Sorry, here's another one...

This is just a trip down memory lane for me. Sorry folks but here's another one...

*************************************


Saturday, November 18, 2006

Single Mothers by Choice
I don't understand why so many people are upset about this class of women deciding to be single mothers. I mean we've had women in the lower classes as well as the rich doing this crap for decades and no one was the least concerned. Now suddenly responsible career women, who've worked productively all their lives and contributed to society, decide they wish to be mothers and it's the end of civilization as we know it.

It's not that big a deal.

This woman has worked, she has a career. That child will do just fine. He'll be no more of a burden then any of the millions of ghetto mothers' or some rich bimbo starlets' irresponsibly produced children will be.

Actually having a baby in this manner takes planning as well as stable finances. Anyone can see this as it's already cost the woman $10,000 in IVF treatment to have her child.

If people want to pick on some irresponsible reproductive behavior why not focus on some of the two categories I mentioned above. Those that produce vast amounts of children through irresponsible reproductive behavior which eventually become a burden on the taxpayers in most systems.

This child and others produced like him will not become that...their mothers will make enough income to support them quite comfortably...

This woman is rather plain, although she appears nice enough from the story. Yet, she might have never met a man who was willing to settle down and have a stable long-term relationship with her, however. As let's face it, in our media-obsessesed world most men want the women they marry to be much nicer looking then this poor girl.

Not to mention that at her age, she'll probably never meet anyone if she hasn't met them already.

YET she'll probably be a fine mother, dote on her only child and ultimately raise a fine, healthy, productive son--all without the use of a male overseer to monitor her behavior.

Imagine that.

Many are condemning her as selfish. Well guess what ALL parents are selfish. You have to be to bring any children into the world we've created for them today. So if you are going to tag women like this as selfish, then prepare for extinction...as that's the next step when all these wonderful unselfish people lead us down that road.

Last point: men better get used to this happening more and more today, as women are getting highly fed up with their behavior...even all this custody crap they started recently to avoid child support, ie., as in Fed-ex's and Brittany's Spears' custody fight.

Men are rapidly sliding into irrelvancy with all the trouble they are causing.

As I've said many times, a test tube is cleaner, quieter, and a heck of a lot less trouble then the average man is today...and these women are proving my point.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?
in_article_id=416733&in_page_id=1879&in_a_source=


Daily Mail
24 hours a day

Motherhood is my right

By RUTH YAHEL Last updated at 08:22am on 16th November 2006

A growing generation of single career women are reaching their late 30s unmarried but still desperate to become mothers. Many are embarking on parenthood alone - and their quest will soon be made easier.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt wants the law changed to allow single women and lesbians to have fertility treatment without the need to prove there will be a father figure in the child's life.

Here, Ruth Yahel, a 41-year-old TV production executive, explains why she decided from the outset to be a lone parent, and why - in her opinion - they should not be vilified:

When I was in my 30s, I remember feeling pangs of longing whenever I held friends' babies. My biological clock was ticking but it was never the right time, never the right relationship.

Even when I reached my 39th birthday, I didn't feel I had yet become one of those women destined not to have children. Then, at the start of 2004, my married sister - the mother of a baby boy - asked me whether I still wanted children. When I said 'yes', she asked me how I thought 'that might happen'. My initial reaction was one of annoyance, but her words sparked something inside me. I was fast approaching 40 and a potential loss in my fertility, yet I had a desperate desire to have a child.

In every other area of my life I had made conscious decisions about what I wanted.

But when it came to what, potentially, was the most important thing of all, I was leaving everything to chance. I had always been rather intimidated by career women who would categorically state that motherhood was not for them. I couldn't imagine letting go of the idea unless I had to.

Sometimes I envied them and thought how liberating it must be not to have to worry any more. But, mostly, I feared falling into the group of women who don't get around to having children and end up bitterly regretting it.

Like most women my age, I had tied in all hopes for children with the desire for a lasting relationship. It had never occurred to me to see the two things as something separate. That evening with my sister, it suddenly dawned on me that these two things might never coincide. I had to act - and quickly.

I was lucky enough to have a friend, Nico, prepared to father my child. We met in Italy in 1991 when I was teaching English as a foreign language in a private school. Nico was one of my students. He was married at the time and I was in a relationship, and we became close friends - although sex was never on the agenda.

Long before I'd started worrying about my fertility, he once suggested having a child together and I'd laughed it off. Now I thought about it differently.

I was fortunate in that I already had a genetic father, Nico, who wanted to be an active figure in the child's life, so I decided to go for it.

Before embarking on the process, I went to a clinic in London to make sure I had no fertility problems. With hindsight, I wish I'd done this when I turned 30.

A lot of women spend their 20s and 30s trying to not get pregnant and it's only when they want to that the problems begin to surface. In my case, the damage had already been done.

Endometriosis had affected my ovaries and Fallopian tubes. The only option now was IVF. Two cycles of expensive IVF, costing £5,000 each, followed. I had counselling before and during fertility treatment to help me through the outcome.

I took stock of how I'd come to this point. It was my time to reflect on my fears and concerns, my time to feel sorry for myself (and at times I did) that I wasn't going to have a child within a conventional relationship.

It was like a mourning process. But I would leave each session feeling strong enough to work towards my chosen goal.

On February 7, 2005, I celebrated my 40th birthday at a party thrown for me by friends and family. Many people in the room didn't know I was having IVF treatment, and I didn't touch the champagne they handed me. I knew that in a week's time, I would be taking a pregnancy test and finding out if I was going to have a baby.

The wait was nerve-racking. When I took the test and it was positive, I was stunned. I couldn't believe that such a clinical process had resulted in a pregnancy.

Nico, my friends and family were all delighted. If they were sad that I wasn't going to have a child as part of a couple, they didn't show it. They knew that I already bitterly regretted that myself.

Luca Gabriel, was born naturally in October that year after a healthy pregnancy. My mother and sister were there and Nico held his son minutes after he was born. We chose his name together. I felt totally vindicated. I had my baby and nothing else mattered.

Now I feel utter relief and joy that I found the courage to act. But at the same time, I feel anger and frustration for other women in the same position as I was.

I believe that modern motherhood is in crisis. Women have been told they can and should compete equally in the workplace. We invest a huge amount of our time, money and energy in the pursuit of this so we feel we're achieving something.

But somewhere along the line we've all too often had to leave behind motherhood. As much as I hate to admit it, these two roles do not fit naturally together.

In your working life you have some control - you have a structure and, hopefully, you feel a sense of accomplishment and are rewarded both financially and emotionally.

As a mother, your day has little structure; you're busy all the time, yet when asked: 'What did you do today?' you can hardly recall what filled that time and why you didn't get out of the house.

When we think about returning to work, we worry we won't be flexible enough to respond to the work environment and that we'll have to compromise on material and personal pursuits. We worry about lack of money and free time.

Most of all, we feel like bad mothers for handing our babies over to childminders.

And employers don't always do all they can to dispel those fears.

Of course, being a mother, especially a single mother, is hard work. But once you've made the decision to go for it, you will find the time and energy you need and make it your priority. You learn to live a different life with your child. I've had considerable support from my workplace and have been able to work flexibly around my commitments to my son.

Things that seemed so important to me before - material things, my appearance, going out to smart restaurants - seem less so now.

The main accusation levelled at woman who, like myself, have chosen to be single mothers, is that we are selfish. People say it wasn't meant to be or accuse you of being rash and irresponsible.

But there is nothing irresponsible about the thought processes and procedures a single woman has to go through to have her own child or adopt.

As the son of a women who became a single mother by choice, at least Luca won't have to go through the pain of his parents splitting up. He knows his parents' relationship has clearly defined boundaries.

He will have access to his birth father and extended family, and will know as much of his own cultural heritage as he chooses, because I was lucky enough to have a suitable known donor. Even though Nico is now teaching in Rome, he sees Luca every few months.

I was no more selfish than any other woman conceiving. We all want to feel our baby in our arms, hold them close, smell their sweet skin, relish their triumphs and watch as others coo over our child.

In the end, we are all selfishly driven as parents. We are driven by our own need to procreate, and we feel it's something that as human beings we should do - even if we have to act outside the bounds of convention: the desire to have a child doesn't go away because a woman is single.

Motherhood is something that every woman has a right to try for. When there is no father figure, a woman will do much soul-searching on how to provide male role models for her children.

I was worried, of course, that Luca wouldn't see his father every day. I didn't know for sure what effect this would have on him, but I vowed that I would do everything in my power to compensate for that and try to limit the damage.

I agree that a good marriage or relationship may well be the best family background you can offer a child, and it's something I still want for myself. But it's most definitely not the only responsible way to do it.

And I would say that single parents planning for children are most acutely aware of the difficulties involved. They understand their own obligations and probably deal with their children's needs as sensitively as possible because they've had to struggle so hard to have them.

Hopefully, our children will be less likely to complain that they were overlooked or taken for granted.

I still hope to find a great relationship in the future. Maybe Nico will have children of his own; maybe Luca will have a sibling via conception or adoption.

Undoubtedly, Luca will have friends who come from single-parent homes via more conventional circumstances, if divorce rates are anything to go by.

Last year, I took part in the Channel 4 series The Baby Race. It brought together a group of single, incredibly brave women, all united by our quest to be mothers.

We formed a support network for each other that is still going with many more members. Of all ages and backgrounds with different routes to motherhood in mind, we always had a common goal.

I remember meeting them all for the first time at a photoshoot and being completely overwhelmed by the feeling of solidarity and unconditional support from a group of strangers.

Some of us have managed to have and adopt children, some are no longer single. The majority, however, are still trying for and awaiting their babies. Their children will have an upbringing full of love, hope and possibility.

Single women can change things and set a good example to those around by exercising their right to have children and bringing them up compassionately and with dignity in the face of any scepticism. The face of modern motherhood is changing and we must accept that.

Luca has just turned one-year-old. I planned a family party at home with cake and presents. Nico came over for the weekend.

The last year has been a whirlwind. I don't realise how much he has changed my life until occasionally I'm without him, and I walk into his bedroom and look at the empty cot. When he's not around, something is always missing.

I wouldn't go back to my old single life for anything. My overriding message to women in my position would be to make a positive choice about whether to try for motherhood. Don't leave things to chance and don't feel powerless simply because you haven't met the right man.

It is your decision, and yours alone.

posted by NYMOM | Saturday, November 18, 2006

9 Comments:
Anonymous said...
I don't really have much of a problem with the woman in this story. If a woman is fertile and she wants to get pregnant no one can really stop her. She wasn't but she paid for her own IVF treatment so thats fine.

This is what I have a problem with:

"Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt wants the law changed to allow single women and lesbians to have fertility treatment without the need to prove there will be a father figure in the child's life."

Ok, if men have all these supposed privilages then will the law be changed so that men in the UK can have children like this at the expence of the taxpayers?

11:13 AM
NYMOM said...
It's pretty simple really: because of expense and the fact that men having children require a surrogate mother.

It's one thing for the government to pay for and allow a sperm donor to be used. Basically they are paying a small sum for a guy to read a few Playboys and ejaculuate into a plastic cup.

With a surrogate mother involved, you are going to a whole other level of expense on top of taking advantage of a woman who needs money. As there is no reason on earth for a woman to go through all the difficult and painful procedures involved with being pregnant and giving birth EXCEPT that she desperately needs money.

But I think most people who ask these questions already know the answers. This is an attempt to continue the gender neutral farce that feminists and men have been trying to make of motherhood for years now...

AND I don't think it would make any difference to the distractors of this woman in the article, whether or not the government paid for her procedures or she paid for it herself, as they would be against women doing it either way.

This is another red herring...

Another ploy on the part of men to sidetrack women who are independent of one of them.

I mean what's the point of claiming the UK government will pay for the procedures when you effectively passed laws that it's illegal to be an anonymous sperm donor in the UK anymore? What woman (other then the one in this article who clearly wasn't thinking very clearly when she signed up for this) is going to take a chance that some sperm donor can show up at anytime in the future and have her and her son dragged through an expensive and ongoing custody battle?

Most women would not take a chance like that.

The whole point of women going to this kind of trouble to get pregnant outside of normal channels is so that they don't have to face one of these custody wars incited by some man in the future. Clearly it negates the whole point to do what this woman did with someone you know...as she's actually got the WORSE of both worlds...she's doesn't have a traditional father to help out on a daily basis, YET she has given someone the exact same legal rights to her child as herself...

It really didn't make much sense.

Anyway, when the UK banned anonymous donors it killed the whole point for most of the women who would have children using a donor.

Thus the whole issue is moot anyway.

Few women will avail themselves of the government services, as the dealbreaker would be that you couldn't use an anonymous sperm donor. Otherwise, you'd be signing yourself and your child up for years of litigation AFTER birth and potentially loss of custody within a few years down the road.

The woman in this article wasn't thinking very clearly when she did this...and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if her 'sperm donor' didn't show up again in a few years time and wind up wresting custody of her son from her and just moving to Italy with him.

I predict most women who wish to have children in this manner will just leave the UK and go to countries where they can use an anonymous donor and get pregnant there...otherwise they put themselves and their children at risk later...

8:05 AM
Anonymous said...
Interesting spin you put on it.

If men and women are supposed to be equal then why cant men say "It's my right to be a father!" and recieve government funding to assist him as women will be getting soon in the UK.

You need a man and a woman to make a baby so why does only one side get funding for single parenthood? That's not 'equality' at all is it?

As for the sperm donor clinic question, your right, it is a moot point but not for the reasons you state. Sperm banks have dried up because removing anonymity means men are now being hit for child support. As far as I know no male donor has ever sued a woman for custody of the child, at least not in the UK.

As for your last comment about women going abroad to get pregnant what can I say. Yes, women will always have this choice and I'm sure a few will exercise it. But I can't see the majority of western women going for this option because having an overseas 'recreational sperm donor' rules out free-loading some child support doesn't it?

8:50 AM
NYMOM said...
"It's my right to be a father."

It's not government that denies men the right to be a 'father' but God, nature or evolution which has deemed WOMEN as the bearers of life.

Okay.

Fatherhood is not a naturally occurring event, like motherhood, but rather a social construct.

Government allows you equality in the things it is possible for us to be equal in, bearing children for men is not one of them.

Thus, your rights to do anything ENDS the moment they infringe on someone else's, ie., as in having to force women to bear your children for you. AND yes, it is force when you use economic power over someone else to manipulate them.

BTW, no anonymous sperm donor was EVER hit up for child support.

That's a lie made up by the men's movement to justify support of a policy which was clearly nothing but a spite-driven policy against single women, like the one featured in the article above, who were wishing to be mothers but never met the right partner.

AND yes, many women will go overseas as they will figure out the motivation for this policy and not wish to burden themselves and their children with an endless custody battle afterthefact. Since you continue to try and paint this change in policy as about child support, when, in fact, it is not...

It is about men still trying to exercise control over womens and childrens' lives, even though you voluntarily chose to not be married or have families.

You made your own choices, yet you still continue to wish to control womens' choices in this area because they are different from your own.

Learn to live with your own choices and move on with your lives...

11:12 AM
Conshus_mamma said...
Having grown up with the idea that single motherhood stigmatizes a woman, I have NEVER viewed this as an option for myself, that is until I found myself pregnant.

I'd always known that if I were to get pregnant in the relationship that produced my child, I would not carry it to term. The relationship lasted more than 8 years. I was very comfortable with the arrangement. I had not wanted children, and he already had three. When I found out I was pregnant in June of this year, I thought I miscarried shortly after taking the home pregnancy test. When I went to the hospital, and heard, at 7 weeks, the immensely powerful and life-changing sound of that heartbeat, I knew that I was going to be a single-mother - there was no way I could end the life that was producing such a strong and powerful sound.

It never occurred to me that by making this choice to be a single mother I was making such a profound statement. I am in my mid-thirties, am educated, have strong financial means, and while I lived most of thinking only of my single self, am finding it easy to transition into the idea of being someone's mother.

In reading this, I am finding a sense of the power of being a woman and not waiting for the requisite man+marriage in order to start my family. I appreciate the thoughts that have been provoked and can feel a shift in my perspective about choosing to become a single mother.

11:31 PM
NYMOM said...
Well I guess I have to ask how does the child's father feel about this unexpected pregnancy as he already has three children. Is he okay with having a fourth child now????

7:23 AM
NYMOM said...
You know I love how people decide to link with you w/o asking any permission and then the link is a snide negative comment about you...it's almost like a sneaky way to get around the comment moderation I've set up.

Not that I wouldn't have published her comment, mind you. As I've published far worse.

What galls me is that I was totally supportive of the woman in the article being a single mother...yet still get side swiped by, you guessed it, another woman.

When oh when will women stop viciously sniping at one another...

7:37 AM
Conshus Mama said...
The father is not pleased with this new pregnancy, and is not okay with having a fourth child now.

3:28 PM
NYMOM said...
Well you will have to proceed extremely carefully in this situation as even the other kids and their mother(s) will side with him in this situation, believe it or not.

They will follow his lead, as you will be seen as bringing a rival to the table, thus potentially reducing their share of his resources.

Selfish but realistic...

Additionally the courts will not be friendly to you either, if it winds up there...hopefully it won't...

Take care.

4:27 PM
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Links to this post:
"But Can't You Just Freeze Your Eggs?": Infertility Fear and the ...
The yoga studio where I volunteer just started a six-week workshop to enhance fertility. Apparently this isn't a new idea. And call me - single, thirtysomething, would sure like to be a mom, why yes, me - crazy, because I thought for a ...
posted by lauriewrites @ 2:26 PM
Create a Link

Another repeat post entitled: Nonsense from the Usual Suspects.

I thought this was relevant to some of the comments Polish Knight had been making about sperm donors so I re-posted it. I came across it when I was looking for the post debunking those stats on single mothers.

Anyway enjoy:

************************************************************


More nonsense from another sperm donor.

Of course, I believe he could win this particular case in spite of the fact that he has only ONE FAMILY LAW EXPERT supporting him versus 21 supporting the mother.

AND no, despite the article's attempted spin on this situation, it has nothing to do with the law just catching up to new technology. Use of sperm donors has existed for decades now. It's quite a common and simple procedure.

What has changed is not the technology but the legal climate favoring men. Who even when they, themselves, make the decision to be nothing but sperm donors STILL wish to retain the legal option to change their mind afterwards.

I mean what if the woman had a handicapped child and he would have been on the hook for lifetime child support, would he have shown up to contest his original agreement to be a sperm donor then????

Of course, all fathers rights nuts will be supporting this guy even through they are constantly screaming about men having no legal right before birth. Many men want legal rights to interfere with abortions or for men to have the right to a 'paper abortion', for instance, where they can opt out of paying child support.

YET when they get decision-making power, such as this man had, they also wish the prerogative to change their minds at anytime after the fact and throw some mother and her children lives in turmoil, similar to what that recreational sperm donor did to Bridget Marks and her poor twins in New York.

Frankly, this guy exercised his right to a paper abortion and now wants to rescind it...

Nobody forced him to donate sperm which he knew was going to be used for this woman to artifically inseminate herself with...they never even had sex or any sort of relationship. So he can't even claim the standard "I was 'tricked' into getting her pregnant" like many men in these situations try to claim. He went into this with both eyes wide open...

It's simply outfreakinrageous that he should be allowed to rescind his decision now and throw those kids lives as well as the life of their mother into such turmoil.

Outfreakinrageous.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/16151079.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Posted on Sun, Dec. 03, 2006

Kansas lawsuit could be landmark

The case involves a sperm donor who wants parental rights to twins born last year.
By DAVID KLEPPER

Family law experts across the country are watching as Kansas’ Supreme Court takes up a case that could decide the parental rights of sperm donors.

The suit, set for arguments before the court Monday, concerns a Shawnee County man who donated sperm to a friend. The woman underwent artificial insemination and delivered twins in May 2005. The man argues that he always intended to act as a father to the children. No agreement was put into writing, however, and a judge later decided the man had no rights as a father.

That’s because Kansas law denies parental rights to sperm donors unless they have a written agreement with the mother specifying that they will act as father. The 1994 law was designed to protect children conceived through artificial insemination from frivolous custody disputes, as well as to safeguard donors from child support lawsuits. (Emphasis mine: Exactly right, the law protects everybody concerned, especially the children protecting them from frivolous custody disputes.)

The unmarried woman, who, like the donor, is identified only by initials in court documents, argues that she never intended to share parenting with the man. She chose the man, whom she had known for 10 years, because of his good medical history.

“He is a donor only,” wrote the woman’s attorney, Susan Barker Andrews. Andrews argued that the man should have put his intentions in writing if he wanted to be a father.

The man appealed his case to the high court, arguing that the law is unconstitutional.

His attorney, Kurt James of Topeka, said his client had discussions with the woman about sharing parental responsibilities.

He said a better law would require donors to sign an agreement waiving their rights as parents.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in February.

The verdict could affect laws governing sperm donation throughout the country.

(Emphasis mine: Family law experts have lined up on both sides of the case. Ummm ONE person, Linda Henry Elrod, does NOT fit the definition of plural experts. She is ONE expert.

Linda Henry Elrod, a family law professor at Washburn University, filed a legal brief in which she sided with the donor.) Elrod argues that to require a man to have a written agreement before he has parental rights over his biological children is to violate his constitutional rights. The law, she wrote, “cannot take away a constitutional right to be a parent” without due process.

(Emphasis mine: But 21 other family law experts across the country filed a brief supporting the woman.) They argued that the Kansas law in effect protects the interests of children created through sperm donation, as well as the mothers and the donors, by requiring any agreements to be set down in writing.

One of those professors, Nancy Polikoff, a family law professor at American University, said “biology is not enough” to give the man parental rights. The law assumes the mother (and any husband or partner she might have) will have custody when it comes to children of sperm donors. Without the Kansas law, she said, women could face custody battles from donors, or donors could find themselves being asked to support a child they never intended to know.

Both professors agreed that the case, the first of its kind in Kansas, is blazing new legal territory.

“It’s the Wild West out there,” Elrod said. “The advances in technology are just way ahead of where the law is.”

To reach David Klepper, call (785) 354-1388 or send e-mail to dklepper@kcstar.com.

posted by NYMOM | Saturday, December 09, 2006

4 Comments:

LeRoy Dissing said...
I agree with Elrod on this one. Parental rights belong to the biological parent unless they waive those rights. I am not sure how donor clinics work but I would not be surprised if they do not make sperm donors sign a waiver of any parental rights they may have from children produced from their sperm. I do NOT see this has causing as big a deal because signing a waiver by someone willing to dontate/sell their sperm is not going to cause them any problem.

In this case, I believe their should have been an agreement drafted by an attorney and signed by the donor waiving their parental rights. It protects him as much as her. I don't see it as protecting the child since I believe the child will want to know who they came from at some point in the future.

2:04 PM
NYMOM said...
I see and why should they have had to draft a special 'agreement' when Kansas law apparently already covers it...Because as usual men are allowed to skirt the law whenever they feel like it, that's why.

ONE out of 21 experts and you agree with the ONE who supports what is an obvious sperm donor.

Of course it's going to cause a 'big deal' as few women will wish to use the services of sperm donors anymore if they have to wait until AFTER the birth of a child in order to ensure a waiver is signed...since what's to stop the sperm donors from changing their mind after the child is born and suing for custody in order to get money and other financial benefits from the mother????

Nothing of course...

Clearly if you treat obvious sperm donors just like other 'parents' then the whole waiver business won't be legal until AFTER the birth...and a lot of Judges won't allow you to waive your parental rights anyway, unless there is another person to step in and fill the void...as in a single mother waiving her rights in order to surrender her child for adoption.

But in the ordinary course of events Judges don't allow it, especially with fathers as too many of them would do it to get out of paying child support.

Twenty one family law experts are clearly upset about it, as it leaves a loophole that a greedy sperm donor can drive a truck through...and yes it will harm the children...because in spite of what you say FEW children of sperm donors are that interested in the men who donated. This is just spin from men trying to be in charge of everything again and make sperm donors equivalent to mothers who give up children for adoption.

As you well know I posted an article a while back clearly showly that in places where they have allowed adult children to contact sperm donors, NONE took advantage of the law.

None of the adult children were interested. That's just spin on your part to say that the child would care about a sperm donor.

6:25 PM
LeRoy Dissing said...
If it is as you say a "spin", then there should not be any problem in making it a choice for the child. I have read more than a few blogs which would contradict what you claim and especially when it comes to adoption which I know is a different scenario.

The case in point is about a KNOWN man who dontated his sperm to a woman friend. They actually discussed parenting roles prior to the child being born. This is not the case of an annoymous donor. In this case, the man may be granted parental rights since he was a KNOWN quanity and expressed his desire to parent prior to the birth of the child. I see little difference between this scenario than her becoming pregnant by natural means with a live-in.

7:13 PM
NYMOM said...
Well as you know many bloggers already have a point of view and frequently tailor their blogs to support it. YET when one society actually implemented some of the changes you suggested no adult children of sperm donors followed through with a request to meet these sperm donors...

NONE.

So being curious about something doesn't always equate with caring about it...

I'm curious about many things, just not curious enough to go to any trouble in many cases to bother following through...

AND btw, that's the sperm donor's story that they discussed parenting roles. The mother's story is that they didn't, he knew very well he was expected to be just a sperm donor.

Why would he expect to have parental rights in a state that had laws that sperm donors have no rights unless they spell it out ahead of time????

The law is pretty clear to most people, even those who never used a sperm donor.

Actually, it's pretty common knowledge generally that sperm donors don't have parental rights, after all sperm donors have been around for decades now.

It's not like it's a new technology anymore, like the article tried to spin it. This was sooooo new that it caught the law by surprise. No, sperm donations as a way for women to get pregnant has been around for decades now. There is nothing new or unusual about it.

So again, why would he think he would have parental rights?

The big difference between this (and there is one, although you and your cronies would never admit it) and getting someone pregnant through 'natural means' as you call it, is that doing it through natural means obviously you'd expect to automatically have parental rights.

AND you would be right.

This way of inseminating a woman, as every sperm donor knows since donating sperm has been around for decades now, is that a sperm donor doesn't usually have any rights...

This is a very standard expectation of a sperm donor to have no parental rights.

So this is nonsense that he expected to have a parental role and this is no different from having children by natural means. There is a big difference and I believe he knew it...

10:57 AM

On the Trials and Tributations of Single Motherhood

I posted this as an example of the ongoing discussions I've had over the years with different men over the issue of men displaying violence because they were raised without a father.

It's a totally phony issue.

Men being violent has NOTHING whatsoever to do with whether or not they are raised with or without their father in the house...as a simple look around us would demonstrate some of the most violent men from the most violent societies on the planet are raised in societies where men rule and everyone has a father.

Actually they probably fight side-by-side in the wars they initiate as history demonstrates.

The ONLY way people can make this case is to isolate the western world from every other society on the planet and use the statistics of the most isolated and deviant groups of people within western society.

Actually the Soviet Union used to do the same thing during the Cold War. They would take the history of black people and American Indians in the US and use that, along with their statistics, to paint a false picture of US society to others. Due to this successful propaganda technique, even years after the Cold War ended, I would still be running into immigrants from the USSR who would be telling me how amazed they were when they first came here and saw that the low income projects they were initially sent to live in (which were predominantly inhabited by African Americans) had their own private kitchens and bathrooms. They couldn't believe how well built and nice everything was. As they had been listening to propaganda for decades about how horrible everything was here for people under capitalism. They thought they were going to be sent to live in hovels somewhere...

I guess I'm not a good teacher or I wouldn't mind going over and over and over the same points again as different men (from the same sites) show up here spinning the same story line, but I'm getting old and don't have the patience anymore.

If I had better technological skills or a better computer, (so if anyone wishes to contribute to me getting a better one, feel free to let me know) maybe I'd be able to just link them with past posts on these issues which have already been debated to death...

Anyway, (just like every other woman on the planet since day 1) I accept full responsibility for this. If only I were a better person (better computer, more patience, understanding, etc.,) the men coming to this site would be able to respond better as well...

It's a variant of no matter what men do, it's not their fault, they can always blame their mothers...

Oh well...

********************************************************************



Saturday, August 25, 2007
More Pipe Dreams of Men and their Enablers

Are Women Necessary?
By NATALIE ANGIER
Published: November 11, 2003

Abundant evidence suggests that females are the first sex, the ancestral sex, the sex from which males are derived.

Boys owe their lives to their mothers in more ways than one. Yet recent experiments with stem cells hint that women, not men, may eventually prove obsolete.

Granted, a post-feminine future sounds far-fetched. In many species, including our own, the fundamental body plan is female, with maleness being a bit of window-dressing tacked on at the last minute.

Some groups of insects, fish and lizards consist entirely of females, which give birth only to daughters. By contrast, no self-sustaining, boys-only population has ever arisen in nature, the efforts of certain Southern golf tournaments notwithstanding.

Indeed, males are famous for their cheap, abbreviated gametes, and their poignant need for the warmth and wealth of the comparatively massive female sex cell to realize their dreams of immortality. You'd think they would be humble, grateful, even obsequious. But it seems that somewhere along the way those slippery flagella figured out a possible pathway to go it alone.

Here are the unnerving results that threaten the matriarchy: last spring, after years of effort, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere announced that they could grow working egg cells in the laboratory if they started with embryo tissue taken from either a female or a male mouse.

These hothouse eggs and their accompanying follicular matrix were so persuasive they even secreted and responded to estrogen, the archetypically ''female'' hormone.

In September, Japanese researchers said they could create robust little sperm cells in the lab, too -- but only if they began with the embryonic stem cells of a male animal. It turns out that the program for making eggs is stored on the chromosomes that males and females share. To manufacture sperm, however, you need that truncated, genetically penurious Y chromosome that only a male can claim.

In theory, then, male starter cells could be used to make eggs and sperm, and those eggs and sperm could be mixed together to yield a new generation. This would not be parthenogenesis as seen in whiptail lizards or Nature's other little sororities, with the parent capable only of spawning more of its own sex and hence being limited in its power to genomically outfox parasites.

This would be like old-fashioned, shake-'em-up, male-female sexual reproduction, a meeting of eggs and sperm. You could mix and match your fabricated eggs and sperm to generate boys and girls alike.

Except why bother with girls, if you don't need mothers to lay those little egg cells in the first place? You could have robust diversity in the human gene pool without the need for pesky separate restrooms.
True, women at the moment remain useful for their possession of another baby-friendly device, the uterus. But how long will this anatomical detail be an impediment to complete female obsolescence?

Already, researchers can keep baby goats alive in an artificial uterus, a big fishbowl of bubbling fluid, for weeks at a stretch. A full-term, full-service exoamniotic cocoon cannot be far behind.

Given such recent and imminent developments, Rebecca West, journalist, novelist and companion of H. G. ''Doomsday'' Wells, was eerily prescient in her observation that motherhood is ''like being one's own Trojan horse.''

Yet as women contemplate their pending irrelevance, they can take heart in a more immediate lesson to be gleaned from the latest experimental results. If inside every man's genome is a little mother yearning to be free, well, then, no more excuses when it's time to change the diapers.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F04E3D61139F932A25752C1A9659C8B63


The sad part about this article is that it was researched by a woman, written by a woman and I’m sure that same woman truly believed what she wrote, as will most of the other women who ever get to read it.

However anyone with even a elementary knowledge of humanity’s historic record would see the fatal flaw in this scenario and understand why it would be the end of humanity should it ever come to pass. As the very group the article claims might successfully inhabit the earth alone is the same group that has been ruling the planet since we first crawled out of the primal mist. It’s the larger, stronger and more aggressive half of humanity that dominates every species including our own. If you wish to be completely honest about it, they are the same ones who are currently driving our planet into ruin, killing off most of their animal brothers and sisters in between steady bouts of killing off their human ones in these endless wars over nothing that they continue to engage in. Not to mention the wars over resources that continuously spring up amongst them.

Common sense would show that if one sex was to be chosen to ensure maximum survival benefit for any species it should be female. But unfortunately, common sense appears to not be very common these days.

Any unbiased reading of statistics demonstrates that from Brooklyn to Baghdad men steadily engage in violent and anti-social behavior against humanity at a far higher rate then women do. This doesn’t even count the endless so-called legitimate wars they constantly declare against one another. I’m just talking about the soccer riots, the drunken fights they engage in, violent robberies, rapes, murders, etc., Not to mention the ordinary run of the mill stoning of woman for minor transgressions and serial killing of women in bizarre sex crimes. Reading through some of Steven E. Rhoads, book “Taking Sex Differences Seriously” you can see certain statistics hold up worldwide, btw. So we’re not just talking about behaviors specific just to western civilization here or any cultural differences that would explain male aggression for men residing in either Brooklyn or Baghdad. He’s the same essential being standing on a street corner in Brooklyn or sitting in a tent off a sand dune somewhere, same being.

Actually the incredible thing to my mind is that historically women have managed to not just survive; but also to raise so many of our young to maturity in the hostile climate that man collectively has created for us. When you read a history book or take a look at a newsfeed from another country and see what life was and still is like today for so many women, you have to just be amazed at the ingenuity, bravery and sheer tenacity that woman have displayed over the ages just to get any of us alive here today.

So you’re an awful idiot if you believe that either God or nature would chose the male of our species as the optimum choice to continue humanity’s role on this planet. That’s a choice you make when you’re fed up with a species and trying to put an end to it.

posted by NYMOM | Saturday, August 25, 2007

11 Comments:
Elusive Wapiti said...
Hi NYMOM. Been a while since I've visited.

"Common sense would show that if one sex was to be chosen to ensure maximum survival benefit for any species it should be female."

Why would this be common sense? All it shows is that science has basically shown that sexual reproduction for homo sapiens to be technologically unnecessary, as there have already been articles crowing about how men were unnecessary for the propagation of the species. And if sexual reproduction is not necessary, then my Common Sense says that the sex that is bigger, stronger, has more stamina, is marginally more intelligent and has a much wider distribution of intelligence scores, and is much less likely to be injured during demanding physical activity should be the one required to sustain the species.

"[men] steadily engage in violent and anti-social behavior against humanity at a far higher rate then women do"

Without a doubt. However, I think women would be wrong to wash their hands of partial responsibility for this. After all, it is women who do the raisin' of boys without fathers around; those boys grow up to be disproportionately violent men.

"...but also to raise so many of our young to maturity in the hostile climate that man collectively has created for us"

Perhaps you think that if women ruled the world it would be effectively different. I don't share your optimism, given what I've seen thus far.

"That’s a choice you make when you’re fed up with a species and trying to put an end to it."

Actually, if you were God, then that would be the very choice you would make when you're trying to ensure a species' survival. If feminism's record as a totalitarian movement is any indicator, putting women in complete charge would be the quickest road to hell known to well, man and woman.

8:41 PM
NYMOM said...
"Why would this be common sense"

Because woman is the least likely of the two of us to commit violent or anti-social acts. Also history has shown that even in the most hostile climate, woman will chose to have children and somehow successfully raise them to maturity...Men's commitment to children is not as powerful obviously, as you have no physical link.

That's probably why men can be so hostile to women on such a massive scale. But as women bear both male and female children, her bond is with both.

Also women raising boys alone is not the only predictor of violence since men are more anti-social and violent then women throughout every society and men participate in raising them in other places. Are men less violent in Islam, for instance? I think not.

Clearly expecting the more anti-social half of us with the least investment in our young to carry on alone would not be a wise choice for either God or evolution...we could get along w/o technology and wars. We cannot get along w/o a maternal commitment to even want any kids...

9:44 AM
Elusive Wapiti said...
"Because woman is the least likely of the two of us to commit violent or anti-social acts"

There are a lot of factors that contribute to a greater relative propensity toward violent behavior. Yes, men have a greater likelihood for violent / criminal behavior. When raised in environments without a father, they are markedly more likely to engage in this behavior as well. This is true whether they were raised in the states or in Iran or China. In fact, there is a very strong correlation between fatherlessness and terrorism. But this is beside the point, since, if there were to be a single-sex world, you have expressed a preference for the female half of the species.

So, let's consider for a moment what the scene would look like without the male sex around. The first and foremost element that comes to my mind is that now, women would be responsible for all of the resource allocation and dispute resolution in a society. Let that sink in for a minute...women would be responsible for ensuring that the trains run on time, for mining the coal that runs the power plants, for constructing the buildings, for growing and harvesting the crops, for police and fire protection, and for defending their territory and resources from other competing groups. On top of all this, women would have to bear children and raise them along the way. No longer would women be able to take being covered by men for granted. Women would have to start thinking beyond themselves and their children and their immediate social group. Men look after the good of the entire tribe; when was the last time you saw a woman risk her life for someone that wasn't related to her, even her husband?

Second, let's talk about women's behavior in the wake of this male vacuum. I posit that, without men around, the violent and anti-social behavior of women would skyrocket as women emerged to fill the power void left behind by the absence of men. We've already seen this mechanism in action with the "jockification" of female behavior. Also, anyone who has seen girls / women fight know that it is a completely different beast than when men go at it. Same goes for male victims of DV, who have witnessed female cruelty first-hand. Think war with male combatants is savage? War with women would be worse.

Third, let's talk about systems of government. It's undeniably true that personal liberty has been a primary casualty of feminism, as women readily trade liberty for security. Hitler's promises made to the women's groups in Germany in the early 30s were directly responsible for his electoral victory in '33. Similarly, the ascendancy of women in our culture has also resulted in the growth in the size and scope of government. A world run completely by women would not be a fun one to live in.

"...history has shown that even in the most hostile climate, woman will chose to have children and somehow successfully raise them to maturity"

Recent history has shown the opposite. The most male-like women, the feminists, are the ones who are choosing not choosing to procreate. It is the more fecund right wing-nuts and immigrants from the more patriarchal societies who are having children at or above replacement rate fertility.

"Men's commitment to children is not as powerful obviously, as you have no physical link."

I may not have squeezed out my 3 children, but it would be a mistake to claim that I have a weaker link to them than my wife. (It is marriage that creates and supports that link, but that is a post for another day.) And for men who don't have strong ties to their kids, think about why that is, and think about women's--especially feminists--role in attacking that link.

"That's probably why men can be so hostile to women on such a massive scale"

If hostility is so wrong, then why do you bear so much malice toward men?

"Clearly expecting the more anti-social half of us with the least investment in our young to carry on alone would not be a wise choice"

Expecting the half of the species that is the least able to care for itself in a survival situation is a patently silly thing to do.

"for either God or evolution"

God created humanity both male and female in his image. There was a reason for that, as a single-sex society of either sex would be lesser than one with both. And the notion of evolution choosing anything is preposterous. After all, if evolution were true, we'd just be results of countless random pairings of atoms and molecules and protiens, wouldn't we?

12:04 PM
NYMOM said...
"When raised in environments without a father..."

This is not true. It's another excuse for you to blame women for the bad behavior of men. Whether raised with or without a father, men have always been more violent then women. It makes no difference. Actually many terrorists were raised with fathers as women have little power in Islamic societies, so it's not true what you say that it makes a great difference. It does not.

It could be true what you say that a world system run by women would not have access to so much technology and would have less personal liberty but I think many women would find this an acceptable tradeoff and the environment certainly would...less waste to dispose of, less pollution and smaller human population.

Of course to get to that point would take a lot of suffering.

But you can't blame women for this as we'd have to undo the years of misuse of the planet's resources as well as the year of psychology abuse of women that men have enabled to take place. It might wind up being impossible to undo the damage to either our planet or womens' psyche...who knows.

5:51 PM
NYMOM said...
Even your comment 'squeezed out my 3 children' is an example of the sort of emotional abuse that women have to put up with everytime we attempt to exercise our legitimate rights to our own children...

We are immediately silenced by comments like this from men and sadly, from other women as well, who have been brainwashed into the same sort of thinking...

5:55 PM
Elusive Wapiti said...
Contrary to your assertion, it is quite true that boys raised in environments that lack a resident father are significantly more prone to a whole host of ills. There is a whole chunk of research
out there that has crunched the social science data and has come to this conclusion. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to look it up and judge for yourself.

Speaking of data, I realize that feminist activists, in their 'men bad', 'women good' cheerleading, have a vested interest in trying to distract attention from the well-documented association between father absence and deviant behavior. But the simple fact is that denying the reality of the negative effects of fatherlessness doesn't make this mechanism any less real.

As for not "mak[ing] a great difference", an examination of the data indicates otherwise.

Getting back to the point of this thread, I think that you are dreaming if you think that a world run and populated completely by women would be some sort of feminist utopia that is better than the one we live in right now. In fact, I contend that in many ways it would be worse off. To say nothing of the reduced odds for the long-term survival of a deliberately unisex, asexually reproducing species.

"I think many women would find this an acceptable tradeoff "

I think Uncle Ben may have something to say about the wisdom of this.

I don't know how much life is left in this thread, so I'll take the opportunity now to say thanks for the discussion. I was pleased to see that my contrarian comments were not moderated into oblivion. Thanks again.

9:31 AM
NYMOM said...
Elusive: You appear to be very fixated on taking the unusual situation of some of our poorest groups in the west and making universal pronouncements about all people from them.

Historically, it's not true what you say about men being raised w/o fathers being more prone to violence. History has shown us that men raised with fathers or without makes NO DIFFERENCE...

Were the armies of men that fought every war we've ever had made up of fatherless boys? No.

Were their leaders or the political figures who started these wars fatherless? No...

This is simply another excuse men have come up with to blame women for their own shortcomings. You want to blame someone for the violence of men, take a good hard look in the mirror at yourselves.

AND as you well know I've never stopped people who disagree with me from posting. It's your own mens' sites that do that.

10:03 PM
Elusive Wapiti said...
"Historically, it's not true what you say about men being raised w/o fathers being more prone to violence. History has shown us that men raised with fathers or without makes NO DIFFERENCE..."

I don't know how you could say anything about "historically", since the data about fatherlessness simply did not exist much beyond a generation or two ago. Also, widespread divorce and single parenthood is a relative novelty in Western society. So making any references to so-called historical trends is a mistake, since the conditions that we are talking about have only occurred recently.

From your responses, it appears that I am lacking clarity in what I'm saying. I'm unsure of how I can be any more clear, but I'll try once more:

First, the data shows that men tend toward comparatively more toward violent behavior than women. Exactly why is open to debate.

Second, the data shows that men raised in fatherless homes are more violent that those from intact families. This trend is largely independent of income and race. Note that I am not saying that this is the only predictor, just one that has a large effect size. Your contention that fatherlessness has no effect is false, and repeatedly asserting otherwise does not magically make it true.

Third, based on the behavior of women as they assume less and less "traditionally female" gender roles, I contend that a world populated solely by women would be just as violent.

Fourth, I posit that if you want a species to survive, picking the sex that has less strength, less endurance, is marginally less intelligent, and has a narrower distribution in intelligence scores (thus less idiots AND less geniuses) is a patently stupid thing to do if survival is your objective. Unless you are trying to make the species extinct, that is.

"You want to blame someone for the violence of men"

The first step in fixing a problem is recognizing that there is one in the first place. People who think as you do place all the blame for crime on the criminals themselves, and ignore other factors and influences that unnecessarily increase the propensity toward violent behavior. An example of such a factor is the White Feather campaign in England. People who think as you put all the criminals in jail and then wonder why the crime rate remains so high.

It is clear to me that you want to place blame for all violence on men. In doing so, I contend that you are ignoring or minimizing the significant influences that women have. After all, as you've pointed out, women bear the boys that grow up later into adults. Therefore, there is a relationship between those women and the behavior of the boys they raise.

In addition, by focusing only on male violence, you are ignoring the growing proportion of women who themselves engage in violent behavior. What do you have to say about that?

"I've never stopped people who disagree with me from posting"

Do you not recall banning both myself and Polish Knight in the past?

Thus I've been pleasantly surprised thus far about the duration of this debate, and I hope that it continues.

11:27 AM
NYMOM said...
It's not true what you say about violence being independent of race in the west. Actually most of the statistics used by people to show this are the statistics of African-American men...clearly a distortion of reality to try to blame the problems of black men on women...

Black men are impacted by a history of racism in this country, their problems are not the fault of their mothers.

Regarding the best group to survive: it would be the group most likely to reside in the middle of the ordinary bell-shaped curve, where the vast majority of people reside. We don't need any more 'genuises' like Hitler, Caesar, Stalin, Mao and the like...even an Einstein, what did he do but contribute the nuclear bomb to the arsenal of men. One more weapon for you to kill each other with.

Many of the technological breakthroughs of men have only been short term benefits anyway. Over the long term, they are destroying the earth. Like large cities: great in the beginning, but now nothing but a vast strain on the environment.

The same thing with factory farming/agriculture on such a huge scale.

So probably woman wouldn't have achieved these things, but so what? Our populations would be smaller, not as technologically advanced but we wouldn't have had the means to kill each other on such a grand scale...and that's not such a bad thing either.

I banned you and Polish Knight because you both began generating into smart asses with a dozen comments a day such as 'squeezed out my kids' and frankly I just got tired of it.

6:32 PM
LorMar said...
hmmm, this is truly an interesting conversation. First I would like to say that I would never want to live in a society without men. I am currently single and pregnant by choice but recognize that I could not become a mother without the help of a man; and would not want it any other way. But, I would have to say that Elusive really has a tough case to prove. The fact is, men in the islamic world tend to have a strong paternal influence (including those who become terrorist). To claim a link between fatherlessness and terrorism is unrealistic as it is the fathers who generally teach the children in those countries. Also, the stats on fatherlessness in the United States are not based on mothers who make an informed decision to parent alone. Most of it is about women who are either divorced, or from lower economic classes. Let's face it, women have a bond with their children that is way beyond what men have. This isn't because women are better parents, IMO. But it is because men generally do not create the same bonds between themselves and their children. Lastly, I firmly believe that men and women need each other in order to survive. A human society without one sex simply would not last.

8:26 PM
NYMOM said...
Sorry I've been away so long and haven't been responding to comments...

Anyway, yes, I agree with pretty much everything you say Lormar.

The problem is with this whole gender neutral interpretation of motherhood today we appear to have just handed more power and control over to the half of humanity that historically has had the greatest amount of power and control of everything already...

There is virtually no recognition of the special and unique bond between mother and child. Nor of the greater risk women assume or the larger physical or emotional investment women make when actually bringing children into the world.

That's my basic problem with the whole thing and until that changes I make no concessions to anyone but women as being significant in their role as mothers.

7:53 PM