The Office Of Civil Wrongs
Forget all that hoohah about judging people by the quality of their character. The Office of Civil Rights, under the Obama administration, is about to start judging 'em by their skin color.
The WSJ, in "Civil Rights Overreach," speculates that there could very well be racial quotas to be met for college prep courses. Quoting Ed Secretary Arne Duncan:
In a speech last week, Mr. Duncan said that "in the last decade"--that's short for the Bush years--"the Office for Civil Rights has not been as vigilant as it should have been in combating racial and gender discrimination."He cited statistics showing that white students are more likely than their black peers to take Advanced Placement classes and less likely to be expelled from school.
Is that because there are a lot of haters in teaching, or because white students are less likely to, say, come from homes with poor, unwed mothers? Children of non-intact families have the worst outcomes across the board, including in school.
Therefore, Mr. Duncan said, OCR "will collect and monitor data on equity." He added that the department will also conduct compliance reviews "to ensure that all students have equal access to educational opportunities" and to determine "whether districts and schools are disciplining students without regard to skin color."
Isn't that what most are doing now? And have done? We had a few black kids in my class when I was in school in suburban Detroit, and they were top students, taking AP classes. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that they, like me, had both a mommy and a daddy.
Commenter "Diogenes the Cynic" remarks on the WSJ site:
Perhaps an example closer to the subject - why do 1st and second generation children from Africa and the Caribbean ALSO do well? again because their parents make sure they do their homework and work hard. And those studies DID control for household income and not just broad statistical findings which this recent focus will now employ.
The WSJ piece continues:
The OCR under the Bush Administration rightly focused on reacting to actual complaints of discrimination and issued guidelines to help school districts comply with the law.
Can we stop foaming at the mouth about the Bush administration for a moment, and admit that their approach here was the right one? I was against the Iraq war, and, as a fiscal conservative, no fan of Big Spender Bush, but they were reacting to actual complaints -- as it should be. Not checking to see if they should give three white kids and three Asian kids detention because three black kids got it last week.
By contrast, Mr. Duncan plans investigations based on the disparate impact of a school policy, even if no one has alleged any discrimination. Schools and districts that don't have enough blacks taking college prep courses, or don't suspend enough whites for fighting, could face litigation or have federal funding withheld.Inevitably, pressure will be put on districts to get their numbers right and avoid federal scrutiny. Safety is already a major problem in many larger urban schools, where it's not uncommon for students to pass through metal detectors each morning. If districts are afraid to suspend students for fear of an OCR probe, a bad situation is made worse. And if AP classes will now be monitored for racial balance, schools will resort to quotas, lower standards or no longer offer the courses.
Again, from my experience, as somebody who speaks pretty much monthly at an inner-city high school (recently, to a class of 11th graders reading at the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade level...which is not unusual at this school), what kids really need is not government policy that discriminates by skin color, but a home with a mommy and daddy in it.
Oh yeah, and let's add a school board prez who can write a sentence in comprehensible English. But, hey, the illiterate guy they have running the horrendous Detroit Public Schools is the right color. And that's what really counts, right?
Here's a new tool with which to research Obama's contributions as Senator.
And many other things.
Load a clip, anything you like. Here's one, kind of randomly chosen. Note the transcription module midway down the page. Type in any phrase you half remember, and it will shuttle the video to that point in the clip. Is that cool?
Yes, it is: It's very cool. This may be the best ball-squeezing device the internet offers this year. A lot of really ugly people are about to be haunted by ghosts.
Pick a recent scandal, say the Massa guy, and imagine what might turn up if you gave an afternoon to reviewing his appearances.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 16, 2010 12:51 AM
"... disparate impact ..."
Hello, Title IX.
Hey Skipper at March 16, 2010 12:58 AM
A local school distract around here has a new policy. Kids there will automatically be enrolled in the more challenging courses if they qualify for them. They will have to take action to enroll in a lessor class. Right now they just get a list and can enroll in whatever.
The district said that minorities were less likely to enroll in the more challenging classes even when scores indicated they would do well in them. They hope more will end up in these classes and so perform will increase.
Seems like a reasonable thing to me.
The Former Banker at March 16, 2010 2:11 AM
I wonder when people are going to start realizing equailty of opportunity does not equal eqaulity of outcome.
lujlp at March 16, 2010 2:19 AM
The whole inner city kids thing depresses me. I've worked with a lot of inner city kids both in my job and volunteer work, and I just don't see a solution. The fundamental problem is that the home situation isn't secure enough. You can rail about teachers and their unions all you like, but the fact is the teachers are dealing with 25 kids or so at any given time, and all kids need one on one time with loving adults. If they aren't getting that from their parents at home, there is little the teachers can do.
But I don't know what the solution is. Parenting classes for inner city parents? Could work for some, but if the parents are working several jobs to make ends meet they can take all the parenting classes in the world, they still won't have enough time for their kids. If the parents are drug addicts then parenting classes are the least of their worries.
I kind of understand the whole forced boarding school thing of the 30s. Obviously it was a huge disaster and mistake, but I can see why people thought it was necessary.
I worked at a great school for inner city youth. There were a few full-time teachers, but most of them were volunteers who worked for room, board, and pocket money. It was a two-year program for the volunteers. The girls graduated in 8th grade, and all of them got private school scholarships for high school (some at better schools than others). It was fabulous. It also cost millions of dollars to run... for 60 girls.
That's the problem. That's the kind of money we need to invest to solve this situation. Not feasable.
NicoleK at March 16, 2010 5:16 AM
NicoleK, I think that you are right that there is not a lot that the schools can do. As Amy pointed out, the largest problems are in the home. What really needs to be done is to make changes in the culture, by changing welfare dependancy which encourages single motherhood, promoting birth control and abstinance (I think that the churches are probably best set up for those), and promoting marriage. We also could make large pushes, particularly in the inner cities, but all over, for adoption to be the first and best answer for an unmarried pregnant woman.
They're not easy changes, and they get a lot of resistance. They couldn't happen overnight. But they could happen.
Lyssa at March 16, 2010 5:36 AM
Wonderful. Yet more enforcement of the pursuit of mediocrity.
Expect AP classes wherever there is a substantial number of children from unwed mothers (and absent fathers) to disappear. Easier to not offer them to anyone than to risk an anal probe.
Also look for either a complete breakdown of discipline as one race of children finds that they can do anything they want either without punishment, or worse with someone of another race being punished for no reason to keep "racial parity".
What is it with these commies and their fetish with enforced equality of outcome? What makes them think that it's a good or desirable thing?
brian at March 16, 2010 5:42 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/03/16/the_office_of_c.html#comment-1701931">comment from brianBerkeley considered cutting science labs for AP students because they're mostly white. I guess they didn't end up cutting them -- probably thanks to the outcry about them.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35380
Roger Hedgecock writes:
Amy Alkon at March 16, 2010 5:53 AM
This is tangential to the point of your post Amy but one thing really struck me as I was watching the conference basketball tournaments last weekend. There was an ad for Pepsi doing some "we're for good" project which ad featured a fairly bouncy music track which I liked, until I listened to the "lyrics." "Let's catch amnesia/ forget about all this evah" - the attempt to rhyme "evil" with "amnesia" seemed to me to be perfectly indicative of the level of "literacy" that attempts raises hip hop lyrics to the equivalent of poetry.
We get results like the illiterate head of Detroit schools.
No. Standards. At. ALL!
BlogDog at March 16, 2010 5:55 AM
So because I am white and had two parents I am automatically considered to have the advantage as a student? Bull. Shit. What good is a two parent home when one of the parents is an abusive alcoholic and the other is complacant and disassociated? (Yes folks, WHITE people can also come from bad homes too.) My home life was just as bad, if not worse, then most of the black kids I went to school with but there was no govt law ensuring that I was given "equal access for educational opportunity" for me. Why? Oh...Because I am white lived in a two parent home. Oh well then, nevermind the fact that dad would rather beat the shit out of me rather than help me with my geomotry. Or that mom would rather immerse herself in her soaps rather than help me with my book report. Nope. Apparently that doesn't matter. I am white and had access to two parents so clearly I had the advantage.
In retrospect, I am glad that school never gave me anything. They didn't care if you were Black, White, Spanish, Asian, or green with purple spots.... You just had to do the work. I learned very early that I had to EARN my grades and if I got detention, it's because I deserved it. I am grateful for that. It helped make me a responsible, well rounded, hard working member of adult society who doesn't believe that I should just be given a pass just because I came from a bad home. School was actually the only place where I could truly shine and felt safe. The same thing goes for these poor black kids. Just because they are black, and their moms lay around collecting welfare checks does not mean that they shouldn't have to work for what they get. If they want better than their parents, they have to fucking earn it. By the time these kids reach high school, ideally they should be cognitive enough of thier lives to see that their parents are losers and understand that the way out is hard work and determination. If they want to take the AP class and go to college then they need to get off thier asses and do the work. Period. And thier parents or parent, (or legal gaurdian in a lot of these cases) should be held to a standard of involvement as well by the govt. At least that is how it should be. Unfortunatley, this generation is being brought up to believe that they are entitled because they are black and poor and that the govt will take care of them and if they lay on thier backs they will be able to get free govt money and scholorships because all the whites are bringing them down. And this law is just one more example of how by holding them to a different standard, we are enforcing that belief.
I was not a big fan of Bush, but I think he actually got this one right. Making the parents accountable for thier kids, and making the kids accountable for thier grades is the right thing to do. All this "overreach" does is lower standards of education and hold back those who actually DO give a damn. It also enforces the belief that you don't have to work hard to get to college, you just have to have the right skin color.
Only when people start realizing that race and gender should not be a factor in intelligence and hard work will we be truly be equal.
Sabrina at March 16, 2010 6:56 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/03/16/the_office_of_c.html#comment-1701942">comment from SabrinaPoor kids are the kids we should help -- of any color. Great points, Sabrina. And so sorry to hear how you grew up. It makes me boil when I hear of parents like that.
My friend Sergeant Heather, who's about as white as I am, grew up poor -- they didn't have running water in their tub or shower, so they had to take sponge baths. She worked her ass off in school and got a full ride to Claremont McKenna.
Amy Alkon at March 16, 2010 7:04 AM
Thank you Amy. Honestly though, I didn't tell my story to gain sympathy; I told it to prove a point. That skin color has nothing to do with opportunity and potential. It's the choices you make. I have also used my story to try to inspire this generation of kids to seek out better for themselves in eduation and life in general and I will use it to teach my future kids as well. I will be the first to admit that it wasn't easy but it was probably the most couragous thing I ever did in my life, and I feel that laws like this one only undermine all the hard work I did to survive. It makes me feel like poor white kids don't count as much as the poor black ones.
My husband is a teacher in a middle school with a mostly black and poor population and sees how legislation like this does more harm than good everyday. He says that most of these kids are bright and charming, but thier parents don't take the initiative to get involved so they are failing, and that rules like this makes the other kids (aka: white, some of which grow up similar to how I did) feel like they are worthless because all the "underpivelaged" (aka: poor black) kids get all the attention. It saddens me to see that a childs potential is being measured by race and not by the actual work they and thier gaurdians put in. But, then, we have our own set of problems with public education down here in South Florida in addition to this legislation.
Sabrina at March 16, 2010 7:29 AM
Personal responsibility is in short supply in many area's of American life and both the parents and teachers need to admit that.
Vouchers and the competition that they will bring are the only answer.
Good teachers should want competition, they'll make more and it'll weed out the bad teachers.
Once they have the freedom and money to do so, the parents in even the poorest districts who care will find the right school for their child, get them there, be involved and give that kid an opportunity.
Oh, and we'll never live in a color blind society until we stop basing so much on color.
Christopher at March 16, 2010 7:30 AM
I also think there's more to success than having two parents. A child can have two parents and still have a lousy home life.
This is a very good article explaining what has happened in our educational system since it was taken over by unions. Minority students, particulary those in urban areas, tend to have the worst teachers.
"The research shows that kids who have two, three, four strong teachers in a row will eventually excel, no matter what their background, while kids who have even two weak teachers in a row will never recover," says Kati Haycock of the Education Trust and coauthor of the 2006 study "Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students Are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/234590/page/1
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 7:30 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/03/16/the_office_of_c.html#comment-1701954">comment from SabrinaThank you Amy. Honestly though, I didn't tell my story to gain sympathy; I told it to prove a point. That skin color has nothing to do with opportunity and potential.
Totally get that. It's like Robert W., whose BCDigital Divide project to refurbish computers for the poor ended up in my book. Had not a clue about it until I asked for people's person social action projects. He'd been posting here a year and never said word one about it.
It's great to hear your story. I tell the kids at the school that you don't have to be the best or the smartest; you can, a lot of the times, get the job or really win in general by working harder than the people who are smarter than you are.
Amy Alkon at March 16, 2010 7:34 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/03/16/the_office_of_c.html#comment-1701955">comment from lovelysoulMy experience is that the teachers at the school where I speak are excellent. Sure not all are, but I've been very, very impressed with those whose classes I've spoken in.
Amy Alkon at March 16, 2010 7:35 AM
Sabrina and LS, I think the point is that growing up in a home with two parents doesn't guarantee a good upbringing; I certainly wouldn't make that cliam. But growing up in one-parent family does almost guarantee a bad upbringing. There are exceptions on both sides, but exceptions don't disprove the rule.
And for Luj: "I wonder when people are going to start realizing equailty of opportunity does not equal eqaulity of outcome." It isn't a mistake or a misunderstanding. The people who are pushing this full well know the difference. The outcome is what they intend.
Cousin Dave at March 16, 2010 7:44 AM
"Claim". Drat. Stupid painkillers.
Cousin Dave at March 16, 2010 7:45 AM
They've already begun to "not offer the courses" Last year there was that one story about a school district out West that was cutting science funding because not enough black kids took the classes or excelled. So now those black kids that WANT to learn more science and take labs can't even do that. Real smart there holding disadvantaged kids down.
plutosdad at March 16, 2010 8:06 AM
The problem isn't that the kids don't have "a mommy and a daddy." Like someone above, I grew up in a house with two parents - two parents who beat us so badly that I have to take medication for the rest of my life to combat the effects and wound up as a ward of the state for most of my teenage years. However, I realized that I didn't want my kids growing up like that, and when their dad started to show signs he would be the same way I kicked him to the curb. Both of my kids are at the top of their classes and are happy and popular with both peers and every adult who knows them.
By making it sound like a kid HAS to have a mommy and a daddy to excel, you give an excuse to single parents. If nothing I can do is going to make a difference anyway, why bother? Yes, in a perfect world every parent would take an interest and push their children to excel, but at the end of the day a child really just needs one adult to depend on. Sometimes that's mom, sometimes that's dad and sometimes it's a teacher (who it was for me) or another adult who steps in to fill the role of mentor.
Ora at March 16, 2010 8:11 AM
"Sabrina and LS, I think the point is that growing up in a home with two parents doesn't guarantee a good upbringing; I certainly wouldn't make that cliam. But growing up in one-parent family does almost guarantee a bad upbringing. There are exceptions on both sides, but exceptions don't disprove the rule."
You are absolutely correct.
"They've already begun to "not offer the courses" Last year there was that one story about a school district out West that was cutting science funding because not enough black kids took the classes or excelled. So now those black kids that WANT to learn more science and take labs can't even do that. Real smart there holding disadvantaged kids down."
That's what makes this legislation so bass akwards. They make these damn rules, and when the rules don't get the result they wan't (read: more black kids passing or even enrolling for that matter) EVERYONE suffers. What good is that doing anyone? What is is Spock always says...???
"The needs of many outwiegh the needs of some". (Maybe some of you more knowledgable in the ways of Star Trek can correct my quote)
Sabrina at March 16, 2010 8:12 AM
"But growing up in one-parent family does almost guarantee a bad upbringing. There are exceptions on both sides, but exceptions don't disprove the rule."
Yes, but we have to understand that the number isn't the reason. Michael Phelps, Lance Armstrong, and countless successful people had single parents.
The number is no more important than the sexuality of your parents. What always matters most is the QUALITY of parenting.
Statistically, it just so happens that bad parents are more likely to be single - often because they have a host of other issues, like substance abuse or mental illness. This skews the perception that it's somehow the magic number of parents that makes all the difference, but there's nothing inherently damaging in the number. It's the kind of parent the number represents.
If your one parent is out doing crack or engaging in prostitution, then you're not going to have a home life that's conducive to learning. If you have one parent who is educated, or cares about education, and fills your home with books, love, and support, you'll do well. This holds true whether you have two bad parents or two good ones...or one bad and one good, which is a little more iffy, but, in general, if you have at least one good parent, you'll be ok.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 8:15 AM
Actually, studies done in the 80's, before the feminists in academe decreed such studies were not useful, because they kept showing single mom's kids as statistical failures, (with more child support money single moms will do as well as the two parent family, no, better: NOT!!) showed that kids from families with disgusting parents STILL DID BETTER AS A GROUP THAN WITH ONLY A SINGLE MOM.
Clearly, it is sad what kids sometimes go through with stupid, evil parents.
And, since statistics only measure overall results in a large population, of course there will be single moms whose kids do well. (I cannot count Clinton as a success.)
My daughter took teaching practice in 1991, and said she was told you can tell the kids from single moms in a class room, by just looking around. She found it was true, though she did not explain the visual clues involved.
irlandes at March 16, 2010 8:44 AM
I don't agree with everything this woman says. But she offers an interesting counterpoint to the parenting debate going on here.
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2000/02/25/james_traub
The author is responding to an article by James Traub in the New York Times Magazine.
Conan the Grammarian at March 16, 2010 8:48 AM
Lovelysoul is right on both counts. The problem is, we have been supporting single moms now for decades, preaching to young girls IF IF IF IF they are a good mom, they can do as well, maybe better than two parents. Dummies think it applies to them because they have female sex organs, so go ahead and have kids without a father, and then blame the failure on lack of money, so unemployed fathers get tortured some more in an impossible task.
My father used to say: IF WISHES WERE HORSES, BEGGARS WOULD RIDE.
Last time I checked, 85% of men in prison were from single mom households. It is past time to eliminate from our discourse how well single moms can do if they are...etc; etc; etc. It doesn't happen most of the time, and our inner cities are places of danger because of it.
As stated above, women who become single moms are almost always fecked up to start with. So, let us quit wishing wishes were horses. They aren't.
irlandes at March 16, 2010 8:52 AM
Of course, Irlandes - they'll be the ones wearing cheaper clothes. There's no question that single parenthood usually comes with an economic disadvantage...and, unfortunately, with many poor, black kids, the disadvantage of having a parent who shows poor judgment in getting pregnant as a teenager...often mutiple times.
But, again, it's not the NUMBER. In that case, you don't turn out poorly because you have one parent. You turn out poorly because you have a dumb parent.
Fact is, more poor, dumb, abusive, addicted, mentally-ill, or otherwise disadvantaged people end up as single parents. That's what creates the statistics, and those disadvantages are what impacts the outcome.
The message I don't want to see sent to good single parents is that they need to marry and/or have their kids adopted so they'll do better in school and life. I've seen very stable single-parent situations turn bad because of one parent's misguided attempt to create a "two-parent" home, believing it's always better.
It's only better if the other parent is a good parent. That's a double advantage. But it's the quality not quantity that counts.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 9:02 AM
Whatever the government must give to one; it must take from another.
David M. at March 16, 2010 9:09 AM
OK, but how? How do we stop people from having kids out of wedlock?
The other day, Amy posted a piece about advertising that lingered on boobs and butts. This sort of sexual imagery is very common in our culture. Sex is everywhere. Even on shows aimed at teenagers. Sex is constantly being rammed down our throats, so to speak. But to limit this would be to limit freedom of speech. It's a trade-off... we can't have everything.
But advertising images aside, there have always been out of wedlock births and sex. Even before TV. So we can't just blame the media.
So how do we stop it? How do we get people to go back to traditional marriages? Churches won't work if they don't go to church to begin with. Books read in school won't counteract images kids see at home.
I remember when I was working in the inner-city school, the school social worker came into the lounge with a sad story. They'd been talking about what makes a healthy relationship, and the SW had said something along the lines of how you shouldn't be with someone who hits you and treats you badly, you should find someone who doesn't. One of the girls scoffed at this. The SW pointed out that she was married and her husband didnt hit her. The child (a 6th grader) replied, "That's different, you're white".
How do you counteract that? How do you manifest what -should- be, when what actually -is- is so different?
NicoleK at March 16, 2010 9:47 AM
"My daughter took teaching practice in 1991, and said she was told you can tell the kids from single moms in a class room, by just looking around. She found it was true, though she did not explain the visual clues involved."
Although you have to dig deeper than visual clues, I found even in law school that I could tell the kids from broken homes from those that weren't based on personalities and interactions. It had nothing to do with money, either; most of these were more well off than I was.
Lyssa at March 16, 2010 9:58 AM
Good points, NicoleK. I don't know. Unwed motherhood always occurred, but there's no shame in it anymore. I agree with Amy that it should be more stigmatized, but, unlike in the past, where the stigma came from religious sources, now it probably needs to come from the people they respect - musicians and celebrities. But they are having kids out-of-wedlock all the time.
Someone told me the other day that she taught in a high school where one boy got three different girls pregnant at the same time. These were white girls, and they all kept their babies and he married none of them.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 10:01 AM
"He cited statistics showing that white students are more likely than their black peers to take Advanced Placement classes and less likely to be expelled from school."
Asian students are more likely than their white peers to take Advanced Placement courses and less likely to be expelled from school. Why does Comrade Duncan suppose that is?
"They've already begun to "not offer the courses". Last year there was that one story about a school district out West that was cutting science funding because not enough black kids took the classes or excelled"
Getting rid of the Achievement Gap, by getting rid of achievement. Brilliant!
Martin at March 16, 2010 10:15 AM
So the practical problem we have isn't 2 parents in the short run. It's that there is already a problem with every kid already born. They are what they are with what they have. What could be done about them?
Certainly not this approach, because it is entirely race based, and that is the problem. It should matter when you bring everyone up, rather than forcing some down. If you can prove that you discipline people evenly, and one group gets into more trouble? That is a problem with that group, not your method.
But in the politics of victimization, it doesn't work that way. Interestingly either the Duncan is smart enough to realize this will keep the group he is trying to help down where he wants them... or he is just too clueless to look at that outcome. It's either evil or stupid, who knows what is true? Or maybe it's evilly stupid.
Do I need to put on the tin-foil hat to say that keeping a permanent criminal underclass allows you to keep broad police powers, and to keep your vast bulk of tax slaves working in fear of what the underclass might do? meanwhile giving up their rights all the way?
Occam would suggest that isn't intentional, but is the outcome nonetheless.
So, what we really need to have happen is for "People of Color" roll models to step up and say: "Do better, strive more, and show your mom just what you can make of yourself..." Obviously no white person can say that, because it would immediately be considered racist.
What is missing is the strive to be more. All of my ancestors wanted to do better than their parents. "Be proud of me Ma!" You have to instill that in children. You have to tell them that you want them to do better than you did.
You have to WANT them to do better than you did.
We can talk all day about intact families, but that'll take much longer to change, and interestingly it WONT change if people are not striving. If they are not trying, they won't take responsibility for ther actions, and they wont form families, that is the core of a society.
This is fundamentally interconnected stuff, but for all the kids already alive, you can't fix their families, they are already there. That's MILLIONS of kids. But you might be able to start them off with an ideal of trying.
With a roll model like the first family, you would think something could be done.
SwissArmyD at March 16, 2010 10:27 AM
Having two parents increases the odds that at least one of them will be a good influence.
Mrs D. was the disciplinarian, while I was the supportive explainer. (Do you have any idea how poorly math is taught in this country?)
I'm sure the government will attribute my kids' success in school to being half Asian.
I really want to bring IQs into this conversation, but I know better. Ignore my last sentence. You are allowed to think about it.
MarkD at March 16, 2010 10:29 AM
Dunno MarkD... I've worked with, and had employees that didn't even get their GED's... but they worked their tush's off every day. Pretty much all they had was common sense and some drive.
But.
When they had kids, they pushed them, and not easy. We are talking inner city Chicago. Parents didn't get graduate from high school. Children worked their way through college, and now are married and have their own kids. This can be fixed in one generation. But you have to want to.
You don't have to be smart to do this. At All.
SwissArmyD at March 16, 2010 10:38 AM
I don't shy away from bringing IQ into the debate. It's an important factor that is too often overlooked in the name of political correctness.
Blacks, as a group, have much lower average 1Qs. They also have a higher percentage of those scoring in the lower end, basically functionally retarded.
My brother is in that range, and I don't care how much money was spent, or what programs you put him in, he is not going to read above a 3rd grade level or score well on standardized tests. No one would expect him to because he's white. It's ok to say he's retarded, not pass him along from grade to grade and pretend it's some achievement bias.
Jews, as a group, have the highest IQs, followed by Asians, then whites. The academic successes shown by these ethnic groups pretty much follow along with 1Q.
We need better programs for those who are not academically gifted. Tech programs and hands-on job training would be better than keeping many kids in classrooms where they fail and grow frustrated (then drop out and get pregnant or in trouble). Not everyone is going to be college material, and the slower kids actually bring down the ones who are.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 10:54 AM
> A child can have two parents and still have
> a lousy home life.
IT'S LESS LIKELY. Okay? Demonstrably, indisputably less likely.
But yet again, while calling yourself "Lovelysoul", you want to argue on the side risk, recklessness, and selfishness. I will never understand this. This blog has probably never seen two more repellent sentences slammed together than these:
> The number is no more important than the
> sexuality of your parents. What always matters
> most is the QUALITY of parenting.
QUALITY, even when you use capital letters, is not some irreducibly distinct and unquantifiable component of parenting.
> in general, if you have at least one
> good parent, you'll be ok.
It's a bullshit lie. It's just a tragically stupid, violently hurtful idea to put out there... And millions of lives have been scarred by it. "Being ok" is never the outcome that truly loving parents use as the standard of their effort.
"Lovelysoul", year after year, you amaze.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 16, 2010 11:33 AM
"Do better, strive more, and show your mom just what you can make of yourself..." Obviously no white person can say that, because it would immediately be considered racist.
No black person can say it either - else they will be labeled a race traitor.
I don't shy away from bringing IQ into the debate. It's an important factor that is too often overlooked in the name of political correctness.
Indeed. Equality of opportunity does not mean equality of outcome. Ignore the skin color, educate each person to the limit of his or her ability. Whether it is due to IQ, due to home life, or due to the tooth fairy, some people will do better in school than others.
To show the sheer absurdity of trying to force equality of outcomes, it would be really great if a bunch of Asian and white guys were to sue the NBA for discrimination. After all, there is a real lack of Asian and white guys playing basketball.
bradley13 at March 16, 2010 11:44 AM
>> I don't shy away from bringing IQ into the debate.
>> It's an important factor that is too often
>> overlooked in the name of political correctness.
> Indeed.
Horse-SHIT. Horseshit.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 16, 2010 11:49 AM
"So, what we really need to have happen is for "People of Color" roll models to step up and say: "Do better, strive more, and show your mom just what you can make of yourself..." Obviously no white person can say that, because it would immediately be considered racist."
I belive President Obama actually did do that. In fact, he gave a speech in the middle of the school day to tell the children just that.
The irony in that is rich considering the current legislation we are discussing.
"We need better programs for those who are not academically gifted. Tech programs and hands-on job training would be better than keeping many kids in classrooms where they fail and grow frustrated (then drop out and get pregnant or in trouble). Not everyone is going to be college material, and the slower kids actually bring down the ones who are."
My husband says this all the time. That certainly isn't the solution. Sometimes college is NOT the right choice for a person. Some people, no matter how hard they try, white or black, are just not college material. Why should the ones that ARE college material be forced to dumb down for the sake of those who aren't?Working with ones hands is not shameful and I think, a skill to be appreciated. There is also a broader career field for it and the money is not always bad. I know some air conditioner repair men who make twice my salary.
Sabrina at March 16, 2010 12:10 PM
Listen, instead of starting new "programs" for everything that's wrong with the human condition, whaddya say we try giving people a loving mother with a loving father? I bet that in modern liberal democracies, that would make most of the the bad stuff go away.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 16, 2010 12:30 PM
"I don't shy away from bringing IQ into the debate. It's an important factor that is too often overlooked in the name of political correctness. "
If you have ever lived in the real world you understand that success has nothing to do with high IQ. Being smart is a bullshit concept. All you have to do is be good at something. My stepdad made a shitload of money making furniture-but he's the best at it.
Ppen at March 16, 2010 12:31 PM
"Listen, instead of starting new "programs" for everything that's wrong with the human condition, whaddya say we try giving people a loving mother with a loving father? I bet that in modern liberal democracies, that would make most of the the bad stuff go away."
I think that would be brilliant...But then you would have to have laws forbidding assholes and addicts to reproduce, and that just ain't happening...
Sabrina at March 16, 2010 12:41 PM
> Being smart is a bullshit concept.
Purp, I have a blog-comment crush on you. I pine, ache, and swoon... And it is all about you.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 16, 2010 12:51 PM
Could you cite your sources there lovelysoul?
I'm passingly familiar with some of your data, but not all of it. I read a report some while back that pointed out that, due to the Jewish tradition of highly educated, highly intelligent men (for a long time this meant mostly rabbis), having large families, the end result was a collectively higher IQ on average than in other populations that lacked a similar emphasis. I haven't seen any other data suggestive of relative IQ levels that fall as low as you seem to suggest.
Robert at March 16, 2010 1:04 PM
I never said IQ had that much to do with success in the real world. Plenty of people are successful working with their hands. Yet, in school, at least the way we measure academic success, it does, and, unfortunately, our system is set up to give the advantage to those who have academic skills and success.
Crid, I don't know if you come from a single-parent home, but your animosity for them is off the wall.
Of course, it's preferable to have two loving, involved parents, but many people here probably grew up without that, in one form or another. Often, even in a two-parent home, one parent is emotionally absent or inept. Just the fact that a child has two parents doesn't guarantee success. As a GAL, I've been in two parent homes that were awful, and single parent homes that were wonderful. Being a single-parent is not the end of the world, even if falls short of the ideal.
I certainly believe that young women should not choose to be single parents. It's foolish if it can be avoided. They should hopefully find a good, solid partner and marry before procreating.
But, sometimes, life changes people's circumstances. One partner leaves, and there's nothing the other partner can do, or even if they stay, they may not be involved or attuned to their children. In certain circumstances - especially where there's abuse, neglect, or horrible modeling taking place (ie: substance abuse), it's wrong to tell parents that being a single-parent is the worst option, and that it will inevitably lead to their kids being "horribly scarred".
You're slandering all the great single-parents on this board - many whose kids are high achievers and wonderful people. It's an obstacle to overcome - like many others in life - but it can be done and IS being done every day. Good parents can't make their child's world perfect. Nobody gets a life without obstacles. Good parents give their children the strength and self-confidence to deal with obstacles and disadvantages because everybody has them.
It's like saying being poor is the absolute worst thing you can do for your child. No doubt, statistics will bear you out! According to statistics, being poor is a major disadvantage. Yet, plenty of people manage to raise very happy, successful kids without a lot of money.
I bet you wouldn't tell people that in order to have successful kids they must go rob a bank, sell themselves, work 3 jobs, or do anything possible for money because "statistics prove" that money is the most important ingredient in childrearing. No, viewing the statistics rationally, we understand it's not about the money. It's the QUALITY of parenting.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 1:24 PM
Robert, it's called "The Great IQ Debate", I believe. Read it a few years ago. My son has a very high IQ, so I did a lot of reading, and yes, that is one theory about the rabbis.
But what Ppen said is generally true. Being very smart - having an IQ over 150 - doesn't necessarily lead to success. On either extreme of IQ, you have more individuals with social and emotional issues.
The most successful people - at least academically - seem to have an IQ of above average to just genius level (140). The top students tended to be in the 120s or 130s. They are generally better adjusted and more socially talented than people with extremely high IQs. They get along with others and conform to school rules more easily.
I think the average IQ for Jews was 110, 105 for Asians, and 100 for whites. But part of the reason whites are lower is that we have a broader range between highs and lows. Asians don't have as much of their population below an IQ of 60, as we do. Asian are pretty much all clustered around average, which is why, as a population, they tend to be percieved as brighter.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 1:50 PM
Actually, maybe it was "A Question of Intelligence - The IQ Debate in America" by Daniel Selegman, but I'm not sure.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 2:01 PM
The main thing is, don't raise your kids this way:
http://www.freeminds.org/sociology/children/growing-up-within-the-watchtower-how-parents-are-taught-to-influence-their-children.html
The article quoted above was very interesting - particularly the concept of social capital. The notion of teaching your kid to grow up to be "nothing at all." Yet at least that woman, for all her mistakes, has the decency to feel bad about that. Imagine if you were SUPPOSED to grow up to be nothing at all - you weren't SUPPOSED to find a place in the world, because the world is evil.
Pirate Jo at March 16, 2010 2:08 PM
Sure you could have a lousy home life with two parents.
But as crid wisely pointed out, it is LESS LIKELY.
Lets explore why.
Lets take a hypothetical two parent home. Sure the parents loved each other at first, but as the years passed, not so much. But by then they have two daughters. Rather than divorce, they remain together for the children's sake, they set aside what they want for themselves, cope with the things about one another that they dislike, and raise the children with positive values, a positive work ethic, and the best relationship role model that they can, as well as a stable home environment.
-----------------------------------
Now take a second hypothetical...same starting situation, loving couple. A few years, a child or two later, not so much love left.
The wife, unhappy, and knowing that she will get custody of the children, files for divorce. Their father is ripped from their lives except for weekend visits which, if he's lucky, aren't interrupted by a vindictive ex and her manipulations.
The wife, free of her ex, resumes dating, when she's not working, so that her children see less of her and less of their father, and more of social workers, baby sitters, and daycare workers. Now they have no positive relationship model to work from, no idea of the give and take or of selfless action to take care of a loved one that a mother and father should do for their children. Instead they see a series small or great, of different boyfriends, and they see that it is perfectly ok to throw out a relationship when it no longer provides boundless joy, even when there are children involved, because daddy is only supposed to be a cash machine.
(If it is more ideologically comfortable for you, you can pretend it was the reverse, the point stands either way)
-------------------------------------
Now fast forward 15 years, the children in both those examples are in their twenties.
Which ones did better in school? Which ones didn't bring random boys back to the house in revolving door sexual relationships confident that neither parent would be home.
Which ones know how to even form lasting relationships and feel secure in them?
Which ones are less likely to be selfish, and be willing to give selflessly to build a home life and see to children of their own some day?
------------------------------
We both know the answer to that question lovely soul. No matter how you try to obfuscate, disguise, or dance around that fact.
The people in the first example, flawed though they may have been, did the right thing, they put their duty to their children above their desire for emotional fulfillment.
The children in that example grew up, graduated college with degrees in teaching and literature respectively, each married a good man and are still married to this day, and have multiple children all of whom also have stable happy home lives and have good careers, good educations, and good lives.
I know this, because the couple in question was a, then poor Panamanian couple, my grandparents, the children were my mother and my aunt.
------------------------------
The children in the second example...you see every day, so obvious that as one poster commented, you can pick them out in the class without having to ask the question first.
Problems with school, problems with forming and maintaining relationships, "moral" issues abound, which is no surprise since their parent's selfishness is so blatantly obvious to their eyes, angry and coping with abandonment issues for years upon years upon years.
Maybe the son promises he will never abandon his children that way when he grows up, but the girl he marries, her example of what a mother is supposed to do when "not happy" in a marriage, was to leave it and collect alimony or child support. So what is he to do if he wishes to do right?
-----------------------------------------
True...an EXTRAORDINARY single parent, may do an incredible job raising their child or children alone. But the key there is extraordinary, well beyond the norm in quality, and is probably single because they realized the only thing worse than no other parent...was the other one the kid would have had. Or, the other parent died to soon.
The common problem lovelysoul, is that someone who would break up a home, yank one of the parent's out of their child's life, and ruin the security & stability of a home for a child, just because they themselves are simply "not happy" or "not in love" any longer, is not one of those extraordinary people.
That person is morally, ethically, defective, utterly selfish beyond words. And their child, unless exceptional in their own right, will be just like the children in the second example as a result.
Extraordinary parents don't put their desires before the needs of their children. They don't walk out of a marriage because that old "spark" isn't there any longer, and rip apart their children's world to look for greener pastures.
So bottom line lovelysoul, while a single great and phenomenal parent might be a wonderful thing...most of them aren't. They're single, because they are more likely to be of poor character, or prone to making BAD choices. (Like that stupid woman who died in a drug raid, 5 kids by 4 different drug dealers wasn't it?) No, don't tout the benefits of single parenthood.
Its sad when it happens for good reasons. Sad for the parent, who must do the work of two alone. Sad for the child, who misses the great benefits that should have been theirs. Sad for society, which may all to easily lose that precious youth to a dispirit life of bitterness and moral or social confusion.
But the rest of the time...when it isn't for a good reason...its a contemptable state and a contemptable choice.
Robert at March 16, 2010 2:30 PM
You know, if we stopped giving boatloads of welfare to women who serial spawn, I think some of this problem would solve itself.
Yeah, it'll never happen.
Ann at March 16, 2010 2:34 PM
> I don't know if you come from a
> single-parent home, but your
> animosity for them is off the
> wall.
My animosity is towards you; towards your sloppy rhetoric and sloppier thinking. There's enough single parenthood in my family that they'd know better than to think it's about them.
> Of course, it's preferable to
> have two loving, involved
> parents...
Stop! Stop right there!
Why can't you stop right there? Why do you have to spend another 400 words taking it back? And doing so through deceptions like this:
> Just the fact that a child has
> two parents doesn't guarantee
> success.
Nobody ever said it did. This is Earth; Nothing "guarantees" anything.
However:
• If you're going to prattle about the importance of education and "IQ", then you damn well ought to have some understanding of the fallacious arguments you're using just a few sentences later: In parlance, "apples & oranges" and "when did you stop beating your wife".
• Second, the odds of success with two loving parents are so very much greater that they essentially are a statistical guarantee. Were baby angels, working with scant information, to gather in Heaven's terminal to chose which chute to drop through for delivery on Earth, each would choose the one leading to a loving mother and a loving father. And if we here in the mortal realm could deftly foreclose the other passages, doing so might be our most responsible choice.
> It's wrong to tell parents that
> being a single-parent is the
> worst option, and that it will
> inevitably lead to their kids
> being "horribly scarred".
No. It's not wrong to tell parents that. It's not even untrue, unless compared with, say, dropping your newborn off with the homeless people downtown at the L.A. River, wrapped with a bundle of $1000 bills and two pounds of pharmaceutical heroin. I mean, that would be worse. A little.
And –this is very important to me– who are you quoting when you put "horribly scarred" in quotation marks?
> You're slandering all the great
> single-parents on this board -
How do you know there are any? For that matter, how do you know they're "great"? Even if they're "great", why shouldn't we be permitted to point out that a "great" single parent might not lead as good a household as a mere "good" two-parent team might lead? (That's certainly the sense I have, both from my own experience and Amy's precious little studies.)
Lady, you're making things up. I think you're doing it because your trying to normalize a feminine biological impulse towards reckless reproduction. But women do terrible things by irresponsibly answering impulses, just as men do with their reproductive urges. There's nothing admirable about this.
You argue that every single mother can do well, or even means to do well. No reason it can't go great, right? You want to pretend every short guy is Spud Webb. There's no reason to think you have to be tall to play in the NBA, right? Spud Webb proves you don't!
But in real life, you do. With the athletic gifts people of all sizes normally have, and even have in the statistically freakish National Basketball Association, you still gotta be tall.
And for the vast majority of parents, giving their child the start they deserve in life will require a loving, dedicated partner of the opposite sex.
Exceptions prove almost nothing. I wish short guys could earn pro ball money, and I wish narcissistic, anti-social single women could deliver the leadership a child needs to reach safe, fulfilling adulthood. But that's not the planet we're on, and it's irresponsible for you to glibly assert that it is.
> It's the QUALITY of parenting.
You did it again: QUALITY. (All caps!) It's precisely the QUALITIES of a loving home that are under discussion here.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 16, 2010 2:44 PM
"They don't walk out of a marriage because that old "spark" isn't there any longer, and rip apart their children's world to look for greener pastures."
Yes, but that person is a bad parent because they are selfish. Does the person being walked out on automatically become a bad parent? No.
I agreed that, statistically speaking, more bad parents are single parents, but my point is that it's not the number itself that is the reason their kids don't do well.
Using my earlier analogy, I could point to some poor parents. Some may be poor because they are lazy and selfish, do drugs, or have mental issues. Their lazy, selfish, and irresponsible attitude will probably get passed along to their children. They are bad parents who also happen to be poor.
Yet, other poor parents clip coupons, buy in bulk, sew their kids clothes, work hard, and still manage to find time to play and communicate with their children. They are good parents who also happen to be poor.
So, should we conclude that it's poverty that causes the bad outcome in some kids? No. Looking at the data and examples rationally, we would conclude that some bad traits lead to poverty - and those same traits may also contribute to poor parenting - but poverty, in and of itself, doesn't lead to bad parenting.
Having raised a son to adulthood and still having a daughter in high school, I can tell you that there is not much correlation today between the kids who are acting out, using drugs, or making bad choices and whether they come from a two-parent or single-parent home...at least at my socio-economic level.
Poor children in single-parent homes obviously have much greater disadvantages, but in the higher income bracket, what I see are successes and failures in both groups.
Anyone who has raised children understands that, even if you are fortunate to have a strong and healthy marriage, there are still a million obstacles and influences that can scar your child or turn them in the wrong direction. A two-parent home provides an advantage but certainly not a guarantee.
Money also provides an advantage, but I know plenty of rich kids (often from two-parent homes) who are total screw-ups. An advantage is just an advantage and an obstacle is just an obstacle. In the end, it really gets down to the quality of parenting combined with the educational and peer influences impacting your child.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 3:18 PM
"You did it again: QUALITY. (All caps!) It's precisely the QUALITIES of a loving home that are under discussion here."
Exactly, and I'm free to disagree with your assertion that a loving and supportive home must always require two parents...just as I would dispute anyone's assertion that being poor will inevitably lead to a child's failure...even though statistics may appear to prove that theory. We all know that's not the full story.
Just because angels may decide to drop the baby down the chute where the beautiful bassinette in the big fancy mansion is...because it looks all romantic, secure, and ideal...doesn't mean that child will thrive more there than with a loving waitress or a bus driver. Sometimes, the facade of fairy-tales are just that - a facade.
You believe in creating a perfect, idealized, Norman Rockwell-type existence for a child, which lets me know you don't have any.
It's impossible to prevent your child from encountering obstacles and disadvantages in life. It's not even preferable! Sure, it's every good mom and dad's dream when we bring them home from the hospital, but soon, you understand that raising a child means a whole host of times when you let them down or cause them pain...and, yes, maybe even unintentionally scar them sometimes...and, if you're not the one doing it, then others will...on the playground or the busstop. Try as you may, real life isn't anything like "The Waltons".
Yet, it's all the challenges children face - with your loving support - that makes them grow stronger and become good people. And, yes, that may even include divorce sometimes. There are plenty of great single parents on this board. I'm sure most, if not all, wish they could've maintained a two parent situation for their children, but life isn't predictable or always controllable, and that one issue that our children have faced - like a whole lot of other issues - doesn't automatically break them or result in failure.
My children are thriving - in the face of so many temptations like drugs and premarital sex that are bringing down other kids their age, even those from two parent homes - so I know personally that being a single parent isn't, in itself, what causes a child not to succeed.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 3:58 PM
This is Earth; Nothing "guarantees" anything.
You're WRONG crid, everything dies. Guaranted.
Is it petty that I enjoyed then.
lujlp at March 16, 2010 4:15 PM
A basic problem w/ the cross comparison of IQs among races and ethnicities is evident in how these groups are often constructed - e.g. Asians, Whites, Blacks, Ashkenazi Jews.
Ashkenazim would otherwise be white for the purpose of this method of classification. They're an ethnicity, not a race. So extracting them, and then comparing their IQ's against much broader racial groups is misleading. It lends to the idea that they're the most intelligent group of people in the whole world. But you can find similar cohorts among Asians and Whites.
For instance certain Chinese ethnicities have similarly high average IQ's, as do some relatively homogeneous caucasian groups, like the Dutch.
Thomas Sowell has written on the black IQ gap in the US and makes a good argument for the conjecture that it resembles a cessation of the Flynn Effect for several generations of the black underclass. The Flynn Effect is a constant, nearly linear, increase in IQ averages over time that's been observed throughout the history of these test.
Corbu at March 16, 2010 4:16 PM
> your assertion that a loving and
> supportive home must always
> require two parents...
You're LYING. I never SAID THAT. This is DISHONEST on your part. Got it? You're distorting my contentions because you can't answer them. That's NAUGHTY.
What's best for a child is a loving mother with a loving father. This isn't disputable. To argue for any other arrangement is to argue for less than the best for a child.
> I would dispute anyone's
> assertion that being poor will
> inevitably lead to a child's
> failure...
Who made this assertion? Please quote specifically.
> Just because angels may decide
> to drop the baby down the chute
> where the beautiful bassinette...
No, you're messing up my Hollywood/Christian fantasy. The angels are the babies themselves. They get to choose which chute to go down. They don't make the choice based on how to flatter single mothers, they choose on the basis of what will bring the best life for themselves. (I don't actually know Seraphim from Cherubim: This is my own bourse-like, libertarian cosmology, where the little babies-to-be pays their money and takes their pick.)
And who said anything about mansions and bus drivers? Again, specific citations and quotations might help your argument. All my Angels know is which chutes lead to a loving Mom & Dad and which go to something else.
> It's impossible to prevent your
> child from encountering
> obstacles and disadvantages in
> life.
Nobody said otherwise. But bringing a child into this world without a loving father isn't an "obstacle", it's a handicap. It's a burden.
> Yet, it's all the challenges
> children face - with your loving
> support - that makes them grow
> stronger and become good people.
> And, yes, that may even include
> divorce sometimes.
That's insane. Divorce, you allege, is good for kids. It's not that the unions which bore them were ill-conceived or poorly executed: You're saying the emotional dislocations and practical suffering will handsomely temper a child's character.
> being a single parent isn't,
> in itself, what causes a child
> not to succeed.
"In itself" is fascinating language. It reduces this vast, decades-wide panorama of experiences & intimate sharing & support & nurturance –that of an absent parent– into a teentsy-leetle verbal contingency: "in itself."
Jody did that once, too, trying reduce this immense constellation of meaning into a few distracting little words. It didn't work for her, either.
______________________________________
> Is it petty that I enjoyed
No, brother blog-samurai: That's what I'd have done, as well.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 16, 2010 5:00 PM
Social capital is that Old Boy Network and yes these networks exist. They're not always all-male, but it sure helps to have them. Even one personal acquaintance can open doors that would otherwise be forever shut.
Poverty does something else - it wears you down. Like chronic starvation or illness, it makes the rest of your system (in this case, morale as well as physical stamina) that much less resilient, less able to bounce back from a setback like an accident, illness, disability, personal tragedy.
I personally think that people who are natural networkers, who naturally seek support from groups around them, do better than those who don't. One example is a friend of mine who had a minimum wage job, a terminally ill husband whom she loved dearly, a three-year-old, and a senile mother in law.
How can someone hold up under that kind of stress without cracking up? Well, one way was she didn't try to do it alone. She organized a huge network of friends through Lots of Helping Hands, saw a therapist, maybe was in a caregivers support group, read & applied all kinds of smart books on parenting, and in general was a supermom and a super mom! Maybe not everyone can do that.
Back to my first topic, which was human capital.
I see some kids age 7-10 who can't read, can't tie their own shoes, can't even pay attention, haven't been taught basic manners. These are skills that later become basic professionalism, and if they're not brainwashed in early, entire generations are created that are basically unemployable. As an employer I'm not interested in spending months and years "mentoring" employees on why they should show up on time and not swear at clients. And don't get me started on people who can't pay attention or finish tasks.
We NEED a skilled workforce. Skilled, and trainable. For that reason alone I'd want to see continued investment in schools, although apparently the money's not going in the right direction. School seems to be a place of boredom and for many, relentless nonstop bullying. Ugh. If I could have gone straight to college at age 12, I would have.
In my own growing up, it was individual teachers who made a difference. Skilled, competent teachers who cared. I can still name them all today. I had a lot of mediocre teachers, too, some of them quite spectacularly so. I would have like to tie up Mr. Froncek with his horrible ties and his endless monologues on the gay proclivities of Kirk Douglas - we sure never learned any biology in that class. Why my parents never noticed I'll never know. If they'd ever asked me questions like, "So is your biology class interesting?" I would have said. Maybe we all thought our duty was just to shuffle off to school, color between the lines, get good grades, and march onward to our shitty jobs where we did basically the same thing. And I was totally brainwashed with middle-class values. A ghetto kid would have correctly seen it as bullshit waste of time, and would have walked out.
Even for ghetto kids, the ones who DO get out often talk about the teachers and coaches who took an interest in them, didn't let them fail. How can you legislate for that?
vi at March 16, 2010 5:10 PM
"Poverty does something else - it wears you down. Like chronic starvation or illness, it makes the rest of your system (in this case, morale as well as physical stamina) that much less resilient, less able to bounce back from a setback like an accident, illness, disability, personal tragedy."
What what WHAT??? Are you saying that what doesn't kill you, DOESN'T, in fact, necessarily make you stronger? Blasphemy! There are millions out there, just hoping that is true, and you're telling them they're WRONG? Heresy!
Pirate Jo at March 16, 2010 5:20 PM
"Why my parents never noticed I'll never know. If they'd ever asked me questions like, "So is your biology class interesting?" I would have said."
That's because your parents were doing what all the other parents (including mine) were doing. Trusting in the government to take care of everything. There was no need for them to worry, since they were paying their taxes.
"Maybe we all thought our duty was just to shuffle off to school, color between the lines, get good grades, and march onward to our shitty jobs where we did basically the same thing. And I was totally brainwashed with middle-class values."
Did you ever think it was more important to your parents that you *behaved* in school, than that you *learned* in school? Were they even qualified to know the difference?
"A ghetto kid would have correctly seen it as bullshit waste of time, and would have walked out."
Don't criticize the dropout rate. Not all of them are stupid.
Pirate Jo at March 16, 2010 5:26 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/03/16/the_office_of_c.html#comment-1702049">comment from viSocial capital is that Old Boy Network and yes these networks exist. They're not always all-male, but it sure helps to have them.
Now, they have "Diversity Fellowships." No way are you going to get one if you're a poor white guy who grew up in a trailer, who's working his way through community college. But, be a black girl (and even juicier if you've got a side of, oh, Native American), and grow up in Bel Aire, with a chauffeur, and with Mommy and Daddy paying not only for Harvard, but spring break trips to Belize, and you've got yourself a "diversity fellowship."
Amy Alkon at March 16, 2010 5:33 PM
Amy, that is disgusting. That doesn't make it any less true, but it's still disgusting.
Pirate Jo at March 16, 2010 5:56 PM
Well, of course some of the people who grow up poor with single mothers will turn out great. I know some myself. It isn't that it is impossible, it is that it is less likely.
NicoleK at March 16, 2010 5:58 PM
Amy, I wasn't necessarily talking about artificial, reverse-racism networks like the one that you cite. I was talking about self-selected personal networks that we all cultivate. Mine are usually related to activities such as a martial arts school, or a stakeholder group such as a neighborhood association. They're not artificial if the needs and commitment behind them are real, and they can become very close-knit - IF you put the effort in.
The test comes when you have a crisis and you put out that call to your peeps, and then you see who shows up on moving day. All those favors you did out of principle, for people you never thought you'd need, they can bring a return when you least expected it. But - too conscious a focus on self gain creates a synthetic, forced impression which does not lead to real trust.
Another example is a professional association like a user group or a small business committee. Shameless self-promoters never have the time to trade knowledge with their peers, and it is very time-consuming I'll admit. I'll also admit that I've gotten jobs through these committees because people knew me and had seen me every month for months or years.
The closest thing some kids have to this are gangs or cliques.
vi at March 16, 2010 6:46 PM
"Well, of course some of the people who grow up poor with single mothers will turn out great. I know some myself. It isn't that it is impossible, it is that it is less likely."
I'm not disputing that. I just think we need to critically analyze the statistics that say it's "less likely". The reason stats suggest this is because so many bad parents are also people who can't hold a relationship together, or perhaps never had a relationship in the first place, so they are "single". Many are also poor.
But good parents who find themselves either poor or single (or both) shouldn't automatically assume that this statistic has a significant bearing on how well their own children will turn out. As long as they continue to be loving, supportive, involved parents, the odds are good that their children will succeed.
We can't live our lives through statistics. For one thing, none of us know when we'll become one, but you have to trust your abilities and know who you are and what you have to give - to your children or anyone else.
For instance, statistically, half of all marriages fail. So, if we follow statistics alone, none of us should ever marry...much less remarry (as I'm planning).
However, if you take a closer look at the statistics, and analyze how they're calculated, there are more positive indicators, like better odds if you're married in a church, better odds if you've dated for over a year, better odds after 40 (yea!). But, at any rate, I'm not going to make my decision to remarry or not based solely on statistics. I make it based on my relationship, and on myself.
That said, it's clearly foolish for a young, unwed, uneducated, poor woman to have children. The likelihood of that situation turning out well for anyone is too low. A person can buck the odds only to a point.
lovelysoul at March 16, 2010 6:49 PM
>>Jody did that once, too, trying reduce this immense constellation of meaning into a few distracting little words. It didn't work for her, either.
Just to translate what I think Crid actually means here, lovelysoul: my crime was writing a short blog comment back in June 2008!
Here it is (retrieved from Crid's handy link to the vaults):
"And again, I reply in a voice "ever soft, gentle, and low" Crid, that my femininity means nothing on its own to my children.
It needs to be allied to other positive qualities(responsibility, unselfishness etc) before it becomes a distinctive, pivotal blessing for a child."
It wasn't such a bad comment, really!
Jody Tresidder at March 16, 2010 7:37 PM
Yes it was. Nyah-nyah.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 16, 2010 8:19 PM
Fine let's NOT take statistics for a moment and instead take my personal experience.
I've dated alot of guys who come from single mothers. And they have alot of resentment for their...mothers. Real bitterness twoards mommy.
(I think in their minds single mothers picture their sons talking about them like they were some sort of angelic deity that came down from the heavens and saved them with all their love)
The big question is always why couldnt my mother pick a man that stuck around?
Usually they are tight lipped about their fathers. "I dont talk about him" But when it comes to mom....
After dating all these men that came from single mothers I asked a male friend what the hell was wrong with these guys.
He told me "A man can only learn to be a man from another man"
My stepdad has been divorced 2 times and has 6 children total (including me). He didnt raise all of them and every day he tells me the importance of having two parents. We all see the diffrence in our family.
Ppen at March 16, 2010 11:05 PM
> He told me "A man can only learn to be a
> man from another man"
Yes, this is true.
And I heard a radio show about that once.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 17, 2010 5:46 AM
And God dammit, I'm not done with yesterday's fights. LS's thoughts about divorce are unforgivably cruel, and Jody's distractions about femininity are intolerably evasive.
Grrrr.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 17, 2010 5:51 AM
*hands Crid a virtual cup of Whiskey and Kaluha spiked coffee*
I think you need this more than me right now... It is St Pattys day after all.
Sabrina at March 17, 2010 6:43 AM
There's no pleasing you, Crid, so why even try. I thought Jody's comment was quite lovely and melodic, though I don't know what the debate was over.
Look, I'm not talking about women who can't hold on to a man and have a string of worthless boyfriends...or, actually, I was because those are the bad parents that I stated will make up a lot of the single parent category. That's a BAD PARENT, and probably not a very nice person, which is why her men keep leaving and her son doesn't like her.
But there are other single parents. In the upper-middle class/affluent set, parents tend to at least start off married and, in my observation, they usually stay married through elementary school - while the kids are cute and cuddly, everyone is young, and they're still having more children. In other words, the childbearing years.
By middle school, some marriages begin to crumble, and by high school, it seems like almost half are divorced.
Yet, these kids, like mine, have spent most of their childhoods in a two-parent home. That is vastly different from a child who never knew the other parent or only grew up in a single-parent home.
It's comparing apples and oranges, and assessing risk that way isn't too accurate. There are single-parent homes, where children still have a lot of contact with the other parent.
I think divorce is very painful for kids, Crid, which is why I, as a good parent, have done everything possible to minimize the harm.
Their dad is always welcome here...after school, in the morning, whenever he wants to see them. We have no official visitation. If I'm cooking something on the stove when he's here, I offer him some, and he'll sit down and eat with us. At Christmas, he comes over in the morning and unwraps presents.
Despite my personal feelings, which have not always been good towards him, I know it benefits my children to have him in their lives and to see us be friendly. My personal model for this (because there aren't many) was Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. They seemed to have raised some good kids and kept the negative effects of their divorce at a minimum.
Kids don't really care where their parents live or sleep. What they want to see is that their parents care for each other and for them. I believe that can be maintained after a divorce, and since we're not likely to stop divorce, we need to encourage parents to be as friendly as possible to each other.
lovelysoul at March 17, 2010 7:12 AM
> Kids don't really care where their
> parents live or sleep.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 17, 2010 7:24 AM
I've talked myself hoarse trying to explain the inequality in "Diversity Fellowships" to coworkers who regale me with tales of CEOs and politicians met; coworkers who went to Ivy League colleges and are making a six-figure income.
I remember talking with the CEO's daughter after she attended a Women in Business seminar and meet Carly Fiorina. The seminar was intended to get women interested in business careers. It was attended mostly by women who have business careers. Go figure.
And do I, a middle-class white male who went to a public university in the South, have an opportunity to meet Carly Fiorina and discuss business and get career advice? Well...I could stalk her.
Conan the Grammarian at March 17, 2010 8:32 AM
"Kids don't really care where their
> parents live or sleep."
No, not so much as the overall dynamic between the parents and children. Even in the Walton days, couples didn't always share the same bed, and, as Amy has mentioned, some families are LAT families now, and apparently that can be successful. They are still a family, which is really the way I view my personal situation.
My kids see their dad about as much as they did before the divorce. He is here almost every day when he's in town. We run a business together, celebrate the kids' birthdays and special events together, and pay their expenses from our joint funds.
I really don't see it mattering to them that their dad goes to a different home at night. They're free to go there with him anytime. He only lives 20 mins away. They understand we are "divorced", but, for all practical purposes, the family dynamic has remained as stable, if not more stable, than before.
And I realize that most divorced people probably can't manage such a cohesive arrangement, but most of the time, they don't even try. If you love your children, you have to put your animosities aside and come together as co-parents.
lovelysoul at March 17, 2010 8:34 AM
Pirate Jo:
"What what WHAT??? Are you saying that what doesn't kill you, DOESN'T, in fact, necessarily make you stronger?"
I think that temporary crises DO make you stronger, even ones that go on for years. But they come to an end or some improvement happens, there's hope, and there's also some reward for people who strive. Even an intangible reward counts. Viktor Frankl's notes on who survived best in the concentration camps are useful ("Man's Search For Meaning").
But if grinding poverty is all you've ever known, all your parents ever knew, and all that you can expect till you drop dead - I don't think that makes anyone stronger.
"Did you ever think it was more important to your parents that you *behaved* in school, than that you *learned* in school? Were they even qualified to know the difference?"
Actually my parents DID care about learning, but you are right in that they were very concerned that I be "normal" as defined by Dr. Spock. My mother especially. Of course I wasn't anything close to average. I learned to read before I was 3, and I was reading on a 12th grade level by the third grade. Socially, however, I was totally backward and I sucked at all sports.
vi at March 17, 2010 10:05 AM
> No, not so much as the overall dynamic
Dance, sister, dance.
Y'know, I think everyone here knows how upsetting it is when a child complains about "overall dynamics"... Like when Dad marries a new bimbo and makes a new princess baby with her. (Let's all remember the best-case scenario.)
But "coming together as co-parents" is a contradiction in terms. Dad's the loving guy who wakes up to cuddle and sooth when kids have croup. Where the parents live and sleep is exactly the topic under discussion.
Is there anything crazy you WON'T say? We used to have a guy named Dwayne who said "Babies will attach to anyone who changes the diaper," without concern for what happens when these attachments dissolve. After three years, you've taken his place as most desperately-scurrying commenter. It will be fun to see what dark little corner you shimmy into next.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 17, 2010 12:19 PM
"But "coming together as co-parents" is a contradiction in terms. Dad's the loving guy who wakes up to cuddle and sooth when kids have croup. Where the parents live and sleep is exactly the topic under discussion."
I don't see why you think it's a contradiction. Your romantic view of how dads behave - nurturing children through croup - is actually not the case in many cultures, and wasn't in ours for most of history. Fathers were traditionally gruff providers and disciplinarians. Most didn't cuddle in bed, or play nursemaid, and there's no proof whole generations of children grew up scarred for life by this.
The aristocracy had their children raised by nannies, rarely seeing either parent, except for maybe a kiss on the cheek before they walzed off to a party. Read Winston Churchill's biography, for instance. He turned out pretty well.
You seem to believe that every unrequited longing a child has will inevitably lead to lasting emotional scars. If that were true, civilization would've ceased to exist. Children are far more resiliant than that, Crid. Throughout history, they've lost parents and siblings to war, famine, and diseases. They've been reared by wet nurses and distant relatives.
It's great when none of this happens to a child - if their childhood is picture perfect - but it usually doesn't happen that way...for kids of this century, or ones before.
This isn't new. Divorce may be new, but children having complicated and not entirely fulfilling family lives is nothing new throughout history. Parents today spend far more time with their children than generations past - catering to their needs, wants and desires.
Arguably, this hadn't produced the best crop of people, and I think a lot of that is because parents are made to feel guilty for not providing some fantasy childhood for them, when that was never a realistic parental goal before. Kids were expected to buck up and deal with things - and, amazingly, when it was expected of them, they did.
Parents before us knew that kids needed to be loved, fed, bathed, and clothed. My kids certainly are, and it may upset you that their dad isn't here 24 hrs a day to "soothe them" through the croup (as if!), but they're fine. They know they're loved and that's the most important thing.
lovelysoul at March 17, 2010 1:15 PM
Kids don't need "co-parents". They need parents. One of each.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 17, 2010 4:12 PM
"They know they're loved and that's the most important thing."
How does the conversation go?
"You know mommy and daddy love you despite the fact that we are now divorcing due to selfish shit that we could work out but choose not to. Sure other parents go through the same thing and somehow manage to work it out. But you'll dooo fine because we wuv you sooo much we are going to do what we want when we want it. "
Ppen at March 17, 2010 5:17 PM
Oh lovelysoul one more thing...
Let's say your husband had full custody of the kids, and they lived with him. He got remarried to another woman. You are basically saying this woman will do just as good a job as you in taking care of them right? She'll love them and nurture them every single day as much as you would. And the fact that you see them every now and then is just as much work as if you saw them daily.
Because to me when a man and woman divorce and the woman has custody of the kids the man is basically saying that whatever stepfather comes into the picture, he'll do just as good a job as him.
Ppen at March 17, 2010 5:28 PM
Well, I say, "I love your dad with all my heart, and I tried very hard to make the marriage work for 20+ years, but he doesn't believe in monogamy, and that was becoming too hurtful, so it's better that we're able to be friends now."
And he says, "I love your mom - she's the love of my life - but I don't believe in monogamy. I think you can love more than one person - that you can love many people who cross your path - they all have something to teach you - and I need to be free to grow and be myself, and it's great that your mom and I can still be friends."
The kids understand that once he adopted this Hugh Hefner-esque, free-love philosophy of life, there just wasn't a workable solution to stay in the same household.
And, yes, they're sometimes mortified by his immature behavior, such as constantly making plays for young women (my daughter groans - he's 62!), but they accept him for who he is. It's much better and more honest that he live the single life.
They actually have a lot of fun with him. He's the adventurous type who loves to travel spontaneously and do exciting things. He's taking our daughter to NY next week, just for shopping and theater.
Having a quirky dad like him has its drawbacks, but it also has many benefits. I think, no matter what the situation, kids end up seeing their parents as human, with both flaws and strengths. The fact that we still love each other is a blessing that a lot of children - from single-parent or two parent homes - don't experience.
lovelysoul at March 17, 2010 6:05 PM
In answer to your last question, Ppen, I'm sure that would be hard, but, in our case, there was never any question about custody. He agrees the kids are better off living with me, and though it may be hard to believe, he gets along well with my fiance.
As I said, we don't have a visitation schedule. He is free to see the kids whenever he wants, for as long as he wants. I never inhibit their time together, and I don't think, if things were reversed that he would do that to me.
lovelysoul at March 17, 2010 6:15 PM
Ahh free spirits another term for selfish douches. They're soo free they forget to mention how they really feel until after some sort of responsibility takes hold of them.
I wish I could sign a lease for a ferrari and then explain to them that I'm too much of a free spirit to pay for the thing.
"He is free to see the kids whenever he wants, for as long as he wants."
So again parenting comes down to whenver I feel like it. Cool.
Instead of all these extra long arguments about how parenting is about luvy wuvy is to tell the ladies not have multiple kids with a man like this. Kids arent going to admire an adventurous man but instead a man who goes to his job every fucking day and sticks around despite his sexual urges. As an adult that's the parent I truly admire.
Look lovelysoul I was raised by my stepfather but I dont go around telling parents that a stepfather will be as loving as a biological one. It's a rare event. And despite having a man I consider to be my father growing up I always resented my mom for picking an asshole as my biological father.
Ppen at March 17, 2010 7:18 PM
"The fact that we still love each other is a blessing that a lot of children - from single-parent or two parent homes - don't experience."
We scrap a lot LS: so here goes: how does one love a man who can not fulfill his marriage vows, and who wants to rape women, who pays european hookers lareg sums to let him do so sans protection, who made you play along with rape? I really can't get that. Not trash-talking him to your kids or filling them in on his proclivities, sure. But love him??
You can rapsodize all you want about how great life is for you and the kiddos. But do you not think-deep down-it would have been better had your husband/baby daddy been a good guy to you and them? Do you not think your willingness to share your current BF (whoops fiance) with other women might stem from the fact that what you had before him was so fucked up that this seems normal and loving by comparison?
momof4 at March 17, 2010 8:44 PM
Wow, that was mean, M4. I don't recall us "scrapping" enough to warrant that. I defend your position more often than not, and I've expressed great admiration for you as a mother. I certainly wouldn't use every little thing I've ever learned about you to launch a personal attack.
I can love my ex because, despite how flawed he is, he also loves me very much...and helped me grow up...and taught me a million things. I can't fully explain it, but perhaps because I tried to accept him as he was, flaws and all, that there was a very deep, irrevocable bond that formed between us. Plus, we were together over 20 years. Although he often hurt me, we were still, somehow, best friends.
The other day, he was on a plane, and it started having some trouble, like serious turbulence, and he called me to say that he realized I was the only person he would want to speak to before he died, and I knew how he felt.
I shouldn't even share that because it'll just be used to beat me up some more, but, you know what, I don't need to explain to you why I LOVE someone...especially the father of my kids! Many people have long, intimate, emotionally complicated relationships...Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald for instance. You can still love that person deeply, even when it's not good for you to be together anymore.
And I never said I "shared" my fiance with other women. He is a loving, wonderful man, who supports me no matter what, and has been amazing to my children.
I'm really stunned you feel the need to be so vicious to me because I've never been that way to you.
lovelysoul at March 17, 2010 9:40 PM
LS I dont think what M4 of said was viscious in any way. But I'm froced to analyze your reply and I'm actually going to try to be as gentle as possible (a first for me). I think you need someone to explain to you certain things about relationships.
"Although he often hurt me, we were still, somehow, best friends."
I have a best friend and we've been through difficult times but from the moment we met we have never hurt each other. Ever, ever. Ask Amy about her best friends and she'll reply the same. It's just not done. A person who should hold the title of best friend wont decide to have kids then change their mind and decide fucking is more important than sticking around and raising them. If I divorced such a man (selfish, immature) I would never give him the title of best friend even if I knew him for 20 fucking years. I would speak highly of him to the children of course...but call him my best friend? I have friends that are better than that. All my male friends would let me know this guy is utterly worthless and make sure I understand it. LS this guy is only worth something to you and that is why he calls you when he thinks he's gonna die. Because nobody else really gives that much of a shit about him. He's a selfish twat. And we've all been in love with selfish assholes but we dont have kids with them, and when they choose pussy over raising our kids we dont call them our "best friends"
Get it?
Ppen at March 17, 2010 11:41 PM
> How does the conversation go?
Ppen gets this. Yeah, sure, parents can tell their kids that they're deeply loved, even as the parents are doing everything they can to disrupt the environment a child might reasonably expect a loving home to provide.
A kid might then decide that being "loved" isn't good for much. (I'm pretty sure I've seen that happen.)
We've discussed this before.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 17, 2010 11:42 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/03/16/the_office_of_c.html#comment-1702357">comment from PpenA person who should hold the title of best friend wont decide to have kids then change their mind and decide fucking is more important than sticking around and raising them.
Absolutely right.
Amy Alkon at March 18, 2010 12:18 AM
There's no one that knows my ex that wouldn't say he is a brilliant, amazing individual. He made millions before age 30 in NYC real estate, all by himself. He is a pilot, a singer, an art connoisseur, and an architect.
He built a house for us on the side of hill, overlooking the ocean, with a pool on the third floor with a diminishing edge that flows over the side. It has 26 miles of steel in it, and 42 truckloads of concrete...4 bdrms, a hidden wine cellar, and a fireplace. It isn't a square box, but full of graceful curves echoing the water.
He never used the first drawing or set of plans. Why? It was all in his head. And when I say he built it himself, I mean he built it HIMSELF, with his own hands, and a straggly little crew.
The man is a genius. Even his detractors would say so. And, like with so many geniuses, especially artistic ones - like Picasso or Diego Rivera - he is not an easy man to live with.
The problem is that for every negative about him, there is an equal and amazing positive. I'm not stupid. I wouldn't have stayed with a man for 20+ years that was all, or even mostly, negative.
He loves his children. They know that. They also know their father is an amazing and brilliant man, who has built them a small fortune. They admire him for his strengths, just as I do.
If you've never been around a man like this, you can't understand. There's no way I can describe it. Certain people change your life and make it much bigger than you could ever imagine.
That is what he has done for me, and I still, and will always, love him.
lovelysoul at March 18, 2010 2:10 AM
You know, too often on this blog, we hear stories of divorced couples who act in horrible ways towards each other, negatively impacting their children. Yet, here's a situation where a divorced couple not only acts respectfully but lovingly, and some try to paint it as "abnormal". Oh sure, talk nice about your ex to the kids, but don't actually MEAN it! You must be faking what you say. It can't be true. How fucked up is that?
I'd like to remind you that my ex and I are still business partners, which is an unusual situation. Perhaps, if we'd settled things differently, my contact with him would've been limited, and we never would've become friends again. When I first started commenting on this blog, the divorce was still pretty fresh, and my feelings about him were mostly negative. The things I wrote, while true, didn't fully represent him as a person, which is sadly what happens in divorce. People forget the good things about each other while focusing only on the bad.
It's kind of a shame that divorced couples aren't forced to spend as much time together afterwards as we have. From a practical standpoint, working with him in an office setting and talking with him almost daily by phone, it's hard to maintain much animosity, especially when we know, after 20 years together, what makes the other laugh, etc. Gradually, the bitterness fades away, and what replaces it is what I would call genuine friendship.
I don't know why anyone has an issue with that, especially when it's so healthy for the children involved, but if you do, that's your problem.
lovelysoul at March 18, 2010 9:24 AM
"The man is a genius. Even his detractors would say so. And, like with so many geniuses, especially artistic ones - like Picasso or Diego Rivera - he is not an easy man to live with."
"Many people have long, intimate, emotionally complicated relationships...Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald for instance."
Look LS your life is not a wikipedia article about a tortured artist and his equally tortured ex wife. None of the people you mentioned were adequate parents or partners. As an adult you should understand that the best life lived is one were people dont fulfill all of their basest desires. Artists are usually some of the most selfish fucks on the planet for this particular reason, they do everything they feel like doing with a total disregard for the consequences.
It sounds to me that you are still in love with the IDEA of this man (None of us are impressed) Read how you describe him.
"If you've never been around a man like this, you can't understand. There's no way I can describe it. Certain people change your life and make it much bigger than you could ever imagine."
The most important thing for children is not a genius father, a house overlooking the ocean, a small fortune. He choose pussy over them and you. Good luck with your delusions of grandeur.
Ppen at March 18, 2010 12:22 PM
Oh and LS I think you need actual friends. Friends that dont have a history of being total assholes to you and your children. Your children have probabbly picked up on how you dont know how to form proper interpersonal relationships. That's why you choose a douche ex husband as your best friend.
Ppen at March 18, 2010 12:29 PM
I have plenty of friends, and I think it's sad that you can't comprehend that exs can also be friends, and that they can love and care for their children jointly.
My ex was just here visiting our children. He ran to the store to get some things for us. Like I said, he's flying our daughter to NY next week so she can see some great theater, which is her passion. He may be an eccentric, but he's always there for us when we need him, and as a provider -which is traditionally a huge part of a father's role - he scores an A+
He's not a perfect dad, but find one who is. You are clearly bitter at your mother and your biological dad for not being all you wanted them to be. Well, join the club. People don't always grow up with saints as parents...in fact, most people don't. You need to stop projecting that anger and disappointment on to other people.
You don't know me at all, and you have no basis whatsoever to claim that I can't form proper interpersonal relationships. If anything, my actions prove that I have moved forward in a healthy way - in a way that most benefits my children.
It's sad that I would be criticized for showing forgiveness and genuine affection for my children's father. What a shame that you would rather me call him a "douche" and wallow in past resentments rather than show my children that their parents genuinely care for each other.
lovelysoul at March 18, 2010 2:19 PM
Folks, stop being so mean to Lovelysoul. She's doing the best she can with the cards she has been given.
NicoleK at March 18, 2010 2:58 PM
"I have plenty of friends, and I think it's sad that you can't comprehend that exs can also be friends, and that they can love and care for their children jointly."
We can comprehend that ex's can be friends what we cant comprehend is how you can call a man who choose sex over the happiness of you and your children your best buddy.
Dont you understand that that is exactly the message he gives out during the marriage and after the divorce?
He's not a perfect dad, but find one who is.
Who said we are looking for perfection? Why are you trying to turn this into a debate about perfection? I'm not debating perfection, I'm debating level of responsibility. You are basically saying parents (especially fathers) have whatever level of responsibility they feel like. "Sorry son I feel like fucking a bunch of chicks but you'll be fine because I LOVE YOU"
"You are clearly bitter at your mother and your biological dad for not being all you wanted them to be"
Didnt you make this same argument against Crid? That he probabbly came from a bitter single home? I actually did have a pretty shitty mother, but one day I sat her down and asked all the questions Im asking you. Her reply? That I was right. Yeah that's right, I didnt hold back. Why did you choose an abusive cheating man as my father? Why did you marry him? Why, why why why why why why why......
I never asked those questions to my biological dad because I never really took much interest in him. I felt neither here nor there about him. I interacted with him because my mother felt it was best (and they have always been polite and positive with each other) but when I was 19 I told him I thought of him like piece of paper that I crumpled up and threw away. He would always send me little gifts about how much he loved me and when he had a tumor he told me that my mom was the love of his life. I have always politely turned him down- notice politely because he's not my father. My father is my stepdad.
And you know what my stepdad did? He's been divorced two times and has a bunch of children he would interact with like divorced fathers interact with their children. And he's honest that divorce is the single worst thing parents can do to their children. He feels the guilt and I understand the guilt.
"I have moved forward in a healthy way - in a way that most benefits my children."
The right way is telling women not to have children with men like the one you married. And not painting this romantic picture of the type of man he is. The right way is admiting that divorce has horrible side effects on children no matter how much you love them.
And this is what I want people to understand. When you tell your kids you love them you dont go out and do whatever you feel like. You show them in your actions, by sacrificing personal happiness. Your ex husband should have done that and he chose not to. And now you call him your best friend.
Ppen at March 18, 2010 5:42 PM
"Folks, stop being so mean to Lovelysoul. She's doing the best she can with the cards she has been given."
This blog aint about politeness.
Ppen at March 18, 2010 5:43 PM
Why, when challenged, does this person always try to reduce it to a judgment of her own particular circumstance, or her own particular feelings? In truth, we don't care about individual (adult) lives that much. And we shouldn't have to... They're adults.
This pattern has been going on for a long time. She joins a general discussion to describe gruesome adult misconduct as forgivable, and then wraps the package in a few pretty ribbons... Like divorce is actually good for kids (see above), or kids don't need parents to live with them (see above). When people call bullshit, she claims she's being harshly attacked on a personal level.
When a someone toils so glibly, earnestly and reliably to pummel our standards of truly loving parenthood, I prefer to speak up and be thought of as "mean".
Meeeeee-yow!
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 18, 2010 5:54 PM
"When people call bullshit, she claims she's being harshly attacked on a personal level."
I'm with you Crid. I especially liked how well M4 called her on her bullshit and instead of answering M4 she called it a vicious personal attack.
"That was so mean! I would never say those things about you so you shouldnt say them about me! Boohoo cant you understand him and I are Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald!"
Ppen at March 18, 2010 6:40 PM
"She joins a general discussion to describe gruesome adult misconduct as forgivable, and then wraps the package in a few pretty ribbons...Like divorce is actually good for kids (see above),"
That's bullshit. I've never said divorce was "good for kids". But divorce happens.
So does adoption. I'm adopted, and my biological father was a loser. I could be bitter and angry about this...about my personal, imperfect situation, like Ppen, but, you know what, I'm HERE. I'm alive because of some young people's bad decisions. Would I wish it otherwise? No.
Get over it! Stop whining and blaming everyone else for your life! It's actually embarrassing that anyone reared in this wealthy country of opportunity can whine about their "unfortunate upbringing" when most of the rest of the world is just struggling to survive.
My smart, witty, hardworking kids wouldn't change their lives either. Nor would I change my life so that I could marry "MR PERFECT CANDIDATE" if I had the chance to change the outcome. I am who I am because of some adversity. My children are who they are because of some adversity. I wouldn't change a thing.
Ppen, your mom made a mistake, when she was quite young. Cut her some slack! Have you not made mistakes yourself? The bottom line is that you are here because of it, which is better than the alternative, so let it go.
My ex was faithful to me for at least 80% of our marriage. He openly confessed that monogamy was a struggle for him. He was oversexed...probably because he had very high testosterone level...which was also probably why he was able to make a fortune before age 30....and why he had more energy and could accomplish more in a day than the average man could in a week. "Why, why why?" is because I recognized that there is a connection there. High testosterone = high aggression and drive = success.
My children and I have a legacy of a successful family business because of this drive. Do I think there are pathologies at work? No question. Donald Trump (my ex's contemporary) surely has the same pathologies. Would I regret having Trump's children? Probably not. Nor would most of you, if you were honest. Whatever disadvantages exist from being the offspring of a successful eccentric are far outweighed by the enormous benefits.
Frankly, I'm tired of people making excuses out of their childhoods and blaming every failure on parenting. Yeah, divorce sucks...so does growing up in India and scrounging for food. Want to compare childhoods - divorced, overindulged, American kid to poor, starving Indian orphan? Didn't think so. Want to know who's more likely to succeed today? Guess!
lovelysoul at March 18, 2010 6:52 PM
I just want her to stop saying "these things happen" as if they were bad weather. "Someone left my cake out in the rain...."
(Sorry, old guy pop culture joke. This is getting to be more of a problem every year.)
> But divorce happens.
No it doesn't. People do it.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 18, 2010 6:53 PM
"But divorce happens.
No it doesn't. People do it."
Yeah, and you and Ppen are elevating it to the absolute worst thing ever suffered by children, which just shows your ignorence and snotty, whiny American isolation.
This country was once great because we believed the best people grew out of hard work and adversity. Then, it became about coddling. I've read that Trump was actually very tough on his kids - because he knew they would be competing against a generation of kids whose lives were far tougher. He didn't baby them, least of all because they came from divorce.
This "divorce trauma" is bullshit comparative to what children of other cultures face. It's all cushy-cushy feel good psychology, which arose in this country a few decades ago. And it's precisely why we will ultimately fall behind tougher culture like the Chinese....because we're emotional babies looking to blame everybody for our shortcomings...every obstacle is "emotionally scarring"...and we expect life to be smooth and easy, from the cradle to the grave.
lovelysoul at March 18, 2010 7:30 PM
We're not elevating dick.
> every obstacle is "emotionally scarring"...
Who are you quoting?
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 18, 2010 7:36 PM
Here is your GEM:
"This "divorce trauma" is bullshit comparative to what children of other cultures face"
It's funny you mention the Chinese. (Did you know I travel to Asia yearly btw?) Because they really dont believe in single motherhood, it's like just not done in any Asian country I've ever been in. Not even Japan. To be the child of a single parent is to be shunned by your whole community. YOUR WHOLE FUCKING COMMUNITY. But I'm just an isolated American right? WTF do I know.
Ppen at March 18, 2010 10:12 PM
"That's bullshit. I've never said divorce was "good for kids". But divorce happens."
If you read your later comments your argument is basically that if children cant overcome obstacles created by their own parents they are whiny little pussies. But the question is why would a parent create these obstacles in the first place? I mean just look at this sentence:
"I am who I am because of some adversity. My children are who they are because of some adversity."
"Ppen, your mom made a mistake, when she was quite young. Cut her some slack!"
No she made 1 mistake at 18 and then kept repeating the mistakes for the rest of my brothers and I life.
Have you not made mistakes yourself?
I love fucking crazy guys but I never make babies with them.
"The bottom line is that you are here because of it, which is better than the alternative, so let it go."
The nicest thing my mother said to me was that if she could go back in time she would have aborted my brother and I. I would have agreed that that would have been the correct choice.
The only thing that saved me from a life of homelessness was money and pills.
"Get over it! Stop whining and blaming everyone else for your life!"
Who is blaming? I have a great life now.
Oh and despite my internet persona I'm not bitter, perhaps caustic but not bitter. I have a great relationship with my parents because they were really open about the fact the fucked up major. Yes, even mommy dearest and I have a loving relationship.
Ppen at March 18, 2010 10:44 PM
> I've never said divorce was "good for kids".
How else to read this?:
> Yet, it's all the challenges children face - with
> your loving support - that makes them grow
> stronger and become good people. And, yes,
> that may even include divorce sometimes.
> March 16, 2010 3:58 PM
No. "Loving support" includes selecting a good partner as mother or father and maintaining the family.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 18, 2010 11:39 PM
People who grow up in cultures where life is truly tough look at us and laugh. We're crybabies, and this blame game is just proof of that.
One thing I'm proudest of is that, although they grew up affluent, my kids expect to work hard, and they do. Since they were small, their dad and I have impressed upon them how incredibly fortunate they are compared to others - in this country and abroad - and they appreciate this fact. We've taken them all over the world, where they've seen real poverty and true disadvantage. They KNOW they have it good.
So, you won't ever hear my kids playing this "wah, I had a bad childhood!" victim card. If their parents divorce was the biggest challenge they faced growing up, they understand that they're still better off than 99% of the kids out there.
Do you think Trump lets his kids play that card? "Wah, you and mommy didn't 'choose well'...you scarred us for life...wah, we had it sooooo rough..." Please!
You may pity them, but my kids sure don't pity themselves. Yet, sadly, they're probably the exception because today's kids do seem to be buying into this bullshit you're selling.
Even though children in other parts of the world are wondering where their next meal is coming from, our kids are fat, lazy, and wallowing in self-pity. They're full of excuses rather than solutions. Our entire culture is complicit in providing them with this mindset of victimization. If life isn't smooth, blame your mommy...or your daddy...or that you didn't have a daddy...or that daddy had a girlfriend...
Wah, your childhood was so rough...that's why you failed that exam! How could you possibly succeed under this extreme emotional weight? Why, you need counseling...medication...a special program...an undeserved scholarship...
We'll make it better. We'll make it up to you.
That is what's causing a lot of our achievement problems.
lovelysoul at March 19, 2010 3:53 AM
> People who grow up in cultures where
> life is truly tough look at us and laugh.
> We're crybabies
This is what you say to children who can't understand why their families are exploding? This is what comes to your mind when confronted, literally, with crying babies?
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 19, 2010 9:02 AM
No. I tell them to look at the positives in their lives rather than the negatives. I see no good in wallowing in self-pity. The children who thrive and become resilient are the ones who can find the positives, who can experience joy in what they have not what they lack.
Life is full of adversity. The important thing is how you deal with it. Children in other cultures have war and famine, our kids have divorce. Comparatively, it's not really close.
But, even beyond that, they will have trials in life, and if the message we send is that you should blame others and dwell on whatever you don't have, rather than being appreciative of what you do have, then we are merely setting up children up to be depressed and miserable their whole lives.
Sadly, however, that is the message we're sending.
lovelysoul at March 19, 2010 10:09 AM
> I tell them to look at the positives in
> their lives rather than the negatives
So Daddy doesn't love you and Mommy doesn't much care, but your pain is irrelevant; get over yourself.
I've concluded that if this months-long sequence of exchanges isn't a practical joke (by no means certain), you're a monster.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 19, 2010 10:16 AM
Yeah, I'm a "monster" who devotes a lot of my time to helping kids. Maybe you should become a GAL, and then you can go in and tell them what a shitty life they have and how it's all mommy and daddy's fault. Make sure to emphasize what a victim they are and how statistics show they're basically fucked, so it's hopeless. I'm sure that we will be a lot more helpful than my method.
lovelysoul at March 19, 2010 10:26 AM
"you can go in and tell them what a shitty life they have and how it's all mommy and daddy's fault"
Get it through your head. It's not our duty to tell the kids it's our duty to tell YOU. We are not telling the kids squat. We are telling YOU and all the adults out there that they hold a certain responsibilty otherwise their kids will have a shitty life. GET IT?
Ppen at March 19, 2010 12:07 PM
"Do you think Trump lets his kids play that card"
And why do you keep mentioning celebrities? You do realize that most children from famous people have pretty shitty childhoods? But that's not the point.
My point is that you have this strange romantic ideal about eccentrics and "geniuses". And despite your weird ascertion about having Donald Trumps baby, I wouldnt (even if I did look like his current wife).
There are more important qualities in a father than being a "genius". There are more important qualities than your bizare obsession for drama.
ppen at March 19, 2010 12:17 PM
I mentioned Trump because, for a celebrity, he has been lauded for turning out kids that are hardworking, unspoiled, and sane. That is, after all, the most important part - how well the kids turn out, isn't it?
Sometimes, it seems that it doesn't even matter to you and crid, like it's beyond your comprehension. You could meet 50 well-adjusted people who may have grown up in single-parent homes, or had parents who divorced, and you'd still act like they were "suffering". I don't know why, but it reminds me of those weird pro-lifers who grieve over other people's fetuses.
I mean you're concerning yourself with my children, convinced they're suffering such horrible trauma, when, in fact, they're fine. This is about YOUR trauma. Don't project the unhappiness of your childhood on to my children.
And I don't have some "bizarre obsession for drama", but I do think intelligence is an important quality for a father (or mother). I'm definitely convinced IQ is inherited, so I'm glad my kids got that benefit.
lovelysoul at March 19, 2010 2:05 PM
> You could meet 50 well-adjusted people
> who may have grown up in single-parent
> homes, or had parents who divorced
I haven't yet, and I'm 51.
Crid at March 19, 2010 5:51 PM
"You do realize that most children from famous people have pretty shitty childhoods?"
Sorry, but this is a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.
Fame not only produces undue stress on personal relationships, sometimes the fame is the result of misbehavior and coverage is selected for its sensationalism.
I have nothing to say about LS's failed relationship with Mr. Amazing, apart from the observation that couple who do not grow together grow apart; if she was not equally capable in some way, a need would go unfulfilled, and so a difference might have magnified over time into an insurmountable obstacle. LS did better than millions of women, literally, in associating with a high achiever.
LS, you have nothing to apologize for, so far as that relationship goes, and I see no slight or airs directed at me -- it's simply your story. I'm surprised at the offense taken.
Cheers. I hope you have rich as well as poor memories, although both can be torture.
Radwaste at March 19, 2010 6:21 PM
Thanks, Radwaste...I think. lol I lasted a lot longer than most women would have.
"Failed relationship" actually seems strange to me. I don't really view it as that. A failed marriage, yes, but our relationship continues.
I'm trying to buying a house, and we spent some time today going through it together. There's no one whose advice I value more, as far as those things go. He was checking to make sure it was structurally sound, finding little problems and recommending repairs. He wants it to be a safe, secure place for our daughter and me (and my fiance) to live in. A lot of exs wouldn't do that.
Maybe some can't wrap their minds around the friendship thing, or realize that he's still here, for me and our children, but that's the truth.
lovelysoul at March 19, 2010 7:15 PM
> lol I lasted a lot longer than most
> women would have.
It is all about her.
I enjoy my continuing dislike: It flatters and ennobles me.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 19, 2010 8:54 PM
Well, I don't know how you measure success, crid. You talk about how few well-adjusted people you know. Either you stay indoors avoiding others most of time, or you have a standard which almost no one could meet (I vote for both).
But if you think the goal is to end up like you - judgmental, cynical, and intolerant - then that's not how I hope my kids turn out.
And you probably had the perfect two-parent childhood, but I don't consider you well-adjusted.
If people compared my poised, articulate, intelligent, generous, and tolerant children to you, I think they's see my point that the "perfect childhood" doesn't always produce the best result.
lovelysoul at March 20, 2010 5:26 AM
No matter how circuitous, insipid, or unproductive this is, I can't stop. It's blindingly obvious to me that this is all about you wanting to be excused, or pretending not to need to be, for things that have happened in your own life.
I DON'T CARE WHAT THOSE THINGS ARE. If you'd said 'When this happened to me, I told my kids blah-blah-blah', no one would care.... Another sad story, no matter how pathetic, is not going to arouse much interest. But it's the suggestion that everyone should follow this path that's so revolting. You can't listen to other people talk about causing pain to children without issuing a pre-emptive, and repugnant, defense.
AND MY OWN EXPERIENCE SHOULDN'T BE OF INTEREST to anyone, either. But you're unable to talk about this except in personal terms. Who said anything about my childhood being perfect?
> the "perfect childhood" doesn't always
> produce the best
For the third time, who are you quoting?
You're so glib about the betrayal. Children are brought into a room, told by they people who should love them best that their family is being deliberately shattered for reasons they can't understand and that it will never come back together, told to get over it, and then told this is the experience of parental love that you deserve and it's good for you.
Because it makes the little children stronger, you say.
Let's say a parent then took a hammer and broke their little fingers. Would that be cool? Now, a broken finger is a shitty thing to have happen... But the truth is, broken fingers, even for children, aren't that big a deal. You wear a splint for a few weeks, and kids at school look at it and tease you on the first day. Then they almost always heal up.
After all, life includes a lot of physical pain, too. Right? As you noted earlier, illiterate cave-dwellers in Afghanistan laugh at us for being such softies. So, like, the kid oughta toughen up and get used to it. Don't you agree?
As the swelling and bruising start in earnest, we can tell them that they're loved, which is the most important thing. They'll be better adjusted:
• Poised
• Articulate
• Intelligent
• Generous
• Tolerant
Oh, will they learn tolerance....
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 20, 2010 9:38 AM
Goddam HTML. Preview is for....
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 20, 2010 9:42 AM
"But it's the suggestion that everyone should follow this path that's so revolting."
Exactly!
Ppen at March 20, 2010 3:03 PM
"LS did better than millions of women, literally, in associating with a high achiever."
There are more important qualities than simply associating yourself with a high achiever.
Ppen at March 20, 2010 3:05 PM
Get it? Do you understand? Do you realize why I adore this Ppen woman so?
Somebody, maybe a joker like P.J. O'Rourke, once said that one of the most important contributions to human character made by Judaism was its assertion that God didn't give you credit for standing next to Really Faboo people... Their Creator expected you to be Really Faboo on your own. Jews don't do indulgences. (This blog is as topical as today's headlines!)
We are left to wonder what Raddy meant by "did better".
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 20, 2010 9:09 PM
The parameters of forgiveness and achievement were a topic earlier this month as well.
One of the benefactors of the nascent CDC in Atlanta was a soda pop industrialist. He was quoted (maybe by Halberstam) as saying (paraphrase) 'You can get a lot of great things accomplished if you don't worry about who gets the credit'.
That's a fun, flower-y, Disney-motto kind of sentiment.
But in real life, credit and attribution mean a whole lot. Individual achievements and failures deserve to be measured in the proper context. We ought to have the belief that –and live our lives as though– our own good works will be sufficient to reward us, and that our failures won't be more damning than they ought to be.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 20, 2010 10:18 PM
"Individual achievements and failures deserve to be measured in the proper context. We ought to have the belief that – and live our lives as though– our own good works will be sufficient to reward us, and that our failures won't be more damning than they ought to be."
Yes, exactly. You pretend - always - that I am advocating divorce. Like, according to your hammer analogy, that I just sat my kids down and decided to slam them with it one day...purely for cruel enjoyment.
Nevermind that I'd already been marriage 20 years...not the sign of someone who cuts and runs over nothing.
It was never my INTENTION to cause my children pain, but it was clear they were already suffering, as were we, from the whole situation. They grew old enough to see what was going on, unlike, say, Tiger Wood's children (gratefully), though, someday, they'll be able to read his salacious texts to porn stars.
And, then, Tiger's kids may wonder why mommy stayed or left. That is obviously her choice. Under those circumstances, which are not so different from my own - married to a high achiever/highly sexed man - I would go, if I were her, knowing what I know now.
Sex was always the major issue in our marriage, which was otherwise quite good. Apart from that, we were well-matched intellectualy, made each other laugh, and shared many of the same interests.
So, I naively thought that one day his high sex drive would peter down (ha) to something more normal. I thought he'd hit 40 (remember, I was in my 20s - 40 seemed ancient!) and it would slow down. Then, his 50s...but it still didn't change much.
Then, they invented viagra, and that's when I knew I had to get the hell out! (just kidding - sort of)
And I love sex. Don't get me wrong. Just not 3 times a day. Not rough either.
But, really, my logic for hanging on to this man and my marriage wasn't so skewed. Sex drive generally does slow down in most men, but he's in his 60s now, and still madly chasing women. I probably should've known that, like everything else, he would be the exception to the rule.
And seeing that, I know I made the right call. I thought by the 60s, we'd be sitting on the porch in rocking chairs, enjoying our kids and grandkids, looking back fondly on our life together. But, ultimately, I came to understand that was my fantasy, not his. Men like him don't dream of slowing down - ever.
lovelysoul at March 21, 2010 7:38 AM
Divorce is a failure. It's a failure for me, and for my children. It's a failure for anyone who goes through it - heartbreaking. But my point is the same as yours. It shouldn't be "more damning than it ought to be". Kids can recover if it's handled well....not that I want people to divorce to make their kids stronger or anything stupid like that...but I don't want divorced parents to needlessly fear that their kids are doomed to failure. They are not.
lovelysoul at March 21, 2010 7:51 AM
> But my point is the same as yours.
Nope.
> It shouldn't be "more damning than
> it ought to be".
It's damning. Don't tell kids, who bear no responsibility for this gratuitous pain, that it's good for them.
We're coming up on a hundred messages of this. We 'bout there yet?
crid at March 21, 2010 10:36 AM
I don't TELL them that. You make shit up. Things I don't say or believe.
But divorce doesn't have to be something that scars them for life. It may be, but it might not be either. You need to keep this in perspective.
As a GAL, I've dealt with kids who've been terribly abused. But I don't go in there assumming this will ruin them for life. Fact is, I don't know. Neither do the therapists.
All of us have seen some kids go on afterwards and excel, while some never seem to recover and do poorly. What makes the difference between the resilient kids and the non-resilient kids? It isn't entirely clear. However, therapists know there are certain resiliency factors. One is love and support, which doesn't have to come in any particular form. Often, it's a loving grandmother, or set of grandparents, or a good foster/adoptive family.
Resiliency is what you want children develop. It's not about telling them the tough parts of life are "good" for them, but that they don't have to mean wallowing in self-pity or self-destructiveness either. Some kids get this, and other don't, no matter what sort of home life they have.
One of my daughter's friends has been threatening suicide, and she comes from a seemingly good two-parent home. Here is a child, that despite having what you would deem a better upbringing, doesn't have any resiliency. She's letting relatively minor issues get to her, destroy her self-esteem, and perhaps end her life. In recent years, we've seen kids commit suicide over cyber bullying, for instance, at an alarming rate. Many were from two-parent homes.
What concerns me is the mentality that a lot of parents today have - and that you seem to agree with - that they must make sure their child doesn't suffer at all. They run to school to demand a grade be changed. They get angry with coaches for benching their budding athlete. They intervene whenever there's a squabble on the playground.
This doesn't create resiliency in children. Having everything go smoothly doesn't give them the chance to develop emotional strength.
lovelysoul at March 22, 2010 8:25 AM
> What concerns me is the mentality that a
> lot of parents today have - and that you
> seem to agree with - that they must make
> sure their child doesn't suffer at all.
In my entirely life, you are the first person who's said this except in a Saturday Night Live skit: That kids don't suffer enough. So let's hit them with hammers. Or tell them the ones who are supposed to love and nurture them are moving away for no good reason, even as they profess love.
Shame makes people say weird things— I think it spins you like a clothes dryer. We're done here, but I know that next time someone condemns an incompetent behavior which seems familiar to you, you'll start complaining that the problem is the other people –especially children– being too sensitive about it.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 22, 2010 9:28 AM
"So let's hit them with hammers."
Again, I never said anything like that, and you know it. You purposely lie about what people say, which is underhanded.
lovelysoul at March 22, 2010 10:22 AM
Yeah! I'm CLEVER! I like to TWIST PEOPLE'S WORDS!
All that shit that comes to your mind about how other countries think we're soft, because our kids don't face enough divorce?… And the part where you said kids (little children!) don't really care where their parents sleep?… (Don't care! It doesn't matter!)…
Well, I made you say those things!
Because I painted you into a corner! Because I am so motherfucking clever! My magic is black and powerful!
God Almighty, I am so fucking good at this.
Soon enough, Amy will be compelled to give me a cut of her BlogAd fees, because so many people come here to marvel at my superhuman powers.
And I will squander that money on booze and broads, or whatever impulse strikes me— scuba trips to the South Pacific, or sporty motor vehicles... Because there's always more where that came from. I have the power; I deploy it for my own amusement.
I am so hard-core. I the champ of the wicked, the master of deception, the best of the worst.
You may applaud, if you wish.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 22, 2010 3:54 PM
"And the part where you said kids (little children!) don't really care where their parents sleep?… (Don't care! It doesn't matter!)…"
Perfect example. You take one part and leave out the all the rest of the sentiment. I said as long as parents love each other and get along that I doubt kids care that much where they sleep.
Ask Amy. There are married LAT couples successfully raising children and living separately. So, that, in itself, clearly isn't the most critical component to children.
It's far more important to kids that their parents at least like each other and get along. It's awful for kids to see parents fight and degrade each other, which happens daily to many children, whether their parents are married or divorced. Most kids would much rather their parents get along, even if that means separate living arrangements.
My ex is HERE almost every day, in our house. Our office is in my home, so he often eats meals with us. We treat each other with respect. That is far more important to our kids than where we sleep.
But you reduce all that into a "kids don't care where their parents sleep" sound bite in an attempt to paint whatever poster you disagree with into a "monster" or some sort of totally over the top exaggeration.
I also never said other countries look down on us because "our kids don't face enough divorce", but that again is an example of what you do.
lovelysoul at March 22, 2010 4:45 PM
> I said as long as parents love each
> other and get along that I doubt kids
> care that much where they sleep.
Right. That's cocksuckingly insane.
> I also never said other countries look
> down on us because...
Oh. Refresh my memory, as anyone who loads this page is free to do, by looking at the earlier comments. Describe, specifically, how other nations came to mind for you in the context of this topic... Other than by excusing the gratuitous pain divorce brings to children.
Don't let me get away with anything, OK? Fight back! Fight back hard! Because I'M MEAN! Grrrr! And clever!
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 22, 2010 6:08 PM
Crid, you have absolutely no perspective. Everything is misinterpreted and blown so far out of proportion.
I'm pretty sure others got that I was saying Americans are laughed at for being crybabies. We're all full of "psychobabble" about how "tough" we've had it, especially as kids. And that's even those who grew up with two parents and pretty ordinary lives. Yet, we've been taught over the past few decades to magnify whatever difficult experiences we might've gone through into "emotional traumas." That doesn't teach resiliency; that's a crutch.
We coddle our children too much in this country. That's why we're raising a bunch of self-entitled, self-pitying people, always looking to blame someone else for their problems...or, in your case, blame perfect strangers for problems their children supposedly have, even when they don't.
You're like one of those zealots on a witchhunt for child abuse. To them, any male who is even friendly with a child is a suspected molester. Except, for you, any divorced parent is automatically a child abuser, and I find that a little warped.
Yet, it's clearly what you believe. In your mind, any divorce is "child abuse" and any divorced parent might just as well have hit their kids with a hammer...because it's, you know, EQUAL to physical abuse in severity.
I'm surprised you don't advocate prison time for divorced parents.
lovelysoul at March 22, 2010 7:29 PM
> We coddle our children too much
> in this country.
Right. Parents in America, especially divorcing ones, are too hesitant to let children feel pain.
It's official: This is a practical joke. No actual human personality, certainly not a divorced mother, could actually express this much narcissism and defensiveness. You're just someone who's been watching the comments here for a while, and knows what buttons to push, and knows exactly which affectations I find most odious.
Well played, whoever you are! Hats off. No one has ever sat so comfortably in my blind spot!
I'll be looking for your work in other realms: Sitcoms, absurdist theater, art films, novels, museum works. Be sure and let us know when you have products commercial.
Damn fine work. Repugnant, but still....
"Lovelysoul". That was good.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 22, 2010 8:07 PM
...products in commercial development. You saw where I was going with that, right?
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 23, 2010 7:17 AM
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