[fuzzylizard]

The real problem today is that the majority of people view children as accessories. They put them in front of the TV and let other people raise them, i.e., teachers, sitcoms, and the internet. They don't really care about the kids.

However, those kids are viewed as an extension of themselves and so any attack on the kids is an attack on them. if you say that the kid has behavioral problems, what the parent hears is that they are a bad parent/person. They don't care about the kid, they care about how it reflects on them. This is the same reason that you have parents beating up and murdering hockey coaches and referees when they pull their kid. In the mind of the parent, the call is against them.

We have moved from a society were the entire village raised the kids and parents had the support, training, and coaching they needed. They were raised in an environment in which kids were actually cared for and that was passed onto new parents. Today, we move away from home, most of us don't have contact with parents, grandparents, siblings, etc and we raise kids because they either make us look good or it is simply the expected thing to do. Unfortunately, they don't actually have any understanding of how to raise kids and they are too busy to do a proper job anyway.

I am a firm believer that we are getting very close to the day when we will have to issue licences before people are allowed to have kids. Not that we should police who has them, but to ensure that people have the needed support systems and knowledge in place before trying to be parents.