Our children must come

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Recently, I spent several days with friends of mine, a young couple who are, like me, ardent supporters of a woman's right to choose. They have two children-a daughter, aged nine, and a son who is five years old.

The husband is unemployed. He is in construction, and it is expected of many construction workers to suffer unemployment during the winter season. The wife is a teacher, who loves her job but works because both she and her husband's income are necessary for family survival.

It was amazing to watch the whole family on a typical weekday morning, getting ready for work and school. Mother has to get to work before the children leave home. Each child leaves at a different time—one to elementary school and the other to childcare.

The nine-year-old daughter needs the help of her mother to dress in just the exact outfit. The son is involved in fixing his legos toys and seems unconcerned about getting By working-class parents, from sea to shining sea, who are involved in this morning ritual. I thought also about the many single mothers who have to do it all by themselves.

If only those parents were raising cotton, peanuts, or tobacco instead of children, they would receive massive subsidies from the federal government to help them out. If the father had headed up a bankrupt savings and loan bank instead of being an unemployed construction worker, the government would pour money on his head.

If both mother and father were in the business of making a useless Stealth Bomber, they would be wallowing in luxury. The government loves bombs, poison gas, toxic waste, and other profitable military nonsense. But when it comes to children, its wallet is shut tight.

Working-class families are generally held together by love and concern for their children and each LENINGRAD—My grandmother used to tell me stories about the pogroms in Russia. As a young girl, she would hide in the hay loft while the cossacks thundered through her village, raping and murdering the Jews.

How quickly some people forget. I met one man here who insisted other. They cannot hire servants to oversee the care, feeding, and education of their children. Rearing children is a sacrifice-a loving sacrifice to be sure-for a good part of their lives.

Accident of birth

Capitalist society takes almost no responsibility for our children. The perilous fate of each child is left to the accident of birth.

In primitive societies, on the other hand, children were considered the concern of everyone. Each and Card* Simpsow ortfa every adult was responsible for each and every child.

Primitive communism was a social system based on a hunting and gathering economy. The highest degree of cooperation was necessary for the survival of the human species. This resulted in the highest levels of equality and democracy ever achieved on this planet.

In the last 5000 years, class society-based on exploitation by slave-owners, feudal lords, and then capitalists—nevertheless permitted a tremendous expansion of humanfirst ity's productive forces. But class society has outlived its progressive function and now blocks further development. It is reversing the film of historical progress, threatening to send the human race back to barbarism and even to destroy life on earth.

Under a democratic socialist society, organized by working people and based on the highest levels of scientific and technological achievement, human needs-especially the care of our children-would again come first. careers. sidered part of the Jewish "nationality" are identified as such in their passports. Thus, they become the target of bigoted shopkeepers.

Such discrimination has been abetted by the Stalinist government. As a youth, Masha was unable to attend the university because of the quota system that restricts

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Yes, this is a two career household. Unfortunately, I have both