hap-py mother's day

[evr1bugsme]

since i don't really have cable anymore I spend a lot more time watching these three stations of PBS, including the sunday political talkshows. well, that was a poor decision! "to the contrary" the women's political show was on as i was leaving to go to the farmer's market (yay! it opened last week, but appears to have far less produce, i hope this

Comments

[otioseandtrite]

"why can't we focus on teaching people not to have kids till they can afford them?"

How is this anything but a lucid, valid question?

[evr1bugsme]

ahshsahdashaha

because the issue isn't that people have kids because they can't afford them because they think the government will take care of them. maybe 5 people do that, but that's not why most people have kids and to approach the question that way is just really insulting. people have kids because they want kids. because they like sex. because they can afford them and then the unforeseen happens and suddenly they are poor. because of a million reasons that sex ed alone is not going to touch in any meaningful way.

and that doesn't even touch on the issue of waiting to have kids having it's OWN problems.

is sex ed important? absolutely. is sex ed the answer to peoples' need for child care? no fucking way!

[otioseandtrite]

Shouldn't the issue be that working couples CAN'T afford to have children? Why is the blame cast solely on the couples involved, and not the socio-economic system that makes childbearing and rearing a privilege reserved for those who "can afford it" (i.e., comparatively wealthy middle-class white people)? At what point did social and economic Darwinism become the prevailing undercurrent in American thought?

[otioseandtrite]

At what point did social and economic Darwinism become the prevailing undercurrent in American thought?

Around the time of the Agricultural Revolution.

[otioseandtrite]

people have kids because they want kids.How is this a good reason

[evr1bugsme]

I don't think it should be that way and no matter what way we want people to be or would ideally like people to act, it just aint gonna happen. It's not possible or feasible to implement changes like that and so it seems best to me to talk about things we do have control over--work life balance issues, funding child care, helping people have "careers" (which does have the 'fortunate' side effect of them having fewer children as affluence increases), etc.

[otioseandtrite]

I didn't know you were friends with Christopher Hitchens. Good one Hitch!!!

[otioseandtrite]

Who the hell is Christopher Hitchens?