Government Nannies
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

There's a new crisis in town. And there seems to be plenty of room. Remember crack cocaine? How about homelessness? In the last decade or so we've had anorexia, starvation, a new ice age and global warming, health care and education, gangs and tainted apples, the environment and cigarettes. The Nanny-in-Chief, Hillary Clinton, you'll remember, made a name for herself as the leader of the shadowy commission charged with the task of creating a socialized medical plan that we could swallow. Socialized she accomplished, but thankfully, the pill proved too bitter. So what happens when you have a crisis, and nobody comes? It goes away, slinking off into history books.

Crisis mongers, however, never give up. And so Hillary has been back in the news (after a too brief few months of laying low to allow her ratings to rise a bit) lately pitching an old crisis with new vigor, child care. The First Feminist has made the talk show circuit calling for the federal government to do something about child care. Need a sitter? Call Uncle Sam. It only costs one vote, and someone else's money. There are a lot of young folks out there unsupervised, to be sure. A number of municipalities have brought back curfews, forbidding the young freedom of movement. The trouble is that kids aren't dangerous only after midnight. In fact statistics show that the most dangerous time to be out on the street is right after the kids get out of school.

Before you join Hillary's chorus, however, consider another statistic. If one were to chart the amount of taxes paid by the average family, and the amount of time worked outside the home by mothers, and the amount of income earned by those mothers, the charts would be essentially the same. Over the last 30 years, the income produced by working mothers is equal to the increase of the tax burden on families. It was not merely rhetoric when, in describing the virtue of an agrarian culture in volume 1, issue 4, I said, "Women are not sent out to work for others to raise the cash to pay the state to keep the machine running."

This is the state's game. First they offer 'free education.' Of course the state cannot provide anything for free. It has nothing it did not first take from someone. When you're dissatisfied with the "free' product, when junior learns not to read, but how to put a condom on a banana, they create a school funding crisis. (Taxes committed to government schools have tripled in the last thirty years in constant dollars). Of course taxes go up, and Mommy goes out to work. But who will look after junior? Of course the state will step in to solve the crisis.

They will disguise their plans in a variety of ways. Some will provide "year round schools", others longer school days, complete with three meals a day. Others will twist the arms of big business to provide day care. Or, if Hillary has her way, we will have day care modeled after that provided by the U.S. Army. Congratulations! You've been drafted into Uncle Sam's Industrial Army.

But don't miss the key issue. Remember that the streets are never more dangerous than when school lets out. The same people who have the youth of America in their care, the same ones who stand watch while the children learn to be criminals, want to spend more time with them.

This is the end of "responsibility drift", that temptation to take the jobs God has given to one person or institution, and to pass them on to another. "Sure, we'll take care of your children," Hillary promises sweetly. Just like we've taken care of your elderly parents, and the poor around you, and the corporations, and the money, and the roads, and every conceivable area of your life. "Don't worry about a thing, we've got it under control."

Again the motivation is never compassion, but power. Hillary doesn't want to help working moms, she wants to become the village mom, to clutch every mother's son to her tax dollar engorged breast, and keep them there forever.

The hallmark of immaturity is the failure to take responsibility for oneself, to shift blame and to seek others to do your job. The hallmark of the lust for power is the willingness to take responsibility for others, but at the expense of their freedom. When the two collide the result will always be the enslavement of the immature, and the empowerment of the master. Neither a nanny nor a ninnie be, but do the jobs God has appointed for you, and do them well. Remember that your children are His children, which He gave to you. You may not, then turn them over to another.