Stop having kids ... just fucking stop

[Quiet_Cool]

That's fine if you look at sex as a moral issue (should vs shouldn't) but I look at sex as it is (morals are different everywere)- a biological drive. Our bodies are created for it, push us toward it with the same kinds of urges that push us to eat, drink and sleep- both concious and subconscious ones. We *are* meant to have sex, and *not* doing it, while possible, is fighting the natural and normal course of events. It won't kill you, but it's a lot more involved than just going- oh ok, I'm not going to have sex. Lots of girls get pregnant saying just that very thing.

A biological drive? True, but that's not reason enough for the outcome of a lot of the behavior that it leads to. These kids we're discussing here, they deserved a better chance at life, but because someone thought sex was a "biological drive" a lot of them don't have a chance. It's not what we want to say or hear, but let's face it, they don't. That kid Bandit mentioned, where do you think she'll be when she's her mother's age? Probably nowhere better than where he mother is, and possibly with more children.
It's a drive, yes, but it's one that not only can be ignored, but one that can be extremely damaging when it isn't. I know it probably sounds "Puritan" (and that in no way encompasses my feelings toward anything) but no matter what we do, even if there's a biological drive behind it, we're responsible for the outcome.
And sex as a "moral issue." Pretty much everything in our culture is a "moral issue." That's what society is supposed to do. Moralize and structuralize. What else would it do?

Q_C

 

[Seattle Zack]

.....

 

[Seattle Zack]

Here's a herd of breeder cows nobody's discussed yet: the female half of many of the smug, golden young couples I go to church with. The male half is an up-and-coming young lawyer or software developer or exec and has benefits out the wazoo. They have had three kids and the fourth is in the oven....

Well said. Slick. Studeis have shown over and over that one of the things children need is male and female role models ... in the context of a comitted, long-term relationship.

 

[Seattle Zack]

Sorry double post.

 

[Seattle Zack]

A biological drive? True, but that's not reason enough for the outcome of a lot of the behavior that it leads to. These kids we're discussing here, they deserved a better chance at life, but because someone thought sex was a "biological drive" a lot of them don't have a chance. It's not what we want to say or hear, but let's face it, they don't. That kid Bandit mentioned, where do you think she'll be when she's her mother's age? Probably nowhere better than where he mother is, and possibly with more children.
It's a drive, yes, but it's one that not only can be ignored, but one that can be extremely damaging when it isn't. I know it probably sounds "Puritan" (and that in no way encompasses my feelings toward anything) but no matter what we do, even if there's a biological drive behind it, we're responsible for the outcome.
And sex as a "moral issue." Pretty much everything in our culture is a "moral issue." That's what society is supposed to do. Moralize and structuralize. What else would it do?

Q_C

Good point. So you "advocates of children" are admitting that you're too fucking stupid to even advocate or introduce even the most rudimentary forms of birth control? You're too stupid to use condoms, is that what you're saying?

 

[Seattle Zack]

No, that goes against the Christian anti-child mantra ..... you should squirt out as many as possible, even if you can't afford 'em, even if they're on welfare. Espacially if they're white. That will show these n****er lovin' Jews and these Muslims, trying to take over our neighborhoods. Can't have that, could ya?

 

[yui]

Just, as an aside, what else would you equate it to? I understand that you're all offended by the breeder cow thing, but we're all lovey-dovey and past that now, right?

Hello SeattleZack,

I am not so much with the lovey-dovey over the breeder cow stuff, but I can let that go.

As my aside, I am genuinely sorry that anyone has to be involved, in any capacity, in such a sad, sad case and your later post did shed a bit of light on your initial rant. I truly do understand. I resigned from social services because I was incapable of not taking the lives of my clients personally; and taking it personally made me unable to perform effectively.

I think the solution is birth control in the water and people should have to pass a test to become a parent. That way, no one suffers. No unexpected pregnancies and a significant reduction in unfit parents, eh?

(Of course, before I get flamed, I understand that my solution is not a solution, and is fraught with all sorts of problems (social, cultural, religious, medical, etc.). My “solution”, is simply a broad statement that is the result of frustration at my own inability to create positive change.)

So, you think Ralph Nader is successful? A guy who adopts a pathetic 30 grand a year salary and drives around in a beat up old car? You would fuck him?

Maybe an example or two of where no money equated to success would clear me old addled mind.

I am not certain how my criteria for choosing a lover became part of this thread, but the suggestion that the kind of car a man drives would influence my choice is incredibly juvenile. And what a person makes per year is their business. I am not looking for a sugar daddy. I can pay my own bills.

In my experience, money can create as many problems as it solves. Isn't there even an expression about money being at the root of all evil?

Do I think Ralph Nader is successful? Yes. I respect what I know about him. Would I fuck Ralph Nader? I don’t know him, but the “beat up old car” and "pathetic 30 grand per year" wouldn’t work against him.

Liar and BlackShanglan have already answered your "success" questions most eloquently, so I won’t repeat what they have said. I will only add, that by my estimation, the list of successful people who are not “rich” is endless.

I think it is the idea that money is what makes you a successful person that is at least partially responsible for your “breeder-cow-kids” car jacking and selling drugs as a fast way to the almighty dollar. In my experience, rich people are not intrinsically good parents, just as poor people are not intrinsically bad ones.

Luck to you,

Yui

 

[scheherazade_79]

I know a lot of people have gotten angry at this post... but I have to say, I kind of admire Zack for speaking his mind so openly. Not a lot of people have the guts to do that, and I don't think he should be shouted down for it.

 

[cloudy]

I know a lot of people have gotten angry at this post... but I have to say, I kind of admire Zack for speaking his mind so openly. Not a lot of people have the guts to do that, and I don't think he should be shouted down for it.

It wasn't that he stated his opinion that was objectionable, it was the hate-filled language, and the way he tarred all people of a certain economic level with the same "breeder cow" brush.

It seems like a personal problem to me.

 

[scheherazade_79]

It wasn't that he stated his opinion that was objectionable, it was the hate-filled language, and the way he tarred all people of a certain economic level with the same "breeder cow" brush.

It seems like a personal problem to me.

Hmmmm... fair point. But he did say exactly what he thought and didn't try and wrap it up in euphemisms or misleading politically correct jargon - which is pretty unusual in this day and age. I don't agree with the extremism or the sweeping generalisations, but ten out of ten to Seattle Zack for speaking his mind openly.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I dissent. I dislike the assumption that one cannot speak one's mind and support one's opinion while remaining civil. In fact, it is much more effective and a greater sign of dedication to one's cause. Anyone genuinely passionate and serious about a cause will be willing to forgo the dubious pleasures of name-calling and invective in order to more persuasively present the case for his or her argument. People who stoop to hate-filled language are indulging their own tempers at the expense of their beliefs.

 

[Seattle Zack]

I've never been one to soft-pedal my opinions in Politically Correct Sugar Coated Wraps (slogan "Everyone Loves 'Em!").

As I disentangle ungracefully myself from that decidedly mixed metaphor I will say:

Poor people have many many more children than wealthy paople do. These children bring with them an enormous cost to society, from Human Services to prison to welfare, right down the line.

Any woman who has a child that she's unable to care for is completely selfish. Bottom line. To raise a child takes two active parents in a committed long-term relationship. If I ever had a child, I would want his or her health care to be assured. His or her higher education to be guaranteed. In other words, I would want my child to be successful.

These women that squirt out kids today, they don't care one way or the other.

Women have the final say on whether or not to bear offspring. It's unfortunate, but in this society it's true.

I agree that birth control is the answer. The consequences are so much more drastic for women, I would think they might grasp the concept a little quicker than teenage boys do. So, any teenage mother is too stupid to understand birth control? That must be the case. Or, on the other hand, she wanted children (for whatever incomprehensible reason) and got knocked up. And did it again.

That's what gets me. It's never an isolated incident. It's a pattern of behavior. That's what I mean by "breeder cow," these moronic woman that continue to determinedly pump out kids despite repeated failures.

And there go my tax dollars. And yours.

 

[rgraham666]

And there go my tax dollars. And yours.

That's my choice. And I don't mind.

 

[she_is_my_addiction]

I'm not going to say too much. It's early, and I've been offended. Also I haven't slept, so this is not a happy SIMA.

I was pregnant when I was 14. Not by choice, you instigator, but because I was raped. Does that skew your fucking ridiculous results a little bit. Jesus Christ I hope so.

~End~

 

[destinie21]

I've never been one to soft-pedal my opinions in Politically Correct Sugar Coated Wraps (slogan "Everyone Loves 'Em!").

As I disentangle ungracefully myself from that decidedly mixed metaphor I will say:

Poor people have many many more children than wealthy paople do. These children bring with them an enormous cost to society, from Human Services to prison to welfare, right down the line.

Any woman who has a child that she's unable to care for is completely selfish. Bottom line. To raise a child takes two active parents in a committed long-term relationship. If I ever had a child, I would want his or her health care to be assured. His or her higher education to be guaranteed. In other words, I would want my child to be successful.

These women that squirt out kids today, they don't care one way or the other.

Women have the final say on whether or not to bear offspring. It's unfortunate, but in this society it's true.

I agree that birth control is the answer. The consequences are so much more drastic for women, I would think they might grasp the concept a little quicker than teenage boys do. So, any teenage mother is too stupid to understand birth control? That must be the case. Or, on the other hand, she wanted children (for whatever incomprehensible reason) and got knocked up. And did it again.

That's what gets me. It's never an isolated incident. It's a pattern of behavior. That's what I mean by "breeder cow," these moronic woman that continue to determinedly pump out kids despite repeated failures.

And there go my tax dollars. And yours.

We could always castrate the stubborn men who refuse to stop "bangin them

 

[Guest]

Poor people have many many more children than wealthy paople do.

Have you given thought to why this is? I hope you don't presume that people choose poverty if there is an option.

Perdita

p.s. do you protest other grievous spending of your tax dollars as violently as this?

 

[BlackShanglan]

I've never been one to soft-pedal my opinions in Politically Correct Sugar Coated Wraps (slogan "Everyone Loves 'Em!").

As noted above - it's not your opinions. It's your language.

Or do you perchance have no real opnions other than a desire indulge in hate-filled invective? I'm willing to weigh this possiblity.

 

[RenzaJones]

Rich teenagers get pregnant too, I know this. Their kids are just "taken care of" before they can mar up the family name.

 

[Liar]

Women have the final say on whether or not to bear offspring. It's unfortunate, but in this society it's true.

Um...yeah. let me quote a post that you either did not read or chose not to consider:

Oggbashan said...
Why has no one mentioned that the men should have responsibility as well?

A few of the people I know that could be covered by this rant have been used and abused by men. That's how they get pregnant. Then he (or they) do a runner leaving her with the child. When she has recovered her figure he (they) are back again for free no-strings-attached sex. That is all they want and all she can offer.

It is abuse, often of women who have low self-esteem already, that pushes them further down into depression and despair. Breaking the cycle needs strength that the woman rarely has and any resistance can be beaten out of her.

The women are not the source of the problem but they bear the consequences.

Og

 

[SlickTony]

I was feeling very jaundiced and snide when I made my post here--the one where I was accused of dragging politics into the discussion. But face it, peeps, discussion of social issues like this always lead to politics of one kind or another.

I really have noticed this phenomenon in my part of the world--sleek, cornfed, affluent couples that feel it is their Christian duty to round out their family to four kids. It takes some getting used to, for me; I mean, I grew up in the age of ZPG and feminism. Having only one or two kids was a sign of enlightenment. We were worried about bringing kids into "a world like this"--and women certainly had a harder time realizing their potential if they were getting pregnant four times.

The modern young couples with their fourth kid in the oven seem to have a rather illiberal outlook on life; they don't have much connection, and therefore, not much sympathy, for the improverished, the women who get pregnant unintentionally, or even the ones who find themselves beating a path down to the pharmacy to get Plan B.

And if they're all having four kids or more--and mind you, I'm not talking about people who have trouble handling the financial sacrifices involved in raising a family--you know what that means.

There are going to be more of them than there are of us.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I really have noticed this phenomenon in my part of the world--sleek, cornfed, affluent couples that feel it is their Christian duty to round out their family to four kids. ...

The modern young couples with their fourth kid in the oven seem to have a rather illiberal outlook on life; they don't have much connection, and therefore, not much sympathy, for the improverished, the women who get pregnant unintentionally, or even the ones who find themselves beating a path down to the pharmacy to get Plan B.

I'm not really sure how we get from point A to point B here, Tony. That is, I imagine that it is harder for people who live comfortably to thoroughly understand the lives of those who are impoverished, but it's not clear to me how their reproductive choices enter into this, or indeed how it would benefit those less fortunate than them for these people to force themselves not to have the size of family that they want. Unless we're proposing a world in which anyone who has anything more than any other person - money, food, house, children - must give them up, I don't really see what the problem is.

Surely the hard-won reproductive "choice" is in fact choice, and not a mandate that all women must have the same size of family? It seems a bit hard on them to charge them with smugness and lack of sympathy purely on the basis that they have made different choices. One might as easily charge the smug, self-righteous college-educated with callous disdain for the suffering caused by illiteracy, or stuck-up, snooty fit people with an arrogant disregard for the suffering of the disabled. The point is not that any of these people are actually arrogant or cruel at all; it is that it seems unfair to ascribe unpleasant internal states of mind to people we don't know based purely on their decisions to live life differently than we do.

I quite like you, SlickTony, but I feel that you're being rather unfair here.

Shanglan

 

[SlickTony]

The point is not that any of these people are actually arrogant or cruel at all; it is that it seems unfair to ascribe unpleasant internal states of mind to people we don't know based purely on their decisions to live life differently than we do.

I do know people like that. But if I go further I'll end up waxing political again.

I guess what I was driving at is that we liberals need to multiply more than we're doing.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I do know people like that. But if I go further I'll end up waxing political again.

I guess what I was driving at is that we liberals need to multiply more than we're doing.

But how do you know the people with the multiple kids aren't liberals? That is ... if having more than one or two children makes people by default not liberal ... is this a solvable problem?

 

[Guest]

I've never been one to soft-pedal my opinions in Politically Correct Sugar Coated Wraps (slogan "Everyone Loves 'Em!").

As I disentangle ungracefully myself from that decidedly mixed metaphor I will say:

Poor people have many many more children than wealthy paople do. These children bring with them an enormous cost to society, from Human Services to prison to welfare, right down the line.

Any woman who has a child that she's unable to care for is completely selfish. Bottom line. To raise a child takes two active parents in a committed long-term relationship. If I ever had a child, I would want his or her health care to be assured. His or her higher education to be guaranteed. In other words, I would want my child to be successful.

These women that squirt out kids today, they don't care one way or the other.

Women have the final say on whether or not to bear offspring. It's unfortunate, but in this society it's true.

I agree that birth control is the answer. The consequences are so much more drastic for women, I would think they might grasp the concept a little quicker than teenage boys do. So, any teenage mother is too stupid to understand birth control? That must be the case. Or, on the other hand, she wanted children (for whatever incomprehensible reason) and got knocked up. And did it again.

That's what gets me. It's never an isolated incident. It's a pattern of behavior. That's what I mean by "breeder cow," these moronic woman that continue to determinedly pump out kids despite repeated failures.

And there go my tax dollars. And yours.

You're so angry. And sad, especially after the recent horrific case with the death of two young children.

That's understandable.

But you're preaching to the choir, albeit in a clumsy manner.

I think most people here agree that uncaring and careless people should not be parents.

That isn't the same thing as being a single parent, however, and it's not the same type of situation as an unplanned or unexpected pregnancy.

But breeder cows? Call those women stupid, for heaven's sake, but not breeder cows. You managed to insult half the population in one sentence.

When I was a college undergrad I was able to get birth control pills from Planned Parenthood at a greatly reduced price. Education does help, but many of these "breeder" women do not have a clue about how to exist in a different way.

As do the men. Sometimes the more babes a man impregnates the more of a "man" he is considered to be.

I'm not excusing a damn thing. There is no excuse for the abuse of a child.

No matter what happens there will always be people who profit from the system. Lazy-ass individuals who live as parasites on the backs of hard-working folks.

At any rate, with our current administration, you needn't worry. Programs have already been cut and the process will continue until there will be no aid available for anyone, hard-working or no.

 

[Seattle Zack]

Well, I notice the PC crowd is already saddlin' up, so before I abandon this thread to the AH clique wasteland of invictive pedagoguery let me mention....

The "breeder cows" as I refer to them are these single mothers that continue to have children ... and damn the consequences.

Not the women that were married and tragically widowed. Not those who were raped as a child and now have to deal with the consequences as a result.

How many kids is enough? People don't choose poverty, as Perdita pointed out, but women decide whether or not to have children. And single women in poverty ... have as many as you fucking want -- five children is an appropriate choice? Six? Seven? With those children come an enormous societal cost.

Of course I don't protest other "grevious spending" of my tax dollars as vehemently as this. I would rather more of my tax dollars went to higher education, which is woefully underfunded (in my childless opinion). I would support universal healthcare for children, rather than tax breaks for billionaires. Don't get me started. I'd prefer that the kids we have on this planet already get a chance at a real career, than encouraging more kids that we can't pay for.