Is there anyone else out there that thinks that the mortgage bailout is a bad idea? (I already know the answer.) Certainly, there are good people on both sides of the fence on this issue but as a recovering enabler of my children, I need to say that I think it's a bad idea. As a parent, I have learned the hard way that bailing out my children prolongs misconduct and doesn't show them what the real world is like.
Today I parent differently with my fifth and sixth children (both boys) than I did with our first four (three boys and a girl). I don't bailout for anything if I can help it. The only exceptions that I make in intervention are in matters that could be more harmful than instructive and these may vary depending on how I am doing in my "recovery" as an enabler. (I wish I could say that I have learned my lesson but I still struggle at times.)
The mortgage crisis is going to affect all of us. It is a tragedy to be sure. True as it is that the mortgage bailout will help some, perhaps many, who have given their best effort to pay their bills on time and to make ends meet. Without a bailout, their mortgages would likely go into foreclosure and they would lose their homes. I really feel bad about these responsible ones who would suffer especially, but overall, what does it say about how life really works when we come along and bailout anyone through government funding? Unfortunately, I'm afraid that it prolongs the notion that the lie that we can afford something when we really can't may in fact, be true. Because of the bailout, many will end up believing that they could afford that mortgage all along and they were just the victim of the times. Too bad. I would think that in the greatest country on earth that we would not look for a mortgage bailout, or a securities bailout or any other kind of a bailout (which is another name for a handout) but rather face our consequences as being a result of poor choices. Like a wise sage once said, "If we don't learn from history, we are destined to repeat it."
