lay off the kids

They need to grow up somewhere

America apparently isn't the easiest place in the world to be a kid (much less a parent). Gee. Why would that be shocking?

Let's see.
1) Dysfunctional school systems? If you're not putting your kid into the "right schools", well they may as well give up now right? So we're told anyway. Right now often the only solution for parents (at least the ones who cannot afford high property taxes or high tuition costs for a private school) is to try to move. Risking jobs and stress levels (commuting, etc) for the sake of the kids.
2) Crime rates in places with high poverty. Yeah. But.. . how much of that crime rate actually attacks the little kids, much less bleeds over and victimizes children in lower crime neighbourhoods. Not much really. Not many gangs want to mess with a "citizen's" kid for example. Puts them in bullseye for the cops to round people up.
3) Less time, more rat race at work. Most of Europe gets all these generous vacation packages (it's now a fucking RIGHT in the EU to have vacation time?, seems like just a decent thing to do, not a "right"). Places like France notoriously have lower economic numbers per capita than America, but a good chunk of that is that people don't work as much. More time with the kids is probably a good thing and makes it less stressful for time without them (ie, more confident in their behavior unsupervised).

So yea. If I ever have kids, I'm moving to Australia. They're going out into the yard and neighourhood without much supervision and getting three squares a day of hunks of meat/grains and whatever fruits and vegetables they can scrounge. Kids should be raised by literate wolves in my opinion.