>OTOH, some parents don't have the chance of spending much time with their kids, because they have to both work long and/or non standard hours to meet both ends. I would not judge the value of a parent just by the amount of time their kids spend watching TV or playing video games.

And why does it take both parents working in some families to make it? Excessive Government taxation for one. About half our family income goes to taxes in some form or another. Just think, a 10% Federal tax cut to many Americans is worth more than a 15% pay raise. A contributing factor is people wanting [not needing] to live at a more luxuriant level than is necessary. I would guess that if I were taxed at 1960s levels, my take-home pay and disposable income would be at least 75% more. Now that is significant.

More funding for education is not the answer either. In the US billions of dollars are syphoned out of our school districts by the Federal gov't to fund the Department of [no]Education. This Dept does absolutely nothing to further education in this country. All it does is line the pockets of thousands of non-educators in gov't jobs. This Dept was created in the late 70s by then President Jimmy Carter as a payoff to the Teacher Unions who helped get him elected. If that Dept were abolished today and all funds used to support that Dept were then given back to the school districts, then we would have radical change in our schools. The hidden bonus to this is the sudden wealth districts would have because the burden of Federal administrative crap would be gone as well. Can you say significant and meaningful teacher pay raises?