865260435@hudsmtphq.hud.gov> Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 07:47:06 EST From: mailto:Michael_O._Patterson@HUD.GOV Subject: Re[2]: average American's perception of the US role in the 1st To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
By way of explaination, I spent yesterday listening to a man that doesn't have any children figure out how to set up an institution of higher learning for Parents in how to aid the development of their children. This guy has an MBA from Harvard, worked at McKinsey and spent some time at Disney Educational Publishing.He truly believes that he's going to help people with this idea. And he may on the surface appear to actually help some parents.. So the message is that Graduate students who have a couple of years in classrooms are going to coach parents on how to raise their children. Is that the sort of help that we are looking to give the world? Is that what America has to offer the world? ------------------------------------------------ Fascinating. However, he may have a point. If he is University-trained, he may realize through research that as late as the 1960's, people paid 15% of their income for rent, and not much more for mortgage payments, vs. the 30-50% more common now. If rents were to be halved, parents would have a considerable amount of stress taken off of them. And, since parents haven't anywhere near the credibility of university-trained people, despite direct experience, he could make arguments on their behalf.
Let's see, he might realize how much more supportive the community and even culture was for parents, a generation ago. i.e. parents had cultural/community support, rather than the opposition they have now.
Then there's nutrition. Instead of 50% saturated fat from fast food restaurants, people actually ate more healthy healthy food. Talk to someone who remembers burgers in the 50's; they were quite different from what is served today. There was a fascinating report given to Congress, on the serious problem of soil demineralization; in 1936!
And, he's worked at Harvard, and at Disney. Both are in the business of producing fantasies. Yes, I'd say there's hope for him.