this diary hit a nerve, and there are a lot of VERY good comments (and a few not so good) with solutions. I have a lot to say about this, so I'm making it a diary entry (though it might disappear into the interether) instead of a comment.
I lived in Germany for 4 years, 1 year with our newborn daughter before returning. I have a 3 year old daughter and am in the process of adopting a second child. I was a stay-at-home-dad for nearly 2 years but now I am part-owner of a biotech start-up and deal with work, health, family, etc from both ends (as a parent, worker/owner).
This society is NOT family-friendly or pro-family. And being 'pro-family' actually works to all our benefit. My suggestions (in some order of importance to me as a parent) as a progressive Democrat and from my experience below the fold.
Health Care: A single payer health insurance system that decouples employment from health insurance would be a GODSEND.
As an individual: Our family insurance plan has gone from 400 to 652 in two years... yet we have not had a single major medical problem. It continues to rise. THere is constant worry about not only rising costs and our ability to afford it, but losing insurance if we lost our jobs/company. A family (individual for that matter) is between a rock and hard place. It is a lie that our system now is a 'free market'. The average family has little or no choice.
It was such a contrast when we moved from Germany. There I could change jobs and NEVER worried about losing health insurance. It was always there, no matter the job or no job. My personal doctor and our daughter's doctor were excellent, and we had our choice of any doctor. My high blood pressure medicine prescribed in Germany worked great, with no side effects. Moving to the US, our HMO refused to prescribe it (too expensive), they have yet to find a medicine that works near as well. We have a limited choice of doctors. If my company doesn't succeed, we will fear not being able to have or afford health insurance.
30% of individual bankruptcies are caused by health costs.
For a family, the system is broken. It is expensive, it is 'coercive' (little real choice) and it is precarious. It is a worry and will become even more so in the future.
As an employer We want to help our employee's families, but health insurance is a HUGE portion of a small start-ups costs. We can only do so much. It hurts our ability to compete with large corporations for good employees. We might be more nimble, have a better idea, be a growth engine, but the Republicans hate small businesses and make it difficult for us every step of the way. Take health care from an employers repsonsibility and you save both small business AND families. A two-fer.
as a scientist The new and upcoming genomics era is going to wreck havoc on our health system. Destroy it. Only the very rich or very very genetically lucky will be able to afford health insurance or health care as our country has is set up now. Most EU countries are in a MUCH better position. I could write an entire entry on this one issue.. but I have other things to say about being pro-family.
EDUCATION
Damn it, the keep saying it but they need to DO it. Stop spending 200 billion on bogus wars and educate our children, educate our adults.. EDUCATE!
We are just now starting to look into sending our child to school.
We have a choice of private school or public school. Both choices SUCK. The private schools we looked at our great (most), small class sizes (teachers have time and energy to focus on individual children), great resources (science lab for a 2nd grader, artspace, huge library, a damn farm). But the cost is too much, at 15,000/year per child, even a San Francisco wage earner can barely afford it. Though there are good public schools, San Francisco acceptance is by a complex lottery system... don't get your choice? tough luck. Send your kid to a bad school or move.
Moving doesn't work. It's expensive, you have to leave your job (and thus we've got the insurnace problem again), most good schools (though not all) are in expensive-to-live in areas anyway.
STOP discussing vouchers, STOP the asinine 'NCLB" unfunded bullshit. And start putting our money where our mouths are. Make EVERY public school well-funded, pay the teachers WELL, pay for MORE teachers (a lot more), make BETTER facilities.
Then parents wouldn't be faced with these near impossible choices, family life would be better, life would be better, our citizens would be better educated.. our economy would do better..
and then maybe as an employer I wouldn't have to look to India and China and Europe to hire well-trained scientists.
Its just a win-win pro-family pro-economy plan.
MAKE THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS one of our highest priorities. Damn it.
True Family Planning
I don't even no where to begin to start. Our foster and adoption system is amazingly messed up, for birth mothers, for adoptive parents, for children. It needs fixing. Again, this could be a series of diary entries. Better health care, child care and education so women wouldn' t have to make the heart-wrenching decision in the first place, better and more standardized adoption laws, etc. etc.
Go ahead, teach abstinence if you need to, but damn it, tell the facts. And teach contraception, make it freely available. Because the facts are they are having children when they are children no matter how much you tell them to stop 'doing it'.
Make family planning available to all, from counselling to contraceptives, education and more.
We'll have happier children, happier adults, better families, better country.
Public Space
Parks, Museums, Science centers, recreational centers. STOP cutting the funding! We as a family are lucky, we live in a city with a great zoo, a children's discovery center, Exploratorium, science center, museums for kids (or museum programs for kids), library, great parks, etc. But when we lived in Germany, we lived in a city 1/6 the size and it had all of that. Places we could take our children so they could learn and have fun, places were WE could learn and have fun. Places EVERYONE could learn and have fun.
You want to be pro-family? GENEROUSLY FUND PUBLIC SPACES.
Ok, my two cents done.
The Democratics HAVE a Pro-Family Policy:
Universal Health Care, Public Education, Family Planning and Public Space...
now go market it to the masses