My mother is living in a very poor area of the South and she works as a manager at a Family Dollar. The stories she tells about young women proudly patting their big pregnant bellies they refer to as "their paychecks" and then, fast forward a few years to the resultant kids that are utterly neglected and abused...is heartbreaking and revolting at the same time. That said, if some financially stable woman wants to adopt a child that would otherwise be without a future, I say more power to her. The key here is personal responsibility. Having and raising a child or children is an enormous responsibility, both financially and otherwise, and should be taken seriously. Squeezing out kids to bring in a bigger paycheck from the government is simply heinous.

The article also says Korea has a low birthrate, though. Which is also a problem.

It seems to me the best solution would be for Korea to encourage marriage and provide incentives to get married. Then they could go ahead and have the kids, no problem.

Moving to a new neighborhood in 2001, the first person at my door was a nice-looking lady who brightly announced I'm a single mom and the neighborhood has lots of them and are you one too????? (I am, but I don't like to talk about it.) As if it were some sort of a positive recommendation! I was shocked enough that I recall the encounter clearly to this day.

I've only been a single mother for 6 months. No way did I think I would be and did I want this but I am. I can see the ones who breed for dollars but what about the ones who are not in that situation? I'm already struggling with the fact that my son's father was abusive and I should have known better. I don't want to be stigmatized because I chose to leave the abuse with my son.

Kendra: I'm sure that you did the right thing for both you and your son...there are alot of good women out there who become single mothers due to circumstances. I was a single mom for a while myself...as long as you are doing the very best you can and being responsible, that's all you can do. I think this article is talking about the glorification of single motherhood as the ideal and first choice, rather than a stable two parent household where a father is present and involved...hang in there!

Fear of stigma was one of the things that kept me in an abusive marriage longer. It was bad enough what my children were coping with living in an abusive household,it was just as scary worrying about what all of the people who don't understand abuse would be saying or how they'd be treating my kids. I made mistakes, but I think stigmatizing people is harsh.

There will always be people who abuse the system, any system, but there are people who become single mothers out of necessity. It was never my intention getting married to become a single mother, but my safety and the safety of my children depended on it. I don't see how that deserves a stigma. It also hurts those same children that you claim you want to protect. You can advocate intact families all you want, but what about those kids that are in single parent families now? You can't wish them away. Stigmas only hurt them as well.

> That said, if some financially
> stable woman wants to adopt a child
> that would otherwise be without a
> future, I say more power to her.
> The key here is personal
> responsibility.

Right. A woman whose ego convinces her that her own magnificent personage is all it takes to lead a defenseless child's soul to competent adulthood is being personally irresponsible.

> I don't want to be stigmatized
> because I chose to leave the abuse
> with my son.

Where children are involved, stigma has powers that ought not be resisted.

> Fear of stigma was one of the
> things that kept me in an abusive

&

> There will always be people who
> abuse the system

Abuse abuse abuse abuse abuse!

Here's the deal• When children arrive, all my concern about people's feelings and perceptions and dignity and all the rest makes a generational bunny hop. This is no longer about mothers (and we're almost always talking about single mothers). We want to encourage judgment on the part of grown women such that they won't be tempted to use a five-letter word as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

God, I love stigma.

I include myself, Kendra and Kristen in the general area of the aphorism "hard cases make bad law".

Obviously, Kristen shouldn't have had to worry about the stigma, but the fact is that, were there more of a stigma, women as a rule would more carefully consider who they choose to marry, resulting in an overall benefit to society.

A dose of cold objectivity reveals that I would have been much more careful who I married had I not had it in the back of my mind that the end of the marriage wouldn't be a big deal, stigma-wise.

Let's also make a distinction between a single mom and a co-parenting mother.

I know of numerous women who happily wear the single mom tag but share joint custody of the kids with a father who is readily in the childrens lives (both financially and timewise). So this "single mom" has the kids only 1/2 of the time and the father either pays child support or his share of the raising of the kids. To me this is called "co parenting". The "single mom" tag is reserved for a mother that is raising a child on her own, with little or no support from the father.

I agree with Kristen - making single moms wander around with a scarlet letter on them doesn't really solve the problem. It didn't work in the 50's and it won't work now.

How to discourage it without unintended consequences is definitely an old problem. It wasn't that long ago that Western society shunned not only single mothers, but their children as well. Clearly the old attitude sucked in a lot of people who weren't responsible for their predicament; as several writers above have pointed out, single motherhood sometimes happens because the father turns out to be incapable of parenting, so to speak. And of course the children themselves were blameless. On the other hand, the post-modern attitude of letting it slide and even celebrating it has had the inevitable behaviorist consequences: if you encourage a behavior, you get more of it.

I'm not totally sure what the answer is. I'd start by eliminating the tax preferences for single motherhood. Eliminate the earned income tax credit, which is a huge incentive for poor women to get pregnant. And eliminate head-of-household status. Let them file single, like other single people have to do; they still get the exemptions for the children. Welfare programs that reward single motherhood need to be severely restricted, in that they should provide direct aid (supplies needed for babies and children, medical treatment, etc.) instead of cash payments.

Beyond that, I just don't know for sure. I do know that part of the problem is the way some boys are raised; you can see in a lot of Western poverty cultures, both urban and rural, that men gain status by getting as many women pregnant as possible. There are always going to be a few guys like that anyway, but somehow we need to rearrange these cultures so that these guys don't get held out as positive role models to teenage boys. Somebody else will have to tackle the girls' side of the equation, because that's one area where I just don't have a clue.

> Obviously, Kristen shouldn't have
> had to worry about the stigma

Not obvious, unfounded, and the whole point is self-defeating.

> Let's also make a distinction
> between a single mom and a
> co-parenting mother.

Must we? Is that what's best for kids?

> a father who is readily in the
> childrens lives

A father isn't "readily in a child's life". A bus driver is readily in a child's life.

Just as a matter of my daughter's personal experience, the "co-parenting" described above is an extremely poor substitute for being actually raised by married parents.

Also, whenever she expresses an interest in a boy, the first question I have is whether his parents are married? I don't doubt that their mothers are asking the same question about her, and I can't blame them. It's one more legacy of "single-momhood" that, in addition to the emotional difficulties of divorce, she'll have to overcome.

> single motherhood sometimes happens
> because the father turns out to be

"Turns out"! Utter surprise; completely unpredictable! "Turns out", this one guy wasn't up for the assignment and there's no way anyone could possibly have foreseen this –not the bride, not the husband, not their families, not their friends, not the surrounding community, because it had never happened to anyone before.

(I could do this all day. Might, too.)

I'm warming up to Robin, whether she likes it or not.

Robin, I admit that I should never have married the man that I did, but I was young with no self-esteem, and zero family support. I didn't have the emotional capability to stand up for myself. I have always acknowledged my mistakes, but a bigger part of it is hoping that I can help other people learn from my mistakes. My mother saw the abuse and told me if I left that I was on my own. I was ruining our perfect family image by getting divorced. Forget the things she knew, I was shaming my family. Is it any wonder I married so stupidly in the first place?
People can put the blame on me all they want. It doesn't change things for me or for many others, especially the kids involved. I wish I made different choices. I wish I had the emotional capabilities then that I have now. I wish I may I wish I might, but it doesn't make it go away. Stigmatizing only hurts the kids and it doesn't make people make better choices. It just masks many problems that eventually will manifest into other problems.
My mother grew up in an intact family, but her father was abusive as hell. My father never laid a hand on us, but he was a full-blown alcoholic. My parents stayed together, but they raised some pretty fucked up kids. Maybe if my mother thought enough of herself and her kids to leave he would have stopped drinking or maybe it would have shown her children healthier choices. She was part of a cycle that continued and I chose to break it. Leaving my ex was the best thing for my kids. I don't know how anyone could ever dispute that. You can tell me I made a bad marriage choice till your blue in the face. You'd be right, but all I can do now is make better choices and move forward. I'm a good mother and I have good children. Instead of people finding more ways to blame people for things, find solutions that are beneficial. I just don't seeing stigmas as being any part of anything good. What would be next?

One great way to stop the intentional single parenting is stop the paychecks. It'd take maybe one generation (which is what, 15 years?) of that to stop it in it's tracks in the poor community.

Waiting to pick up my kids at school yesterday, 2 moms of kindergartners, both of whom have younger kids too (one still a little baby!) were talking about their impending divorces, like it was the weather or something. Their kids major acting-outs, indicating obvious emotional trauma, were just no big deal to them aside from the inconvenience to themselves.

And, since my kids go to school with these kids, and LOTS of these kids, I have to deal with my kids feeling insecure because "what if our daddy leaves?". They see it being so common. How does one explain to them that their daddy and I have decided that whether we're happy or miserable doesn't matter, but they do? We married precisely to have kids. It makes for more stable families than those who marry "the love of their life", I think. Not that we don't love each other, we do. But love settles down into something akin to contentment, and there are big stretches of being less than happy, and a little bored. If you think your spouse should make you feel butterflies all the time, you're in trouble.

And for the record, I've never been on welfare or even considered it. I have worked and gone back to school all around my kids' schedules. I'm paying into the same system as everyone else and certainly not draining it.

I gots nuthin' against Kristen personally, y'know? Truly not. But here's a listing of the personal-pronouny words from her first 'paragraph' of 6:53am:

I I I I I myself I my I my My me I I my I our(!) I my I me me I I I I I I I I I

Look, Crid, gods know I love ya, but if you haven't walked the path of being a single parent, you aren't really qualified to talk about it and cast apersions on those of us who have. You have to take these things on a case-by-case basis. Yes, there are some people out there who most definitely abuse the system, and pop babies out just to be/stay on the dole. They need to get jobs and take some personal responsibility for their situations. Then there are women like Kristen, who had to get out of an abusive situation. Should she have stayed "for the children" if that meant she, and possibly her children, were subject to physical, mental and/or emotional abuse? You would have her children grow up to be abusive to others as well? You want both parents in the children's lives, and that's all well and good, except when there is abuse in the relationship. That's not the kind of environment that you want kids growing up in, is it? And it's not always easy to pick out the abusers, either. Some of them are experts at hiding their true selves, until they've gotten the other person locked into the relationship. Ever seen the movie "Sleeping with the Enemy"? That's a good example of how some women's lives end up, and it ain't pretty, when a woman has to fake her own drowning, in order to get out of an abusive relationship. People sometimes have faulty judgement, Crid, that's just a fact of life. Why should they or their children have to be punished for a lifetime because of that?

Aww, shut up Crid.

BTW: I don't want anyone to think there was any big thing about my marriage. He didn't slap me around or even yell at me. He just wouldn't work and was a bad father, both of which I could easily have predicted had I bothered to try.

It's beyond awful for my daughter that she's being punished for my stupidity and irresponsibility. Children may be resilient (just like balls!!) as I hear ad nauseum, but that doesn't justify putting them in positions from which they have to bounce back.

Kristen: As I said, I think leaving was the only choice you had, but I also think fewer people would be in your situation in the first place were there more of a stigma. Yours is a hard case, but that doesn't justify basing policy on it.

Somewhere we took a bad turn in this country and started promoting single motherhood.
I'm not sure why. It's usually very detrimental to children and society.

Ann Coulter has a great chapter in her book Guilty- If you are the victim of a crime thank a single mother.

We actually promote promiscuity in this country- whether feminists are telling women to get theirs ala Sex In The City. Or the government rewarding women as Beth stated in comment # 1.

Either way single motherhood is not in the best interest of the child.

Thomas Patrick Moynihan-

From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history; a community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future -- that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, disorder -- most particularly the furious, unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure -- that is not only to be expected; it is very near to inevitable. And it is richly deserved.

How should they be stigmatized? Let's draw up a chart detailing methods of stigmatization and prioritize how to apply them regularly and systematically according to the single mother's circumstances. One suggestion: publishing the names of knocked-up teenagers in local media in a piece called "Bad Apples" or "Young Whores."

This would really teach them a lesson, because the random and spotty social brutality and indifference currently experienced by single mothers in our society is obviously not enough disincentive.

And since you won't be able to isolate the dehumanizing effects of this stigmatization to the single mother alone (of course, why would you want to?) you'll get a double bonus dehumanization of the children as well, thereby 100% guaranteeing that those kids will be productive, dignified, and respectful members of society when they are adults.

Single motherhood is NOT going to go away - not ever. It happens for too many reasons, and welfare checks are probably not the primary reason it occurs. If your ultimate goal is to maintain a civilized society, you need to accept that single motherhood will continue to happen, in a wide variety of circumstances, and look at solutions that minimize the damage - both to society and to the mothers and children. Prevention of single motherhood (and the suffering it engenders) is a laudable goal, but not at the expense of compromising human dignity - even if the welfare queens have no clue or don't care about how they are compromising their own. We can hope that we might be able to teach it to their children, but we cannot be successful in that if we are treating the mothers like crap.

There is no "nuclear option" for preventing single motherhood, any more than there is a "nuclear option" for teaching people to respect themselves. There is only the chaos and shades-of-gray mess that is life, as it has always been and always will be. Acknowledging that chaos and our own limitations in coping with it is the most important first step in crafting solutions to any societal problem, or in developing programs (whether informal or formal) for societal improvement. You can build self-respect or you can destroy it, but you cannot reasonably expect to do both in one family or social system at the same time. Any scheme that proposes tearing down self-respect without acknowledging the much more difficult task of building it and maintaining it is far too simplistic.

Why you see so little single mother children in Korea is that

one - abortion is not protested as much here in Korea like in the States or Canada. There is less of the religious overtones and that. Hell at times it is considered a typical form of birth control.

two - Minimal government programs - poor people like elderly and veterans gets some money but not a hell of a lot. If some woman wants to keep a kid she has to do it on her own and with no government support aka welfare.

three - family honor and blood. No parent would let their child have a kid out of wedlock as that would really reflect upon the family status in the community. Which can mean lose of job or business. Also in Korea, children are considered more of the fathers children (quasi property). A kid born out of wedlock would be in some sort of family purgatory. Not really part of the mother's family and since there is no father family not part of that either. The family blood also is one reason why not much adoption happens in Korea. The move by the Korean government lately to reduce overseas adoption is stupid and silly in my opinion.

four - push for marriage. Reading the article you will see that most of the mothers are in the late twenties or thirties. Here in Korea parents, co workers and every one who finds out your age and if if god forbid you are over thirty and not married you are seen as a freak. A normal age to get married is around 25. Getting married after thirty in Korea gets quite difficult and for parents a big sigh of relief. So I would gander that a few of the single mothers are over thirties submitting to the biological clock.

Five - living arrangements. Most girls and guys too (degree) who are not married will live at home till then. You want to loose you shelter and that get pregnant.

Six - Daycare. In the West most single mothers have options with daycare. It is more wildly available in the west. Finding good daycare in Korea can be difficult and even expensive. Babysitting is practically nonexistent here.

A side note if the government wanted to increase the birth rate they would try and reign in the amount of money that parents spend on Education for their children. It does get to ridiculous levels that some family will go into debt to pay for extra education for the kids. More money means that parents can try and afford more kids.

I will comment more if this thread gets bigger.

Signed A wayguk(foreigner)in South Korea

> but if you haven't walked the path
> of being a single parent

Oh, FUCK THAT WITH A STICK. I haven't 'walked the path' of clubbing little old ladies over the head for the social security checks, either. For Chrissake, Flynne.

""Turns out"! Utter surprise; completely unpredictable!"

Oh my dearest Crid. I know you think everyone ought to have a CSI Miami-Worthy Personality Crystal Ball, but some people do fuckin' change and not with miles of warning.

A lot of people have certain traits that may or MAY NOT become worse or exacerbated over time. Are you the same person you were when you were 23? If you are I'd think you are an anomaly.

During one's life circumstances and events can take a personality trait and make it way worse. People can also change their minds about things. I think Snakeman's ex did this: she began their married life as a productive contributor to the household then she decided to be a SAHM and a bunch of other stuff and I guess she really sucks. Maybe he saw signs and he ignored them but I just think the signs aren't always blatantly obvious.

I get annoyed behind the wheel sometimes (you can't drive through Boston and not get pissed off). Is that a clear sign I am going to have anger management problems in 20 years? Should I just get my tubes tied and save society the trouble? Tell my fiance I can't reproduce b/c I have this tendency to honk my horn at people who cut me off b/c I might try to kill our children for no reason?

Single motherhood is absolutely, positively, sub-optimal but changes in personality and behavior aren't always predetermined and easily knowable. Stigmatize the sluts who get knocked up b/c they "want someone to love them" or want a paycheck from the rest of us. Stigmatize the woman who marries the dude who punched her a year into the relationship and got preg anyway. But not everything is so black and white as you would claim.

Flynn, I think it's ok for Crid to express his opinion on the subject. The title of the post sounds like an invitation for us to talk about unmarried mothers; Amy doesn't have children, and she clearly and justifiably has an opinion on the subject as well.

One of the things that's lead us to this pass (celebrating single motherhood) is everyone tiptoeing around the subject so we don't hurt any feelings.

Crid, I know its not personal and I don't take offense. The reason for all of the I-I-I-me-me-me-I-I, is because I was speaking from my own experience to illustrate my point. I think you knew that but it can't hurt to point that out. When you have an actual solution, please feel free to post it. Intact families are a wonderful ideal, but unfortunately it isn't always the reality. Healthy parenting appeals to me a helluva lot more than just intact for the sake of saying intact.

Crid, I was just sayin'. Some people instinctually know you don't go clubbing little old ladies for their social security checks (actually that would be most of us), but some other people think that's a way of life! I was just sayin how could you possible know what it's like when you've never been there? Yeah, it's all well and good to have an opinion about it, but casting aspersions doesn't help, as Angel so articulately pointed out. No need to get your shorts in a knot about it all.

Robin, I totally agree with you, but the thing is, Crid sometimes approaches the subject as if he's had miles of experience. Which he hasn't. It wouldn't hurt him to lighten up. And he didn't even address the rest of my post; all he did was focus on what I pointed out about him not being a parent. I was curious as to whether or not he would insist that Kristen's kids (or anyone else's who have experienced abuse) have to grow up in that kind of a situation, especially when there are viable alternatives.

Just went to the divorced single mother now remarried Ann Althouse for a change of subject and what do I find:

Low-quality females prefer low-quality males.

"Evolutionary biologists previously thought that females would always opt for the best male available."

Oh great, I think. That'll really throw a wrench in the works. Turns out it's about birds.

Crid said: >>Right. A woman whose ego convinces her that her own magnificent personage is all it takes to lead a defenseless child's soul to competent adulthood is being personally irresponsible.

I say: It's not about "magnificent personage"...a woman (or man) who chooses to adopt is making a serious and lifetime commitment--I've only looked superficially into the process but it can apparently be quite lengthy and expensive. I applaud it as an unselfish act. When the alternative is being raised in an orphanage, (and yes I've visited a few in other countries) the personal attention of even one *parent* as opposed to competing for that of a renumerated staff member is almost guaranteed to be a better outcome for that child.

But then, adoption is another topic entirely. The single parenthood discussion here is focused on women who give birth to their children...

Crid,
You do get in a bit of a pickle when you spray around generalizations about women.

Today you write: A woman whose ego convinces her that her own magnificent personage is all it takes to lead a defenseless child's soul to competent adulthood is being personally irresponsible.

Three days ago, you trumpeted: By nature, women are often enchanted by and concerned with children...

How the ladies do confound!

I think there is a stigma on single mothers here. Not in the same way.

If I had gotten pregnant out of wedlock before finishing college, I would have had an abortion. No question. To not go to college would have been unacceptable in my social circle. We were not allowed to live off-campus at my college, and babies were not allowed in the houses.

If I had gotten pregnant AFTER college, I would have kept it and been a single mother. Perhaps people would have said I was brave. But people would have -pitied- me. It would have been difficult. I would have had a hard time finding a life mate. I would have had a hard time making ends meet and finding a job. And of course people would be nice to me, people aren't assholes, but they would -pity- me. They would whisper about me behind my back, "Did you hear Nicole got pregnant? She's keeping it. She's so brave. Poor thing. How awful."

That to me would have been unbearable. Hence the condoms and pills.

I'm so glad that phase of life is behind me. Sometimes I wish I grew up BEFORE the sexual revolution.

But even when people are nice, pity isn't a positive feeling towards a person.

My son will be a year old tomorrow (wow!). Before I had him, I was pretty liberal in my views about parenting, family and children in general. I have several girlfriends who, for one reason or another (usually because they would sleep with whoever came around), are single mothers. But, I gotta tell ya, I firmly believe that once you have a child, it's not about *you* anymore, it's about the child. And if you're having sex, maybe you should be a bit choosier about who you're giving it up to. Unless the guy is a murderer, or commits heinous crimes against society, stick together and make it work for your kid. What, you're not "fulfilled"? Then join a gym, take a class, get a hobby. But you owe it to your child to make it work. And I'm living it now, so I know it can be done.

Angel writes: "Single motherhood is NOT going to go away - not ever. It happens for too many reasons, and welfare checks are probably not the primary reason it occurs. "

I don't think I buy that, for two reasons: (1) it implies that the rate of single motherhood now is about the same as it always has been. We know from the stats that that isn't true. There's been an incredible explosion in children born out of wedlock in the past half century. (2) By far, the highest instance of single motherhood is precisely in the segments of society where welfare is the predominant source of income. Now, you could reply by saying that this is reversing cause and effect -- welfare is there because of single motherhood, not the other way around. My rejoinder is that this statment implicitly admits that single motherhood correlates strongly with poverty, which makes it a bad thing either way. Plus, wasn't welfare supposed to eliminate poverty? We're now seeing the fourth and fifth generation of welfare children being raised with no adult male in the house, except from the occasional visits from mom's drug connection.

"If your ultimate goal is to maintain a civilized society, you need to accept that single motherhood will continue to happen, in a wide variety of circumstances, and look at solutions that minimize the damage - both to society and to the mothers and children. "

People have been looking for that magic-wand solution for centuries. No one's ever found it. There's no reason to believe it will be found now.

"There is no 'nuclear option' for preventing single motherhood, any more than there is a "nuclear option" for teaching people to respect themselves. There is only the chaos and shades-of-gray mess that is life, as it has always been and always will be. "

Well, there is a nuclear option, but nobody wants to go there: take the kids away before they reach puberty, lock them up for life, and sterilize the mothers. The rest of the statment is basically "there's nothing that can be done, you just have to live with it." Why should I have to live with it? If I basically live my life responsibly, and don't place my own pursuits in serious conflict with the good of society, why can't I demand that others do the same? I consider myself a libertarian, but I have little patience with people who equate "libertarian" with "libertine". And actually, I can tolerate libertine behavior as long as the people who are doing it are only harming themselves, but it's nearly inevitable that a libertine will eventually start harming others. And that's where I draw the line.

This really tragic thing happened yesterday in NH.

http://www.wbur.org/2009/10/07/nh-murder

Check out the comment: Posted by Shlomo on October 8, 2009, at 2:24 AM

Another thing that bugs me is this: I'm a member of a few parenting sites. One, in particular, is definitely pro-single moms. There will be multiple posts a day from girls who want to leave their SO/husband/BD for the stupidest reasons. "He didn't pick up his socks today!" "He wouldn't get up with the baby last night, even though I stay home all day and he works 14 hour shifts!" Etc. Everything and everyone is disposible these days. It's infuriating.

JK it was Sunday AM.

"There will be multiple posts a day from girls who want to leave their SO/husband/BD for the stupidest reasons. "He didn't pick up his socks today!" "He wouldn't get up with the baby last night, even though I stay home all day and he works 14 hour shifts!" Etc"

With women like that around, shouldn't men also be more discerning about where they shoot their sperm?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that for every one of those single mothers a penis was involved. How about we stigmatize the boys/men/absent fathers attached to them, too? How about men start mocking other men and boys who have children out of wedlock and don't marry the women or support their children? (Again, as I always have to say to avoid the wrath of the foaming feminist haters -- I am not putting all men in this negative category, know many good fathers, etc.)

Baseline beliefs, themes repeated often here: I regard the recent decades of incompetent marriage and petty divorce to be a holocaust of broken hearts for little girls and feeble stewardship of little boys. There's no / none / zero excuse for what's been done to children by the people most responsible for caring for them. I'm absolutely certain that in 200 years, thoughtful Americans will look back on what's happened in these generations in exactly the incomprehension with which we look upon slavery of blacks: What were they thinking?

Children deserve a loving mother with a loving father, because that's what's best. Let's begin —
_______________________________

> You have to take these things on
> a case-by-case basis.

The fuck we do. They're not coming to us on a 'case-by-case basis'; they're coming in statistical torrents. This is not an individual problem with individual causes. If it were, the rest of us wouldn't be bothered with the consequences, as we most surely are.

> Should she have stayed "for the
> children" if that meant she, and
> possibly her children, were
> subject to physical, mental and/
> or emotional abuse?

No; she should have married competently. You're taking greater liberties than hindsight authorizes.

> And it's not always easy to pick
> out the abusers, either.

Who said this was supposed to be easy? Do you want, or expect, this to be easy? Does difficulty excuse incompetence? Was the challenge smaller for people who've done it well?
__________

> How should they be stigmatized?

First of all, let's not let them prattle on with the usual horseshit excuses that we've read in here this morning.

> This would really teach them a
> lesson

Your swift recourse to bitter sarcasm speaks exactly to the problem. Your harsh expression gets us nowhere; the fact that others might find you too unpleasant to argue with doesn't mean you're in any sense correct in your contention.

> Single motherhood is NOT going
> to go away - not ever.

Your cynicism is so profound it almost forestalls response. There will always be tragedies– medical nightmares and accidents. But if we took the social incompetence out of babymaking, Earth would essentially be paradise.
__________

> a CSI Miami-Worthy Personality
> Crystal Ball

Cynicism, cynicism... Pretend the chart linked above can only be read by a toothless soothsayer, an old woman with a broken nose with a wart and a connection to The Beyond from her childhood cousin who drowned in the swimmin' hole forty years ago.

All those numbers, all that real estate under the mountain-cliff line? Those are human hearts. Many of them in poverty. Got it?

> During one's life circumstances
> and events can take a
> personality trait and make it
> way worse.

For fuck's sake Gretchen, what are you trying to excuse? How much misery are you going to make room for in the hearts of REAL CHILDREN while you cluck about how 'we just never know'?

Plenty of people do know. They marry well. They make sensible compromises while observing standards, both in their lifelong aspirations and their daily impulses.

> Single motherhood is
> absolutely, positively, sub-
> optimal but

STOP. You said it. Don't take it back.

Maybe in your happiest fantasy, people facing great odds succeed anyway. But in the broader narrative of real life, people facing great odds –unnecessarily great odds, at that– are simply overwhelmed. All this chatter about how single motherhood is an acceptable path will then make them doubt their own competence even further. But they have been lied to.
__________

> One of the things that's lead us
> to this pass (celebrating single
> motherhood) is everyone
> tiptoeing around the subject so
> we don't hurt any feelings.

Goddamit Robin, stop it. I'd prefer to think of you as a two-dimensional rhetorical enemy.
__________

> I know its not personal and I
> don't take offense.

I'm grateful.

> The reason for all of the I-I-I-
> me-me-me-I-I, is because I was
> speaking from my own experience
> to illustrate my point. I think
> you knew that

And I think you're scared. I think when people use the first person singular in such dense repetition, they're feeling boxed into a personal space as big as their chair: All they can see is themselves. And a perspective that short hasn't worked out for us.

(I also know something's up when people start writing huge comments in long, dense paragraphs like that.)

> When you have an actual
> solution, please feel free to
> post it.

Here: Marry well. Don't pretend it can't be done. Don't pretend it will be easy, or that when people do it well, they're not making sacrifices. Don't pretend we're all just determinative robots created by bad parents, as if our mistakes are the fault of our surroundings. Don't pretend we can each correctly select the mother/father of our children without advice from the strongest members of our families and the best friendships we can earn.

> Intact families are a wonderful
> ideal

Yep: Ideal means what's best. Don't you want what's best for kids? It's not just a good idea, it's our biological payload.

> but unfortunately it isn't
> always the reality.

Such casually distant language, as if "the reality" were something not created by adults acting badly.

> Healthy parenting appeals to me

Good, because that's our topic. (I worry when people like you start trying to pretend "healthy" means something grander and plainly distinct from "decent", but I'll let it slide, because I've got you by the short ones anyway.)

> more than just intact for the
> sake of saying intact.

Who said anything about staying "intact for the sake of saying intact"? I want people to marry well and stay married because having a loving mother with a loving father is indisputably what's best for children.
__________

> some other people think that's a
> way of life!

Those other people are wrong.

> I was just sayin how could you
> possible know what it's like
> when you've never been there?

Flynne, I don't care what it's like. Worrying about what it's like hasn't helped! We've got stacked generations of small-minded women and pencil-dicked men who stumble through their lives and their reproduction with the grandest incompetence. The particulars of their emotional responses aren't doing anyone any good. 'Walking a mile in their shoes' does not apply.

Pretending this is some part of sensible feminism is like a cotton farmer pretending that slavery defensible by economics. No.

> casting aspersions doesn't help

I think it does. I think it helps plenty. I think Amy's right. I think if your average 19-year-old (16?) bimbo-to-be knows that she's expected to marry well, and that she'll be shamed and ridiculed if she doesn't, she'll do a better job of selecting a mate than she might otherwise. But if she thinks she can maim the souls of her children and choose her excuse from a buffet of selfish platitudes, she'll do that, too.

Social pressure does all sorts of things to make society better. People don't drink and drive anywhere near as much as they used to, do they?

> as if he's had miles of
> experience.

I think you're being silly and small-minded. Neither my individual experience, nor yours, is the topic. The amount of single motherhood in our society is not excusable.

To see this ugliest artifact of American society creeping into other cultures –even as they smirk about our other perceived weaknesses– is extremely dispiriting.
__________

> a woman (or man) who chooses to
> adopt is making a serious and
> lifetime commitment

If they're taking it so seriously, they'll care enough to give the child a loving father (or mother) as well.
__________

> Three days ago, you trumpeted:
> By nature, women are often
> enchanted by and concerned with
> children...

Which in no way suggests they're competent with them. Is your argument this morning really this weak? Am I missing something?

_______________________________

Gotta get some work done, more later.

There have always been single mothers. It's just that, in the past, this was rarely by choice. Men died in wars, in work-related accidents, or due to illness quite frequently. We have no studies to show whether children growing up in these homes did better or worse than ones with two parents.

What's changed is that we now reward a certain segment of society for becoming single mothers, making it a first choice for many. That's just plain stupid policy. It promotes not only fatherless children but bad mothering as well. Kids are usually resilient enough to weather one of those drawbacks but not both.

We don't need to stigmatize single motherhood as much as stop rewarding it. Most rational women do not choose to be single moms. We don't have that in our life plan. We set out to give our children the best possible environment.

Yet, the unfortunate truth is that women must choose partners at the peak of their fertility, which also happens to coincide with when we are the dumbest. This biological imperative is frought with the risk of picking the wrong partner.

Women have always chosen bad partners. Nothing new there. This is often much more devastating for the children than being without a father. Many men that I know had terrible relationships with their fathers - abusive and sick. Yet, the moms stayed with their bad choice, inflicting the kids with life-long emotional scars, because of the stigma of leaving.

I don't think we want to go back there. We just need to change policy to influence better decision-making. And I would really like to see more programs designed to encourage young people to not only wait to marry and have children but how to pick a better partner.

"We've got stacked generations of small-minded women and pencil-dicked men who stumble through their lives and their reproduction with the grandest incompetence."

Thread win.

"And I would really like to see more programs designed to encourage young people to not only wait to marry and have children but how to pick a better partner."

I agree with this 100% and it needs to be done for both genders. However, doesn't it sort of seem kind of Gestapo or Big Brother to have to teach something we should already know? It is sorely lacking, I won't lie, it's a shame we even have to be thinking about 're-education' in the first place.

Hey Crid, do tell us please: How come you didn't stick out your marriage, vows being vows and all that? How fucked up was life in your house growing up that you yourself didn't learn to choose wisely? It can't be that you're the product of a two-parent household AND STILL COULDN'T MAKE IT WORK, could it?

As a widow who has done everything possible to make sure my kids are thriving (one of them a child, now 23, we took in at 10 when her mother died), your insistence that they are doomed to hell really pisses me the fuck off.

Excuse my language.

OK, this single mom has to get back to work. Supporting a household and all that.

"This would really teach them a lesson, because the random and spotty social brutality and indifference currently experienced by single mothers in our society is obviously not enough disincentive. "

Indifference? Oh, waaah, Angel. Who exactly do you think is obligated to give a shit about these women? the men they shoved out of their lives? The rest of us who had no say in any of this? They just entitled to out love and concern, right?

How about showing some concern for the children or is that too much of a leap of emapthy for you?

And just what kind of social brutality are you referring to, that you can show is actually occurring, or is that just some more teen-age drama? Or is that a reference to the indiffenrnece you mention - pople are guilty of not taking care of this or that stranger?

Stigma is probablty the wrong way to go, because it rubs off in the kids. Put the kids fisrt, and the first thing to do is takle them awy at birth if the mother looks like she can't handle the responsibility - the whole responsibility, financial, time-wise and all of it - and give them to someone who can raise them. There are pleny of people waiting years to adopt.

Lots of things happen, and some commenters have given examples how they became single mothers therough no real fault of their own - and I include youthful cluelessness in that category. It happens. Then you do the best you can.

But that is completely different from someone who goes out and knowingly and intentionally gets pregnant in a way that guarantees that the father will not be in the children's life. That is as selfish as it gets. But Angel thinks these selfish louts are hard done by if we are "indifferent" to them and their precious needs.

And we all have a stake in this, even if the mothers are not beging at the back door, because we live with the children, as momof4 points out. The priosns are full of men and the overwhelming majority of them grew up without fathers. Obviously one parent, despite her very best efforts, was not good enough.

"How about we stigmatize the boys/men/absent fathers attached to them, too? How about men start mocking other men and boys who have children out of wedlock and don't marry the women or support their children?"

Um, because men who don't feel any pull to father their kids almost certainly don't give a shit what you or anyone else thinks about them. Stigmatize away if you want, though. Waste of time, I bet.

"And I would really like to see more programs designed to encourage young people to not only wait to marry and have children but how to pick a better partner."

Well, for centuries there was one such program called Christian morality, as expressed through social pressures exerted by local communities and family members. It was a blunt instrument even when administered by people who loved the young people and had deep involvment in the young people's lives.

It was somewhat effective, but had some side effects that were not always pleasant. It is now out of favor.

I doubt a government program run by people with no involvement in the young people's lives and who (in reality) don't give a shit about the young people can take its place and be anywhere near as effective. That government program will likely have plenty of bad side effects as well.

We don't need to stigmatize single motherhood as much as stop rewarding it. Most rational women do not choose to be single moms. We don't have that in our life plan. We set out to give our children the best possible environment.

This. We don't need to waggle our fingers at single mothers. We just need to make being a single mother less appealing to people who have few other life options.

I'd start with requiring birth control shots or IUDs for any woman on welfare.

I gotta say, Crid, you've really piqued my curiousity regarding your own situation...you advise "marrying well". Are you married well? A parent?

You are certainly entitled to your opinions, as we all are; I enjoy reading your responses on many topics, but, dammit, you are just so argumentative (ornery is the word that comes to mind), for its own sake it seems...but I suppose that's part of your charm...

:) Cheers!

crid you crack me up. You are right on with the pronoun observation....

Personally, I'm getting tired hearing the old "I was abused, thats why I'm a single mom" crap. You know, if I had a dime for every time my ex tried to use the abuse card in court I would be a rich man. So, I don't believe it.

I believe there are cases where there is abuse, and not the BS emotional, mental, "he yelled at me" or "he looked at me in a mean way" abuse, I mean actual, documented, with facts and evidence abuse that is valid and where there should be divorce and "single mom" status. But to hear all of these people whining about "poor me, I was abused" and then take that at face value with no evidence at all is ridiculous.

Lets call it what it is. Most women want to get divorced because they think they deserve a better man than they got. So they get the children and then can proudly proclaim victim status, which in this country means you get all kinds of entitlements.

I am a single dad. I'm not proud of it, but it was not my choice. But I sucked it up and dug in and finally got custody of my son. I get no child support, no money at all. I pay my own daycare. I have given up the social scene so I can be there 100% for my child. I do everything myself and I don't whine about it or play the victim. I am proud to know that when he turns 18 I will have raised a fine son.

If you want to solve the problem of single by choice motherhood, revoke the no-fault divorce laws, treat a marriage like a contract, and quit subsidizing single parents who choose to get divorced and then don't have enough money to even raise a child.

Off the soapbox now...

There have always been single mothers. It's just that, in the past, this was rarely by choice. Men died in wars, in work-related accidents, or due to illness quite frequently. We have no studies to show whether children growing up in these homes did better or worse than ones with two parents.

I think a child whose parent died at least has the memory (or the idea of a memory) of a loving parent.

And fewer abandonment issues. It's less "why didn't he/she love me?" and more "why did God take him/her away?" The lack of feeling unwanted may play into a better psychological outlook for the children of widows and widowers than the children of single-by-choice parents.

What's changed is that we now reward a certain segment of society for becoming single mothers, making it a first choice for many.

We reward all segments for this choice. We give the poor ones money and the rich ones "attagirls."

"I just don't seeing stigmas as being any part of anything good. What would be next?"
Well not next but waaaaaay on down the line we have honor killings. I think there's some healthy middle ground. I look up to my parents and don't want to disappoint them.

"but some people do fuckin' change and not with miles of warning. "

Gretchen, I agree with you but I think you're coming at it from the wrong direction. We expect people to change over time, ie grow up. The problem comes when they don't. The rest I agree with.

Mike @ 9:28 How did you get custody?

Did she commit a crime? Drugs? Abandonement?

Spartee says: "Well, for centuries there was one such program called Christian morality, as expressed through social pressures exerted by local communities and family members. It was a blunt instrument even when administered by people who loved the young people and had deep involvment in the young people's lives.

It was somewhat effective, but had some side effects that were not always pleasant. It is now out of favor."

EXCELLENT point, Spartee.

If you want to solve the problem of single by choice motherhood, revoke the no-fault divorce laws, treat a marriage like a contract, and quit subsidizing single parents who choose to get divorced and then don't have enough money to even raise a child.

When you can initiate a divorce and walk away with custody, child support, alimony, the lion's share of the assets (the house), and paid legal bills, where is your incentive to stick around?

...a CSI Miami-Worthy Personality Crystal Ball....

So, if you can just figure out the color of the week and find the person wearing it, you could marry well?

Well, Crid, you are correct, something is up. You gave such a passionate and articulate argument with such well-laid out reasoning that I'm going to climb into my time machine and leave my ex at the altar! That should settle this.
And as for Mike, I didn't mean to use the I was abused excuse. I mean considering that 8 years after leaving him, he's still breaking into my home and harassing me among other things, I really should come up with a better excuse for divorcing him for the joys of being a single mother. And before you come back with instructions on how to file a police report, why not come with me to the local precinct as I try to get them to file a report against one of their own. I skipped that step and just decided to join the rest of those excuse makers back in Family Court next week. Thanks for that reality check!

If you think your spouse should make you feel butterflies all the time, you're in trouble.

Yup, because at the first sign of trouble someone is out the door.

I don't think that we need to stigmatize single parenthood, just 'de-incentifize' it. Eliminate financial rewards for having children and that will eliminate much of this problem.

We also have to look at the male side of this issue. Although I understand that the collection system for child support is broken and that issue needs to be resolved NOW, men should not be allowed to go from 'flower to flower' impregnating women without personal consequences as well. Both men and women should be required to hold equal financial stake in the raising of the children when they aren't sharing a household.

@Crid

*Julie pats Crid on the head*

Look Crid, this ball has sparkles on it! Can you count the sparkles? Make a game out of it and see how many sparkles you can count!

-Julie

"Gretchen, I agree with you but I think you're coming at it from the wrong direction. We expect people to change over time, ie grow up. The problem comes when they don't. The rest I agree with."

Hi Smurfy. You do make an excellent point - however, wouldn't you not make babies with someone who has not shown signs of being grown up?

Being completely immature is a good sign that someone is a bad partner.

I'll stand by my original point: some people change, for the worst, and I believe that the most intelligent and insightful among us may not see that coming.

"Well, for centuries there was one such program called Christian morality, as expressed through social pressures exerted by local communities and family members."

This did not always work out well. The stigma caused a lot of children to be trapped in abusive homes. In my opinon, a lot of damage has been done in the name of "morality" and religion.

"I think a child whose parent died at least has the memory (or the idea of a memory) of a loving parent."

If the parent was indeed loving, yes, but, let's face it, many fathers of the past were pretty cold and hard on their kids, certainly by today's standards. Fatherhood has changed a lot from what it once was - for the better. Still, generations of people grew up ok.

Look, there's no inherently magical benefit of having a two parent home over a one parent home. As a GAL, I see that some of the most successful, well-adjusted kids come from single parent homes, while some of the most screwed up kids can come from two parent homes.

You can have two parents at home, but one may be a lousy parent. The only benefit is in the QUALITY of the parenting, not the number. If a child has one good quality parent, it's great. Two is even better. But it's not in the number, it's the quality.

The stats are skewed because you have so many poor, incompetent young women choosing to collect welfare and have babies. That is a selfish, rather than a selfless, motivation. A good parent is selfless, so from where I sit, those kids don't even have ONE parent, they have NO parent.

So, it's unfair and wrong to scare single parents, who did not arrive there by choice, or who took their kids out of abusive situations, into believing that their kids are inherently disadvantaged by a number. That simply isn't true. Many single parents out there are doing phenomenal jobs, raising wonderful, productive kids.

The only way a single mother should ba able to qualify for welfare is if she shows up with her husbands death certificate

My own maternal instinct is practically nonexistent. I got a tubal ligation as soon as I could find a doctor who didn't insist on me already having a couple of kids first, specifically because I never wanted to face the choice of abortion, adoption or motherhood. (I like to think I'd choose adoption.)

One reason I opted out of the experience of motherhood came from observing the lives of several of my friends after they dropped out of school to marry or 'shack-up' with their boyfriends. They usually did this to get away from their own parents. These situations never ended well, and the girls wound up as single mothers. Not particularly devoted ones, I might add.

Back then, there was still a stigma but it was fading fast. I graduated in 1973 and one of our slogans was If It Feels Good, Do It. Frankly, I think my generation (and the one before it) bears a lot of responsibility for the way things are today. But I digress.

I don't want single mothers to be stigmatized. What I do want is probably not possible. I want girls to become aware of their own sexual power. I want them to realize that they choose who gets to procreate, and how important that is.

I want them to see the difference between having true esteem for themselves and the self-esteem crapola that's finally, finally being questioned.

I want them to get a little more hard-hearted when it comes to saying no, and to use birth control when they say yes.

Yes, birth control certainly should be the man's responsibility too. But they don't end up carrying the baby, do they? How things should be is rarely how things actually are. Besides, I understand that the reptile-brain prime directive for the male animal is to continue his line (which explains almost everything, if you think about it!)and remembering the rubbers is not conducive to that.

I just want girls to freaking THINK before they spread their legs! Like I said, probably not possible.

Just so ya know...I'm straight, married, and n my youth I went through several promiscuous phases ('If It Feels Good, Do It', remember?)during which I was extremely lucky.

Wow, quite the rant. Thanks for the opportunity to get that out of my system.

"The only way a single mother should ba able to qualify for welfare is if she shows up with her husbands death certificate"

I see no way in which that could have unintended negative consequences.

The only way a single mother should ba able to qualify for welfare is if she shows up with her husbands death certificate

Why not eliminate welfare as it currently exists? If a person claims poverty and needs food, force them to volunteer at the soup kitchen to earn their meals. If they cannot afford their rent, force them to do community service in their neighborhood to earn their roof. If they cannot afford school clothes for their child, force them to work at the school to pay for the uniforms. If a person was unwilling to do those things, take the kids away and leave the parent to starve. It sure would eliminate the people I see in the grocery line wearing Dolce and Gabana and paying for their food with the Lone Star card (Texas food stamps).

-Julie

:This did not always work out well. The stigma caused a lot of children to be trapped in abusive homes. In my opinon, a lot of damage has been done in the name of "morality" and religion."

"Well" as compared to what? Always keep in mind Chesterton's admonition about fences when proposing changes in society:

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, 'I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.'"

Nothing is perfect, certainly not religious dogma. But when carrying on a civilization, you get to choose among the tools available, not imagine a hypothetical perfect one, when doing the work. And since we tossed religious morality aside in dealing with women having children outside marriage, and the current policy seems to be failing, I think it is quite fair to conclude that we destroyed a fence without considering why it was there.

I think a "two strikes you're out" rule would be good. The first kid could be an honest mistake. Let's support one. But, after that, no more welfare.

The thing is, it will take time to change a dynamic that has been in place for generations now. We'd have to stomach seeing innocent children suffer, which despite our talk, most of couldn't bear.

But perhaps if the welfare didn't go directly to the moms - if we had soup kitchens and shelters where kids could get free food, clothing, etc - a lot the incentive would be diminished. Many of these girls get pregnant so they can afford to leave home.

I am totally against stigmatizing women. It's easy, sure, because they've been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. But the fact that men can hide their part makes stigmatizing the women inherently unfair and imo, seriously repugnant. I acknowledge there is a biological disparity (life isn't "fair"), but the stigmatization bleeds onto the kid. It's a tough job growing up with a single parent, and I don't think it should be made any harder.

I do, however, think all this welfare crap should be completely eliminated. The kids that continue to suffer in financial and social poverty by irresponsible mothers and fathers will be greatly outnumbered by the kids that will either never be born or adopted out to nice, infertile couples. It's as simple as taking away the monetary incentive and government support structure from the masses of fertile men and women. Trust me, they'll soon stop being so fertile.

Flynne said: "People sometimes have faulty judgement, Crid, that's just a fact of life. Why should they or their children have to be punished for a lifetime because of that?"

Sucks to be standing next to a train wreck. Next question?

I want the best for my child. Would it be rational for me to advise that child to prefer involvement with products of an untroubled family? This is stigma writ large as it applies to individual products of troubled families. But I'm not in the cosmic fairness business. So I'll tell my kids to play the odds.

--
phunctor

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that for every one of those single mothers a penis was involved. How about we stigmatize the boys/men/absent fathers attached to them, too? How about men start mocking other men and boys who have children out of wedlock and don't marry the women or support their children? (Again, as I always have to say to avoid the wrath of the foaming feminist haters -- I am not putting all men in this negative category, know many good fathers, etc.)

Posted by: JulieA at October 8, 2009 9:00 AM
-----

Being a foaming feminist hater has nothing to do with it. The age old "it takes two to tango" argument no longer applies in US society because of the "her body, her choice" doctrine. Women have choices, men only responsibilities. The concept of a paper abortion doesn't go very far with most women and family values types.

You also forgot to exempt sperm donor situations with your "every one of those single mothers a penis was involved" deal. Unless you're of the mind as some that sperm donors should be liable even if donated to a clinic.

LS writes: "We have no studies to show whether children growing up in these homes did better or worse than ones with two parents. "

Actually, I have seen such a study fairly recently. And it found that children raised by widows grow up about as well-adjusted as children from intact families. In the study, it made a huge difference if the father was absent because of death vs. breakup. This was even true in the case whether the father had died when the child was an infant, and too young to remember. The authors of the study admitted that they didn't have a good explanation for this; they speculated that it was because the widow usually continues to honor her husband's memory, and this makes an impression on the children.

I also oppose stigmatizing people. Actions, on the other hand, should be supported or opposed on their merits. We should not praise bad decisions. We should not confuse criticizing decisions with criticizing people.

[Christian morality] did not always work out well. The stigma caused a lot of children to be trapped in abusive homes.

Not as many as are trapped in abusive homes today, I suspect.

Which reminds me: the other day I passed a billboard that said "Secondhand smoke is child abuse," by which standard more people have been abused in the last 50 years than have ever lived previously. Another billboard said "Cigarettes are weapons of mass destruction," so apparently, if you smoke the state should take away your kids and try you for crimes against humanity.

Crid's solution to the problem is sweetly naive. If only people would make better decisions, the world be a better place. Of course!

Problem is, we have large segments of the population that see nothing wrong with the decisions they are making. If I'm a 16-year-old girl in a broken home with no future, having a baby and collecting welfare is a brilliant decision. Or not a decision at all. Too many people don't actually make active decisions. They just flow downstream. And why should that 16-year-old care what some privileged 30-something woman like me thinks of her?

Insisting that people stop to think about the tiny people they are creating works only when those parents care in the first place. Cutting off the monetary incentive to being a baby factory will be more effective than insisting thoughtless people stop being thoughtless and stupid people stop being stupid -- the equivalent of "Don't be gay, Sparky, don't be gay."

fascinating stuff, no doubt... but how would it be to take the biological tack in addition? I've read several things recently [prolly off of Insty] about how women on the pill tend to look for men who are more the partner type, and have indicated that women who are ovulating look for the most exciting man they can find. BECAUSE their bodies are looking TO mate, not FOR a mate. On the guy side too, an ovulating woman is more alluring. This is physiology, not social construct.

KNOWING how the physiology works, might help us make a better social construct. We are made to chemically bond to each other as well, and that is why barrier protections are double edged sword.

So, unless we want to roll back to a much more traditional society, with traditional roles... MAYBE we should be addressing this question through birth control means for men and women... Then we can really look at the social constructs about family from a modern perspective.

That said, I realize that one missing piece is the responsibility of oneself for the innocent life involved, and how people handle that. The lady in question actually gave the kid up for adoption, but then changed her mind in a few days. This is where she took her eye off the prize, whe was to make the best possible outcome for the kid. I am assuming adoption isn't therribly stigmatized in S Korea, and maybe I'm wrong on that, dunno. But, allowing the kid to have a better life by letting an infertile couple take them is an important side good. In my family this has been done several times, my mom and kid sisters both being adopted.

So their don't always have to be single mothers, there have to be ways of addressing when people need strength. Positive and negative ways, physical and societal. Needs to be a multiple approach.

Begining with making children intentionally, rather than by accident. [Knowing full well that you still have to have children or your society will die, like Europe and some places in Asia.]

""wouldn't you not make babies with someone who has not shown signs of being grown up?"

Well yes, but I'm one of those who waited until middle age to start a family. I'm starting to think that's a big part of the problem. 35+ year generation gaps weaken the extended family.

Don't have time to read all the above, but I wanted to say that if fatherhood is to be given back its dignity and status, one thing men could do would be to stop donating to sperm clinics. The first time I heard of them (this was regarding married couples where the husband is sterile) I couldn't believe it. I thought: "Why would any husband want to consent to that arrangement?" (Especially since there has probably never been a shortage of non-infants needing to be adopted, but I didn't even think of that until much later.)

And two other important steps would be for everyone to 1) band together and demand a stop to the huge anti-contraception movement reported on the cover of the NY Times Magazine in 2006 (it was called "Contra-Contraception), and 2) demand access to better male birth control.

As I mentioned in a previous thread, given the failure rates of contraceptives, it's really not fair to assume that every woman who gets pregnant must have wanted to. (Sure, there are teens who want to get pregnant and deny it, but I'd bet there are also teens who are too embarrassed to admit that it was an accident, so they pretend it was intentional.)

35+ year generation gaps weaken the extended family.

How? Or I guess a better question is: Why? Is it because the grand parent generation is more likely to be dead?

I'm not catching the association, but that doesn't mean there isn't one! :-D

-Julie

Krisetn if your husband is still breaking into your home shoot him, then say "Opps I thought he was a burglar" when the cops show up.

Interesting about the study, Cousin Dave. It seems to prove my point that it is not the number of parents that matter, but the way the children perceive being loved, wanted, and cared for.

Although I am divorced, my children have two parents who love them. We are flawed people(he more than me, of course lol), but then, everyone is in one way or another. I do not talk badly about their dad. In fact, we speak every day, and my daughter just said to me, "It's so nice you and dad are friends". He has actually been helping us a lot recently by giving advice on a house purchase. He is always welcome in my home, and often stays for dinner.

So, I don't know if I or my kids even consider our home "broken". The dynamic is different, certainly, but it is actually more peaceful for them than when mom and dad were not getting along.

There are different versions of "intact" when it comes to families. What's most important is that kids feel there's a strong foundation of love and support beneath them.

Dammit! Why are all of you so reasonable and well-spoken today? I can't even get a good rant going.

Summary:

Intentional/negligent single mother --> stigma

Unintended single mother --> support

When men have any reproductive rights, I'll get to them also. Until then, it's "her body, her choice, her RESPONSIBILITY" not to bring a fatherless child into the world.

"demand access to better male birth control"

A couple of trappings:

1) sub-sahara African HIV infection rates
2) Prolonged adolescence.
Again, at some point parents have to grow up and love the little fuckers. I'm unconvinced that promoting independence and removing consequences would accomplish that.

Until then, it's "her body, her choice, her RESPONSIBILITY" not to bring a fatherless child into the world.
____________________________

Or to accept all of the conseqences of doing so -- including "stigma."

Until then, it's "her body, her choice, her RESPONSIBILITY" not to bring a fatherless child into the world.
____________________________

Or to accept all of the conseqences of doing so -- including "stigma."

Help to ensure equal, easy, and inexpensive access to abortion and reliable birth control for all American women, and I will agree with you.

-Julie

Well I'm a single father, and I had to fight for him. His (now incarcerated for ten years) mother got pregnant on purpose because she thought meal ticket. Yep, she has a meal ticket, three hots and a cot.

But she did it for the same reason that so many teens do it. She wanted money, and a kid (in her mind) would get that for her. In this case, MY hard earned money, in the teen cases, OUR hard earned tax dollars.

Selfish people exist at all ages. I wish I had Crid's clock and I'd go back and dump her at the alter. But then again, as Gretchen says, people change, and sometimes you can't see it coming. Shit it hit me so blind sided that I wrote a book about it. Meth, it does not do a body good...

And on the choice thing, I certainly didn't have one. I suppose i could have kicked her in the stomach or pushed her down the stairs, but then I would be the asshole.

And she owes me $150 a month child care, which has never been paid in 8 years. And I quit my seven figure career at Microsoft and became a university administrator until my kid is college age (9 more years).

I made my bed, and I am sleeping in it.

rant=off

Sterling - You sound like a straight-up dad.

But you write: And on the choice thing, I certainly didn't have one.

But you did have the choice not to have sex with her or to wear a condom that you kept in your presence before and after each and every time you had sex.

It might be quite limited, but guys do have some say in reproductive responsibility. And that say isn't just, Aw honey, don't make me put one on, I hate those things, I want to feel you.

I never talk like I am today. Apologies.

Channon Christian's and Christopher Newsome's murderers were products of you guessed it... single mothers.

Crusader - Could you please provide a list of serial killers and murderers who grew up with both parents, or whose fathers just ran off and abandoned their women? Thanks.

"So, I don't know if I or my kids even consider our home "broken". "

LS, it may well not be, and the kids would be the ones to know.

If a couple splits but both parents stay fully involved in the kids' lives, if these parents are civil and respectful of each other, then that's not broken.

In fact it's a lot less broken in many ways than a family where the day has to be absent for long periods because of work. Deployments are pure hell on families, and the worst effect is on the kids. Men used to go to sea for weeks to fish (some still do), go out on long sales routes that kept them away for weeks - this was far from ideal either. Where both parents live close ot each othr and raise the kids together is clearly a better arrangement.

Sterling, I went to your site and it's very interesting.

Jim:

the kids would be the ones to know [if their home is broken.]

I don't agree with that. Kids don't have the ability to judge whether they are being properly brought up because their own lives are all they know. They might figure it out as adults. Or they might not.

JulieA - provide your own list. It seems that every single brutal murder I hear about, the animal came from a single-mother household.

I missed this earlier:

> How about we stigmatize the boys/
> men/absent fathers attached to
> them, too?

We certainly should. I certainly do. I have zero male friends who, as Gretchen puts it, shoot sperm without discernment. There are judgments to make.... I have friends in California families where half-siblings spend one weekend with this remarried parent and the next weekend with that one. Where these second families are in fact loving, it's harder to complain. I'll socialize with them in any restaurant, but they've never been in my home. (Maybe they'll do the math and feel slighted, maybe they won't.)

• • • • • •

> We have no studies to show
> whether children growing up in
> these homes did better or worse
> than ones with two parents.

That's a spectacularly stupid thing to say. It's just unforgivable. If you're such confused human being that you can seriously contend that there's no reason to worry about having a parent ripped from the home, no matter how violently, then you've excused yourself from the discussion. (I'll never understand how sane people can say, about these most intimate, timeless bonds: "Well, we haven't seen the studies...." As if they'd spent their lives, and chosen their paths, wearing lab coats and reading glasses instead of genitals and a beating heart.)

> We don't need to stigmatize
> single motherhood as much as
> stop rewarding it.

Let's do both. It'll be more effective.

> the unfortunate truth is that
> women must choose partners at
> the peak of their fertility,
> which also happens to coincide
> with when we are the dumbest.

Says who? Golly, I haven't seen the studies.

> This is often much more
> devastating for the children
> than being without a father.

Give us the SCIENCE, woman! Slides! Microsoft Powerpoint! Graphs & quadratic equations!

(Unless you're ready to concede that the "studies" thing was horseshit.)

(And for the record, I think Conan was ranging off the path with his chatter about "abandonment issues", too. This pretense of psychotherapeutic insight from total strangers has got to end.)

> I would really like to see more
> programs designed to encourage
> young people to not only wait to
> marry and have children but how
> to pick a better partner.

This is not a government problem. Government is doing bad things in this regard, but it's doing them because Americans want it do bad things.

• • • • • •

> vows being vows and all that?

I never said anything about vows, I said things about single parenthood. Deaths from war and disease and accidents are things I'm happy to talk about if you want, but I think today we're talking about typical, casual divorce by parents.

Yep, I'm divorced, and it was a bungle, very much my own. I have some intimate familiarity with how things go for widows, too. The private lives of the women in my life roll onward, and I don't speak about these things when they can't respond. Anyone who wants details should send personal email and I'll respond in kind. (But my disinterest in fatherhood was at least part of the problem.)

> It can't be that you're the
> product of

In any case, JulieA, be assured that I think you're a tremendous ninny.

> your insistence that they are
> doomed to hell

Where is that written above? Can you cite that wording, or is it just that I said that children deserve a loving mother with a loving father?

> really pisses me the fuck off.

People who get as upset as you do are touchy for a reason.

• • • • • •

> Stigmatize away if you want,
> though. Waste of time, I bet.

No, she's right: We should try it.

> Christian morality, as expressed
> through social pressures exerted
> by local communities and family
> members. It was a blunt
> instrument even when
> administered by people who loved
> the young people

The fuck it was. The fuck it was. It was incisive as hell. It was intimate and fast and enduring.

> It was somewhat effective, but
> had some side effects that were
> not always pleasant.

Weird, weird language. Do you think this will get fixed by making a world where things are always pleasant?

• • • • • •

> you've really piqued my
> curiousity regarding your own
> situation...

See above, send email.

• • • • • •

> You are right on with the
> pronoun observation....

For the record, I don't actually know what a pronoun is. (Does 'myself' count?)

> I mean actual, documented, with
> facts and evidence abuse

I'm not interested in adjudicating things. If it's intolerable, get out, but I'm going to wonder why your judgment was so fucked up on the way into the marriage, especially if I'm expected to make allowances for your fractured family afterward. ("He was a liar!" and "She was a psychobitch!" don't count.)

• • • • • •

> the most intelligent and
> insightful among us may not see
> that coming.

Then we are fucking doomed, and to Hell with them all, including the idiot bastard children. Can't be fixed: You can never tell! No point in compassion for anyone, is there?

• • • • • •

> This did not always work out
> well. The stigma

Is that our standard when individuals fuck up their own lives? Are we forbidden to take steps until we can do something that "always works out well?"

> Look, there's no inherently
> magical benefit of having a two
> parent home over a one parent home.

The frost in your comments has been annoying me here for a long time, if only by the blind irony of your chosen nickname. Anything but....

• • • • • •

> My own maternal instinct is
> practically nonexistent.

&

> I just want girls to freaking
> THINK before they spread their legs!

Pricklypear, you're a sister, no matter how you feel about stigma.

• • • • • •

> that men can hide their part
> makes stigmatizing the women
> inherently unfair

Men can't hide their misconduct any longer than a woman can as she demands support from the society which wasn't involved in her bungles. I have no patience with such men. What else do you want?

• • • • • •

> I have seen such a study fairly
> recently.

I find your report highly suspect.

Okay for now, more tonight! See you then!

Thanks Robin. Interesting is a good way to put it now. A few years ago, scary would have been the word to use.

And JulieA, you're right. I should have wrapped it up, but she was a practicing Physician Assistant, and was on the pill (actually she later told me she got pregnant on purpose).

And as for kids from broken families: I still have never said a bad word about her to my son. He knows she's sick, she was bad, and had to go to prison. He knows about the book, and said he'd read it when he gets older (he's 9 now).

Of course, as you all know, in her eyes (and in the courts) I was the anti-christ. Even with all her criminal activity, failed rehab, dirty drug tests, it cost me over a million bucks to get my son from him and get divorced. But that's a discussion for another day.

So about the single mother problem at large: couldn't they just put birth control in the water supply (like flouride), or aerial spray it over the country?

"But you did have the choice not to have sex with her or to wear a condom that you kept in your presence before and after each and every time you had sex."

Good grief. He's talking about his wife. Was he supposed to wear a condom with her every time?

I don't know how you guys can believe everything is within our ability to predict or control. Sterling said her meth addiction blindsided him. That is a growing problem in our society. People, who were once fine, productive citizens and parents, are getting hooked on terrible drugs.

Like I said, most of us choose our procreational partners way too young. But we have to because, unfortunately, that's the best age to assure the healthiest offspring. And men are most attracted to younger women, even though we're pretty clueless and unpredictable at that age.

Think back to who you dated when you were 22 or 25. Most of us go, "Whew! Glad I didn't end up with that person!"

Knowing what we know now, it seems easy, but we can't all wait until we're 40 to have kids - at least women can't. So, we make the best choice we can at that point in our youth, when we barely know ourselves, much less anyone else. And figuring out where that partner will be 10, 15, 20 years from now - and how they will change, grow, or deteriorate emotionally - or if they'll still want to be with you - is damn hard!

People change. Have some sympathy for those single parents who did not plan on this happening to themselves or their children. It is not always a "choice".

But back to the NYT story:
South Korea only had 1.6% of births out of wedlock in 2007, versus 40% for the US. So, I guess the stigma (and lack of incentives) works.
The people who are organizing the single-mom advocacy groups are doing so for the purpose of advocating for "better wellfare services from the state." Hmm...
And no, I don't advocate staying in physically abusive relationships; I don't think that's comparable to getting knocked up because it's "fun," or you "want someone to love," or your "biological clock is ticking." THOSE are the people who deserve to be stigmatized.

To David M.: David, my ex finally got greedy. She had it all: almost $1,000/month in CS, primary custody, the whole bit, while I had the standard wed./every other weekend crap. THEN she made the mistake of trying to relocate 1,500 miles away so she could go back to school. To cut it short, the judge said my son was better off staying here in a stable environment. Plus, she said in court she could not afford to, on her grad TA salary, to take care of him without CS. So, he is with me full time now, and she has visitation.

To Sio: I just read this morning that there is now a case in Mass. where a woman is suing the clinic where she got her sperm to get the name of the anonymous donor so she can get child support...

now a case in Mass. where a woman is suing the clinic where she got her sperm to get the name of the anonymous donor so she can get child support...

Oh for fuck sake! Some people just don't want to think past the end of their noses, huh?

That is just like there is a movement for kids who were conceived with sperm donation to attempt to find their 'birth fathers'. I bet there are alot of men that wish they hadn't wacked off through graduate school, and they shouldn't have to worry about that crap.

-Julie

Unless you are widowed, I really don't get it. There are plenty of sob stories out there, but, the minute you decide to have a child with Mr. Dickhead, you are responsible, and you don't get a pass from me. Yep, I am a childless bitch, and get in my face all you want, but at least I am not raising hellions to cramp the style of other unassuming passersby. I am paying your taxes.

However, it sounds like many of the people here take child rearing seriously. I hope that is true and I won't be mugged by your little angel some day.

"Krisetn if your husband is still breaking into your home shoot him, then say "Opps I thought he was a burglar" when the cops show up."

The sad part of this is that I went to court a few years back because he broke into my home, shoved me into a wall in full view of my children and my family, and threatened to kill me. I went to the police who found every reason not to file a report because he's a cop. I went to court for a restraining order and was advised by the Law Clerk in front of him that he has a constitutional right to free speech. I could not believe she said that to me and my jaw dropped. Her response was to tell me again that his constitutional right to free speech protected him saying he'd kill me. I wanted to cite my right to bear arms but wasn't feeling very protected at that moment. The end result was the Law Clerk asked him to promise to stay away from me and asked me to give it a cooling off period. Btw,his threat to kill me was because I had run inot an old partner of his. They were no longer speaking because his wife was cheating on him with my ex. Apparently I made some mistake by being in the supermarket at the same time as his former partner so he did the reasonable thing when he found out which was to show up at my house, push me, and threaten to kill me. I guess I should have predicted that behavior years earlier before I married him.

"Help to ensure equal, easy, and inexpensive access to abortion and reliable birth control for all American women, and I will agree with you."

Are you seriously suggesting that methods of birth control are not widely available and inexpensive in this country?

Are you seriously suggesting that abortion is not generally available or inexpensive (certainly relative to the cost of raising kids) in this country?

Finally, must *every* woman have access before we can discuss the conduct of *any* woman on this issue?

(FWIIW, I do not believe we can simply cut off young single mothers to "get tough" on the issue. Once the kid is here, the kid is here. It needs food, shelter and a start in life via publicly-funded education. We are all better off giving that start rather than denying such things.)

Check out this recent study. http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/familystability.htm

It concludes:

"The advantage that children get from living in two-parent families may actually be due to family stability more than the fact that their parents are married.

"A new study finds that children who who are born and grow up in stable single-parent homes generally do as well as those in married households in terms of academic abilities and behavior problems.

"'Many of the studies that show an advantage for children who grow up in married households versus those who grow up with single parents don’t distinguish between family structure and family stability,' said Claire Kamp Dush, author of the study and assistant professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University."

. . . .
"Overall, Kamp Dush said the results deliver good news to single parents who provide a stable home environment for their children.

“'I don’t think we can say that growing up in a stable single parent home is necessarily worse than growing up with two married parents,' she said."

I'm not in the least surprised. I know a couple of single-but-stable parents bringing up kids, and the kids seem to be doing just fine.

Liz, those angels are much more likely to be mugged by your demands for social security and medicare payments via taxation and income transfer.

People raising kids are funding the retirements of the childless. I know that makes people fighting mad to hear, but there it is.

Um, Liz, I'm paying taxes also. In fact, as soon as I turned 16 many many years ago, I went out and got a job and began having taxes taken out of my checks and have continued that ever since despite being a single mom and all. Now at 41 I still pay taxes. Imagine that. As far as my little angel mugging you, don't worry. I'm teaching them to go for the bigger marks, you know, rich old ladies and old men with heart conditions. Mugging just doesn't cut it for us.

Here: Marry well. Don't pretend it can't be done. Don't pretend it will be easy, or that when people do it well, they're not making sacrifices. Don't pretend we're all just determinative robots created by bad parents, as if our mistakes are the fault of our surroundings. Don't pretend we can each correctly select the mother/father of our children without advice from the strongest members of our families and the best friendships we can earn.

I am the product of (still) married parents, who dated the products of unmarried parents for far too long before meeting my husband, also the product of (still) married parents. In turn, each of our parents is the product of a lifelong marriage. Single parenthood and divorce is a self-perpetuating cycle and you're right, it IS hard to break. But doing the right thing can also self-perpetuate.

Unfortunately, my brother is going through a divorce initiated by his wife (I'm not HAPPY anymore!), who is the product of a mother who divorced her husband (I'm not HAPPY anymore!) and who gave birth to the child of a criminal gang member at age 16. She finally made a good decision - to marry a good man and provide her son with a father - but the lessons learned in childhood proved too strong. My brother chose poorly and his stepson is paying the price - his ex-to-be is withholding her son as some sort of ransom. Thankfully they didn't create any children together to witness this mess.

Pulling together some of LS's comments from a couple of different posts above:

"Although I am divorced, my children have two parents who love them. We are flawed people(he more than me, of course lol), but then, everyone is in one way or another. I do not talk badly about their dad. In fact, we speak every day, and my daughter just said to me, 'It's so nice you and dad are friends'. He has actually been helping us a lot recently by giving advice on a house purchase. He is always welcome in my home, and often stays for dinner."

Concerning that study I mentioned (which I need to go back and find), I've had similar thoughts. Let's face it, most divorced people, me included, have pretty low opinions of our exes. Kids are bound to pick up on that unless the parents make a real effort to prevent their own feelings from invading the parenting relationships. (It makes me wonder if there would be similar repercussions for children who grow up with a custodial father. For some reason, that doesn't seem to attract any researchers' attention. Perhaps there just aren't enough of them to collect a representative sample.) Whereas with widowhood, the surviving spouse is likely to revere the deceased one. It's quite possible for someone to be a role model to you even though you never meet them personally, if they are presented to you that way.

"Knowing what we know now, it seems easy, but we can't all wait until we're 40 to have kids - at least women can't. So, we make the best choice we can at that point in our youth, when we barely know ourselves, much less anyone else."

This got me to thinking about something else that is probably contributing to the problem -- the vast extent to which our society tries to keep people in their late teens and early 20s attached to childhood for as long as we possibly can. The period starting around 1950 where unwed motherhood started to really increase coincides with the post-WWII period of new theories of child rearing which involved greatly slowing down the maturation process. Add that to the ever-increasing extent of government quasi-paternalism. And then throw in that improvements in nutrition seem to be having the side effect of causing children to begin puberty 1-2 years earlier than previous generations. The result is that children today start feeling the urge to mate and reproduce, and developing the bodily capability to do so, a good 10 years before they are mature enough to really be considered adults. Imagine what chaos previous generations would have been in if their children had started puberty at the age of 7.

Are you seriously suggesting that methods of birth control are not widely available and inexpensive in this country?

Are you seriously suggesting that abortion is not generally available or inexpensive (certainly relative to the cost of raising kids) in this country?

Depends on where you live and who you are. If you happen to live in a conservative town with one Planned Parenthood 100 miles away, not so much. If you're very poor, $600 can be hard to find. Condoms are easy to get, but hormonal birth control requires a doctor, which requires health care, which requires young people to have working parents with health care benefits who are very liberal about their kids having sex.

That's a great point, Cousin Dave. We have extended childhood, while at the same time speeding up sexual maturity. It's not a great combination. 100 years ago, girls were often wed at 13 or 14. But we also died sooner, often in childbirth. That's another thing to consider - it was a lot easier to pick a "life partner" when our lives were shorter. If you picked badly, at least your misery was mercifully short.

Ohferchrissake. It's simple.

1. Stop getting married.
2. Stop having babies.

Everybody seems to want those things, especially damn silly women. But don't you understand, those are the biggest and quickest two ways to fuck up your lives? Leave marriage and breeding to the very rich/successful, or to those miserable Catholics and Muslims, who don't know any better.

As for the rest of you working stiffs, most of whom can't actually afford to have kids anyway, forget about that crap and enjoy your lives. As for that biological clock? Well I've never experienced it and am suspicious that such a thing even exists, but near as I can tell, they are the same kinds of urges that tell you to smoke cigarettes and eat an entire tray of brownies. So IGNORE IT.

band together and demand a stop to the huge anti-contraception movement reported on the cover of the NY Times Magazine in 2006 (it was called "Contra-Contraception)

The NY Times is not credible. Is their "huge anti-contraception movement" headquartered in Rome?

:falls over laughing: Jo, where's the spew warning?

they are the same kinds of urges that tell you to smoke cigarettes and eat an entire tray of brownies. So IGNORE IT.

Awesome. Now all I can think about is eating a tray of babies.

Gail mentioned the longitudinal study of youth in her link above...

so my question is simple. They've been studying those kids a LONG time, they can probably study them as adults now. What are the outcomes for THEIR children? For themselves, what are their partnering pattersn. Just because we can and do thrive in single parent households, that is thrive after the fact. Once you know it can be done, you accept it yourself as an option, by thinking you can get through it regardless. This is a truism, because a lot of people DON'T consider what effect that will have on the innocent person you are making. How is THEIR life to be effected by a poor decision.

Does coming from a single parent house no matter how stable [I think their criteria is a CROCK]cause you to accept a normalized situation for future generations that isn't as good. "I got through it, they can too..." That doesn't make it optimal, to think about it that way...

BTW a stable single parent as listed, is only that there isn't a parenting change. What if that single has a string of partners they never keep? Is that stable?

>>I have zero male friends who, as Gretchen puts it, shoot sperm without discernment. There are judgments to make.... I have friends in California families where half-siblings spend one weekend with this remarried parent and the next weekend with that one. Where these second families are in fact loving, it's harder to complain. I'll socialize with them in any restaurant, but they've never been in my home. (Maybe they'll do the math and feel slighted, maybe they won't.)

But, but, but Crid...if your friends don't know why you won't ever invite them to your home, maybe they just assume you're an inhospitable slob?

What's the point of your Stigma-by-Stealth Society?

Still, a bit sad. A woman cannot find a husband, so she has to commit genetic suicide?
And what of women who do all the "right" things, and then end up single anyway? (Or men, for that matter).
And I thought this was a libertarian website. Since when does sticking your nose into other people's business and stigmatizing them have anything to do with libertarianism?
Live and let live.
Maybe Amy would be happier if she had a kid. She sure gets cranky-pants about those who do. I had a friend like that once. She drove herself crazy about all the Mexican women in L.A. having babies, while she responsibly become sterile before finding Mr Right and having kids.
Sometimes, doing everything by the rules just doesn't work.
If someone has a baby, try to help them out. Make a friend. Looking down your snout at single women...oh jeez, is that what you want to do with your life?

The NY Times is not credible. Is their "huge anti-contraception movement" headquartered in Rome?

Posted by: Pseudonym at October 8, 2009 2:57 PM

______________________

Not exactly, as I recall. (Bush had plenty to do with it, for starters.)

You can read it here:

http://www.truthout.org/article/russell-shorto-contra-contraception

Pirate Jo for President

I'm struggling with how I want to say things here because I'm bound to anger somebody, but apparently this is my day to unload my views on this issue. (Judging by the size and quantity of posts, I'm not alone!)

Anyway. I feel children should be raised by two people, (or more) because it is their first example of cooperation, compromise, working out differences; as well as arguing and saying 'no'.

I feel that children need both masculine and feminine influences in their upbringing, because that's what we are. No matter what your personal viewpoint is regarding the other sex, you're made up of both of them. As far as I know, that hasn't changed yet.

I'm not saying you should marry either the abusive drunk or the irresponsible boy you got pregnant by. I'm saying THINK and don't get pregnant by an abusive drunk or an irresponsible boy in the first place!

These are just basic things. I know, I opted out of dealing with the whole business and I've never been sorry--but I read a lot, and I've seen a lot, and sometimes people at a distance see things just a little more objectively.

Um...so there.

Crid: As if they'd spent their lives, and chosen their paths, wearing lab coats and reading glasses instead of genitals and a beating heart.

So which is it? Do we judge and make choices using our genitals and hearts or our brains? Either we make mistakes and bad choices given that genitals and hearts are horribly unreliable or, after careful study and analysis, we are expected choose correctly. I know you'll come up with a way to make this seem consistent in your head -- you always do, so I can't wait to hear it!

I sometimes think that a lot of the people who stay together got lucky in their choice. And good on them!

"Depends on where you live and who you are. If you happen to live in a conservative town with one Planned Parenthood 100 miles away, not so much. If you're very poor, $600 can be hard to find. Condoms are easy to get, but hormonal birth control requires a doctor, which requires health care, which requires young people to have working parents with health care benefits who are very liberal about their kids having sex."

Numbers. Your argument now depends on numbers. Where people live. How far they are from services. Their income level. What are the numbers that support your view?

Pointing out a hypothetical woman may live 100 miles from a doctor and is so poor she cannot afford shoes to walk to the clinic for a $600 abortion is not an argument. It is an Woody Guthrie song.

Again, are you seriously saying that women cannot obtain birth control, due to cost or other reasons?

Are you seriously saying that women cannot obtain abortions, due to cost or regulation?

Numbers, you either have them or you don't. If not, you are mythologizing. That is okay, but just acknowledge that most American women have access to birth control. Most American women can get abortions. And it is perfectly acceptable to start discussing how we wish to treat the unmarried state of mothers who deigned not to employ those options, preferring instead to raise kids on their own.

That is okay, but just acknowledge that most American women have access to birth control.

http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/assets/files/Birth-Control-Pharmacy-Access.pdf

The above are blatant examples of women being denied birth control.

Sometimes, it's more psychological. Either she's afraid of what her parents will say if they find out she's having sex; her religion says condoms are bad; she's too ignorant to know how her body works beyond insert Tab A into Slot B because of abstinence-only education;' etc. And we can mock and stigmatize these girls and women all we like, but it doesn't stop them from making babies they can't take care of.

I wish there were more options for boys and men, too, but, but it's just not true that every girl and woman in this country has free access to birth control.

Spartee, there are many states where abortions are not easily accessible. I did a quick internet search just to see if there were any numbers available and the number I keep getting is that 87% of US counties do not have an identifiable abortion clinic. There are many rural areas that have none. There are restrictions such as waiting periods forcing a woman to go to a clinic more than once over a period of time where she also must both times pass through the anti-abortion activists.
I'm not saying its impossible, but I live in NY where it would be easier. I wonder about some girl in the bible belt or a mountain town. Don't fool yourself into thinking its such an easy option in that instance.

> I also oppose stigmatizing
> people. Actions, on the other
> hand, should be supported or
> opposed on their merits

What's the difference? What's your response to a bad actor, someone who acts without "merit"?

• • • • • •

> Crid's solution to the problem
> is sweetly naive.

Nope, I'm prepared to be aggressively not-sweet about it.

> we have large segments of the
> population that see nothing
> wrong with the decisions they
> are making.

Those people are wrong. They need to have it made clear that prices will be paid, if only in the esteem of their fellows, etc. (By 'etc.' I mean the souls of their children, y'know.)

> why should that 16-year-old care
> what some privileged 30-
> something woman like me thinks
> of her?

And yet, they often do.

• • • • • •

> Help to ensure equal, easy, and
> inexpensive access to abortion
> and reliable birth control for
> all American women, and I will
> agree with you.

In other words: Once there's no cost or challenge to people for doing the right thing, we can start to expect it of them.

"Equal, easy, and inexpensive." Peerrrrrfect. Let's pretend this is about sisterhood.

• • • • • •

> Have some sympathy for those
> single parents who did not plan
> on this happening to themselves
> or their children. It is not
> always a "choice"

It's happening to too many of them for us to believe this a surprise. If I was 50% certain to get into a backbreaking accident next time I dropped into my car, I'd WALK until I was certain the popular math didn't apply to me. I don't actually know what the divorce rate is for people with kids, but let's not pretend anyone can be surprised.

• • • • • •

> if your friends don't know why
> you won't ever invite them to
> your home

First of all, you've completely surrendered your earlier point, and good for you, you've saved yourself some trouble.

Secondly, and this is a heartbreak for us all, but I can never express my feelings perfectly to all parties: Just for example, I'd like to pee in the vichyssoise of several commenters right here on this blog. Can't do it, y'know? Boundaries.

Anyway, if the friends ever ask, we can have the talk.

• • • • • •

> Still, a bit sad.

Never cluck.

> A woman cannot find a husband,
> so she has to commit genetic
> suicide?

Childlessness isn't suicide, genetic or otherwise. A woman who "can't find a husband" isn't demonstrating the social competence we should expect of someone who wants our support in child-rearing. I don't know how you came to believe this was an individual project, or how ON EARTH you came to think that individual genetic propigation was some sort of human or constitutional right.

> Looking down your snout at
> single women...oh jeez, is that
> what you want to do with your
> life?

Some of the time, absolutely. Some of them deserve it. It's a judgment thing.

• • • • • •

> Um...so there.

Luv you, P-pear. You too, Liz.

• • • • • •

> Either we make mistakes and bad
> choices given that genitals and
> hearts are horribly unreliable
> or, after careful study and
> analysis, we are expected choose
> correctly.

Says who? Ever notice how some people's hearts (and genitals) lead them to good pairings? Isn't that sumpthin'?

I'll never understand those of you who argue that it's just luck. Why get out of bed in the morning? Everything's luck; you number will come up or it won't. Why worry about anything at all?

To wit:

• • • • • •

> And we can mock and stigmatize
> these girls and women all we
> like, but it doesn't stop them
> from making babies they can't
> take care of.

Then why care about anything at all, ever? What case could you possibly be making? Some people are going to drive drunk; should it be legal? Some children will never learn to read; should we not bother to teach the others?

These arguments are just dumbfounding... What is the world you want to live in?

Well, I think I know what it is... You want a world where no matter how badly a woman screws up, there's never any real accountability, so they won't get their feelings hurt. And if you have to present the nihilist case to make that happen, it's a small price to pay, right?

OK, I got it.

Fun day!

Listen, props to Amy for spotting, and resisting, the manipulation of the photo of the smiling mother and child. Many women fold at the first sight of a pair of big almond eyes: What, are you against motherhood???!?!

"Turns out"! Utter surprise; completely unpredictable! "Turns out", this one guy wasn't up for the assignment and there's no way anyone could possibly have foreseen this –not the bride, not the husband, not their families, not their friends, not the surrounding community, because it had never happened to anyone before."

Amen. Amen again. I'm sorry, but I've been hearing excuses from a family member like this for about 10 years....a single mother, she divorced her husband for running up debt on the internet, drinking and being an all-around jerk. Oh, and lying.

Now.....while they were dating she went to his dorm room a few times and didn't think anything of the 150 beer bottles there. It was 'his roommates' that drank all that beer. Fast forward a year, he gets an apartment, there are still always about 100 beer bottles standing in the kitchen. Got drunk on every vacation 'I'm on vacation, I don't always drink this much'. Money? It burned a hole in his pocket. They made a pact to save as much money as possible before the wedding.....a month before the wedding, they compare bank balances. Hers? A few thousand dollars. His? $256. The lying part? His parents called her to their house months before the wedding and informed her that he was a pathological liar, and they advised her not to marry their own son! But she still did!

When he ran up the debt, he hid the credit card statements as they came, in the trunk of his car for about a year. She never asked where they were, never thought it was odd that she didn't see them. She got a clue when they came to repossess her car. It was only THEN that she discovered that he hadn't been making the car payments, nor the mortgage payments. And she found out that he'd been fired for drinking,not for the reasons he'd originally told her. After having her head up her butt for years, not ever looking over the finances, marrying him after everyone told her not to, the whole nine yards, to this day she tells people 'He *turned into* a drunk and a liar and ran up debt'. No shit. (Pardon me)

One thing I often wonder is, is having sex as early as people do in relationships now making people seem more 'connected' , feeling like they know their SOs better than they do, and then much later the other shoe drops? Once people start a sexual relationship, before they've spent a lot of time with them, know what kind of families they come from etc, does it blind them to faults, or make it harder to address them? Harder to call it off? People seem to be getting married faster, and then 3-4 years later they find out they married someone they're not compatible with/is nasty/has bad habits.

Lovelysoul, I'd like to ask you a question, if you don't want to answer it's perfectly fine. I read your post above about how friendly you are with your ex, you talk daily, he helps you....why divorce? I see the same type of thing stated often in the news when public figures break up 'We're still friends' and I don't understand it. Why split up if the relationship is such that you can still be friendly and involved in each other's lives?

'more reliable birth control for women and men'

The pill is, what 99% effective? Outside of mistakes taking it, the pill is pretty damned effective. I know, I know, some women can't take it. However, I think 98 or 99% is pretty unbeatable as a form of reversible birth control.

"Well, I think I know what it is... You want a world where no matter how badly a woman screws up, there's never any real accountability, so they won't get their feelings hurt. And if you have to present the nihilist case to make that happen, it's a small price to pay, right?"

Am I missing something here? Oh, right, the condemnation of the man involved with the woman making this "screw up." I guess he was somehow tricked into giving up his sperm and never told about an impending birth. Funny how all your venom is directed towards the woman while conveniently letting the sperm supplying men off the hook. I guess its hard to fight of a she-devil trying to impregnate herself with your sperm and then run off to parts unknown with your baby or at least its hard to blame these poor poor men who are being fooled so easily into creating little lives that they desperately want a part of yet always seem to have an excuse not to be. Ah, I guess it really is a man's world, at least that's what I'm gathering from another of Crid's rather articulate arguments.

> Am I missing something here?

Yep, the part where Monica said:

> And we can mock and stigmatize
> these girls and women

That's what I was responding to. If you want to go back through my comments (a reading which I would highly recommend to you), you'll see the incompetent, squirty-britches men don't escape condemnation at all.

Amy brought us a story about single motherhood today. We work with what's on the table.

Well the squirty-britchesmen didn't escape condemnation, but they didn't seem to get the same amount of hostility directed towards the ladies. You are right though, it is a single mother story and you are working with that so I apologize and look forward to reading your comments should there be a day when the topic is dead beat men shirking their responsibilities.

Why, thank you, Crid. I got a million of 'em. I also have a soapbox for every occasion.

Amy,did you decide to just kick back for this one and let the kids wear themselves out?

I agree with Jay R, about 30 comments back, that it's important to distinguish between intentional and unintentional single mothers. I think you can break it down further and identify 4 categories of single mothers/parents:

Unintentional:

1) People that have children with every intention of raising them in a stable, two-parent household, but become single parents due to unforeseen circumstances: death, divorce, drugs, abuse, etc. (It sounds like Kristen, Julie, Mike, and Sterling fall into this category) I don't think anyone is saying that we should stigmatize these people. Even if you don't believe in divorce, it's impossible to know what goes on in the inner workings of someone's marriage. No one is going to introduce themselves as, "Hi, I'm Bob, and I'm a single dad because my wife was a cokehead." So you should give these single parents the benefit of the doubt.

2) Women that had zero intentions of becoming pregnant, but became pregnant accidentally, and for whatever reason (probably moral/religious) felt obligated to have and raise the child. Say a 21 year old college student who forgot to use a condom. These are people of most likely a middle-class or higher socioeconomic status, for whom having a child will decrease their status (dropping out of college/moving back into their parents' home/missing out on career opportunities/social stigma among their peers) rather than advancing it (as it does for "welfare queens"). Increasing the social stigma for these women seems needlessly harsh: they're already plenty aware of the stigma, they didn't want to have a baby in the first place, and they're being "punished" enough. It would be much more beneficial to society to provide support through, say, subsidized childcare programs so that these women can work and/or get/finish their degrees and become better contributing members of society.

Intentional:

3) Women who are unmarried but want a child and have the means and ability to support one and have babies through adoption or sperm donors. As long as the mother is 100% willing and able to raise and support the child on her own (no government assistance or crazy shit like suing a sperm donor) then I don't see anything wrong with this. It's certainly better than marrying someone just to have a baby or tricking someone into being a sperm donor/paycheck, which it sounds like some women do. Adoption would be a great option in this because kids are certainly better off with a loving, financially stable single parents than they would be growing up in the foster care system.

4) Women who have babies that they are unable to provide for solely for welfare benefits. I'm guessing this is what most people are thinking about when they talk about the blight of single motherhood. Problem is, as most people have already pointed out, stigmatizing doesn't work when there's such a strong financial incentive to get pregnant. Probably the only solution is to take away the welfare. Maybe replace it with some kind of get-on-your-feet program: communal housing where women could get job training/education while providing in-house services of childcare, cooking, cleaning, etc. Mandatory birth control shots while in this housing.

Moreover, there needs to be a greater degree of accountability on the part of the father. I understand that the mother has the choice of to abort/not to abort, but that shouldn't be an excuse for some teenage baby-daddy to go around knocking up multiple women. Why should *I*, as a taxpayer, subsidize YOUR kid so while you waltz away scot-free and impregnant someone else? At least women can see the direct consequences of casual, unprotected sex: there's a baby growing in their stomach. Men, if not held financially responsible, see ZERO consequences of their actions. Moreover, these women have zero incentive to demand child-support from their baby-daddy when they can just as easily get money from the government. But we as a society DO have an incentive to hold these guys responsible, and we should. Maybe guys will be less cavalier about casual, unprotected sex when they know they have to pay for their kids.

Finally, and probably most importantly, better sex education!! Make sex ed mandatory from middle school on up (at least in certain school districts). Have physicians go from school to school in inner city high schools writing prescriptions for free birth control. Have baskets of condoms, condom vending machines, condoms everywhere. Taking direct action to PREVENT single motherhood is going to go farther than stigmatizing.

Shannon, I'd tell you I love you except then I'd be accused of being a lesbian single mother and that would start a whole thing on here about the evils of gay marriage so I will just say that I loved your post and thanks for understanding!

> look forward to reading your
> comments should there be a day when
> the topic is dead beat men shirking
> their responsibilities.

Angel, BANK ON IT. WRITE FUCKING CHECKS TO CHARITIES. HOCK THE IMMORTAL SOULS OF YOUR CHILDREN. Do whatever you need to do, because on that day, I'm going to come through for you like the fucking brother that I am. This is planet Earth, where it takes two to tango, and the responsible conduct of men could be an absolute, irresistible brake on the misconduct and consequences we're talking about. Hence the theme mentioned earlier: Children deserve a loving mother with a loving father, because that's what's best.

(But, if only parenthetically— That men are dogs isn't news to anybody: It's been the chatter in churches and saloons for tens of thousands of years. But many women, especially in post-feminist America, are absolutely stunned to hear it said that there's any downside to feminine nature at all.)

Oh, Crid....I'm loving you right now. And on that note, I'm off to bed. Alone!

I don't know what welfare is like in Michigan now, but when I lived there a friend of mine told me it was so good she couldn't afford to get a job. Various programs paid her rent, insurance, food and utilities.

All she had to do was stay poor and unsuccessful. Kinda like barefoot and pregnant.

I have heard a lot of women, including those who married before having children, talk about how if they were still single and time was running out they would have had a child on their own. Even though they don't regard single motherhood as desirable, they still see it as a legitimate choice or fallback option.

A lot of women seem to have the attitude that they are entitled to have children in order to feel fulfilled, and if they can't find a suitable partner well it's not their fault. I can see the point that we shouldn't condemn people for simply making a bad choice that cannot be undone, but we should criticize those who have an entitlement syndrome.

It is also no doubt true that most single mothers don't have children solely in order to collect welfare checks or child support or food vouchers or whatever. But in many cases the easy availability of financial support functions as an enabler to establish more single-parent families. There are many women who don't really want to work and just want to have children and play house. They don't really care who pays the bills, so long as it isn't them. If it's a husband, so be it. If it's the government, so be it.

"Lovelysoul, I'd like to ask you a question, if you don't want to answer it's perfectly fine. I read your post above about how friendly you are with your ex, you talk daily, he helps you....why divorce? I see the same type of thing stated often in the news when public figures break up 'We're still friends' and I don't understand it. Why split up if the relationship is such that you can still be friendly and involved in each other's lives?"

My ex is a pretty complex guy, crella. He's handsome, funny, wealthy, and brilliant. I think he's also bi-polar. Through the years, he developed increasingly weird ideas about monogamy, like it was really "outdated" and "overrated". He's a child of the 60s, so I supposed I might've predicted that, but it wasn't as apparent early on. Lots of people went through that era and settled down with age, but he kind of went the reverse.

We stayed together 20 years. It was quite uncomfortable for me for a lot of reasons. He always had gorgeous female "friends" around that he assured me were "only friends". I tried to believe him, and in fact, it might've been true in some cases, but when he began hanging around with our hot 25 yr old employee (he was 55), taking her shopping and out to lunch, it just became too much for me. I asked him to put me and our family first, above his flirtations, and he flatly refused. He wanted to keep his "girlfriend" and me...in fact, wanted us all to be one happy family. That was obviously very confusing for the kids (and me), so I left.

The bottom line is that he's much better not being married. He's a narcissistic playboy-type, who likes to pursue women and, though he loves me and always has, he doesn't do well being "restricted" by the confines of marriage. He says I'm the love of his life, and he'll never remarry.

He should've never married in the first place. I see that now, but when a handsome, wealthy, brilliant guy is pursuing, very few young women will step away and really critique that. I still have girlfriends who think he's the greatest "catch" in the world, and I should've just ignored the infidelity.

Truth is, he's fascinating, always doing exciting things, so I now find I can enjoy that part of him without the rest. I don't miss the anxiety I felt as his wife of never knowing what (or who) he was going to do next, but as a friend, we get along. He can't disappoint me anymore since I don't have any expectations of loyalty. I have a faithful, devoted boyfriend, and he has...well, a new lady friend every week...but it no longer leaves me feeling jealous or hurt.

Sometimes, it's just better to let go than to keep trying to put a round peg in a square hole, or expect someone to be something they're not. I never wanted it to turn out this way, but it seems that we are both happier now, and the kids are too. I hope that makes sense.

I'd pay money to watch Crid in a debate. I usually watch these arguments from the sidelines with a drink and some popcorn, but this one is somewhat applicable to my life.

Nick S
"If it's the government, so be it."

Exactly.

I know it won't happen, but someone, walk me thru what would happen if Federal Welfare were cut off? States, counties, cities? they're all broke too. neighborhoods, families, friends? Rioting in the streets? Just curious.

This might answer your question, Sterling. Riots nearly broke out in Detroit this week when 65,000 people lined up to get applications to have Obama pay their bills via federal stimulus money. Video at the link:

http://minx.cc/?post=293412

Ambulances had to be called in for several people were nearly trampled to death in the frenzy. Your scenario would not be a pretty sight.

who were nearly trampled, sorry.

"Truth is, he's fascinating, always doing exciting things, so I now find I can enjoy that part of him without the rest. I don't miss the anxiety I felt as his wife of never knowing what (or who) he was going to do next, but as a friend, we get along. He can't disappoint me anymore since I don't have any expectations of loyalty. I have a faithful, devoted boyfriend, and he has...well, a new lady friend every week...but it no longer leaves me feeling jealous or hurt."

Thank you so much for your candor. I've always wondered...you explained it very well, I appreciate that.

God I love Crid.

I had a shitty biological dad who beat my mother. She told me the divorce was because she didnt want me to live through that. Time passed and she married well.

Get it I have a father because she married well. I could not imagine myself the product of a single mother. Having a father in your life everyday is bliss. He wasnt perfect far from it but the things I learned from him, are things that a woman could never ever provide. No male role model ever is there for you like a real father.

I see my friends who lived with only their moms, and they tell me themselves that not having a father really fucks them up.

One of my friends, her father and mother have been married 30 years and she is happily married to a very good guy who also comes from an excellent family. Because she had the social pressure to do well AND

SHE PROVIDES SOCIAL PRESSURE FOR ME TO DO WELL I think I could never dissapoint her.

A good friend of mine found himself in the position of single father of two boys after his wife decided she didn't want to be a wife and mom anymore.

He had to deal with a lot of issues, including having the single mothers of his son's friends hitting on him. He couldn't trust that they were even interested in him as much as they were his strong work ethic, money, and parenting skills.

Several of them had learned that as sons become physically harder to control, they're not quite as precious and lovable as they used to be. One of these teenagers flat-out told me he sabotaged his mother's possible romances. No way he wanted another man in his house, trying to tell him what to do. Ah,smell that testosterone.

The movie "Parenthood" has an example of a woman trying to raise a teenage son. He can't discuss certain issues with her and has no male role models. His hormones were kicking in big time and he thought his obsession with porn meant he was some sort of abnormal monster. The movie's example may or may not have been totally extreme. Having no children, I wouldn't know, but the issue itself made sense.

I can't imagine my father trying to deal with training bras or menstrual cramps. These days he'd probably be arrested just for being in the girl's clothing section!

And in the movie, "Pretty Woman," a woman prostitutes herself to go to college and meets a wealthy man who realizes underneath it all that she's a beautiful woman worthy of love. In the end, she saves him from his life of loneliness and they live happily ever after.

Are you kidding me Pricklypear?!

lol, Kristen. Thanks for understanding, crella.

Pricklypear, you don't have kids, so you can't really understand it from a movie. Before we get into the "people who don't have kids can't really comment" debate, it's not that I believe that people without kids can't comment, but often your comments sound so arrogant and presumptive that raising kids is easy, when it's not. A movie ties things up nicely (aw, all he needed was a daddy-figure and everything was fine). Life rarely works out that cleanly.

Besides, no one can know whether a single mom has a great guy in her life who is also a role model to her kids. It may be a brother, grandfather, neighbor, or best friend, but you can't simply assume by a woman's marital status alone that the kids are deprived of male influence...or that the father's influence is necessarily better.

My ex, being as flamboyant and restless as he is, was never really great at the day-to-day parenting thing. Even when we were married, this was true. He might take them on a helicopter ride, or jet off to Italy, or something exotic like that, but he was totally bored by the idea of fishing, camping, helping with homework, etc.

Luckily, we had a male neighbor who was into all those "manly" things. He was there for my son, and would actually listen to him and still does. It's not that he can't learn things from his dad - good pick up lines, how to get a great seat in a restaurant, how to dress, etc - but that wasn't ever going to be enough. I think my neighbor's influence has actually been more impactful in showing him the quiet dignity of being a man.

So, you can't assume so much. Whether single or married, it still gets down to the quality of parenting, not the number, and the positive influences in a child's life can come from a variety of sources.

I've been confusing all the Julies: -Julie and JulieA and maybe even a regular Julie. I apologize for mocking the one who wasn't trying to be snotty. I haven't felt this bad since i confused Foreign Commenter Martin with Foreign Commenter Marvin.

> Whether single or married, it still
> gets down to the quality of
> parenting, not the number

This is simply wrong. In important ways, the number IS the quality.

Like a marathon participant with one leg. You say "It's the dedication and the technique, not the number of feet."

Well, we'll see you at the mile 12 checkpoint, and don't be late.

" ... it's not that I believe that people without kids can't comment, but often your comments sound so arrogant and presumptive that raising kids is easy, when it's not."

That's funny, I don't have kids and am usually accused of making it sound WORSE than it really is. 'It's all worth it!' they try futilely to assure me. Then I go to my neighbor's place for our condo association board meeting and listen to her two-year-old screech (and screech, and screech, and screech) and then I think WTF are these people talking about? It really IS that bad!

Incidentally, don't people use playpens anymore? If your kid is going to screech and whine constantly for attention, must you hold it on your lap while it tries to smash your keyboard and disconnect the power cable, and gets its sticky hands all over everything? Can't you just plop it into a playpen for half an hour? Preferably one that's kept inside a soundproof room?

> Several of them had learned that
> as sons become physically harder
> to control, they're not quite as
> precious and lovable as they used
> to be.

Exactly, exactly. Look at that keeeyooot little boy in the photo at Amy's New York Times link. Imagine him in about 12 or 14 years, when he's tired of listening to this cranky, busy, distracted, lonely woman tell him how the world works, and all he wants to do is score tail. He'll be tired of her of unchecked manipulations and of her because-I-said-sos. He'll distrust her because there's a whole half to life which she has no experience with, and obviously no skills at managing: Masculinity. She'll not have been teaching him how sports or tool-trades can make time with spent with men go well.

He will not be a fun little boy any more. What will she say to him then? What responsibility will she take when things go wrong?

it's not that I believe that people without kids can't comment,

Squeezing a child out of your coochie does not make you a parenting expert, although parents will use that sort of excuse, "WHY, YOU'RE NOT A PARENT!" (as in "how dare you comment on the fact that their child is about to crack plate glass with its screams, which they are doing nothing about").

Parenting is a form of psychology, and training animals is as well. I describe my own parents as "loving fascists." The discipline they instilled in us as kids, the environment where they were in charge, where they were the parents and I was the child, helped me grow up to be a person who makes deadlines and pays my taxes. I chafed under the discipline then, but I appreciate it now...especially as I see the wages of entitlement-style parenting -- like the substitute assistant I once brought in, who rewarded me for buying her a free lunch by leaving her plate in the sink for me to wash.

> Parenting is a form of psychology

It's not that, it's that every human being has an experience of a child being raised. There are no exceptions. As with many life skills, some people need only experience the context once to learn important principles.

My goodness. Everybody got their knickers in a twist this morning?

Kristen, I just re-read my post to see if I wrote what you think I did. Can't see it. I mentioned an example of a confused teenager and his inability to tell his mother what was wrong. What, does this never happen?

Lovelysoul, please give me an example where I assumed anything.
__________________________________
"> but if you haven't walked the path
> of being a single parent

Oh, FUCK THAT WITH A STICK. I haven't 'walked the path' of clubbing little old ladies over the head for the social security checks, either. For Chrissake, Flynne."

That's one of Crid's early responses (for those who don't want to back up to the beginning of the posts). I think he summed it up nicely.

Are you seriously suggesting that methods of birth control are not widely available and inexpensive in this country?

Are you seriously suggesting that abortion is not generally available or inexpensive (certainly relative to the cost of raising kids) in this country?

They are both very unavailable and difficult to get for many women. As the abortion doctors are killed by zelots, have their home addresses and pictures of thier children plastered all over the internet, etc, fewer doctors are offering abortions. Also, with the advent of moral objection laws, many pharmacists are refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, or are forcing women to prove that they are married before they receive any. I live in a large metro area and I have seen it. This is what I am saying...this is more of an issue that many men realize.

but hormonal birth control requires a doctor, which requires health care, which requires young people to have working parents with health care benefits who are very liberal about their kids having sex.

Not to mention that the doctor can write the prescription and the pharmacist can refuse to fill it. If the only pharmacist in your town refuses to fill the script, it doesn't do you any good.

Like I said, non-parents can certainly comment. I just find the comments are usually arrogant and patronizing, telling real parents how to raise their kids. I recognize this because I was exactly that way before I had kids myself. I knew everything about it because I'd read some books. Well, time and actual parenting experience has softened my holier-than-thou judgements, not to mention years of GAL training and observations.

I now see that there's no one "right" approach, and happy familes can be made up very differently than the typical mom/dad construct. I have gay friends, for instance, who are doing a phenomenal job with some special needs kids they adopted. Good parents can do things differently than the way I, or any other parent, might do them, or what many books would advise, but that doesn't make it wrong. It may just be the right way for their particular children, and I've often found that to be true.

Lenona, that article is nonsense. Social conservatives have always been anti-abortion, pro-abstinence and pro-monogamy, and every example of contra-contraception the article describes falls into those categories. There is no huge, non-Catholic movement that opposes preventative contraception within marriage.

What Crid said. I may not be a parent, but I used to be a child. And I know a lot of other people who had parents.

Kristen writes: "Well the squirty-britchesmen didn't escape condemnation, but they didn't seem to get the same amount of hostility directed towards the ladies." OK, here's some hostility. They're pricks. Jerks. Assholes. I can and do shun them.

Here's the problem: They don't care what I think of them. They're laughing at me because they get more nookie than I do. That's OK; infantile taunting I can easily deal with. But the problem isn't getting solved. My rejecting them doesn't make any difference to them. But if the women they are banging started rejecting them, that would make a huge difference. And if the younger boys weren't looking up to them as role models, that would make an even bigger difference.

Here's one thing I wish I could do: take the brain-dead child-support enforcement machine and actually make it do something useful. Have it go around and find all the guys who have had six children by six different women and don't support any of them. By and large, this group of guys also makes up the crack dealers in the hood and the meth dealers in the sticks. They are the alpha males in their little world, and one of the things that makes them attractive to a certain cohort of immature women is that they have a lot of money.

So have the child-support machine go out, knock them over, and take their money for child support arrears, then let them go. The next day, do it again. The day after, do it again, etc. Suddenly these guys aren't so attractive, since they don't have rolls of 100s to flash around any more. And there's some help getting to the children they have fathered. Maybe take some of the money and use it to pay small stipends to male volunteers who agree to Big Brother some of these kids. Now you're starting to change the kids' perceptions of who the proper male role models are.

>>As with many life skills, some people need only experience the context once to learn important principles.

Crid,
I don't doubt you practically overflow with the grasp of principles obtained in context.

Don't we all duckie!

But what's the point of egging on others to openly stigmatize people who make lousy life choices - when you are too feeble to join in?

You say people who make these lousy decisions "need to have it made clear that prices will be paid, if only in the esteem of their fellows, etc"

Fighting words there!

But elsewhere ('tis a loong thread!) you admit social "boundaries" inhibit you from personally voicing your unsolicited disapproval to people who need it in the real world.

No one will ever know, Crid, how you secretly seethe. Doesn't it strike you as totally pointless?

Worse, it makes you part of the problem.
You know, the problem of society going down the plughole what with these flighty broads doing the solo parent thing with no fear of stigma!

To be fair to me, you VOLUNTEERED the stuff about not facing down certain friends. And that's the problem with promoting social "stigma".

When push comes to shove, it's a dirty job.

There is no huge, non-Catholic movement that opposes preventative contraception within marriage.

But there is a huge movement to restrict access to birth control, whether done by Catholics or other pro-life entities. I was able to find this information in one Google search (I edited the links to stop the automatic big brother):

lsrj.org/documents/factsheets/08-09_Religious_Hospitals.pdf

www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_RPHS.pdf

www.prochoiceamerica.org/assets/files/Abortion-Access-to-Abortion-Refusal-Clauses-Federal-Refusal-Clause.pdf

www.plannedparenthoodnj.org/library/topic/pharmacy_refusal/history_meaning_refusal_clauses

And why should contraception only be provided in marriage?

-Julie

> I just find the comments are usually
> arrogant and patronizing, telling
> real parents how to raise their kids.

Well, if you wanted to leave us out of it, without demanding patience and special allowances of all kinds, that would be grand. If we're going to share the responsibility for the kids, we're going to express some thoughts. Meanwhile, we'd appreciate it if you didn't patronize us with stories about how this or that man or woman done you wrong and there was no way you could have seen it coming.

> But what's the point of egging on
> others to openly stigmatize people
> who make lousy life choices - when
> you are too feeble to join in?

You're hung up on this. You're hung up on lots of things. I "join in" plenty, Jody, which is why you have a topic at all: I'm the one who's ready to be an asshole about it. But apparently you think I should be going door-to-door with DNA test kits, questionnaires, and a flame thrower: Until I do that, I'm not being true to my principles.

> you admit social "boundaries"
> inhibit you from personally
> voicing your unsolicited
> disapproval to people who need
> it in the real world.

First of all, I "admit" nothing.

Secondly, I go for long yardage. The SFV families I had in mind as I typed that passage are not people who complain about the individual personalities of the ex's, as if those had been problems that the rest of society needs to correct (e.g., "Edgar's a LIAR!" or "Jeannie's a PSYCHOBITCH!"). We don't want to hear these stories... We just want kids raised by a loving mother with a loving fathe, and the original set works best.

> When push comes to shove, it's a
> dirty job.

When cliches collide with metaphors, blog comments go ugly.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like the way you handle your social life either, but you needn't offer examples so that we can be certain.

The pill is, what 99% effective? Outside of mistakes taking it, the pill is pretty damned effective. I know, I know, some women can't take it. However, I think 98 or 99% is pretty unbeatable as a form of reversible birth control.

Posted by: crella at October 8, 2009 6:41 PM

______________________

According to the Allan Guttmacher Institute, the real-life failure rate for the Pill is 6%. Not encouraging. Any man who is truly, personally concerned about unwanted fatherhood had better use a condom.

I wonder how often sex-ed courses actually tell students to use two artificial methods EVERY time?

To Julie: Thanks.

Somehow, I doubt the problem of anti-contraception pharmacists has been exaggerated - or that they refuse BC pills to unmarried women but not married women.

Nobody is "sharing responsibility" for my kids, Crid, but me and their father. I bet I pay more taxes than almost anyone here.

And I was asked by crella to share my personal story.

Here's one thing I wish I could do: take the brain-dead child-support enforcement machine and actually make it do something useful.

Agreed. And this is why I think stigma, by itself, does nothing. It sucks children into being ashamed of something they can't possibly control, and hurts mothers who can't exactly go back in time and make better choices.

It's all about the money. People living welfare paycheck to welfare paycheck don't give a crap what judgmental people on a blog think about them. Stigma does, however, help some people feel like they're drawing some kind of meaningful line in the sand.

or that they refuse BC pills to unmarried women but not married women.

As a young girl I was on BC pills to regulate my cycles and continued on them until the doctors finally gave in a tied my tubes and gave me an ablation (at 24). I had more than one pharmacist refuse to fill my script because I was 'too young' or wasn't wearing a wedding ring. I've had pharmacists refuse to fill other scripts of mine because I looked "too healthy to need these pills". In my youth I lived in rural Arizona and New Mexico. As an adult I've lived in Colorado and Texas mostly. This is a huge problem that is only getting worse.

-Julie

In other words, Monica, "Just give me your fucking money".

>>When cliches collide with metaphors, blog comments go ugly.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like the way you handle your social life either, but you needn't offer examples so that we can be certain.

What stupid bullshit, Crid.

You volunteered the factoid about allowing yourself to dine in restaurants in the company of folks with the trendily blended families that give you the shudders - but that you draw a line at inviting them across your own unsullied threshold!

Because - apparently - your are going "for long yardage"??

Yes, I do mock.

You're nothing but a 19th century parson's son with prissy rules for his genteel bachelor salons.

> You're nothing but a 19th century
> parson's son

That's a erun from last week, and it didn't draw blood then, either.

>>That's a [r]erun from last week, and it didn't draw blood then, either.

To be sure, but holy fuck it fits, Crid.

Quite the man-about-town supping with mildly scandalous types in town, but standards are standards at the parsonage, eh!

There is no huge, non-Catholic movement that opposes preventative contraception within marriage.

But there is a huge movement to restrict access to birth control, whether done by Catholics or other pro-life entities.

If you include (various definitions of) abortion in the definition of "birth control", or you include efforts to restrict access of other forms of birth control to unmarried minors, then yes, I agree that there is a huge movement to restrict those things.

The above articles don't describe opposition to birth control per se, but opposition to abortion and sexual promiscuity.

My claim is that hardly anybody cares what husbands and wives use for contraception.

And why should contraception only be provided in marriage?

The social conservatives' answer is that sex outside of marriage is wrong, and should be discouraged whenever possible. I am describing what they believe, not endorsing or opposing it.

According to the Allan Guttmacher Institute, the real-life failure rate for the Pill is 6%.

It's even worse when one skips every other day in order to make one's supply last twice as long. (Supposedly some people actually do this.)

Somehow, I doubt the problem of anti-contraception pharmacists has been exaggerated

The news always exaggerates. Whenever the news portrays a person as "typical" of something you can be sure that it's the most extreme example the reporter could find.

As a young girl I was on BC pills to regulate my cycles and continued on them until the doctors finally gave in a tied my tubes and gave me an ablation (at 24). I had more than one pharmacist refuse to fill my script because I was 'too young' or wasn't wearing a wedding ring. I've had pharmacists refuse to fill other scripts of mine because I looked "too healthy to need these pills".

That's terrible. Did they still refuse after you explained that the prescription was to treat a medical condition? If so, then what you describe isn't opposition to birth control but something else.

Three rounds and I still don't see your point. (Your inexplicable fascination with the word "parson" has nonetheless registered here; you can let go of that. Now. If you want.)

• Some people I have sex with

• Some I just have over to the house

• Some I socialize with

– Some I work with

• Some I pass on the street

• Last is the group who get no attention at all.

So, exactly what part of this scheme is novel to you? Golly, I'd bet everyone on this blog uses a very similar approach.

When you give pharmacists and doctors a conscience clause, you give them an obscene amount of power over anyone they deem to be "lacking." They may be highly educated, but they can still be jerks, and few things bring out the jerk in people like sex. I'm lucky to live in NYC. If Duane Reade won't fill my prescription, I'll just go to the Walgreens across the street.

That's terrible. Did they still refuse after you explained that the prescription was to treat a medical condition?

Yes, at which point the interaction got ugly, laying into question my moral character and general desire to remain 'chaste' (Obviously he thought I was lying...but I should have been able to get the legally prescribed medication whether I was a prostitute or a nun). The issue was providing birth control to a non-married/teenage person. In my youth we ended up going to another town an hour away to get my medication. In my adult life I ended up going to planned parenthood, tromping through the protesters because that was the only way. Still better than bleeding to death.

I don't object to people refusing to sell birth control, if that is the business decision they want to make, I have no right to force them to do it (My thinking that they are nimrods shouldn't effect their businesses). My personal objection is when a pharmacist refuses for some and not others. That is a double standard, and if they don't object to the medication itself then they have no right to interfere with the medical treatment provided by a doctor.

For those that are unable to get medications refilled locally, I have a plan in the works to resolve that issue...but it is going to take some time. In the interim, I want to make people aware that it is a problem...for birth control and for other medications that are 'frowned upon'.

Access to abortion is another huge issue, but I would rather educate people to be responsible about sex and keep them from needing abortions. I would think that would be preferable to everyone.

-Julie

>>So, exactly what part of this scheme is novel to you?

Oooh, just maybe it was your original FULL quote? Lemme refresh things:

We certainly [stigmatize]. I certainly do. I have zero male friends who, as Gretchen puts it, shoot sperm without discernment. There are judgments to make.... I have friends in California families where half-siblings spend one weekend with this remarried parent and the next weekend with that one. Where these second families are in fact loving, it's harder to complain. I'll socialize with them in any restaurant, but they've never been in my home. (Maybe they'll do the math and feel slighted, maybe they won't.)

Up with the drawbridge!

If you NOW claim you were simply randomly describing your social life, then you'll have to explain how any of the above relates to your kick off assertion that you most "certainly do" stigmatize.

Because I have judgments to make here, Crid!

The topic today is not how many restaurant companions we also count as good enough chums to have as guests in our homes. Unless I'm in the wrong thread?

Nope, I still don't get it. What do you find discordant? You're not being clear.

If I drive over to the guy's house and take a piss in his mouth, will you be satisfied? Do I have to slap his kids around a little, too? Or should be I be nice to everybody all the time, and invite them over for heroin injections up on the roof at dusk?

Maybe this is a British thing... "Sorry... Sorry" in the tube, and all that.

>>Maybe this is a British thing... "Sorry... Sorry" in the tube, and all that.

For all I know, it's a pusillanimous LA thing, Crid.

You congratulate yourself for stigmatizing people because you don't like their behavior,
but in such a way that they'll never actually notice!

(In the UK, we'd elbow them into the nearest moat - and damn the consequences!)

Birth Control? Easy:

Don't. Have. Sex.

Or just have oral sex! ;-)

Birth Control? Easy:

Don't. Have. Sex.

Or just have oral sex! ;-)

Or by that standard, just do anal! ;-)

-Julie

Or just have sex with people of your own gender. Gay sex is the only safe sex.

> in such a way that they'll never
> actually notice!

Depends on the person. Or was that not made clear to you, Jody? Responses are calibrated.

Perhaps you should take some time to re-read the entire thread.

Or just have sex with people of your own gender. Gay sex is the only safe sex.

I sure am glad that got my tubes tied...I never did develop a taste for fish tacos...

-Julie

(I know...that is is awful taste...:-D )

You learn to like it.

"That's terrible. Did they still refuse after you explained that the prescription was to treat a medical condition?"

If you walk in with a prescription you don't owe the pharmacist an explanation of why you need it. A doctor saw fit to prescribe something and its not up to the pharmacist to decide if he should honor it or not. He's not a judge there to decide if your reasons are good or moral enough. Just give the fucking prescription because that's your job. I don't understand how this could even be a question.

He's not a judge there to decide if your reasons are good or moral enough. Just give the fucking prescription because that's your job. I don't understand how this could even be a question.

The problem is that the 'conscience clauses' give every person working in a medical environment, from the receptionist to the pharmacist the legal ability to question your motives and deny service to whomever they choose because they find it 'objectionable' without suffering any consequences. In the worst circumstances the pharmacists won't even return your scripts. I once went through morphine withdrawal for 4 or 5 days because a pharmacy that had previously filled my prescription refused to do so and refused to return the script. I couldn't reach the doctors and they were out of that office for the next several days (including a weekend). When I brought the issue to the pharmacist licensing board I was told 'tough shit'.

-Julie

>>Depends on the person. Or was that not made clear to you, Jody? Responses are calibrated.

Clear as slime, Crid.

Funny that.
I certainly don't recall you making any reference to anyone you know ever noticing that he or she was not welcome in your home -specifically due to your stigmatizing disapproval of their private lives.

If perky memory serves, you have yet to see the fruits of your carefully calibrated social stigma offensive!

I rather suspect you're the sort of chap who prides himself on bold speaking on blogs, but just plain seethes otherwise.

Slime, Jody! You're getting kinda personally 'suspicious'

I'm happy to have my tubes tied, as well. Aside from the fact that I find children incredibly noisy, messy, and annoying, here are other reasons why I don't think they are worth having:

http://reason.com/archives/2009/10/08/transfer-machine

Get a load of this quote:

"As I was preparing the return of a "Net tax receiver", he asked me whare the government gets the money to send him, when he had nothing withheld from his pay check. I gave the half-true answer that they get it from people who make more, don't have children of the government subsidized age or ottherwise don't get freebies (or work two jobs like.....ME!). His response left me speechless - with a self-satisfied smirk he simply said "GOOD!!" Yeah, he's gonna vote to cut taxes!"

Seems to me, if you have a kid, he's either going to end up being one of the assholes (the majority) or end up being victimized by the assholes. Seriously, it is time for the human race to look itself in the mirror and admit, 'You're fat!'

We tubes-tiedsters should come up with our own handshake for Amy's Autumn convention. See you in the lobby... If you don't see me right away, check the bar.

This is the only thing by Krugman that I ever really liked. Note that it's thirteen years old:

Aside from defense and interest payments, the U.S. government is now mainly--yes, mainly--in the business of taxing the young and giving money to the old.

I'd say nowadays it's about entitlements more generally. But Monica's comments this morning couldn't have been more repellent:

> People living welfare paycheck to
> welfare paycheck don't give a
> crap what judgmental people on a
> blog think

Kitten, a "welfare paycheck" is a contradiction in terms.

I love being judgmental. I wish everyone were more judgmental. There have been many, many discussion of this here. Here's an unsorted list.

Yet, it is a paycheck, Crid -- pay for having babies -- and I'm not sure why you have a problem with the idea that we should stop worrying about "stigma" and focus on eliminating financial rewards for making humans people can't care for.

I don't have the energy to sort out the "good" single mothers from the "bad" single mothers, and I'm not wise enough to determine that, anyway. I'd rather just cut off the money flow and let the rest sort itself out.

Sadly, it really is all about the money.

>We tubes-tiedsters should come up with our own handshake for Amy's Autumn convention.

Great idea. Now if I could only lose the image of the Flying Spaghetti Monster...

We tubes-tiedsters should come up with our own handshake for Amy's Autumn convention. See you in the lobby... If you don't see me right away, check the bar.

It is rather interesting that there are so many child-free people here. I suppose it supports the idea that like minded people will naturally find each other in any group. Either that, or our numbers are growing as fast as my militant child-free friends say they are.

Seems to me, if you have a kid, he's either going to end up being one of the assholes (the majority) or end up being victimized by the assholes.

My decision was more complex, including a stint raising my younger sisters as a teenager. If I had to put in simply, I would say that I didn't have kids because I didn't WANT them deeply and didn't feel that I had the ability to raise them correctly. Getting pregnant and then deciding that you are in over your head is one of the greatest sins I can think of. Keeping the poor thing after that qualifies you for your own level of hell.

-Julie

Funny, I remember I was thirteen when I realized I didn't want to have children but I can't remember if I was twenty-three or twenty-four when I convinced my doctor I wasn't going to change my mind.

I had to sign something to that effect, because it was not unknown for some women to meet a man who wanted kids to change their minds and sue the doctor, claiming they didn't understand what they were doing!

At the time, some doctors wouldn't consider it if you didn't already have at least one child, which defeated the purpose as far as I was concerned. Please, someone tell me it's gotten easier.

> Sadly, it really is all about
> the money.

Well dammit, if you're going to be so sensible, quit being so cynical! You're stripping my gears, and it's hard to keep up with who's who.

At the time, some doctors wouldn't consider it if you didn't already have at least one child, which defeated the purpose as far as I was concerned. Please, someone tell me it's gotten easier.

Actually no. I got my tubes tied on 12/11/98 and I suspect that the only reason why they did it was that it was either a tubal with an ablation or a hysterectomy. My cycle problems were no longer controlled by medication and my doctor couldn't convince me to 'just get pregnant, it will make things better'. Um...No.

Even now at 35 (almost)most doctors are shocked that I have my tubes tied and make mention that they wouldn't have done it. So, things haven't gotten better.

-Julie

The problem is that the 'conscience clauses' give every person working in a medical environment, from the receptionist to the pharmacist the legal ability to question your motives and deny service to whomever they choose because they find it 'objectionable' without suffering any consequences.

Fundamentally, people should not be forced to do something that they believe is morally wrong, even if their morals are not my morals.

At work I'm being pressured to get my prescription medications via our insurer's mail-order service; that seems like a fine alternative for those who don't have local pharmacies that will serve them.

The Handshake will be a typical, 3-pulse game of rock paper scissors, only without the rock, and without the paper. Also, everybody wins.

Fundamentally, people should not be forced to do something that they believe is morally wrong, even if their morals are not my morals.

On the surface, I agree. It is in the details that the problems erupt. If you don't believe in abortion, don't work for an abortion doctor or a hospital/clinic that provides them. If you don't believe in birth control, again, work for like minded people (or yourself) and make a clear stand against it. However, no doctor subordinate person should be allowed to interfere with my medical treatment for any reason because they don't like their perception of my reasons for receiving the treatment. And no doctor-subordinate person should then be able to obstruct me from seeking that medical treatment elsewhere.

I'm not against people making their own business decisions (I'm not going to sell birth control in my pharmacy as an example), I'm against people pretending to be doctors because they don't like that I am receiving treatment or don't think that my reasons are good enough. Until they have an MD they don't have the right to make that decision.

At work I'm being pressured to get my prescription medications via our insurer's mail-order service; that seems like a fine alternative for those who don't have local pharmacies that will serve them.

That assumes that the person has prescription medication insurance and can wait the week to 10 days for the medication. That doesn't work for most pain medications (they won't allow you that much extra) or emergency birth control (I think the time limit is 72 hours, although I'm not sure. It could easily be less). Plus a young person who is attempting to get birth control might not want to run it through their parents insurance.

-Julie

The Handshake will be a typical, 3-pulse game of rock paper scissors, only without the rock, and without the paper.

I like it!

-Julie

>>I like it!

Careful there, Julie.

For all you know, Crid might appear to be warmly shaking your hand - but it could be one of his secretly stigmatizing LA handshakes.

He's cunning like that!

"Even now at 35 (almost)most doctors are shocked that I have my tubes tied and make mention that they wouldn't have done it. So, things haven't gotten better."

Ah. Well, that sucks. I guess Monty Python was right. Every sperm is sacred.

> secretly stigmatizing LA handshakes.

It the seasons, right? You're upset about facing another cold season out there, when we got nuthin' but clear skies and sunshine here in Lotusland.

Because otherwise, I can't imagine what's got you so wound up...

What is the standard of idiot robot simplicity which you seek in people's judgments? Presumably you hate drunk drivers. When you meet someone who confesses that they once drove drunk, do you rip open their throat with a letter opener?

Or are you just having a bad day?

Crid,
True, I'm not overly fond of Long Island's lowering skies at present.

But to the other matter: it was just your straight-faced stuff about coaxing "calibrated responses" by stealth stigmatizing tactics that has kept me messing about here.

I think most of us find it quite refreshing, sometimes, imagining how we'd deliver a few TOTALLY unsolicited home truths to someone's face - about domestic arrangements that strike us as selfish, based on absurd self-entitlement and probably not great for the kids.

(I'm not talking about people who have been involved in crimes.)

But if we know them socially, I think we tend to keep quiet in person. Very, very quiet indeed. Because we'd rather not deal with a possibly highly defensive response that it's none of our fucking beeswax.

Thus stigma withers on the social vine.

That's all!

No, I'm pretty sure it's the weather.

My first comment: "We want to encourage judgment on the part of grown women such that they won't be tempted to use a five-letter word as a get-out-of-jail-free card."

See? That last part would be your "solicitation." For a man, it might be whining about how expensive parts for the motorbike can be when his ex is also demanding lunch money for the kids.

And on from there. I didn't say stigma cures cancer. Why you think I did is not clear to me. When people get mouthy, especially people who've taken no steps to ameliorate the pain in the lives of the own families, then yeah, I'm for it. Stigma. Shunning. All that stuff. That I don't bust into people's homes unbidden to give them a right proper talking-to doesn't diminish the power of these tools.

On Pier, Santa Monica, California (PWS)
Updated: 12 min 38 sec ago
Clear
65.2 °F
Clear
Humidity: 81%
Dew Point: 59 °F
Wind: 10.0 mph from the West
Wind Gust: 12.0 mph
Pressure: 29.97 in (Falling)
Visibility: 9.0 miles
UV: 1 out of 16
Clouds: Clear -

OK? OK.

"As long as the mother is 100% willing and able to raise and support the child on her own (no government assistance or crazy shit like suing a sperm donor) then I don't see anything wrong with this."

Do you know anybody who is actually doing this?

I think a father who arrogantly or casually chooses not to let his children have a mother, or a mother who arrogantly or casually chooses not to let her children have a father, is by definition not 'raising and supporting' the kid.
___________________

Thanks, I'm here through the weekend! Two shows Saturday night, Sunday matinee!

(PS- After the show, somebody please take me out for drinks and explain why some people think sex is such a small part of character.)

Oh, Crid, I'd love to take you for a drink after the show, but I think I'm one of those people you shun so I fear you'd reject my offer.

Don't worry about it. Principles are important, but we're talking about REFRESHMENT...

Good to know. Next time I'm in California, we'll have some refreshments. I bet in the end I'd win you over completely.

"According to the Allan Guttmacher Institute, the real-life failure rate for the Pill is 6%. "

Really? Not that I don't believe you, but it's different from what some of the literature will tell you. When I was taking them, they claimed 98%. Is that factoring in human error? I would think so...

(10 minutes)I didn't want to post twice.

I just found this-

"Missed Pills: Late Start

The most common way women get pregnant while using The Pill is starting late.

* 1 day late starting the next package: Take 2 pills as soon as you remember and one pill each day after. Use a backup form of birth control for two weeks.
* 2 days late starting the next package: Take 2 pills per day for 2 days, then continue as usual. Use a backup form of birth control for two weeks.
* 3 or more days late starting the next package: Call the clinic for instructions."

http://www.fwhc.org/birth-control/thepill.htm

The above source didn't say why they pegged effectiveness at 92-97.8% (at the top of their page) so I kept looking.

"Perfect use or method effectiveness rates only include people who take the pills consistently and correctly. Actual use, or typical use effectiveness rates are of all COCP users, including those who take the pills incorrectly, inconsistently, or both...

The typical use pregnancy rate among COCP users varies depending on the population being studied, ranging from 2-8% per year. The perfect use pregnancy rate of COCPs is 0.3% per year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pill

Did they include the effectiveness of the pill while taking antibiotics in those numbers?

Right below what I posted was this-

"Contraceptive efficacy may be impaired by: 1) missing more than one active pill in a packet, 2) delay in starting the next packet of active pills (i.e., extending the pill-free, inactive or placebo pill period beyond 7 days), 3) intestinal malabsorption of active pills due to vomiting or diarrhea, 4) drug interactions with active pills that decrease contraceptive estrogen or progestogen levels.[19]"

I'd assume this was all included in the 2-8% pregnancy rate.

radwaste:

Yes, many men, like me, are raising children by themselves, with no government assistance or cs or anything else. So why can't single moms do it?

mike, you'll notice that no one has answered this about women.

I'm still waiting.

Single motherhood, regardless of how many you may know as "good people", is an amazing burden on the populace. I'd like to hear any story of a woman who "stepped up" - as men are routinely required to do in a variety of situations.

"Obviously, Kristen shouldn't have had to worry about the stigma, but the fact is that, were there more of a stigma, women as a rule would more carefully consider who they choose to marry"

Many women today don't think carefully about who they choose to marry because they have collectively partially regressed into a feral state. (That sounds ridiculous until you stop and think about it carefully.)

"As long as the mother is 100% willing and able to raise and support the child on her own (no government assistance or crazy shit like suing a sperm donor) then I don't see anything wrong with this."

Sorry, but I know a few children and young adult males who are being or were raised by only a woman, and the results are tragic ... I never understood the significance of this until I started seeing these results, but boys really do need good, solid male role models who are in their lives in a big way. There is no substitute. It is cruel.

"According to the Allan Guttmacher Institute, the real-life failure rate for the Pill is 6%"

Gosh, if that were true, I would've had a stack of babies by now by several different women.

Sorry, but I know a few children and young adult males who are being or were raised by only a woman, and the results are tragic ... I never understood the significance of this until I started seeing these results, but boys really do need good, solid male role models who are in their lives in a big way. There is no substitute. It is cruel.

My husband was primarily raised by his mother. His father left the house when he was 3 and his parents divorced when he was 5. My FIL moved out of state when my husband was 12 or 13, so that my husband only saw him a few times per year.

My Love has worked very hard to become a well adjusted person, but his childhood was a cluster-fuck of drugs, bad grades, and rebellion. We cannot lay all of this at the feet of my FIL, because my MIL actively attempted to poison my husband against his father (as well as other things I won't mention), but not having a Dad around left him very screwed up and very angry for many years. It was only in his adulthood that he was able to work through all of that bullshit and see what a waste it all was. He now has a pretty healthy relationship with his father, but I can see the anger come back when he sees his younger siblings (from my FIL's second marriage) get the attention and advantages that he never did.

My in-laws are both professionals and my FIL paid child support throughout my husband's youth, so it wasn't issues of money. In his case it was clearly an issue of not really having a Dad.

"According to the Allan Guttmacher Institute, the real-life failure rate for the Pill is 6%"

Gosh, if that were true, I would've had a stack of babies by now by several different women.

This takes into account all of the women who forget pills, double up on them or take them stupidly. However, it does make you think, doesn't it? If I hadn't' gotten my tubes tied, I would be looking at UIDs right now. They seem the best option with less of a chance of 'operational error'.

-Julie

-Julie

Copper-7 IUD has no hormones or chemicals.

Yup, that is another advantage. Hormones always cause me to gain significant weight. I used to joke that the pill worked for me by making me so fat no one would want to have sex with me! ;-)

-Julie

"Low-quality females prefer low-quality males.

"Evolutionary biologists previously thought that females would always opt for the best male available."

I doubt very much that these women prefer low-quality males, they're probably realistic enough to realize that that's the best they can do and 'half a loaf is better than none'. Unlike the overweight, grungy, broke 'nice guys' who seem to think they deserve a supermodel by virtue of their being.

Anyway, cut off the welfare bucks, medicaid and section 8 and you'll see the number of unwed mothers plummet.

Raised just by my Mom. Even though I had a Dad until I was 12, he never was interested in interacting with me.

After that...no Men in my life.

And I've been broken all this time.

Hey, I needed to ask you some thing. Is this a wordpress site? We are pondering changing my web page from Blogger to wordpress, ya think that is possible? Also did you build this particular theme yourself some how? Many thanks for the assistance!