Niall wrote:
"Have children out of love, to serve God, to pass on history or whatever... Do not, whatever you do, have children 'for the economy'!"
Peter Costello calls upon Australian women to lie back and have "one for your husband, one for your [self], and one for your country". Both major political parties are "family" friendly.
The post-Thatcherite Keating-Costello model of society is focused on globalism, consumption and material gain. It sets mainly economic goals for people, and thus for society, and in the end it requires couples to have dual incomes in order to achieve those goals (or it requires individuals to remain single and avoid the economic impediment of a non-earning partner). The dominant driver in the model is "the economy", and the model requires individuals and couples to focus almost exclusively on wealth creation.
But this model cannot handle the inherent conflict between family life and economic rationalism (the conflict between the moral, emotional and economic needs of a family and the impetus to create more and more wealth). The present Australian implementation of economic rationalism does not include mechanisms which may help families survive successfully in a wealth focused society (eg. by providing things like accessible child-care facilities, changed work-place practices, redefined roles of men and women).
Put as simply as I can, the directions in which the government's policies are driving Australian society, particularly with respect to family life, are opposite to the white picket fence image (or is that parody?) of families which the government still seems to hanker for.
It's too much like a Kafka story.
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