Bramble

I just don't see how stigma and disapproval will really help the single parent situation. While it might lower the single parent birth rate, I would expect it to make life much more difficult for those that are still born to single parents because it might encourage punative measures. I don't see the value of children growing up with poor nutrition, housing, child care medical and dental as being a good deterrent to single parenthood because it makes quality of life so much worse for both naprent and child. Povery hasn't been a good deterrant. Education could help. Still, children raised in single parent families may not see a big reason to hop on the marriage train, especially if they've seen relationships of their parents not work. I have seen some single moms band together in a non lesbian but 'family' type way, sharing housing and child care etc. Why they can't find that type of family with men is probably a long and complicated issue. Abandonment issues from their own childhood, maybe. Recently there has been quite a bit of info on developement of critical thinking skills in older teens, how they have not yet reached adult maturity yet. Seems like many parents turn their teens loose once they can drive and have an after school job, which is too bad. As far as young teens getting pg, I personally feel that involves child neglect on the parents part. Parents still need to see their young teens have supervision, accountability, appropriate activities etc. Just because they can legally be alone in the home after age 12 doesn't mena it's best.

Interesting tidbit--Autralia's birth rate dipped so much they give a bonus for a birth. I guess they teach effective bitrth control usage.

Sorry Sudo--it looked like divorce statistics to me. Was there more? That wouldn't factor in the never married parents, would it? Really the statistics part was not really of great interest to me, I was more interested in the family leave/childcare/ extended family/community support aspect. One reason the article was so interesting to me was personal -- a friend of mine recently moved to Scotland( rated as #4 best place to live I think) and she is so thrilled --she was raised by a single mom, lived in near povery(preschool teacher) without health insurance most of her life, and is happy with both the minimum wage being actually liveable, and the healthcare that is provided to citizens. She is married to a Scot. They lived in western Montana for a number of years where prices are high and wages are low and really struggled at times. Before she married she raised her neice after parents died, but she had $ from social security for the child. Since they are only 10 years from retirement they feel much more secure with the move. Raising children with sufficient healthcare, food, childcare, and education and decent housing--how can that not help society? I don't get where approval or disapproval even matters. I don't think disapproval will stop any young woman from getting pg, outside of a family unit. Withholding such things to demand cpmpliance or whatever--throwing them to the wolves so to speak--what kind of adult will that child become? Healthy and well adjusted? I do think that birth control should be taught and easily available for young people, no matter what their income level. Lots of moms of my aquaintance, with teen daughters, initiate the trip to the gynocologist so their daughters won't be heading for college and partying unprotected, or have open enough communiation that the older teen asks mom to take her. I would much prefer that than to learn that daughter drank a bunch of beer at the freshman mixer and is now pg, which happens. It is what it is, whether I approve or not. Do I want my daughters to be single moms? No--but if it happens, their child would not have huge unmet needs if I can help. But not all young moms have family that is willing or able to help. Haven't births to teens actually gone down? This is not a new thing.

My school system teaches no sex ed, though in highschool they can take an elective called Home and Family, but that is more of a sociology class. The schools don't want to touch the issue due to the vocal abstinence only folk in the area. But the highschool does have a childcare coop for all the babies of teens. The parent is required to take a child development class and work in the coop around their class schedule. I've educated my teens, plus I never let them out of the house(kidding). This area is huge on teen drinking which only increases bad decisions. There was a study done, something like 95% of teen pregnanacies started with the teens drinking. None of my kids chose to take the home & family class(its lame), they all prefer woodshop. But I figure if they are in the shop all summer using the scroll saw(Dad bought them fairy and dragon patterns) with visions of sales in their minds, they aren't out at keggers getting pregnant.

In TWI the kind tenderhearted stuff was reserved for household only. Then the household started to shrink...all those people on LOA until they got their believing togehter etc. I remember a teaching either on a tape or at the rock. The teacher always viewed disabled people as whole--but it wasn't out of compassion. He thought they were disgusting to look at.

??? I wasn't talking to you, bud. BTY I am a 50 something woman. I was ranting about the abstinece is the only answer viewpoint. It obviously misn't working well for many many young parents. I've never read Margo, not sure the local paper carries her..

How are you going to make no sex outside of marriage happen? Sex outside of marriage has been common for forty years, since the PILL. That seems like a denial of reality. True, couples having sex do not have your beliefs, but then they don't have to. Ignoring a problem or saying that it just shouldn't exist doesn't make the problem go away! Many people, especially those who never saw the conformity of cult life, HATE to be preached at, so that method of social change is hardly effective outside of maybe your chuch--but I've seen good church girls get pregnant, too. I doubt we will ever go back in time to the fifties. I think it is beyond your control, outside of your own life. You can't even 'make' your young adult children abstain--they have to decided and make their own decisions. And people actually can have sex outside of marriage and Not have pregnancy after pregnancy. Yes, some oops, but there is effective birth control out there.

Yes, it is all very different than the way I was raised, in Parochial schools, Mass six days a week. All the kids I grew up with came from two parent families except my cousin whos father died in a car accident--but they were far from poverty stricken. That is not so for my children's friends. Many many of them come from broken homes or single parent families, so much so that in grade school hubby and I were one of the few married couples in my kid's classes. Young women could prevent pregnancies with birth control and/or abortion if they wanted to. Why they don't want to may be the real issue. Almost every girl I knew in college( CATHOLIC COLLEGE) was on the pill, because they really really didn't wan to get pregnant, but then I ran with a wilder crowd. Having a baby wasn't part of the plan. Whether or not any one 'accepts' it, they are having babies outside of marriage, unlike when we were young, and often without even a live in boyfriend. Once the babies are on the way, how can you stop it? Poverty and shame haven't done it, just raise those children with even greater needs. Warehouse them in orphanages? Force sterilization? Real children need real care that costs real money, starting during the pregnancy. Even if no one likes it or how the child arrived in the world, or thinks it is immoral or against their religion or what have you. The child still needs all the same things children need. But then, some communities don't want to support their public schools, either. Seems like we are going back in time to the respectable 'haves', and the not respectable lower classes, in some ways. I personally see prosperity theology like in TWI as a factor--if they are poor it is because they are not worthy. I'm trying to raise my kids to understand the responsibility involved in caring for a child, and how hard being a young single parent can be. Hopefully they will make good choices, they have good track records so far. The teens I know who are getting pregnant seem to have far less supervision than mine do, less after school activities etc, later curfews etc. But if one of my kids has a baby, we're not forcing a marriage and will do what we can to support.

The lesbian couple does have more financial stability. However in other ways they are not so stable, which is why gay couples want to marry legally. If the bio mother dies, the lesbian spouse may not get custody of the child she loves like her own--and who the child sees as a parent. Bio mom's family hates the lesbian thing and would probably get the child through the court system, since they are bio family/next of kin. Also, if one of the lesbian couple gets seriously ill or injured, their lesbian spouse will not necessarily be the one making the medical decisions--it will be a bio family member. If one dies, the other does not inherit like a married spouse would--she is not next of kin. Wills can be challenged by next of kin. Also, they have to carry separate health insurance, which is a burden married couple doesn't have. If they could have those rights some other way, they would not need a legal marriage--but that is how you get those rights in USA. Another lesbian couple I know were a little more wily. One, Deana, has a supportive family. They have one child, born to the other woman. The child's bio father is Deana's brother(yup, they got the idea from Friends and used a turkey baster, I'm not kidding.) The child has three parental figures, plenty of extended family, and both the moms are nurses, so they are financially stable. However, there could still be issues if the mom dies, with her bio family. People can say legal marriage won't affect gays, but they must not really know any gay people.

I wonder what makes these girls want babies in their teens and early twenties. I know accidents do happen, but they'd happen alot less if girls were on effective birth control and practiced safe sex. When I was that age I didn't want a baby, neither did any of my college friends--almost everyone was on the pill. Single twenty somehting moms I know~ Two young single moms I know through work are really good moms, but they are on their second baby with a second father, and none of the fathers are involved, despite all the deadbeat dad laws on the books. They both recieve housing, food, and child care state support. The dad stories are pitiful--sperm donars with no n custody rights. Neither expect to ever marry. Luckily, both have family support, both have sisters who are also single moms. Another single mom I know has her exhusband in jail, he owes years of child support for their 9 year old. He will have visitation rights when he gets out if he stays in state, but in the meanwhile, the young mom is alone, raising a child with such severe asthma he misses about a third of every school year. She at least took measures so she would not have another child, and had to fight to get her tubes tied at age 23, because she was so afraid of having a second child with a severe asthma problems. Her son has nearly died twice due to breathing issues, she has her hands full. She manages to keep a job--she is very good at her job--due to FMLA leave, but her absence rate keeps her from moving up to a higher paying job since in our company that is a factor in promotions. She cannot even contemplate going back to college. She is leary of ever marrying again because she has some degree of stability right now, but another broken marriage would put her back to the beginning of the DFS system, which is too high a risk. Her housing is supported and she waited a long time to get into a nice 2 bed condo, she doesn't want to lose that. I also know a lesbian couple, one is a single mom but they raise the child together. Both work, one is also in college. They are not in the DFS system because one of the women has a really good job in the medical field, so they have financial stability that the others don't have, plus two incomes. They are more afraid of DFS than the others, afraid they would lose the child. Having more money gives them options like college and home ownership the others don't have.

My husband was in a film with clips of an early ROA, not held at HQ. IF I ever find that I'll save a clip of it, since it would be nice to have that clip with his long hair and bibs for the kids. Hilarious, too.

It would be interesting to know how many of todays twenty something single moms grew up in stable married couple families? Not many, I would think. I'm one of the few people I know through work who is still in their first marriage, and all my children have the same father. Most of the young single moms I know through work came from broken homes, and trying to find a man who would be there for them is pretty much what led to the pregnancies. It's not like low cost effective birth control is not readily available, even my small town has a planned parent hood that dispenses the shots and pills for little or no cost. Young women are not getting pregnant because of the enormous failure rate of birth control. I think many of them are trying to build family, but they don't know how--neither do the young guys they hook up with. A baby does not make a man stick around, or make an instant family. If I was a young working single mom without a lucrative career, I'd probably pop out baby #two, also, so I could have a little more financial stability. Once the first baby is born it becomes a survival game if they are on their own without family support. And dads who completely bail out is very common. While the state is hunting them down to garnish the pay check, mom has to figure something out. Programs handled through DFS to help single mothers are pretty demeaning and intrusive, requiring home visits etc, but they have to be accepted in order to receive help with rent, childcare and food. Nobody can raise a family well on one income of about $11 dollars an hour,(and how nmany non college grad twentysomethings make way more than that? In my area, that's a good job.) So once baby comes along, they are in the system to survive. Plus, did you know that it is much easier to survive if you have two children in the system?--then you qualify for all sorts of benefits, while with one they are living on the hard edge of poverty. Having two children then looks like the sensible thing to do, because they're not making it with one. I think that nowdays, among young people, even living together is seen as a big commitment. Lots of young couples don't even date--they party and hook up, virtually stangers.

Here's an article that has been floating around the cyberspace areas I wander in, dealing with single moms. Food for thought. <H1 id=heading-alone>No wonder Iceland has the happiest people on earth</H1> <LI class=MsoNormal style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5">Special report by John Carlin <LI class=MsoNormal style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5">The Observer, <LI class=MsoNormal style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5">Sunday May 18 2008 Article history About this article Close This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday May 18 2008 on p14 of the <A title=http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/may/18/magazine/features href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/may/18/magazine/features">Comment & features section. It was last updated at 14:31 on May 18 2008. Reykjavic, Iceland, May 2008: City Councillor Oddny Sturludottir tells us why Iceland is the best place in the World. Photograph: Ari Magg Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - loads of children, broken homes, absent mothers - and what you have, surely, is a recipe for misery and social chaos. But no. Iceland, the block of sub-Arctic lava to which these statistics apply, tops the latest table of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Index rankings, meaning that as a society and as an economy - in terms of wealth, health and education - they are champions of the world. To which one might respond: Yes, but - what with the dark winters and the far from tropical summers - are Icelanders happy? Actually, in so far as one can reliably measure such things, they are. According to a seemingly serious academic study reported in the Guardian in 2006, Icelanders are the happiest people on earth. (The study was lent some credibility by the finding that the Russians were the most unhappy.) Oddny Sturludottir, a 31-year-old mother of two, told me she had a good friend who was 25 and had three children by a man who had just left her. 'But she has no sense of crisis at all,' Oddny said. 'She's preparing to get on with her life and her career in a perfectly optimistic frame of mind.' The answer to why the friend perceives no crisis in what any woman in a similar predicament anywhere else in the western world might consider a full-blown catastrophe goes a long way towards explaining why Iceland's 313,000 inhabitants are such a sane, cheerful, successful lot. There are plenty of other, more obvious factors. Statistics abound. It is the country with the sixth highest GDP per capita in the world; where people buy the most books; where life expectancy for men is the highest in the world, and not far behind for women; it's the only country in Nato with no armed forces (they were banned 700 years ago); the highest ratio of mobile telephones to population; the fastest-expanding banking system in the world; rocketing export business; crystal-pure air; hot water delivered to all Icelandic households straight from the earth's volcanic bowels; and so on and so forth. But none of this happiness would be possible without the hardy self-confidence that defines individual Icelanders, which in turn derives from a society that is culturally geared - as its overwhelming priority - to bring up happy, healthy children, by however many fathers and mothers. A lot of it comes from their Viking ancestors, whose males were rampant looters and rapists, but had the moral consistency at least not to be jealous of the dalliances of their wives - tough women who kept their families fed in the semi-tundra harshness of this north Atlantic island while their husbands forayed, for years at a time, far and wide. As a grandmother I met on my first visit to Iceland, two years ago, explained it: 'The Vikings went abroad and the women ran the show, and they had children with their slaves, and when the Vikings returned they accepted it, in the spirit of the more the merrier.' Oddny - a slim, attractive pianist who speaks fluent German, translates English books into Icelandic and works as a city councillor in the capital, Reykjavik - offers a contemporary case in point. Five years ago, when she was studying in Stuttgart, she became pregnant by a German man. During her pregnancy she broke up with the German and reconnected with an old love, a prolific Icelandic writer and painter called Hallgrimur Helgason. The two returned to Iceland where they lived together with the new baby and in due course had a child of their own. Hallgrimur is devoted to both children but Oddny considers it important for her first-born to retain a close link to her biological father. This happens on a regular basis. The German flies over and stays at Oddny and Hallgrimur's far-from-spacious home for a week, sometimes two, at a time. 'Patchwork families are a tradition here,' explained Oddny, who was off work, at home, on the Thursday morning we met, looking after her youngest child. 'It is common for women to have kids with more than one man. But all are family together.' I found this time and again with people I met in Iceland. Oddny's case was not atypical. When a child's birthday comes around, not only do the various sets of parents turn up for the party, the various sets of grandparents - and whole longboats of uncles and aunts - come too. Iceland, lodged in the middle of the North Atlantic with Greenland as its nearest neighbour, was too far from the remit of any but the more zealously obstinate of the medieval Christian missionaries. It is a largely pagan country, as the natives like to see it, unburdened by the taboos that generate so much distress elsewhere. That means they are practical people. Which, in turn, means lots of divorces. 'That is not something to be proud of,' said Oddny, with a brisk smile, 'but the fact is that Icelanders don't stay in lousy relationships. They just leave.' And the reason they can do so is that society, starting with the parents and grandparents, does not stigmatise them for making that choice. Icelanders are the least hung-up people in the world. Thus the incentive, for example, 'to stay together for the sake of the kids' does not exist. The kids will be just fine, because the family will rally round them and, likely as not, the parents will continue to have a civilised relationship, based on the usually automatic understanding that custody for the children will be shared. Reykjavic, Iceland, May 2008: City Councillor Oddny Sturludottir tells us why Iceland is the best place in the World. Photograph: Ari Magg The comfort of knowing that, come what may, the future for the children is safe also helps explain why Icelandic women, modern as they are (Iceland elected the world's first female president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, a single mother, 28 years ago), persist in the ancient habit of bearing children very young. 'Not unwanted teen pregnancies, you understand,' said Oddny, 'but women of 21, 22 who willingly have children, very often while they are still at university.' At a British university a pregnant student would be an oddity; in Iceland, even at the business-oriented Reykjavik University, it is not only common to see pregnant girls in the student cafeteria, you see them breast-feeding, too. 'You extend your studies by a year, so what?' said Oddny. 'No way do you think when you have a kid at 22, "Oh my God, my life is over!" Definitely not! It is considered stupid here to wait till 38 to have a child. We think it's healthy to have lots of kids. All babies are welcome.' All the more so because if you are in a job the state gives you nine months on fully paid child leave, to be split among the mother and the father as they so please. 'This means that employers know a man they hire is just as likely as a woman to take time off to look after a baby,' explained Svafa Grönfeldt, currently rector of Reykjavik University, previously a very high-powered executive. 'Paternity leave is the thing that made the difference for women's equality in this country.' Svafa has embraced the opportunity with both arms. For her first child, she took most of the parental leave. For her second, her husband did. 'I had a job in which I was travelling 300 days a year,' she said. She had her misgivings, but these were alleviated partly by the knowledge that her husband was at home, partly because of the top-class state education that Iceland provides, starting with all-day pre-schools, rendering private schools practically nonexistent. ('I think there is one, but 99 per cent of kids, be their parents plumbers or billionaires, use the state system,' Svafa said.) The 300 days' travelling job was as deputy CEO in charge of mergers and acquisitions for a generic pharmaceutical company called Actavis, where Svafa worked for six years. During this period the company rose from global minnowhood to become the third largest of its kind in the world, buying up 23 foreign companies along the way. A propagandist not just for her former firm, which she left when she could no longer fight the guilt she felt over her maternal absences, she listed some of the more notable feats of entrepreneurial prowess her country had achieved in the past 10 years, boom-time in what had traditionally been a fish-based economy. Icelandic banks now operate in 20 countries, and the Reykjavik-based company deCODE is a world leader in biotechnological genome research. Icelandic firms are gobbling up food and telecommunications firms in Britain, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, further evidence of the island's economic growth. Svafa is a lively, wiry woman with a sassy haircut and a sharp, humorous mind. And she has a corner office to match. Spacious, minimalist (so much so she does not even have a desk) and modern in the clean Nordic style, it has the feel of a lounge and views to kill for. From one window you see over Reykjavik's red and green rooftops to the fishing port and the dark blue sea; from another you look on to a ridge of low, snow-capped mountains. It's a beautiful landscape to look at but a hard one in which to live, especially in the 1,000 years Iceland was inhabited prior to the invention of electricity and the combustion engine. 'You have to be not only tough but inventive to survive here,' said Svafa. 'If you don't use your imagination, you're finished; if you stand still, you die.' As the Vikings showed, part of that imagination means getting out into the world. That is what Svafa did (she studied for a PhD at the London School of Economics, lived in the US, spending a total of 10 years abroad) and what practically all Icelanders do. Very few do not speak excellent English. But now that Iceland has become prosperous the invitation is out to the world to come to Iceland. Reykjavik University has staff from 23 countries and the idea, after a planned move in two years to what Svafa describes as a new space-age campus, is to expand the foreign presence both in terms of teaching staff and students, and convert the university into a hub of global business education. Reykjavik University is already entirely bilingual. 'Students who only speak English can come and do postgraduate studies here.' Does nobody worry about losing the Icelandic language, when, after all, so few people speak it? 'Not at all,' declares Svafa. 'Our language is safe.' Not prey to the nationalist neuroses of other small countries (though practically none are smaller than Iceland), Iceland's obsession is with embracing the world, not fearing it. 'We are into brain gain, not brain drain. We want to do what the Americans have done to great effect, in our specific case to create an elite campus in Europe that attracts the best in the world.' Icelanders know how to identify the best and incorporate it into their society. I talked about this to the Icelandic prime minister, Geir Haarde, whom I met at an official event at a steamy public swimming bath, a popular meeting place for Icelanders, like pubs for the British. Easygoing as everybody else I met, and without anything dimly resembling a bodyguard anywhere near him (there is almost no crime in Iceland), he agreed on the spot to sit down and do a quick interview. 'I believe we have blended the best of Europe and the United States here, the Nordic welfare system with the American entrepreneurial spirit,' he said, pointing out that Iceland, unlike the other Nordic countries, had exceptionally low personal and corporate tax rates. 'This has meant not only that Icelandic companies stay and foreign ones come, but that we have increased by 20 per cent our tax revenue owing to increased turnover.' Which is not to say that Iceland has been immune to the financial panic affecting the rest of the world right now. Icelandic banks being, in the US manner, aggressive and optimistic global players, there are worries they may have over-extended themselves. The rise in food and oil prices is generating the same sort of headlines in Iceland's papers as we are seeing elsewhere. Yet there is no suggestion that the economic system itself is under threat. Icelanders will continue to receive not just free, top-class education but free, top-class healthcare, private medicine being limited in Iceland chiefly to luxury procedures, such as cosmetic surgery. Dagur Eggertsson, until recently the mayor of Reykjavik and every inch a future prime minister of Iceland, made the point to me that what has happened in Iceland has defied economic logic. 'In the Eighties and Nineties right wingers in the US and UK were saying that the Scandinavian system was unworkable, that high state investment in public services would kill business,' said Dagur, a boyish, super-bright 35-year-old who, like most Icelanders, is a furiously hard-working multi-tasker - as well as a politician, he is a doctor. 'Yet here we are, in 2008,' he continues, 'and you look at the hard economic statistics and you see that these last 12 years we and the Scandinavian countries have been roaring ahead. Someone called it bumblebee economics: scientifically, aerodynamically, you cannot figure out how it flies, but it does, and very nicely, too.' Iceland's spectacular success comes from that capacity for hard work Dagur exemplifies, plus that imperative for creativity Svafa spoke of, plus an American faith in the feasibility of big ideas. 'Many of us have lived in the US, studied there,' said Geir Haarde, 'and what we have both taken from them and found that naturally we share is that can-do attitude - that if you work hard, anything can be done.' Svafa seemed to be the living expression of what Haarde was describing. She rejoiced in the civilised generosity of the Icelandic state but worked in pursuit of her own private goals with tireless optimism. A similar spirit lies behind the success of Reykjavik Energy, the company that provides Icelanders with most of their hot water and electricity. Pipes dug deep into the earth's icy crust extract not oil, but water, which one kilometre down reaches temperatures of 200C. In 1940, 85 per cent of Iceland's energy came from coal and oil. Today, 85 per cent comes from underground volcanic water, which supplies half the country's electricity needs at a price just two-thirds of the European average. Iceland has the world's largest geothermal heating system, and the world is coming to have a look. The prime ministers of China and India have visited Iceland in recent years to see what they can learn about clean, cheap renewable energy and Reykjavik Energy is engaged in joint projects to replicate the Icelandic model in places as far flung as Djibouti, El Salvador, Indonesia and China. The success of Reykjavik Energy is a metaphor for Iceland's broader achievement: harnessing the harshness of nature and transforming it, through invention and hard toil, into rich, fruitful energy. Artists have done much the same. The country is crawling with writers, painters, film makers and - like Oddny - accomplished musicians. Iceland has Björk, its cool answer to Madonna, but also a national symphony orchestra that plays to the highest standards all over the world; it has its own opera company (while I was there, La Traviata was being performed at the Reykjavik Opera House, entirely by Icelanders). Baltasar Kormakur, a former TV soap opera heart-throb, is a successful local film director whose films have been shown in 80 countries, and is about to make his first Hollywood film this year. He has also directed a play at the Barbican, where he will soon be staging a production of Shakespeare's Othello. As for writers, half the population appears to have written a book, as if inspired by the single greatest cultural legacy Iceland has so far given the world - the 13th-century Viking sagas, which Jorge Luis Borges, the greatest writer never to receive a Nobel prize, described as the first novels, 400 years ahead of Cervantes. As a consequence, the one thing Icelanders could do that many in richer countries could not, even in the 19th century, was read - and the abundance of bookshops in Reykjavik is testament to this. Painting as an art form did not exist in Iceland until 100 years ago, but a large sector of the population dabbles in it now and at least 100 Icelanders live off their art full time. Haraldur Jonsson, who studied in Paris and whose father was a champion multi-tasker (he was both an architect and a dentist) is an abstract painter, sculptor and video and performance artist who describes his task as 'making the invisible world visible', transforming emotions into things you can see and touch. He has exhibited all over the world, including London, Barcelona, Berlin and Los Angeles. Why is there such an abundance of artists in Iceland? What drives them? 'We do it so as not to become mad,' replied Haraldur, who is tall, nervy and thin with eyes that have the concentrated energy of a laser beam. Not to become mad? 'Yes, to keep the beast at bay.' The beast? 'The beast is Iceland, this island on which we live with its terrifyingly harsh nature, its bitter ever-changing weather. It's Goya's dark nightmare world, beautiful but grotesque. This is the moody beast of Iceland. We cannot escape it. So we find ways to live with it, to tame it. I do it through my art,' said Haraldur, whose attempts to pacify the monster have also included the writing of three books in which 'there are no animals, no trees. We have to have a rich internal life to fill the empty spaces, to fill the silence with our own noise.' There is another beast to which Iceland owes a debt: the Second World War. The Icelanders must be the only people in the world to whom Adolf Hitler bequeathed a legacy of value. Before the war, Iceland was Europe's poorest country. Suddenly, in 1939, it became a strategic location of immense value. The British and the Germans raced for it, and the British got there first. They established a military base on a finger of land near the Reykjavik coast. 'Suddenly there was an abundance of jobs that were, for the first time ever, unrelated to fishing or farming,' recalled Asvaldur Andresson. 'I remember that before the war we barely had roads, and those we had we had to build with picks and shovels. The British and Americans came and then it was Caterpillar trucks and tar roads and all sorts of wonderful new tools with which to work.' Asvaldur, who was born in 1928 in a fishing town in Iceland's wild far east called Seydisfjordur, emigrated west to Reykjavik at the end of the war and found a job as a bus driver at the US base. After that, following long hours of hard night-time study, he spent most of his life as a refurbisher of bashed-up cars. His life was always tough, but especially when he was growing up, when Iceland was that worst of possible mixes, a Developing World country with brutally cold weather. He left school at 12 and went to work on a fishing boat amid the icy storms of the Arctic circle's southern edge. His sister died of whooping cough at the age of three, and when his father died, Asvaldur, then 16, was out at sea, so he did not find out about it until after the burial. He worked 16-hour days all his life to keep his family fed. Today, he has a full-time job looking after his invalid wife. The blessing is that he receives money from the state to do so, a big reason (consistent with the culture of family cohesion) why most old people in Iceland live not in residences but at home. 'I look back at my life and I see how this country has changed and I can hardly believe my eyes,' said Haraldur. The most remarkable thing is what has become of three of his grand-daughters, all grown up now. One makes documentary films in Paris; one is a bio-technology whizz who assists surgeons in a Reykjavik hospital; the eldest, at 26, has a flying licence from the United States and is undergoing training to become a pilot with Ryanair. Icelandic women being the early reproducers that they are, Asvaldur and his wife have not one or two but five great-grandchildren. They are all sure to be receiving a fine education, especially should any of them happen to go to a school I visited in Reykjavik called Hateigsskol. The principal, a quietly passionate man called Asgeir Beinteinsson, showed me around. The children range from the ages of six to 16, and every classroom, which we visited unannounced, was a picture of cheerful industry. Apart from the wide variety of subjects obligatory to all, from cookery to carpentry via all the traditional lessons, what was striking was the ingenuity in the teaching and the degree of liaison with the parents. One method of teaching for younger children involved the use of drama to explain history and science. The story of the first settlers who left Norway in 874, for example, is learnt by acting out how they would have navigated to Iceland using the sun and the stars, and how they survived when they first arrived on Iceland's barren rocks. As for the parents, there is one member of staff whose job it is to compile detailed data on internal assessment exercises conducted with a view to keeping the school on its toes, and standards high. After consultation with pupils, teachers and parents, progress is rated on everything from the quality of maths teaching for nine-year-olds to the satisfaction levels of the teachers with their colleagues to the pupils' feelings about the school buildings. The information is then made available to the parents on the internet. 'The philosophy behind everything we do,' said Asgeir, 'is that we must challenge the children with a broad educational foundation, teach them in a warm, creative environment where we respect everyone equally. All are equal.' Asgeir and his staff have, like many other Icelanders, looked abroad for ideas and inspiration. Two teachers I met had just returned from England, where they had spent time at a school in Birmingham with a reputation for doing an especially good job. Asgeir himself has been to Denmark, Scotland, the United States and Singapore, and he was off to New Orleans the week after I met him. For good measure, all teachers have the opportunity to take a year off to study a subject of their choice on full pay. If the bumblebee flies, if Iceland is the world's best place in which to live, and one of the richest, it is because of the way governments have added enlightened policies to the island's pragmatic, inventive human raw material. 'I as a medical doctor and as a politician believe that there is an intimate link between the country's health and the quality of political decisions that are made,' said Dagur Eggertsson, Reykjavik's former mayor. 'We were the poorest of nations 100 years ago, but we all could read and we had strong women. On that we have now built strong policies. My point is that more important for the health of a country than not smoking and eating well are the social phenomena we stress here: equality, peace, democracy, clean water, education, renewable energy, women's rights.' Dagur, like the many people I spoke to in Iceland who were proud of their country, was confident but not complacent; content but ambitious - and open to the world in all its diversity. That was manifest even at Asgeir's school, where I came across children from China, Vietnam, Colombia, even Equatorial Guinea. When I was talking to Svafa about the better influences from the rest of the world that Iceland seemed to have wisely plucked, or just happened to have, we mentioned, as the prime minister had done, the humaneness of Scandinavia and the drive of the United States. We also discussed how the Icelanders - who have excellent restaurants these days and whose stamina for late night partying must come from the Viking DNA - seemed to have much of southern Europe's savoir vivre. Then I put it to her that there was an African quality to Iceland that the rest of Europe lacked. This was to be found in the 'patchwork' family structures Oddny had spoken of. The sense that, no matter whether the father lived in the same home or the mother was away working, the children belonged to, and were seen to belong by, the extended family, the village. Svafa liked that. 'Yes!' the pale-skinned power executive exclaimed, in delighted recognition. 'We are Africans, too!' Partly by dint of travel, partly by accident, Iceland, we agreed, was a melting pot that had contrived to combine humanity's better qualities, offering a lesson for the rest of the world on how to live sensibly and cheerfully, free from cant and prejudice and taboo. Iceland could not be less like Africa on the surface; could not be further removed from the lowest country in the UNDP's Human Development Index, Sierra Leone. Yet the Icelanders have had the wisdom to take, or accidentally to replicate, the best of what's there, too. Without any hang-ups at all.

Fear of Hell...fear motivation stinks IMO. I don't refrain from bank robbery because I fear prison, I refrain from it because it is unfair and a hardship to others. Be a Christian OR ELSE!!! Dire Consequences!! Is that what its really all about?

The "I'm a Christian so everyone is intollerant of ME" just doesn't work for me, though it is quite popular in some Christian circles, it seems to me. It proves to themselves how evil the 'world' is--which really means those that don't think like you. Christianity is the dominant religion in our culture. Most people here have not all left Christianity due to their TWI experiences. Most are still Christian! That is an oversimplification and does not take in someone's personal experiences outside of TWI. I suspect you would not listen to them, anyway, tell their non Christian stories, because it would be 'antichrist' which is to many just another way of saying 'evil.' Or the person would have to be deceived or a liar or whatever, because they do not agree with your doctrine. Most of the very few nonChristians on GSC have been there, done that! I think if an adamant, prostilitizing Muslim, Morman, Jew, Roman Catholic Or Pagan came on TWI they'd get plenty of flACK.

A term I often hear used is 'unverified personal gnossis'. This would be where you experience your god or goddess. Non Christian people have these experiences, too. Non Christian also have 'victories' or things that happen to bless them that they attribute to their god or diety. Many with faith in a diety can declare that their personal experience is the right one and set forth examples of proof from their own life. If you only move within the circles of your own faith, you might not see this in the lives of those who are not of your belief system.

I never think of you that way, cman. I think of you as someone who sees things from a different perspective. I was thinking more in a general way about belief systems..

Causes division, separation...how can that be a good thing for a family, community or nation? Conform! Yet so many are so sure and so invested in their correct way. I honestly see that attitude as dangerous to humans.

The temp still drops into the mid thirties here(Rockies) so all my plants are still indoors. I'll begin getting them hardened this week, and hopefully all will be in the ground by the end of May, though I will still need to cover them some nights. We do have garlic growing, we'll havest it in July. We grow peppers, tomatoes, salad greens, many herbs(some of those are up--sage, thyme, chives, mints, lavendar, motherwort, horseradish) rhubbarb, summer squash and cucumbers, broccoli, green beans and peas. Basil grows well here and we grow lots of it to make pesto. I do grow flowers, right now I have hyacinth, tulips and daffodills up. I have sunflowers, morning glories and gazania plants to transplant. I want to add a heritiage yellow climbing rose. a English daisy, and a chokecherry for the backyard this year. I always buy a few flowers flats, mostly impatiens for the shade, and I like geraniums outside, too. I have some hardy wildflowers around too, mostly bellflowers, some columbine and some volunteer sweetpeas.

So much of religion seems to be about do-do-do, change-change-change-grow-grow-grow rush-rush-rush. It is a never ending work, and it can eat up a persons whole life, as in TWI. I do understand that there are needed changes and needed helps...but in all the business and striving, where is rest and peace? Day to day life, chores, meals, the job... if those are imbued with sacredness, then preparing a meal and eating with your family is a time of healing and repair, working on the yard or house is seen more as bringing strength or beauty than necessary or keeping up with the Joneses. Contemplating in the darkness doesn't appear to be a worthy activity, perhaps a waste of time, because there is nothing physical to show for it. And others want your time...you could be on the run constantly, as some are, doing this that and every other activity...

All the manipulating leaders we dealt with in the nineties are still IN. I have ahard time believing they are just not still nasty, just muzzled, because if they lose more of their area they will lose their position as a leader. Kicking people out is not a reassuring thing. Who gets to decide who goes????

There are people who have no ability to empathise with others. VP could have been such a person. And certainly those who worshipped him and tried to be like him made themselves worse people than they were to start. Plus, having VPW characteristics was a 'leadership' quality, and rewarded in TWI, because they were bold and did the reproof/spiritual anger stuff. Easier to treat people that way if you have no empathy for them. I think that the mog thought Sandy should just renew her mind and obey.

Too cold here for nekkid dancing! The Beltane bonfire will be keeping fingers and toes warm this year. Snow is on the way.

My husband talked to the LC--this was in the late nineties era where wives were not important. LC told us we would lose all our friends--and we were faithfully marked and avoided by all our near and dear TWI innie friends of over a decade. LC also told hubby that we would lose the hedge of protection around our children, and that almost-almost!-had the power to keep us in. But somewhere deep inside we knew our children would be in less danger out of TWI. We had some deep seated idea of what love was--and what we were getting in TWI was nothing like love. Happy to say the kids are all fine, busy with school, not insane or druggies or pg or in trouble with the law. I do wish they would clean their bedrooms without a struggle, though. And when do they start earning money??? Prom was REALLY expensive.

I like freecycle, too. It is handy when you clean out a closet( I recently found toys from gradeschool in a basement closet!) People come right to your house to pick things up...very convenient! We also got a decent desk for one of the kid's through freecycle. Our area also has a yahoo garage sale group for things you want to sell.