Slayerhood

[ms_scarletibis]

First, a quick thank you to Kathleen and Emmy for the virtual VDay gifts.  Sorry for the delay, but had a bit of the VD blues...

Anyway, poll beneath the cut. No one can view the answers but me.  I suspect this will cause some interesting discussion...but I don't believe I'm going to participate.  Was only curious.
Poll Slayerhood

Comments

[shapinglight]

I ended up picking not sure almost every time because I think the answer as to whether or not a slayer should have a baby is so dependant on individual circumstances

[zanthinegirl]

here on a rec from petzi!

I''m very torn by most of these. I strongly resist telling anyone what they should do in that kind of circumstance, but hey! Fictional!

I don't think Buffy (for all the reasons she lists) is ready to be a parent right now, but I also know that's true for a lot of people who go on to be great parents. I think she could step up to the plate, and I suspect that with the right support she'd be a great mom. That support's the key question!

One thing on which I think most people in our society agree is that for a good parent the child has to come first. Not the mission, which is where poor Nikki come's off badly. On the other hand we as a society don't seem to have that same expectation for dads to nearly the same extent as for moms; If I hadn't been read the comics I might hope that they'd explore that. I know better!

[shipperx]

I kind of want to elaborate on all of them. :)

It's not cut and dried on any of them. That said, I do have opinions so cut and dried or not (and it's not) I do finally weigh in on each.

And reckless endangerment of a four-year-old is poor judgement. It just is.

Thorny polling is thorny.

[harsens_rob]

I'm just going to add my agreement that all of these questions were tough to answer, but being a poll, I couldn't resist its siren call

[rahirah]

Since we never really see Nikki being a mother over any period of time, and the only stories of it come from Robin's understandably biased point of view, I don't think we can tell what kind of mother she was. And the circumstances of her motherhood have been retconned over time. First she wasn't conceived as a mother at all. Then Robin was the child of her boyfriend, who got killed by vampires, and his death was strongly implied to be the reason she was ready to fall at Spike's hands. Then she was pregnant by an anonymous hookup, and a slaying junkie. It seems like Nikki's story changes whenever they need it to reflect something different about Buffy, instead of her being a character in her own right. I find this (and all the people who bash her for being a 'bad mother') annoying.

As for what Buffy should do, she should do whatever she feels is right for her situation. What I think she should do is entirely irrelevant.

[ms_scarletibis]

Was trying to avoid the whole comments section (which I'm getting no notifications on, btw) is that Buffy...

She's a fictional character whose will is at the hands of a writer, and I'd argue that you, as an audience member/reader, are in the clear of having an opinion :)