There were several things that came up like this while we were there. This was the biggest to stick in my mind, and the fact that it is illegal to home school there and parents are arrested, children are often placed in mental health institutions and/or foster homes, and lawyers can be charged with aiding "criminals" for defending them. One paper said the gvmnt was concerned about gvmnt citizenry and if kids are educated at home by their parents that their value system will not be inline with the gvmnts. Our German friends told us their children have their educational paths made for them by the gvmnt/school. They choose who is going to trade professions and who is going to be Drs., Lawyers etc. My firend was debating on leaving her home country to come here (her daughters have dual citizenship) she did not want their career chosen for them. Her daughter wants to be a marine biologist. She told me the only way that would happen is if she left as the school was choosing what they will be - i believe she said by 3rd grade their education/career is already mapped out for them. They also said that German public schools ranked the worst of all the EU schools, another reason they wanted to leave there. She said academically they are the worst of all.
All Catholic traditions/holidays were observed, you can be fined for working on Sundays, mowing ones lawn was considered work. I was told by both the Americans who had been there longer than i and my German neighbors i should not be doing even quiet yard work like weed pulling cause i could get into trouble if one of my neighbors called on me - i lived on the economy. To be sure i never mowed again after my first warnings. But weeding my garden, come on.
My 3rd child was born there. The woman i shared my hospital room with (no one is allowed to have their private rooms even though my personal american insurance covered a private room, i would still have to pay $100. euro per night out of my pocket to get a private room) told me she is only allowed to choose from gvmnt approved names for her baby. I am not sure how many are on the list but they are all the traditional male and female German names. I asked my German friends after this and they said it was true. Only gvmnt approved names are allowed. They never had enough staff to care for the babies properly or take them to the moms every hr or so when babies get hungry, so they would formula feed with tubes through the noses. My room mate would cry everytime she went to see her baby as they did not allow rooming in nor for her to breastfeed because she smoked. She said they had the right to not let her do those things, gvmnt gives the medical doctors rights over her and her baby. The American women like myself could have the baby in the room but not the nationals as it was against the hospital rules. Women could only be Dr.s not Professors and only Professors were allowed to be in charge of the hospital - my German Ob and her midwife told me about this. So not only did i feel they were more backwards and outdated, sexist too. My OB and midwife were so glad to find out i had breastfed my other children, because their hospitals were discouraging breastfeeding and nurses were not trained on how to teach new moms to do it. They told me that the hospital and Doctors there were backwards and medically inept and that Germany has one of the lowest BFing rates of all Europe because they are anti BFing, they don't teach nurses how to do it. Germans had mandatory stays in the hospital, depending on what you are there for. Like having a baby is an automatic 5 day stay. Americans did not have to stay there. But the German women there told me they had to stay the full stay. They could not check themselves out or their babies. Nor refuse the formula tube feedings through the nose.
The Germans i knew who had lived here in the US felt they were under another form of dictatorship when compared to the freedom they felt they had here. They said that they don't realize it because they have known nothing else. Several also said that many are willing to accept this because they like getting stuff for nothing. May not seem dictatorship like to you, but it does to me. Just nice and polite dictatorship - Nationalism, Socialism, etc.
Our gvmnt attempts to hide their agenda for the most part but repeatedly while i was there i heard of or read things like this where the gvmnt is quite clear that it is the ultimate ruling authority even in personal morality. I can't discount my experiences there, or what my German friends shared with me. Their gvmnt is far from being for their citizens personal liberties and i fear our country is half way there. We were all busy slumbering and dreaming of the green European grasses. I don't want to live in a country that tells me i can't home school, where i can work, what my kids will be when they grow up, that teaches their religious beliefs in schools (yes i realize ours does, that is why i home school), that i can't mow my lawn on Sunday to observe their religious traditions, etc... to me that is not liberty, it is a form dictatorship.
As for the Doctors and natural etc. We had a great pedia who still made house calls and he did use natural methods with conventional. But he told me it was not the norm anymore. A hormone specialist i emailed with as she was several hours away even told me that you can't get supplements in the highest needed doses for optimal health only the bare minimum as it was all regulated.
Maybe the difference is the states. I don't know, but what i did learn while there was not what i have heard about from everyone here all my life touting how much better it is, more healthy, better medical, natural health, etc... it was not what i expected at all. I thought we would have the better doctors, better food, etc. I found it hard to find organic foods there. In talking with my German friends they thought it was funny that we Americans have this big dreamy idea of what it is like there, and they don't know where we get these ideas from. Who knows why my experience was different than yours. I did not get into the political stuff - just talked to the people, the neighbors, the new spouses, the Doctors. It seemed they too did not feel their grass was greener.
:)
--- In native-nutrition@yahoogroups.com, "Bill" <lynchwt@...> wrote:
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