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cactuar_tamer
2007-06-05 07:17 pm UTC (link)

Well, I'm of the VHEMT camp, so I know very well I'm biased on this.

To me, that many children is a bad idea whether you're the OP or you're giving Bill Gates a run for his money. The WIC thing doesn't even ping me that much. I have friends who grew up on welfare, my own family isn't, but we did start out fairly well off and have fallen pretty far through a series of unfortunate and unpredictable events. I can understand all of that pretty well.

So yeah. I think it's a bad idea in general, but I'd never go around saying that to parents. I keep my mouth shut, until I'm talking to someone who agrees with me or who asks, or when it comes up in conversation vis-a-vis my own decision not to reproduce. There's really no excuse for being so deliberately rude to other people, in my mind.

My post was just to comment on how one could be pro-choice and still critical of some choices.

/ probably too much talky.

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velvet_mace
2007-06-05 07:34 pm UTC (link)

*nods* And you bring up a point -- you are child free and I bet you absolutely HATE HATE HATE when people get on your case about it. But it works the other way around too. For those who want to have a large family, having their choices being second guessed by other people is just as irritating. It annoys the hell out of me every time I see the "Vagina: it's not a clown car" because that couple made the choice for their own reasons to have a very large family. It's their own business as to why and no one elses.

See the thing is we know what is right for us. What was right for me was two kids, a third would have been okay, but I wouldn't want to go through the effort of raising, say, six. On the other hand, I would have been miserably unhappy if I were childfree. Intellectually I can understand why some women might want to never have children, but emotionally I can't do it, because emotionally I can't really put myself in their place.

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	luna_hoshino 2007-06-06 03:39 am UTC (link)
	It's their own business as to why and no one elses. I agree-- up until it starts impacting other people, and given how overpopulated the world is becoming I would argue that it DOES impact other people. Said people just might not happen to exist yet. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	velvet_mace 2007-06-06 03:42 am UTC (link)
	Dude, your car impacts other people. Without immigration the population growth of the US would be negative. The problem is not the occasional woman who wants 15 kids, it's all the women in India who would rather have 1 or 2 but end up with 8 because they have no access to birth control. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	luna_hoshino 2007-06-06 04:25 am UTC (link)
	Dude, your car impacts other people. Which is part of why I hate driving unless I absolutely have to, actually. Immigration or not, it's undeniable that the US population is growing at a fairly rapid pace. I just don't see a reason for contributing to that by having 5 or 6 kids, personally. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

velvet_mace
2007-06-06 04:48 am UTC (link)

Well that's the point, the 5 or 6 kids AREN'T having a significant impact. Truth be told very few women want that many kids, so you are talking a tiny minority. Our population is living longer, we have immigration, and our new immigrants have more than the average number of children (but even the group with the HIGHEST number of children statistically only comes out to having 3 kids per family.)

One woman who wants 4 kids or even 15 is not going to cause huge problems, and even population measures for the future assume that our hispanic population (the ones with the "high" fertility rate) aren't going to change their habits and start reproducing less in the next generation.

Upshot, it's not reason to get on someones case. If you really care about population growth rates, you will push for equality for women (since women who earn more statistically reproduce less)and women's health care (because even in the US access to birth control isn't universal).

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	chester_w 2007-06-08 05:13 am UTC (link)
	While we're pushing, can we put selecting for intelligence on the list? Future generations will thank us. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	velvet_mace 2007-06-08 02:48 pm UTC (link)
	Nope. No we can't. Because the horrors of walking down that path by far outweigh the benefits. I know you aren't being serious -- sadly some people genuinely are on that one. (Reply to this)(Parent)

iwanttobeasleep
2007-06-10 08:56 am UTC (link)

On one hand, you have a good point, a few big families mean nothing in the long run. On the other hand, wanting a big family isn't a defense for having a big family when you can't afford to feed them. And while we're at it, on one hand it's definitely the state's responsibility to make sure all children have food, clothing, and a place to live, but it's also the parent's responsibility not to create more children when they can't or can barely afford the ones they've got now. It's not just about the mother having a right to have a family as large as she wants, it's also about the children's right not to suffer unnecessarily because the mother wanted to have a large family even if she couldn't properly support all of them.

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velvet_mace
2007-06-10 03:33 pm UTC (link)

Well, lets put it this way. Do you believe that we as a society should force a woman to have an abortion? Force her to give up her religious beliefs? Force her to give up her children if she isn't abusing them? Because honestly, that's the alternative. Giving up sex entirely is a harsh thing to sentence a woman to as well, especially if she's married.

It's really easy to say "then she shouldn't have these children." But in order for her to not have these children, that means somehow or other you will have to take her right to have children away from her.

I support easy and cheap access to contraceptives (which, surprise, we don't have), and heavily subsidized childcare to help women with children get back to work and off of welfare. I think that's a much more supportive than simply tut tuting and telling these women to stop having sex.

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penguinfaery
2007-06-10 02:33 am UTC (link)

It's their own business as to why and no one elses.

It's not their own business when they're paying for it with other people's money. Granted, if you read farther in the post, the poster just got caught. But the post it's self is badly representative of this and without back information, is a perfect example of what unfortuantly there is a lot of out there. "Gimme money, oh, by the way, preggers again."

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	velvet_mace 2007-06-10 03:32 am UTC (link)
	That's the price of living in civilized society. I, for one, appreciate living in a first world country. "Gimme money, oh, by the way, preggers again." You know, I don't think you can come up with a shallower, meaner, and more selfserving way to look at the situation. Kudos. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

penguinfaery
2007-06-10 03:43 am UTC (link)

Yep, as am I. I'm also aware any good system can be abused by the right people.

I'm not saying the OP is like that. I'm saying there ARE many people who are (And if you believe there not, poke around a welfare office for a while), and the OP touched on that reaction, without meaning to (As she does not, by all mean, appear to be anything like that. I do believe she was just shoved into a shitty situation)

You're right, someone putting their kid into that situations IS shallow, mean, and more selfserving. And yes, I'm quiet aware that's not how you meant it. I'm sorry, I've been a kid living with in welfare family. It's HORRIBLE. If it's a necessary evil because hard times come, then thems the breaks. But I do know people, personally, who are of that mentality. And have, personally, heard the phrase "Well, at least my check will be bigger."

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velvet_mace
2007-06-10 04:03 am UTC (link)

Giving birth to a child you love is shallow, mean and self-serving? Listen, I'm upset when poeple who don't want children have them, but that's not what we are talking about here. We are talking about ordinary productive people who have come upon a hard time.

The system can be abused, and it sure is. Look at the CEO's of giant corporations and you'll see a system abused to the max. But that is no excuse for hating on people whose life stories and circumstances you know nothing about.

It sucks to be poor -- but making generalized statements about their motivations in absense of any evidence to back it up? That sucks, too.

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penguinfaery
2007-06-10 05:26 pm UTC (link)

Reading comperhension > assumptions.

I'm not TALKING about just poor people who hit upon hardtimes, or people who are having babies they love (Althought I still think, if you can't afford a baby, don't have one. Sorry. You don't have to be flamingly rich, but you should be able to afford the basic. it's just the resonsible thing to do. I want a baby right now, and could love it deeply. However, I couldn't pay for it's diapers, and if I had it now never COULD because I'd never really get my feet under me.) You can't survive on love. Just like you can't survive on money.

I'm talking about people who abuse the system, and just DO have kids to leech. And yes, they exist. My mother worked in welfare for year, so she DID know all their circumstance. WE are talking about people who don't want their children because we're NOT talking about the OP, or people who've come upon hard times. We're talking about the leeches of the system, not the one who use it as it should be used.

And for the record, I think the system is worth supporting the leeches, and wish we'd put more money into it. But that doesn't make me happy about the leeches. And it really doesn't make me happy about the woman I've seen, both on and off welfar, who see babies as thing and not people they are going to have a GREAT responsibilty to. And unfortunatly, I've seen WAY to many example of that prsonally in my life.

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velvet_mace
2007-06-10 05:38 pm UTC (link)

Granted, if you read farther in the post, the poster just got caught. But the post it's self is badly representative of this and without back information, is a perfect example of what unfortuantly there is a lot of out there. "Gimme money, oh, by the way, preggers again."

Without back information you assume that what's going on is someone with a "Give me money, oh by the way, preggers again" attitude.

That's what bothers me. This lady did give some back information that suggested otherwise, but why would you immediately assume in absense of that information that she was someone abusing the system? Why not make the assumption that she didn't have access to birth control, or that it failed, or she was someone whose religious beliefs forbid the use of contraceptives or abortion? Why immediately assume the absolute worst of the person.

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penguinfaery
2007-06-10 08:18 pm UTC (link)

Ok, once again, the pregger thing was NOT about the OP. I was saying her post, because of her attitude, and the way it was worded, SEEMED like the post of one of those woman. And THAT was what people ressponded to. Because that's a really shitty thing to do, and people do do it, and her post didn't SEEM to be missing any information until you got the information it was missing. It SEEMED like she had all the information.

I didn't assume that was the situation. Because I read the bit where she explined that bad times hit, and after this one she's getting her tubes tied.

BUT her post, without that back information, seem like the post of that kind, and didn't seem to be missing any information. Why would we assume? Her attitude. Which, by the way, she herself admitted to (Via her friend) was not what she meant. There didn't SEEM to be an absense of information. She exaplined her whole family, why they were on welfare, etc, and the way it was worded, it seemed like birthcontrol had failed 4 times.

Why not make the assumption that she didn't have access to birth control, or that it failed, or she was someone whose religious beliefs forbid the use of contraceptives or abortion

Because we didn't have to assume, she said she used Birth control and that it failed but that it was ok because she wanted a big family. Which would be fine, but the way the post was worded, it seemed like that was the case with all 4 (As oppose to just the last, which was the case). Which ISN'T ok. (And would also be pretty statically impossible, to have birthcontrol fail 4 times)

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