LOL! No hitting allowed.

Yeah I don't agree with people needing permission to reproduce but I do think that doctor should not have allowed someone like Octomom to be implanted with so many babies like that! She already had six, was a single parent and no job and some docotor implanted her with 8 more babies?? That's why I think it's so crazy, people who already have like more than 4 biological babies should not be helped in having more if they can't concieve them naturally. I mean why??? That's what I don't get! But no everyone should not need permission to reproduce but I draw the line at helping a single unemployed parent with 6 biological children to concieve even more babies. That's just crazy. But all women should be helped to have at least one biological child if she wants one regardless of her status, but in cases like Octomom, that was just nuts. The doctors were as crazy as the mom.

Re: controlling who's allowed to breed. Without immigration the population of Europe would be in decline. I know plenty of decent, hard-working, law-abiding people from the most terrible backgrounds.

Meanwhile, back on topic. What did the kindergartner(in) actually tell the kids? Just that the child had died, or that he'd been killed by his father? I'm not convinced that all the details need to be told to the kids. And for the kindergarten to not contact the parents in advance is grossly negligent.

..yeah but see, what justifies stopping the octomom from having any furter children but regardless of financial and emotional abilities you'd approve that every other woman who wants a child should be able to bear one.

Professional prostitutes are generally not having babies by accident.
And unlike the rest, they are not delusional, they know who and what they are. So I would label them as among the better functioning members of society.

Soylent Green is people.

Brian.

A prostitute can well be a well functioning member of society. The circumcision to be banned primarily is the FEmale one. The male circumcision, whenever painful, is not health-damaging. The policy to be followed is to try to reduce the number of children to sensible levels, and exactly this is now done in many many countries around the globe.

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Most things we can get out of Google in this regard are press articles. And the journalists simply found it interesting to mention that the boy also was Brazilian.

Wolli, I believe that if we were born with foreskin..then we ought to keep it. I love my foreskin and I wouldn't give it away for any money in the world. Ok, on a more serious note though, I totally support your stance on female circumcision...as it is cruel and pointless. Where did you say you've donated money to?

So, you knew that the father was going to kill the little child? That kind of assessment requires more than simply reading the news, in my mind.
Do you mind sharing with us the winning numbers of this week's Euromillions?

The school has been very good in helping the children deal with this tragedy. This week there has been a psychologist on hand to talk to the children. I know it's been very difficult on their teacher too. Yesterday they all made pictures to put on Florian's grave. They are trying to help the kids understand as much as they can. It's just so sad.

Thus confirming my point . . .

Once on a visit to Cairo to the organisation of Jihane es-Sadat and Suzanne Mubarak. I however don't remember the name of the organisation.

And circumcised men did NOT give the foreskin away, but it was taken away from them at age 9 or 10 or 11 . In many places it is done in hospitals nowadays ............., also here in Zurich btw.

...interesting. I always knew that you people in Zurich tend to be a little backwards at times.

What do you mean by backwards ? if most modern surgery technique is used

...it's foreskin, why would you want to get rid of it?! it's a part of your body...

Jesus . . . now we've moved on from overpopulation to circumcision.

Mods - can we close down this monstrosity or at least split it into somewhere like Off Topic, a separate thread in Life in Switzerland or Complaints Corner (LiB's natural habitat)?

[My thousandth post. Woot!]

Gastro..how am I complaining now?! This thread simply moved into that direction...

Did I say you were?

No, but you suggested that we'd start a new thread in the complaints corner...apparently my natural habitat. That wasn't very nice of you.
Anyways, what's your take on circumcision?

I wasn't trying to be nasty. Your most well known thread is 'Backwards Switzerland' and you've mentioned Switzerland being a 'bit backwards' in this thread.

I'm not going to discuss that in a thread about someone's difficulty explaining death to their son.

...no worries. But frankly, what is there to discuss. I don't have kids but sometimes I believe that parents make things harder than they seem. You can say that Billy had an accident...or Billy's father was a very bad man and that he did something very very bad to Billy...he then eventually will understand what happened. I don't favour this over dramatization of such an event as for a 6 year old, this may all be confusing and brining a friggin psychologist to a place will only underline a kids impression of something unusual that happened. Please don't get me wrong, I don't find this heartless atrocitiy in a way harmless...but a simple explanation should be sufficient to a 6 year old. I mean, think of all the war victims in Sierra Leone who had to witness their parents getting their limbs chopped off and here we worry on how to break down a dramatic event that none of the kids had to witness in the first place.

The problems for teachers and parents alike is that the children will hear about what really happened almost inevitably. So that neither talk about an accident nor the demonisation of the father will do. I would point to the fact that the father had a mental problem and out of that did what he did. That something unusual happened must be clear to the kids, as
- they saw the reaction of teachers
- they saw the reaction of other adults
- they hear their village mentioned in the news

No, it cannot be done with a "simple explanation" but with an explanation. I still remember the day when in class 2 (age 8) the most popular boy in our class got overrun by a truck. The teacheress decided in favour of the open way, kept us closely informed until he died, and discussed the matter with us very often. She however could not hinder the gruesome point being brought round to us that his head had been overrun by the right front wheel. A positive aspect was/is that we all, when becoming adults were/are exceedingly tolerant with children, even if they cross a road idiotically. What does that mean in this case ? It means that the children in question will learn about what the results of mental problems can be.

This why the teacher asked for the assistance of a psychiatrist. You see, Primary School teachers (as in our case) are fully educated teachers with Matura, teachers seminary etc, but Kindergärtner are not educated as much. And so possibly could not cope.