I am glad in are pondering the notion that children need good parents. They also need good educations and until 1917 education was all about citizenship, not about preparing the young to be products for industry. Vocational training was added in 1917. At the 1917 National Education Association Conference, Sara Fahey a teacher of English, speaks of how we educate the children knowing their immigrant parents will learn from them how to become good American citizens. At this time education rested on Thomas Jefferson's ideas of the education we must have to be a strong and united Republic.

Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we have the right to pursue happiness. This did not mean going out for ice cream or smoking pot or whatever else we might do for a moment of fun. Jefferson's understanding of happiness was based on Greek philosophy and the notion that our happiness rests on knowledge and so does our moral judgment. And he was speaking with knowledge of Christian governments that suppressed knowledge and established a hierarchy of authority over the people. Effectively education for technology suppresses the essential knowledge because it is not the education we must have to understand what knowledge has to do with our liberty and happiness and feeling empowered to have meaningful lives, instead of feeling powerless and worthless.

While education was changed in 1917 it continued to transmit our culture for liberty and self-government until 1958. I think our focus needs to be on how we prepare our young for life through public education, and why it is the right thing to give them breakfast and lunch and medical care.

Leaving people on the streets to die, hoping this will prevent them from reproducing, cannot accomplish as much as the right education preparing children for citizenship can accomplish.

Hi Athena

Thank you for your response. I do wonder what influence being happy does for the amount of offspring people tend to have. E.g. do more happy people have less children?