Well I know it's a little late but I've been busy; however, I do now want to comment on that Octomom situation that was in the news a few months ago...
First, like everyone else, I agree she was selfish and irresponsible to bring even ONE more child into the chaotic situation she calls a home, never mind bringing eight more children into it. YET I still maintain the vast majority of women who have children using invitro are MORE responsible then the average single mother, who has an unplanned pregnancy from some recreational sperm donor. Sorry, I know many women don't want to hear this but getting pregnant while having recreational sex is the height of irresponsibility especially if it's with some idiot you hardly know, maybe even a one-night stand. There are just too many ways to avoid an unplanned pregnancy these days...
Anyway, I hope California won't pass laws against women using invitro methods since I happen to believe this will be the wave of the future for many women to have any kids and I would not want to see it totally regulated out of existence. This situation is a good example of the saying: "hard cases make bad law".
That's one issue.
The bigger issues is why didn't people speak out against women having six or eight babies at once before this Octomom. These situations should have been addressed long ago. I personally am sick to death of seeing these thin, sickly babies (with tubes coming from their bodies in every direction) displayed on TV or on magazine covers. Not to mention the cost to everyone else as saving these children runs into the millions. It's one thing for this to be an act of nature or God, if you will, it's another to plan this sort of event to happen deliberately. AND since women do not naturally conceive and bear eight kids at one time, this is all (dare I say it) a man-made occurrence.
Women were not built to bear six or eight babies at a pop. Not to mention what happens to the kids when they are born, as you can't possibly pay enough attention to eight kids at one time. I always suspected kids in these situations suffered neglect and/or emotional abuse; but seeing one of these reality shows recently totally convinced me of it. As the kids in that show never stopped crying, even once...one or two of them was always in the background screaming their heads off. This is not natural. I've known and interacted with many large families and never saw anything like it...I, myself, come from a family of eight plus spent much time in an orphanage from the age of 5 or so and never heard so much non-stop crying going on...No one was available to comfort these kids as there were simply too many of them!!!
So the children, themselves, continue suffering emotional abuse/neglect, even after their medical problems are cleared up.
Anyway, if some lawmakers are looking to pass laws it should be along the lines of forbidding doctors from planting more then two or three eggs at a time in a women's uterus and hopefully that will clear the situation up...and mothers who do this should be held up to public scorn (just like Octomom was). They should not be given reality shows and painted as mom of the year.
121 comments:
"YET I still maintain the vast majority of women who have children using invitro are MORE responsible then the average single mother, who has an unplanned pregnancy from some recreational sperm donor"
NYMOM, your right as usual. I just found out that I'm pregnant, and I used a sperm donor. I have a good job, and I don't need any kind of public assistance to support my child. OTOH, I can hear the whining because I'll be raising a kid without a father. After being married to an FRA, I know that I'll be much better off raising my child by myself than with a man like my ex-husband (or my father for that matter). My brother is a great husband and father, and he'll a great male role model for my child-girl or boy. At this point, I'm not willing to risk having a child that could be taken away from me in a custody battle, nor am I willing to waste my kid's childhood in a neverending court battle. No dad is better than a bad dad. Btw, Polish Knight and Dick, I already know enough about your opinions on this subject, so you can save your typo-o's. I could care less.
Kimberly
OH, NYMOM, I just wanted to clarify that I did NOT use invitro. I waited until I ovulated to use the donor sperm. Just wanted to clarify.
Kimberly
Well, good for you Kimberly, good for you.
Also, I classify everything under 'invitro' for want of a better term that's all inclusive of every method of getting pregnant outside of sex between men and women...
AND to head off the usual arguments BEFORE they begin I want to add I have nothing against sex taking place between men and women. Nor do I have anything against good fathers being part of their childrens lives...I think that's the best possible world for children if and when that happens.
However, what has happened today is that men have given themselves superior rights over and above the mothers who actually bear the brunt of pregnancy and child birth...Men, using the court system, are attempting to usurp the natural rights of mothers and children (as I consider it an assault against children to remove them from fit loving mothers to help some moron evade high child support).
Yes, child support is too high, but we need to address that problem NOT pass children around like an old football so men can balance their checkbooks. I don't give a damn about their finances except as it impacts mothers and children.
So good luck Kimberly...
"AND to head off the usual arguments BEFORE they begin I want to add I have nothing against sex taking place between men and women. Nor do I have anything against good fathers being part of their childrens lives...I think that's the best possible world for children if and when that happens"
I agree with you.
"However, what has happened today is that men have given themselves superior rights over and above the mothers who actually bear the brunt of pregnancy and child birth...Men, using the court system, are attempting to usurp the natural rights of mothers and children (as I consider it an assault against children to remove them from fit loving mothers to help some moron evade high child support)."
And I agree 100% with you here. This is the reason that I decided to go the sperm donor route. Hey, a good biological father helping me raise my child would be ideal, and I still would like to find a decent guy to spend my life with as long as they can be a good father to my child. A good social father is better than a bad biological father any day of the week. OTOH, I'm pretty confidant that I can do a good job raising my child by myself as well especially because I won't be forced by someone else into a neverending custody war, or forced to put my child into some ridiculous 50/50 custody arrangement just so my kid can spend all his or her time with the stepmom while dad hangs out with the guys. No way in hell would I let that happen.
"I still would like to find a decent guy to spend my life with as long as they can be a good father to my child. A good social father is better than a bad biological father any day of the week."
The problem with this, Kimberley, is that if you don't think you can find a good biological father for your child you will have an enormously harder time finding a good "social" father. They almost inevitably care far less. Why should they? No blood connection, no investment, a relationship completely based on the caprice of the mother. That's no more a father than a babysitter is a mother. I would wonder about any guy who would settle for this. A good quality man will want his own kids and a real family.
The most dangerous situation for a child is in a home with a mother and an unrelated male who the mother no doubt thought was a "good social father." I'm sorry to say that there are predatory males who target single mothers (sometimes specifically to get to the kids) because they're lonely and easy to fool and there is no dad around to break the guy's face if he messes with his kids.
Even if he poses no danger, your "good social father" will have less incentive to work on things when your relationship hits the rough spots, too. And being that you believe that "men don't understand the male psyche" (but you do, of course) I would be surprised if you could keep a marriage going for long. Kids hate dealing with the entrances and exits of boyfriends and step-fathers, and they shouldn't have to.
If I were you I'd focus on my child and not bring any men into the mix.
I'm glad you're doing this, though. Your choice, your complete responsibility. One more guy spared the family court wringer, one more guy available for a family-minded woman.
I wish you well.
Richard
I have to quote this literally. Kimberly said: "My brother is a great husband and father, and he'll a great male role model for my child-girl or boy."
That ought to be accompanied by banjo music. Her brother as the father? She then goes on to say she would like to find a father later for the child, but what she and NYMOM appear to define as "decent" appears to be a man who should pay mommy, er, "child" support but expect little or no rights to the child and in this case for a child that's not even his. What kind of role model can Kimberly hope to be when she has problems relating outside of her immediate blood family?
"You have to marry your sister, Bart. I'm not paying for two weddings" -- Homer Simpson, living in the South
Whatever might be said about Richard "Dick" and I: We found ways to get along with women and to move forward with our lives. We don't need to emphasize that we're not on public assistance. Of course we're not, we're men. Society doesn't tolerate that kind of nonsense from us.
"...but what she and NYMOM appear to define as "decent" appears to be a man who should pay mommy, er, "child" support but expect little or no rights to the child and in this case for a child that's not even his."
I immediately thought about what you said in that other thread, PK. That for women the bare minimum (or less) in virtue, competence and responsibility seems to be acceptable, but they expect absolute sainthood from us.
No wonder the woman-firsters are so angry.
Richard
"The problem with this, Kimberley, is that if you don't think you can find a good biological father for your child you will have an enormously harder time finding a good "social" father."
Well, Dick, if I have a hard time finding a good social father, I don't have ANY problem with staying a single mother.
"No blood connection, no investment, a relationship completely based on the caprice of the mother. That's no more a father than a babysitter is a mother. I would wonder about any guy who would settle for this. A good quality man will want his own kids and a real family."
Well, Dick, I know several "stepfather" families where the stepfather is far more than a "babysitter". In, fact the kids in these families call their "babysitter" "dad" because their own biological "father" doesn't want anything to do with them. And their "so-called step-father" cares more about them than bio dad ever did, and the fact that bio-dad was happy to give up paternal rights to stepdad so he didn't have to pay child support says it all. A guy who can love a stepchild as if he were his own child is decent guy. In fact, a new study found that stepfathers can be better parents than bio dad:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/health/251949.php
Also, Dick, you like to downgrade step dads as not being a "real father" because they aren't the biological father, but yet, you were talking about how well two-parent adoptive families do almost as well as two-parent biological families. In that situation, neither parent is the biological parent, but you talk about how superior it is to single mother homes (biological and adoptive)because it's a two-parent home with a mother AND a father. A non-biological adoptive father is a great dad, but a non-biological stepfather is someone you have to wonder about? Sounds hypocritical to me.
"Kids hate dealing with the entrances and exits of boyfriends and step-fathers, and they shouldn't have to."
Ah, I wonder how long it would be before I would get the "slut accusation". I have not, nor will I ever have "entrances and exits of boyfriends and step-fathers." My own mother never brought home boyfriends for sleepovers, nor did she live with anyone the whole time after the divorce. She dated the same guy for a whole year before she even introduced him to us, and I was a teenager. She eventually married him, and he's a great guy compared to my bio-dad. OTOH, I lost count of how many "girlfriends" my dad had by than. One crazy woman who would call my mother's house all hours of the day and night and ask if we were really my dad's kids. One woman even had a voodoo doll (a doll that looked like my dad with hair that looked suspiciously like it came from dad's hairbrush-can't say I blame her though) in the glove compartment of her car for god's sake. Another woman who broke up with my dad even called my mother's house to ask her to talk to my dad about giving some stuff back that he borrowed from him. My mother didn't want anything to do with this crap, but my father still found ways to involve her. In fact, it's fathers who usually have a revolving door of girlfriends and step-mothers compared to mothers. Fathers are the ones who are more likely to cohabitate, or get remarried way more often than mothers do.
"The most dangerous situation for a child is in a home with a mother and an unrelated male who the mother no doubt thought was a "good social father.""
Yawn! I read studies that show that children especially girls are far more likely to be sexually abused by unrelated males in the form of DAD'S FRIENDS while living with or visiting their father. Hell, in a 50/50 custody situation that you are so fond of, a child (especially girls) are more at risk when they spend half the time at dad's house when dad has unrelated male friends over to watch the game or whatever than they are when they spend the other half living with just mom who isn't cohabitating with any one. In fact, the one time I was molested as a child was by my dad's good friend "Bob" while dad left me alone with him to go get cigarettes. Funny, considering my dad was always trying to say that my older half-brother was molesting my full brother and I during the divorce. Gee! I don't remember that happening, and guess who dad ended up believing? Bob! Well, anyway, I don't have to worry about that crap because there ISN'T ANY BIOLOGICAL FATHER IN THE PICTURE THAT MY KID WILL HAVE TO SPEND TIME WITH.
"I'm glad you're doing this, though. Your choice, your complete responsibility. One more guy spared the family court wringer, one more guy available for a family-minded woman."
Yeah, and I'm happy with my choice because my child and I will be spared the wringer not the other way around.
"Her brother as the father? "You have to marry your sister, Bart. I'm not paying for two weddings" -- Homer Simpson, living in the South"
Polish Knight, the fact that you equate my use of my brother as a good male role model to incest says more about your family than it does mine. Of course, I completely understand, Polish Knight, why you would feel this way. Your little joke stereotypes people in the South as incestuous. After all, D.C. is below the Mason-Dixon line, so your all "relative". Ha! Ha! Ha! Tell me P.K., if you and your wife got a divorce, would you still be brother and sister? You see, I live in the North. We don't understand your "way of life" down there. I guess your wife must've given birth to flipper kids so they can't run away if there's a custody battle.
Kimberly
NYMOM, I just saw something on the other post that really made me sick to my stomach. Polish Knight was showing what a sterling example of fatherhood that he is by advising Dick to take his son to a prostitute. And not only that, he talks about how good-looking eastern european prostitutes are. Eastern Europe has one of the worst reputations for forcing women into sex slavery, and for trafficking underage girls. I doubt that Polish Knight even knows what the real ages were of the eastern european prostitutes that he was with, nor would he care. Polish Knight likes underage pussy. I'll bet Mrs. Polish Knight doesn't know about that one. I hope he doesn't have daughters (after all, he seems to be into incest). God, Polish Knight, you are even more disgusting than I thought. Polish Knight, you might as well not even bother telling me how great a dad/husband you are because it's obviously not true. Your a loser who has to buy underage pussy inorder to feel like a real man, and your think that your son (and Dick's son) should do the same. Way to go! You certainly should get the father of the year award. NOT! And on top of it, your a possible pedophile and a rapist. Yeah, P.K., keep telling women how they are at fault for marrying bad boys while trying to paint yourself as one of the good ones. God, your disgusting! Thank God, my kid isn't going to have a biological father in the picture. Every word you write just convinces me of that more and more each day.
http://www.sos-sexisme.org/English/east.htm
Kmberly
Kimberly, do you even read your URL's? Ukraine isn't alleged to have sex slaves, the article alleges that they are smuggled and forced into slavery in other places including Western European nations. Slavery also occurs for other reasons as well such as domestic help: tinyurl.com/qud2fa and deadbeat dads are forced to work or go to jail. So what's the problem? When slavery gets money for women, you think it's okey dokey. I remember James Watt commenting that white women wouldn't give up their diamonds to oppose South African apartheid and he was right: Wealthy white career women drove up the prices to stratopheric levels!
I don't mind being the strawman for your justification of your daddy issues and also anger that you can't get men with money to support you as a mother.
"A non-biological adoptive father is a great dad, but a non-biological stepfather is someone you have to wonder about? Sounds hypocritical to me."
Did you even read what I said, Kimberley? Adoptive fathers (and mothers) have no biological connection but they have a true parental investment in their children and full parental rights and responsibilities. They are also highly motivated to become parents and well-investigated in advance by objective evaluators.
"Well, Dick, if I have a hard time finding a good social father, I don't have ANY problem with staying a single mother."
I'm glad to hear that. Because according to American researchers Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, who have done the most extensive research on the subject to date, have found that children who live with one biological parent and one step-parent are about 40 times more likely to become abuse victims than children living with both a biological mom and dad, and about 50 times more likely to die of inflicted injuries. Their conclusion from studying 20 years worth of American and Canadian data is that "step-parenthood per se remains the single most powerful risk factor for child abuse that has yet been identified. Compared to children in biological homes and even single-parent homes, step-children are not merely disadvantaged, but imperiled."
For details, see Daly and Wilson, "Child Abuse and Other Risks of Not Living With Both Parents" in Ethology and Sociobiology, and "Risk of Maltreatment of Children Living With Step-Parents" in Child Abuse and Neglect: Biosocial Dimensions.
I understand you've had experiences with bad biodads and good stepdads but it's foolish to ignore the larger picture here.
You've gone so far as to deprive your child of half a family in order to protect yourself from the neglible risk of losing custody of it involuntarily. You should go the full distance and avoid the truly significant risk to your child as well.
Go on and have your child and then come back and tell me if you could truly love a stepchild as much. I, quite honestly, could not.
I have a nephew and a niece and another nephew on the way. I'm fond of them and everything, but it's absolutely nothing at all compared with how I feel about my own kids. All this outdated prattling about "role-models" is ridiculous. Kids don't need "role-models" of either sex but mothers and fathers at home tending to business.
"I doubt that Polish Knight even knows what the real ages were of the eastern european prostitutes that he was with, nor would he care."
Oh, that's no problem in this particular neck of the woods, Kimberley. NYMOM's already said on another site that she thinks the age of consent for sex needs to be lowered considerably (that way female teachers who prey upon teenage boys would not have to risk jail, you see.)
Richard
Richard, the more I read Kimberly's emotive hyperbole, the stronger I suspect that there is no test-tube daddy. She's probably just pulling our leg and isn't pregnant at all.
In addition, it's amusing (in a sad way) at how Kimberly, NNF, and NYMOM downplay the importance of fathers as being mere sperm banks and ATM machines yet, at the same time, they have all shared how the absence or claimed shortcomings of their fathers have had a significant impact on how they see the world and men. Looking back, I realize that the women I dated who were messed up all had significant parental issues that they hadn't come to grips with or faced and that was why I moved on away from them.
Ultimately, this means that perhaps Kimberly's children, if she ever has them, will be suffering from the negative impact of GENERATIONS of lousy fathers.
Allow me to repeat our merits: Richard and I are reliable, responsible, committed husbands and (for him) fathers. We don't cheat on our wives, or go out drinking, or act in an abusive manner. Richard is a kitty cat, I'm more sexist but I also on a daily basis treat my wife well.
As you said, Richard, these women want more than that. They want condition free goodies and rights and for us men, just a bill and an address to send a card to (if they allow the kids to read it). That's not good enough for me, or for you, but that didn't stop us from mating because there are plenty of sensible women out there who offer more than those terms. Men are calling their bluffs and they know it. Didja ever get The Silent Treatment, Richard? A smart woman eventually realizes that it's not going to work and the man won't magically come up with a solution and then she comes over and talks and works things out. We're looking at a decades long "silent treatment" from these kinds of women with the poor children used as pawns to make their point.
PK said: "...yet, at the same time, they have all shared how the absence or claimed shortcomings of their fathers have had a significant impact on how they see the world and men. Looking back, I realize that the women I dated who were messed up all had significant parental issues that they hadn't come to grips with or faced and that was why I moved on away from them.
Ultimately, this means that perhaps Kimberly's children, if she ever has them, will be suffering from the negative impact of GENERATIONS of lousy fathers."
You hit the nail on the head there, PK. NY shared her history over at Gonz's long ago, and it made a lot of things clear that I won't go into here because I don't want to get all psychobabbly. But these women are a good lesson to all of us of what our daughters can turn into if we don't tend to business.
Ever read Amanda (Edwards campaign fiasco) Marcotte over at Pandagon? I love how she carries on about how "there's nothing wrong with divorce! I'm a child of divorce and just look at me!"
Exactly, Amanda. Exaaaaactly. Next exhibit, please.
And of course every teenage mom bringing a fatherless child into the inner city will tell you at length that her baby doesn't need its father; she didn't have one and she did just fine.
Uh-huh. Exactly.
And so it goes. Generation after crappy generation.
Richard
"I understand you've had experiences with bad biodads and good stepdads but it's foolish to ignore the larger picture here."
Well, Dick, I disagree with what you say as usual. I think that your the one who isn't looking at the big picture, but hey, we can agree to disagree.
"Slavery also occurs for other reasons as well such as domestic help: tinyurl.com/qud2fa and deadbeat dads are forced to work or go to jail. So what's the problem?"
It's amazing how men who think paying child support FOR THEIR OWN CHILD is slavery when they expected their wives to do all the housework/childcare AND clean up after a full grown man who refuses to clean up after himself or help out with the childcare/housework even when mom has a full-time job (in most cases) herself to help pay the bills. And after mom works all day, takes care of the kids and household chores all night, these guys are the ones who want sex on demand and complain when mom is too exhausted to fulfill their every wish. However, these guys think this is just being a wife and mother. And when mom gets fed up and walks, these guys have the nerve to grumble about "slavery" when in reality it was dad who equates being a wife and mother with being a domestic slave and prostitute on demand. The real problem isn't that these guys think that paying child support is slavery. It's that they aren't getting the free services of a domestic slave and prostitute anymore while (in most cases) benefitting from mom's paycheck as well. That is slavery.
"Allow me to repeat our merits: Richard and I are reliable, responsible, committed husbands and (for him) fathers. We don't cheat on our wives, or go out drinking, or act in an abusive manner. Richard is a kitty cat, I'm more sexist but I also on a daily basis treat my wife well."
Oh, spare me the violin playing. First of all, I've already heard from Dick on what kind of husband/father he is, and I don't need to hear it from you when you don't even personally know him. And as for you being a good husband-bullshit. A guy who has a history of picking up protitutes (who most likely might be underage), and doesn't see anything wrong with this behavior is NOT a good husband. I really think that your wife might "think" that you treat her well, but more than likely, she doesn't know that you probably pick up prostitutes on a regular basis. Most likely, you've been picking up prositutes the whole time you've been married, and Mrs. P.K. doesn't know it. I sure as hell don't believe that you don't cheat on your wife. Go sell that smack to someone who's buying. And the fact that you think that it's okay for a father to introduce his son to prostitutes tells me that you would make a terrible father (since it appears that you don't have children). I know I'll be a better parent as a single mother than you will be a father in a two-parent family (which I suspect won't remain two-parent much longer when your wife gets wind of your idea of a "father-son activity"). Your the one who shouldn't have children, not single mothers. And it really doesn't matter what Dick said about NYMOM's opinion on the age of consent (sorry NYMOM). I notice that you didn't bother to defend yourself when I accused you of being a possible pedophile. That tells me that you have a history of picking up prostitutes who you knew were underage. That makes you a pedophile. And as far as your claim that your not abusive, bull shit. Just from your comments on the other post, it's quite obvious that you have a history of getting into "domestic conflicts" with women. And just like an abuser, you minimize what you did and blame everything on the girlfriend or whatever. That is a huge red flag. What a laugh when you blame women for marrying "bad boys" while you try to claim your one of the "good ones". That is such a load of crap. Your own wife is married to a bad boy, and she's going to find that out when and if you ever have children, or probably before, if she's lucky (so she can do the smart thing and dump your stupid ass). Unfortunately, for her, she'll probably find out when she catches you in bed with a 10 year eastern european prostitute (or possiblly your future daughter-after all, a combination of underage protitutes and that "southern way of life is a danger sign LOL).
"I don't mind being the strawman for your justification of your daddy issues and also anger that you can't get men with money to support you as a mother."
Well, good, because you certainly justify everything that I ever thought. A man with money (smile)? I don't need a "man with money". I make a 6 figure income, and I have a job with very flexible hours, and I work out of my home. My mother is going to help me with childcare so I don't have to rely on a nanny. Why in hell would I give that up for a "man with money" so that I can spend all my time cleaning up after him AND my child? No way. I'm not into slavery just so I can have a "man with money to support me as a mother."
"Ultimately, this means that perhaps Kimberly's children, if she ever has them, will be suffering from the negative impact of GENERATIONS of lousy fathers.""
And I suppose that means because I'm depriving my child of "half his family". Yeah, I suppose I should settle for a guy who thinks it's okay to take my son (if I have a boy) to visit a prostitute. NOT! Your attitude is one of sthe reason that there are generations of lousy fathers out there. And children are suppose to be better off with lousy bio-dads just so they can have a father? Hell, no. Dick complained that I don't see the "big picture". Well, he's wrong. Neither you nor him have a clue about how destructive a lousy father is. I know from experience that having no father is better than a lousy father, and NNF knows from experience that she didn't need a father to have a good childhood. You and Dick seem to have absolutely no experience dealing with what NNF and I did, and yet, you seem to think that you know better than the people who actually lived with a lousy father, or without a father at all. You both had great fathers. Good for you, but a good dad isn't possible for everyone, nor is a father necessary for a kid to grown up well. And judging from what you think is acceptable father-son bonding time, I highly question what your definition is of a "good father". Do your future offspring a favor, and DON'T HAVE THEM. Anyway, I'm not coming back to this blog (and it's good-bye not aloha). I have to much to do with the baby coming and all to argue with a guy who wouldn't know a good dad if he bit him in the ass. All, I know is that my child is much better off without one than with a lousy bio-dad.
Kimberly
"I have to much to do with the baby coming and all to argue with a guy who wouldn't know a good dad if he bit him in the ass."
Or with a guy like P.K. who is a most likely a closet pedophile.
Kimberly
Kimberly,
Congrats on being pregnant! I think it's great. Just remember that you can be a great mom and raise your child successfully without a father. Like you mentioned above, I NEVER knew my biological father, and I don't feel like I missed out on anything. My mother gave me a great childhood, and you can do the same for your child. As far as some of the other stuff you commented on, I feel so sorry for Polish Knight's wife. I can't imagine being married to a guy who picks up prostitutes and thinks father-son bonding takes place at a brothel. EWWWWW! Can you imagine the diseases he probably passed on to his poor unsuspecting wife? OTOH, he seems to think a decent male role model is banging his sister. Who knows how far the inbreeding goes back in his family? Who knows how many generations back it might be before his family tree actually forks? LOL
Anyway, you are right when you say that it's people like Richard and Polish Knight who don't get the big picture. I can an give a good example that illustrates this point exactly. A couple of years ago, some guy wanted to do a research paper, and he posted this question on a website:
Is it better for a child to have no father than a bad father?
You wouldn't believe the comments! So many people posted stories about what lousy fathers they had, and how they would've been better off without them. Others were like me, and they grew up without any father in there life at all. A lot of these people felt the same way that I did as far as not missing out on anything. Others thought that it would have been nice to have a GOOD FATHER in their lives, but they felt that their mothers did a great job raising them. However, even these people said that it would be better not to have a father at all than a bad father. In fact, there wasn't one person who thought otherwise. Of course, there is always the dummy who just doesn't get it. One stupid girl commented that she had a great father, and she thought it was just awful that people thought it was better for a to not have a father, blah, blah, ad nauseum. Talk about missing the point, and not seeing the big picture. Anyway, the guy who posted the question told the girl that it was great the SHE had a great father, but that her situation DID NOT pertain to the question that he was asking. He told her that she totally missed the point, and she should stop wasting his time. I thought of this girl right away when Richard said that you didn't get the big picture. Au contraire, I think it's Richard and Polish Knight who have their own little narrow world view, and they somehow, think everyone should fit into it. They think that because they consider themselves good husbands/fathers (delusions of grandeur in Polish Knight's case), that every guy out there is somehow the same, and it's the fault of the women if something doesn't go right because women are just basically stupid, lazy, evil, out to get every guy's money, sperm, or whatever negative adjective can be used to fill in the blanks. And what's worse is that they can't see past their own male privilege and entitlement either to see that we live in a patriarchal society that gives women a bad deal all the way around. And if women have any advantages at all (and if there are any, it's not a hell of a lot), they want to complain about how unfair it all is while they get all the kudos and the rewards just for being men. Mom walks down the street pushing a baby in a stroller, no one blinks an eye. Dad does it, and it's oh what a great father he is, he's so involved (nevermind that mom pushes the stroller everyday while dad does it once a month). Girls fell behind boys in school for decades, and no one but feminists seemed to care. Girls start to do better than boys in school, and low test scores say that there is a learning crisis among LOW INCOME, BLACK, INNER CITY KIDS, and somehow this translates into BOY CRISIS for every white boy out there, and oh, my god, we have to do something about it." OTOH, boys do great at math because they have "innate ability" while girls who do great at math just "work hard". Nevermind, that in countries where there a bigger emphasizes on gender equality, the math gap between boys and girls have basically disappeared. Men complain that there aren't any female bloggers, but than they complain about women a feminist blogs that are run by women (nevermind that most bloggers are teenage girls). God, I can go and and on, but I'm sure neither Richard nor Polish Knight will ever see the Big Picture. Of course, Polish Knight is just feeble minded from all that inbreeding while Richard, you have no excuse LOL.
Your joke about brothers and sisters went right over SenecaWoman's head, PK. That's almost as funny as the joke was.
So she gets an A in psychoanalyzing complete strangers on the web, but an F in reading comprehension. Sounds about right.
"You and Dick seem to have absolutely no experience dealing with what NNF and I did..."
True, but you haven't experienced everything either. My wife and her sibs had a sucky mother (who nevertheless had the decency not to destroy her kids' home). So did a number of people I know. So since there are lousy moms out there I suppose the solution for a guy who wants kids is to hire a surrogate (or in a couple of decades, rent a mechanical womb). Because no mom is better than a lousy bio-mom, and it's a much better idea to find your child a "social mother" who will have no connection or investment in your child and will be 50-100 times more likely to abuse him/her but at least you won't have to share if you don't want to.
That's the logic here. Totally absurd, except for the fact that the single dad really IS avoiding a substantial risk of loss, while the single mom avoids a miniscule risk of loss. Either way, of course, the kid loses but who cares about that?
But about being a kitty kat...yeah, I'll admit to that. I have a daughter, you see, and daughters have that effect on their dads. I'd do just about anything for her, but damned if I want her to grow up into one of these morose, self-obsessed, entitled princesses with no sense of commitment or responsibility to family and continually mad at the world when it doesn't fork over everything they think they deserve.
PK, did you ever get around to skimming some of those discussions from Twisty Faster's blog that someone, I guess Kimberley, linked to in the last thread? Much of it was boring pissing and moaning about how marriage sucks 'cause they don't like to clean house. But some of it was hilarious.
There was one who wanted to abolish private property because it's too "intertwined" with patriarchy (attempted 100 years ago in Russia, sucked, failed, scrapped).
Then there was Twisty herself, who wants to "abolish motherhood" and raise children communally so they can naturally "gravitate" to whoever best meets their needs (attempted on the kibbutzim, failed, scrapped).
Sounds like these gals read about as well as Seneca Woman does.
And then there was the one who talked about the "horror that is civilization" (when without that nasty patriarchal "civilization" exactly half of these whiners would never have survived infancy to grow up and whine about how tough they have it).
And the one who had just gotten married and had an awesome husband but she just "feels so trapped" (cry me a river. She can bug out on that deal anytime she wants at minimal cost. Let her pop out a couple of kids to hold hostage while she bitches at her awesome husband and then it'll be clear who's "trapped").
And the one who complained about "menial and soul-destroying work like ironing and child-rearing." I laughed so loud at that that my wife came over to see what was so funny.
Ironing is soul-destroying!
I've ironed my own shirts my whole damned adult life while watching TV and never thought of what it might be doing to my soul.
But hey, come to think of it, I sure don't want to paint our fence or clean the gutters or powerwash the siding. I don't want to sweep up the grass after I mow. It might destroy my soul. Of course I'd get some nasty letters from the homeowners association, which doesn't care at all about my soul and is no doubt one of the many tools of the patriarchy.
But the funniest one of all was some person named Mearl, who doesn't want to get married and have to put up with a man, but but but...how else am I going to get a house, a car, alimony, child support, and payouts from mutual retirement investments? Waaaaah! What's a "young, educated, working feminist" who wants "big-ticket items" to do? Waaaah! And none of my friends will go in on this stuff with me 'cause they're all looking for husbands! Waaah!
Of course they are. And thinking privately about what an idiot she is.
So much for women getting a bad deal out of the patriarchy.
Were these kooks raised on featherbeds or something? It's a good thing they're not into marriage because they'd never be able to manage a month of having to give and take with another human being.
But enough rambling already. I just couldn't resist sharing some of those gems. Thanks to whoever posted those links. Somebody needs to compile a new book about "The Stupidest Things Ever Said by Feminists."
Richard
Kimberly, your confusion is understandable when you claim that you're going test-tube to avoid losing custody of your kids because of unfair policies that give men rights to "women's" kids and then turn around and say that they're "his" kids when mommy needs money.
You talk about mothers as if they're Terminator robots and children never sleep. You know that's BS because you're claiming that you're going to do just that VOLUNTARILY so it can't be all that tough. Besides, it wasn't mens' idea for women to get full-time jobs. It was yours. You made the bed, pardon the pun, lie in it!
Kimberly claims: "However, these guys think this is just being a wife and mother. And when mom gets fed up and walks, these guys have the nerve to grumble about "slavery" when in reality it was dad who equates being a wife and mother with being a domestic slave and prostitute on demand. The real problem isn't that these guys think that paying child support is slavery. It's that they aren't getting the free services of a domestic slave and prostitute anymore while (in most cases) benefitting from mom's paycheck as well. That is slavery."
PK responds: But that's just it, Kimberly, she doesn't "walk". Walking away would mean she wouldn't need him anymore. Speaking of walking, it's a good allegory for how in the last thread you kept saying you were leaving and then came back. As Howie Mandell puts it: Deal, or no deal?
I love how you equate marital sex to sex slavery and prostitution. To paraphrase Groucho Marx: We've already established what they are, you're just angry about the price. Your equating marital sex to unpleasant work reveals that you're also a sexual prude to boot! It shocks you to consider that a man should get something out of marriage besides paying the bills and doing at least 1/2 the household chores.
But you also dehumanize children as well. You think that by squeezing them out of your womb in a natural process, that this entitles you to claim these human beings as your property that you can control and exploit for money. Kimberly, your whole view of the world is as pathetic as it is selfish. The worst men in your life are superior to you because they are HONEST.
Kimberly, I never said I saw prostitutes after I married or in the present. In a way, they were far superior to the culture of pseudo prostitution where men flatter their way into the pants of women such as you ("You're so oppressed, baby!") or buy you stuff ("Because of the pleasure of your company!") It's rather funny that you accuse me of cheating on my wife and exploit her as a free prostitute. Why should I buy something I already get for free?
Regarding your taunts that you think my wife will leave me: I'm at least taking that chance which is more than you're capable of. You need to stick with blood relatives because you're so lousy at forming relationships. Mating is a wonderful process because it's an opportunity for you to PICK a relative and you weren't up to it or, more accurately, you realize that nobody decent would pick YOU.
Regarding your allegations that I'm a pedophile. They are just that: baseless accusations that your obsession seems to say more about you than me like a Rorschach inkblot test. Same thing with you sneering that incidents of women inflicting DV mean the man deserved it. Reverse genders and apply to yourself. You are a spectacular hypocrite.
I chuckled at you claiming your mother was going to help you as a nanny just as you criticized men for taking advantage of their wife's slavelabor? It's hilarious at how you huff and puff about how wealthy and independent you are but then try to mooch off of your family! Hahaha! I know women with REAL six figure incomes who considered doing the turkey baster thing when they got old and couldn't find the traditional breadwinner they craved and they couldn't go through with it because it really would mean spending their mad-money and time.
You just cried-a-river above about the horrors of women working full time and staying up all night for the kids and you want us to think you'd volunteer? Hahahaha! Yeah, good one. You'll wind up falling into it through a one-night stand with some sweet-tongued loser because that's easier than actually taking responsibility and trying to do it right. If you're lucky.
You close by claiming, for the 4th time (but whose counting), that you're "not coming back to this blog". As I said, it's a great allegory for your whole fantasy viewpoint of the world that you set the terms and don't have to listen to anyone who tells you different. It's both hilarious, and pathetic, that this childish tactic is how you deal with people and you think you're in a position to lecture about whose ready to have children? What will you do when your child defies you? Leave? How often do you think that tactic will work? Or even worse, I'm reminded of these Jenny Jones shows where teenage daughters beat up their (single) mothers or sleep around and say "I do what I want!" and if the mother tries to talk to them they say: "If you don't like it, I'll leave!" Hmmm, I wonder where these young women learned that kind of behavior...
I'll close with something productive: Richard and I aren't saying that you should get involved with a lousy biodad. We're saying that you have the opportunity to find someone better and that you have to respect him as well and this means more than giving him the bills and dirty diapers while you hog all the rights. Just a suggestion. But you're too selfish to give up that fantasy. So be it.
First of all Richard I am NOT going to tolerate distortions on this site.
When I said was that the age of consent should be standardized across the states, not 14 years in one state and 17 years in another. AND it was NOT to protect women with teen age boys that I said that, as that is a neglible risk. In fact it was to help men who are the most likely to commit statutory rape...and yes in some states I do think the age of consent is too high, we have to be realistic about teenagers today. They are far more mature then teens of years past, sadly..
I'm going to put up that post again this weekend to make my point...
Richard, thanks for the heads up. I know someone who is a scholar of gender studies who will be amused (his work is well researched and amazing. Check out usenet groups soc.men, "Society")
Your derision over one woman's emotional conflict over not wanting to have to deal with men but wanting all the stuff reminds me of the great Bernadette Peters' line in The Jerk where she says: "I don't mind not being rich anymore. I just miss all the stuff!"
You sweep up the grass after you mow? That association is a harsh mistress! I always just mulched it and found that the lawn liked it.
Regarding single moms avoiding a miniscule loss. Do you think that these women have bought into their own posturing and BS? I think they like to go on and on about how awful women have it in family court as a pre-emptive strike (they're good at those) to try to deflect men's criticism of it. One woman friend confessed to me that it was just a ploy to try to play men to feel sorry for them or guilty and give them more... stuff. "I don't want to marry! It's oppression" "That's ok dear! I'll buy you a big diamond ring for your sacrifice!" And it worked with a lot of sappy, idealistic men. But the system has ground up these men like Buffalo Bill shot the buffalo for their hides and left the meat on the plain (hello NNF!)
Consequently, like sharks that still follow trade paths in the hopes of picking up sunk ships long after the ships no longer go that way, maybe these women haven't figured out yet that the game is up. Any man that buys into their notion of entitlement and victimhood is soon consumed by them.
I chuckle at their predicament because even as the supply of dupes is drying up, shows such as Bravo's The Real Housewives trumpet the lifestyle of leisure motherhood of shopping for $5000 prada bags and shoes and going to lavish charity events to spend hubby's money so they can "help" society. Friggin' hilarious.
For women such as this, such programs much be like torture similar to putting a cake just outside of a prisoner's grasp.
NNF, your response is a simple regurgitation of standard PC platitudes: White males are all privileged and CEO's AND also imbred hillbillies who are irrelevent anyway. Nobody cares about the plight of poor widdle women as they collect massive amounts of welfare and special goodies and then you turn around and claim to care about black men that you've helped to shove into jail when they don't qualify for welfare and can't pay their child-support. The KKK treated black men better than your agenda did!
I have a question for you: What great, quote, "Kudos and rewards" just for being men do we get? Could you tell us? I would love to take advantage of them. Thanks.
PK said: "I love how you equate marital sex to sex slavery and prostitution."
Totally different animal. I instantly thought of the old saying: Prostitutes aren't paid for sex. They're paid to LEAVE afterward.
Looking forward to your post, NY.
Richard
"True, but you haven't experienced everything either. My wife and her sibs had a sucky mother (who nevertheless had the decency not to destroy her kids' home)."
That doesn't sound right from the comments you made on other posts. You said your wife experienced PAS as a child, but now, your saying that her mother "had the decency not to destroy her kid's home". I take that to mean your wife's mother didn't get a divorce or seperation. Boy, it's funny that your wife experienced PAS in an intact two-parent home. In fact, it sounds like a bunch of b.s. to me. More than likely your wife's mother was married to an asshole. It's no secret that abusive men deliberately try to undermine the mother's authority over her own children WHILE STILL MARRIED AND LIVING IN THE HOUSE. It's call maternal alienation syndrome:
"Children experience that their mother’s authority has broken down - they have been coached to loathe and blame her; they have been told that their mother doesn't love them, that she's crazy, that she's a slut; she is a creature who deserves abuse. These messages are not just given once, but become the tapestry of family life."
www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/maternal-alienation.doc
These are usually the same guys who make false accusations of PAS against their wives in retaliation for her trying to leave an abusive sitaution. Unfortunately, it sounds like your wife's mother was one of those women who were brainwashed into thinking the abuse is her fault, and that she's a bad mother if she leaves her husband. And for what? So, that her kids can give her kudos for not breaking up the family while condemning her for being a "sucky mother". Ha! More than likely, your wife was spoiled by her father as a "daddy's girl" while being taught to disdain her own mother by the manipulations of her father while IN AN INTACT TWO-PARENT HOME. Either your wife isn't smart enough to figure this out (such is the way of conservative women), or your making up this whole my-wife-experienced-PAS shit. Either way, your little story just doesn't add up.
"Because no mom is better than a lousy bio-mom"
This is true if bio-mom were actually in fact a lousy mother. In fact, a good father is better than a lousy mother. However, there is so much mother blaming and male-on-female domestic violence in our culture that is either ignored, blamed on the victim, or minimized in favor of the abuser, or treated as a false accusation even when their is hard-core evidence of abuse. And our patriarchal society allows this behavior. And because of this, the chances of a father lying about a mother being unfit is FAR MORE LIKELY than a mother lying about a father being unfit. It's as simple as that. And fathers get away with lying FAR MORE THAN MOTHERS DO.
"it's a much better idea to find your child a "social mother" who will have no connection or investment in your child and will be 50-100 times more likely to abuse him/her but at least you won't have to share if you don't want to."
Mothers are usually the primary caretakers of their children, and this situation doesn't change if the mother remarrys because the children still are in the care of THEIR PRIMARYCARETAKERS SO MATERNAL INVESTMENT in time and money IN HER CHILDREN REMAIN THE SAME. OTOH, most fathers usually are not and never were the PRIMARYCARETAKERS of their children, and when they remarry, they leave the PRIMARYCARETAKER ROLE to the STEPMOTHER. And stepmothers usually DO NOT make the same maternal investments in either time or money that a child's bio mom would. There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE. And men know this, but they want to minimize the importance of the mother-child bond so that they get an edge in a custody battle. They don't care whats best for their children, and that's to be WITH THEIR PRIMARYCARETAKERS (MOTHERS).
Seneca Woman,
Your right about the maternal alienation thing. When I was a kid, I had a friend who was a big daddy's girl. The father wasn't physically abusive, but he was a controlling bastard. He constantly was putting down the mother and calling her names in front of my friend. He had total control over what went on and how my friend was raised, but he wasn't the one who did all the childcare. My friend's mother was always making her meals, taking her to doctor's appt., involved in school activities, etc, but Dad got all the glory, and he CONSTANTLY undermined his wife's authority. My friend told me that her father would even go so far as to tell his wife not to let my friend do something, and when my friend's mother told her no, my friend would run to her father so he could say yes. In other words, he was always trying to make her mom look like the "bad cop". I use to eat dinner a lot at their house, and you wouldn't believe what went on. My friend was allowed to talk back to her mother, interrupt the adults whenever she felt like it. In fact, her father would go so far as to direct most of the dinner conversation toward his daughter. If her mother, tried to say something, he would say,"Please don't interrupt. I'm listening to MY daughter." I swear that poor woman spent most of the dinner in silence, while my friend and her dad would have big conversation that deliberately excluded the mother. I was a guest for god's sake, and they paid more attention to me. My friend grew up a huge daddy's girl at the expense of her mother, and she blamed HER MOTHER for why they weren't close. It has only been in the last few years that my friend realized how much her mother really did for her, and what a control freak her father really was. In fact, my friend grew up an only child, and her mother passed away when she was in college. Her father married a much younger woman, and had another child-a son. After that, it was like my friend never existed to her father because he "has the son he always wanted". And guess what? My friend said he does the exact same thing to his son's mother that he did to her mother. She spends a lot of mother's days wishing her mother was still alive so that she could show her all the appreciation she didn't show her when her mother was alive. The whole thing is pretty sad. I'm glad that I have my mother.
"I have a question for you: What great, quote, "Kudos and rewards" just for being men do we get? Could you tell us? I would love to take advantage of them. Thanks"
Asshole, you already did when you went to the brothels. Like most men, you think that women (and underage girls) are a commodity to be bought and sold for your own sexual pleasure. And you get to brag and feel all macho about yourself because you get to pay young girls to sleep with you (and who probably wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole otherwise if they weren't afraid of a beating from pimp daddy). In the meantime, you get to brag about how macho you are to all the other guys who want to admire you for being such a studmuffing that you can get (and pay for) all the women (girls) you want. OTOH, I could probably go to a bar and fuck far more men than you get women, and for free. But of course, society would look down at me and condemn me for being a slut who's no better than the girls you buy while you get all the kudos and the rewards for the same behavior. And there are other examples, but there just isn't room enough on this blog to list them all. Really, Polish Knight, the fact that I even have to bother answering such an obvious question tells me just how stupid you really are. Your inbreeding is showing again.
Widowed Mom,
Thanks for your imput. You really made my point with your story.
"And then there was the one who talked about the "horror that is civilization" (when without that nasty patriarchal "civilization" exactly half of these whiners would never have survived infancy to grow up and whine about how tough they have it)."
OH, bullshit! In countries that are primarily patriarchal, children do worse. In countries, where women are empowered and have more rights, both maternal and infant mortality is low. If patriarchy was so wonderful, men in these countries would be more concerned with the health of their children and their MOTHERS. But in reality, men in patriarchal countries could care less. It's empowering WOMEN, especially MOTHERS that lower both the INFANT AND THE MATERNAL MORTALITY RATE. And you wonder why women complain about the horrors of patriarchy:
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_37474.html
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/891a748c95227f6ff73707d330e04db8.htm
http://www.paho.org/English/DD/PIN/WHD2005-factsheet.pdf
http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/164
Polish Knight, your a real moron!
I love how you take Kimberly's choice to have a child on her own and turn it into something that's "not that hard", oh, and using mom for "slavelabor". ! It's slavelabor when A GUY expects his wife to do ALL the childcare/housework on top of a full-time job to help pay the bills, but refuses to help take care of his own children while expecting his wife to pick up after him as well. Obviously, you don't have kids, you've never been the primarycaretaker of small children, and you've never had to do it while working a full-time job. You've never had to do it, and your not one to say how hard or easy it is. I did it for eighteen years by myself, and it was no picnic. OTOH, IT WOULD BE A HELL OF A LOT EASIER THAN PICKING UP AFTER A FULLGROWN MAN WHO REFUSED TO HELP ME OUT WITH HIS OWN KIDS while I did everything else as well. My husband wasn't like that when he was alive, and I don't think he would've been like that later on if he survived. However, my husband was what a real husband ought to be. He didn't treat me like slave labor. IT'S A LOT EASIER BEING A SINGLE WORKING MOTHER WITH KIDS THAN IT IS TO BE A WORKING WIFE/MOTHER IN A TWO-PARENT FAMILY WHERE DAD DOESN'T DO ANYTHING TO HELP OUT AND JUST MAKES MORE WORK FOR AN ALREADY EXHAUSTED WIFE/MOTHER. Men, OTOH, can't cope with the demands of being a single parent and they put all the childcare/housework off on mom, girlfriend, or stepmom THAT THEY NEVER DID IN THE FIRST PLACE. A single father's kids usually spend all day and all evening in the care of someone else other than THEIR FATHER (though dad might be there to do his 20 minutes of playtime-because we all know that's the fun part). A single mother's kids spend time in someone else's care WHILE MOM IS AT WORK, AND THEY SPEND THE HOURS THAT THEIR MOM ISN'T AT WORK IN THE CARE OF THEIR OWN MOTHER. I know your slow, but DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE? OR MAYBE IT'S MORE LIKELY, YOU DO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE, BUT REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE IT BECAUSE YOU KNOW THAT THIS IS THE REAL REASON THAT MOST WOMEN INTIALLY GET CUSTODY? A dad who can't even help out or do his own childcare, but thinks he should have physical custody of his kids isn't going to be a good custodial parent. No way, no how. And btw, I doubt that Kimberly's mother would help out Kimberly with childcare if she thought she was only going to be used for slave labor. After all, Kimberly's mom knows what "real slavelabor" is after her experiences as a child during WWII. Oh, and in answer to your question to Seneca Women about the advantages a man has? One huge advantage is that he gets help paying bills from a working wife while having her pick up after him
while he thinks that it is his male entitlement and privilege to refuse to help her with any housework/childcare while expecting sex on demand. He also considers it his male privilege to bitch about not getting sex (THAT HE THINKS HE IS ENTITLED TO WHEREEVER AND WHENEVER BECAUSE HE'S A MALE) because he completely ignores the fact that HIS WIFE IS TOO EXHAUSTED FROM WORKING A FULL-TIME JOB, DOING ALL THE CHILDCARE/HOUSEWORK, AND CLEANING UP AFTER HIM. And when his wife leaves him, he thinks that this ENTITLES him to 50/50 parenting because he's the biological mother so that he doesn't have to pay childcare, and he gets to dump said kids on girlfriend of the minute, or in your case the 10 year old eastern european prostitute you'll probably have in your house. And everyone will say what a great dad he is to fight for custody when he didn't do a damn thing to deserve it, nor does he actually take care of his own children.
"PK, did you ever get around to skimming some of those discussions from Twisty Faster's blog that someone, I guess Kimberley, linked to in the last thread? Much of it was boring pissing and moaning about how marriage sucks 'cause they don't like to clean house"
Well, duh, you think? Get a fucking clue.
"I love how you equate marital sex to sex slavery and prostitution. To paraphrase Groucho Marx: We've already established what they are, you're just angry about the price. Your equating marital sex to unpleasant work reveals that you're also a sexual prude to boot!"
Ah, I think Kimberly's point is that men who grumble about child support are the ones who equate marriage to sex slavery and prostitution. Men are pissed that they have to pay for their own biological children from previous marriages because they "aren't getting the sexual services of the mother anymore". That's why, men are so willing to dump all contact/support with children from previous relationships so that they can concentrate all financial support for the children with the women they are currently with. That's why you hear the big whine-I can't afford to support my kids from my current wife because I'm paying child support for my kids from my first wife. Wah! Translation=I'm not banging my first wife anymore, so I don't want to pay her money. OTOH, I'm banging my current wife, so I'll gladly pay her for it. Concern for supporting his current family is just a guise to get out of child support obligations because he can't fuck the mother anymore. Otherwise, if he really cared about his kids at all, he wouldn't have had more that he couldn't afford to support. Men don't want to admit this, but sex is what it's really all about rather than any concern for his kids.
"It shocks you to consider that a man should get something out of marriage besides paying the bills and doing at least 1/2 the household chores."
What a stupid ass! Kimberly, CLEARLY, made her point that men WHO DON'T DO ANY CHORES expect a wife, WHO WORKS A FULL-TIME JOB AND HELPS HER HUSBAND PAY THE BILLS, expect SEX ON DEMAND AND GET MAD WHEN THE WIFE REFUSES WHILE IGNORING THE FACT THAT SHE'S EXHAUSTED FROM DOING ALL THE CHILDCARE/HOUSEWORK ON TOP OF A FULL-TIME JOB WITHOUT ANY HELP FROM HER HUSBAND. Kimberly never said that men shouldn't expect sex from their wives IN GENERAL. Her argument is how SELFISH MEN ARE TO EXPECT SEX ON DEMAND FROM A WIFE WHO IS TOO EXHAUSTED AFTER DOING ALL THE CHILDCARE/HOUSEWORK ON TOP OF A FULLTIME JOB. It's called showing that you care about your wife as more than just a domestic servant:
"When a man does housework, it feels to the woman like an expression of caring and concern, which then physically reduces her stress," says Joshua Coleman, a San Francisco-area psychologist and author of "The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More"
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/06/17/housework.relationships/
NYMOM, You really have some stupid men who comment on your blog. That fact that they can't see the obvious says that they really aren't very intelligent especially Polish Knight.
I repeat, you haven't experienced everything, Seneca Woman.
And you're as bad as the rest of the women here about telling perfect strangers their business.
You're damn fucking right my wife experienced PAS in an intact family. From a mom who married a guy she didn't love on the rebound from some other guy she never got over. A woman who actually WAS spoiled by both parents, had a horrific temper and a contemptuous tongue and looked down on her husband for his Slavic background (sorry PK!). My wife says her mom's usual nickname for her dad was "Ugly."
What my wife hated most was that when they argued she refused to leave the kids out of it but would instruct them about what she wanted them to tell their father or they'd be sorry. Evidently they would go to their dad and rattle off whatever she told them to say to keep her happy, and their dad would nod and send them on their way because he understood. She also hated for them to talk to their father when she was NOT talking to him. "Deliberate exclusion," you might say, WM. The kids spent a lot of time outside needless to say.
"Constantly undermining his authority" is exactly what that woman did. I couldn't have put it better. Thanks WM.
But instead of whining about abuse and breaking up the family he manned up and saw it through. When all the kids left he got a trailer for himself so he could have some peace and he sent his kids to college and he supported his "wife" in the house for the rest of her life while she slept all day and stayed up watching TV and drinking all night.
How many of you would go through that to honor a commitment? If my wife is a daddy's girl it's because he damned well earned it. He's a gentleman in the manner of my own dad, who goes out of his way never to impose on anybody or to say unkind things about anyone. Our kids adore him and I'm proud to be his son-in-law, and he puts every one of you to shame.
"And because of this, the chances of a father lying about a mother being unfit is FAR MORE LIKELY than a mother lying about a father being unfit."
Completely pulled out of your ass, SW.
"Mothers are usually the primary caretakers of their children, and this situation doesn't change if the mother remarrys because the children still are in the care of THEIR PRIMARYCARETAKERS SO MATERNAL INVESTMENT in time and money IN HER CHILDREN REMAIN THE SAME."
Irrelevant. Step-parents in general are inferior to bio-parents and more dangerous to children, regardless of sex, which is why it's stupid to think of deliberately replacing one with the other from the git-go. And even if your statement were relevant, it's still bullshit. The very process of acquiring a new spousse and starting a new marriage lowers parental investment whether it's mother or father. Post-divorce parenting is a completely different animal from what goes on in an intact family. See the work of Judith Wallerstein for more details.
Just this month there was a popular kid over at the high school who blew his brains out without warning. No dad, of course, and according to his two best buddies who live in our subdivision his mom was too busy "auditioning social fathers," shall we say (they put it a bit more crudely), to notice that something might be up with her kid.
Even in the best of circumstance, most kids of divorce will tell you it's a whole 'nother ball game when parents start looking for new mates.
I don't like to throw out anecdotes BTW but it seems to be the order of the day around here so, fine, I'm game.
"They don't care whats best for their children, and that's to be WITH THEIR PRIMARYCARETAKERS (MOTHERS)."
What's best for children is to be raised by both biological parents if humanly possible, and it's mostly MOTHERS who don't seem to care about this so they do the la-la-la-can't-hear-you thing just like what's going on here.
"OH, bullshit! In countries that are primarily patriarchal, children do worse."
Another point flew right over your head, SW. It was only under patriarchy that CIVILIZATION and SCIENCE were able to advance to the point that half of children did not die in infancy and large numbers of mothers did not die having them.
But that's no surprise. There are lots of radical feminist kooks who dismiss logical and scientific thought as patriarchal and oppressive in nature, unlike woman's "freer and more intuitive" way of knowing. But as far as I know intuition never immunized kids from life-threatening diseases or repaired congenital organ defects or cured their mothers of childbed fever.
"Otherwise, if he really cared about his kids at all, he wouldn't have had more that he couldn't afford to support."
This means that welfare moms, by definition, don't care about their kids.
Even I never intimated anything as radical as that! Way to go WM!
Funny how that great matrifocal society over in Sweden that fems are so in love with takes the completely opposite view about second families.
"And btw, I doubt that Kimberly's mother would help out Kimberly with childcare if she thought she was only going to be used for slave labor."
No doubt the mother of Octomom, the subject of this post, never dreamed of how she was going to be used, either. But all our strong, "independent" single moms these days have no qualms about taking advantage of grandma.
"After all, Kimberly's mom knows what "real slavelabor" is after her experiences as a child during WWII."
Which reminds me, if Kimberly's mom is old enough to have survived WWII and remember it, she's a bit old to have a grandchild dumped on her (it's soul-destroying work, you know). Great way to show your appreciation to your mom for raising you, Kim! A Father's Day card and another child to look after. My sister and I sent our parents on a Caribbean vacation instead.
"And everyone will say what a great dad he is to fight for custody when he didn't do a damn thing to deserve it"
Let's get something straight right here, WM. No parent needs to "deserve" the care, custody and control of his/her own children. That's a fundamental right. And when you sign off on some outsider having the power to pass judgment on a parent's performance (absent abuse) and decide whether or not to "grant" custodial status, then your own parental rights are worth less than a warm sack of crap. Your kids are effectively the state's, not yours. And ultimately this will bite you in the ass, count on it.
What is it with you woman-firsters? You all seem eager to sell your souls to the government, along with the title deed to your kids, for your little mess of privileges and goodies.
It's like slaves calling themselves "strong and independent" because the master currently deigns to grant them a little more of this or that goodie. It's hilarious.
Richard
"But instead of whining about abuse and breaking up the family he manned up and saw it through.
When all the kids left he got a trailer for himself so he could have some peace and he sent his kids to college and he supported his "wife" in the house for the rest of her life while she slept all day and stayed up watching TV and drinking all night. How many of you would go through that to honor a commitment?"
A commitment to what, Dick? A commitment to being abused? Most people when they enter into a marriage make a commitment to enter into a partnership and to love each other. When your wife's mother abused her father, SHE BROKE THAT COMMITMENT. And you and your wife think that it was better that she and her siblings stayed in a two-parent family than to be in a single parent home with just their father (and contrary to what you think, fathers win custody battles a lot more than what most people think even years ago)? Well, I'll tell you this much. Neither you NOR your wife is the product of a divorced home, and neither one of you has any idea what being in a divorced home is really like. My parent's marriage was just as bad if not worse than your wife's parent's marriage, and it was a living hell. My life improved a thousand times after my mother kicked my father out and divorced him. For you and your wife to hold up her parent's crappy marriage as an example to "not break up the family" is a slap in the face TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED THE BREAKUP OF THEIR PARENTS. Just because your wife is angry, bitter, and jealous that she was forced to endure that misery as a child doesn't give you and her the right to push that kind of siutation on children of divorce (like myself) as something that is "better for us". I've read enough studies, etc,, that say the same thing time and again-children in a two-parent home with high parental conflict do worse than children in divorced homes. It sounds like your wife needs to deal with unresolved feelings of anger toward her parents before she (and you) start telling people that what she went through is better than a divorce. Bullshit! And btw, it was nice of your wife's father to wait until his children were grown and out of the house before he got his own place to "get some peace". It's obvious he didn't think too highly of his own children because he sure as hell didn't do anything to make sure they any "peace". I don't support mother custody when a mother is clearly unfit (in the case of your wife's mother), but in the majority of abuse cases it's the FATHER WHO IS THE ABUSER. And most women don't have the financial resources or the physical strength to protect themselves from an abusive spouse. Your wife's father most likely had both. And as for your wife's situation being PAS? There isn't one documented case where a woman was able to get custody by accusing the father of PAS. It's always the fathers who win these cases (and they're usually men who have hitorys of abuse too). The system is definitely biased-against mothers!
"What's best for children is to be raised by both biological parents if humanly possible, and it's mostly MOTHERS who don't seem to care about this so they do the la-la-la-can't-hear-you thing just like what's going on here."
And you and Polish Knight have been doing the la-la-can't-hear-you-thing throughout this whole thread and every other post you've ever commented on-especially Polish Knight. He deliberately twisted my words up above so he can say I was a prude. Well, that's better than being a pedophile, and he can't defend himself here because he knows that there is a good chance that some of those protitutes he bought were underage little girls. Stupid ass!
"No doubt the mother of Octomom, the subject of this post, never dreamed of how she was going to be used, either. But all our strong, "independent" single moms these days have no qualms about taking advantage of grandma."
First of all, I didn't ask my mother to watch my child when he/she is born. She saw me looking at ads for nannies, and SHE VOLUNTEERED. And it's only for the first year AFTER I get off maternity leave. And btw, Like I said, I WORK OUT OF MY HOME. I'll be there the WHOLE TIME. And my mother won't be there do my housework or anything else that doesn't pertain to the baby. You see, unlike you men, I was taught by my mom to pick up after myself. She didn't let me get away with dumping all my chores on her as a kid, and she certainly isn't going to let me do it to her as an adult. See, once I'm not done working, grandma goes home. And btw, in matrifocal societies, female relatives (on the mother's side)frequently helped each other out with childcare. If I really wanted to dump my kid on grandma, I guess I should act like most men-dump the kid in daycare while at work, and THAN dump the kid on grandma so the rest of the time so I can go hang out with the guys and brag about what a great parent I am.
"No parent needs to "deserve" the care, custody and control of his/her own children. That's a fundamental right"
Than dad should be exercising his fundamental right to help mom out with the childcare instead of dumping it all on mom.
"It's like slaves calling themselves "strong and independent" because the master currently deigns to grant them a little more of this or that goodie. It's hilarious."
What's hilarious is hearing this bull shit from a person who is part of the very group (men) who think they are entitled to be our masters. And when they don't get what they want, they make stupid statements like the one you just made.
"It was only under patriarchy that CIVILIZATION and SCIENCE were able to advance to the point that half of children did not die in infancy and large numbers of mothers did not die having them."
Patriarchy established itself VERY EARLY in human history by turning women into slaves. And most of those early patriarchies stayed primitive for thousands of years before there was anything even what we call remotely civilized or scientific about them. In fact, most of the primitive societies that are still left in the world are actually patriarchies. And btw, those so-called matriarchys were actually matrifocal (women focused), but with gender equality between the sexes in how the society was run. Men had total freedom that WOMEN NEVER DID UNDER PATRIARCHY. If men were such great inventors of civilization and founders of science, why didn't they establish this when EVERYONE WAS FREE AND NOT JUST HALF THE POPULATION? I'll tell you why. They enslaved the women, denied them educations, and made them into domestic slaves and baby machines. It was easy for men to be the great civilizers and inventors when they enslaved half the population (women) to remain ignorant, and kept them busy taking care of domestic duties, children, and having baby after baby until more than half of them died in child birth. The women did all the crap work freeing the men to be able to pursue what ever they wanted to. And what happens to a woman who tries to use her education and skills to do something other than so-called woman's work in a patriarchy? Ever hear of Hypatia of Alexandra? If not, google her. More recently-Rosalind Franklin discovered the dna double helix, and her work was stolen by James Watson and some other (male) scientists who than won a nobel prize based on HER work, but she never received credit for it by either of them or the scientific community until very recently. It's nice that men can claim that they achieved civilization and science through patriarchy by deliberately holding women back from achieving anything but having babies and cleaning up after men. After all, it freed up their times to achieve all that "civilization" and "science" at the expense of women, and women are blamed for not having achieved "anything" except having children. And the patriarchy is doing it's best to destroy the mother/child bond. It figures.
Kimberly
First, I see Kimberly's back despite not saying she wasn't coming back to the blog. WM and Richard, I highly doubt she's really pregnant with anyone's sperm. She simply has no credibility. It says a lot about someone who fantasies about buying sperm. It's kind of like a man aspiring to buy a porno magazine to masturbate. Kimberly really has LOW aspirations to suit her character.
I've already addressed the notion of men exploiting their wives who work outside of the home or even in the home: That's just the way the ball bounces sometimes. If a doctor winds up marrying a waitress who sits at home all day and has a waitstaff paid for by him, you gals don't have a problem with her mooching off of him. "Boo hoo! Why can't life be unfair only towards men! Waaah!" Nobody is saying that liberated women can't choose men based upon their housekeeping skills rather than raw money. That's your sexism, not ours. Look up the word Karma.
I do a role that's far more demanding than primary caregiver: I'm a primary wageearner and generally when women are in that role, it's not out of love and commitment to their spouse but rather bad-luck (their husband lost work or died) or bad character (wind up alone waiting for Mr. Breadwinner to stroll along.) I find your shaming ploys of "real man" cute because it implies that the men in their lives are wimps who crave female validation. I liked to turn this around and say that "real women" weren't shrew, materialistic, power hungry harpies. Your claim that single mothers are soooo well off without the evil, lazy man around the home contradicts the claim that "deadbeat dads" are responsible for these women raising future criminals. When these liberated women aren't blaming men anymore for all of their problems because they're helpless "real" women, please do let us know. My tax bill should go down considerably.
Another paradox is you claiming that divorced or single men don't deserve custody because they don't do it hands-on as much and then turning around and giving Kimberly a free pass to dump the costs on mommy ("Happy Mother's Day! You get to give me free daycare while I blow my 6 figure salary at Da Mall!") Staggering.
FYI, I know many single fathers and in many cases their wives were drunks and so irresponsible the court couldn't even ignore it anymore (although they certainly tried.) Then they got custody and didn't get CS (or when they did, they didn't press it because their lawyer said the courts don't care about children, just the mothers) They raised the kids on their own and often other women didn't want to date them in that situation (my wife chose me precisely because I didn't have children from previous relationships.) You're comparing single fathers, who have to PROVE their worthiness and usually at their OWN expense to women who often are primary caregivers because, hey, it beats going to WORK.
You can huff and puff all you like and hey, many judges and sexist people agree with you, but INCREASINGLY many people I talk to (or they bring it up) mention that they find the behavior of modern women overall, including and especially mothers, to not be up to the same standards of the 1950's. Once again, they wanted "equality" and now they got it. Choke on it. They tried to have it both ways and when it backfires, you expect me to feel sorry for them which is hilarious.
Once again, you make the projected accusation against men that they're "pissed" because they're greedy or deadbeats when it's women who want the children to their "theirs" but the bills to be "his". It's hilarious that you get into a blood rage when a husband doesn't wash enough dishes but then look the other way when women live off of "child" support or alimony. Being a "real" man, WM, is living up to your word. If the woman says they are "her" kids, then let her be "man" enough to foot the bill for 'em. That's what most single fathers are willing to do!
I love how you freak out over the notion of sex on demand. Richard, do you see that? It's so cute in a prudish kind of way! Listen, Richard and I are middle aged men. I hardly am bothering my wife for sex every time she comes back from the kitchen! And even if I did, she wouldn't mind it. You made sex into a chore because you EXPLOITED it like a prostitute. The saying goes that when you work in an ice cream shop, the last thing you want when you get home is ice cream. Some women just lived in the ice cream shop though...
WM cites: "When a man does housework, it feels to the woman like an expression of caring and concern, which then physically reduces her stress," says Joshua Coleman, a San Francisco-area psychologist and author of "The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More"
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense: Men who are being held to 1950's breadwinner roles by hypocritical, materialistic women should take advice from San Francisco lesbians. I got a chuckle about those QE programs for BOTH genders that were mostly run by gay MEN. Why? Because when the QE guys visited the home of some straight, married guy, his home was a wreck DESPITE him having a wife! Yep, the GAY men knew more about cleaning than the WOMEN did! (They then gave her a makeover because being an American woman, well, they almost always NEED it!) And who advised the modern, slobbish American women? Gay MEN again! Doesn't that tell you something when gay men are better at cleaning and makeup than modern American women?
WM brays: "NYMOM, You really have some stupid men who comment on your blog. That fact that they can't see the obvious says that they really aren't very intelligent especially Polish Knight."
Yeah, calling people stupid as a last and first resort really shows YOUR intelligence, doesn't it? I prefer to make my points via logic and reason, not namecalling.
No offense taken, Richard. my father shocked all of us when he spoke Polish and Latin on his deathbed. We simply never knew he spoke it because he was ashamed in the anti-slavic culture we grew up in. Some time before then, I chose to explore my cultural roots and learn the language and my only regret is I didn't do it sooner. It's so much better to appreciate a 1000 year old culture than the guys I knew who thought it was cool to go to Star Trek conventions because they didn't have any better. When you see kids getting into the gangster culture at malls, think about how little connection they have with society via their parents. Many of them probably don't even know about their ancestry beyond their grandparents. Polish men inside of Poland and in the American community are actually very strong parents and usually don't put up with a lot of gaff from their women but they also are gentlemen and hold open doors and kiss hands. It's ironic that I only learned what a "real man" meant after years of hearing that invective from American women after going to Poland and meeting REAL women!
I chuckled, Richard, at the claim by WM that women are "primarycaregivers" and it doesn't change even after marriage. If a man were to slack off in his commitment, he's a deadbeat. If he stops doing dishes, he's a lazy slob. Yet a woman who is "primarygiver" because she had a hubby paying the lions share of bills and then has to go to work LIKE A MAN after the divorce (and gripe that the greedy man doesn't send her alimony to continue the lifestyle she claims was so oppressive) and then uses daycare and childcare, well, she's STILL a primary caregiver. She exploits the label "primarygiver" so badly that it has come to mean to many people a legal term to justify getting a child and money kind of like "Mommy Dearest."
WM claims: ""They don't care whats best for their children, and that's to be WITH THEIR PRIMARYCARETAKERS (MOTHERS).""
Richard responds: "What's best for children is to be raised by both biological parents if humanly possible, and it's mostly MOTHERS who don't seem to care about this so they do the la-la-la-can't-hear-you thing just like what's going on here."
I'll raise you one on that Richard: WM's argument is almost word-for-word what anti-suffragists said at the turn of the century that motherhood was too important to allow women to waste their time voting (and later, working.) Feminists love the idea of milking a role (motherhood and career woman) when it means power and money, respectively, but the notion of "responsibility" is something they use only when bashing men for not living up to them. When a man does stuff he doesn't want to do and puts up with serious crap from women, they don't give him credit because that's what he's expected to do. But they view women as entitled princesses with children as chattel and they think that, gasp, working for a living and doing housecleaning is LITERALLY like going to a concentration camp.
In addition, I would add that whenever someone says: "Will someone PLEASE JUST THINK of THE CHILLLLDREN!", look out! They're thinking of what they can EXPLOIT children for! I'm reminded of the tale of Moses where a mother gives up her child instead of facing the prospect of the child being cut in half. Do you think WM, Kimberly, or NNF would do that?
WM claims: "OH, bullshit! In countries that are primarily patriarchal, children do worse."
Richard raises: "Another point flew right over your head, SW. It was only under patriarchy that CIVILIZATION and SCIENCE were able to advance to the point that half of children did not die in infancy and large numbers of mothers did not die having them."
PK reraises: And indeed, Richard, the left and feminists are now embracing these cultures and immigrants from these places for political reasons and selling out their own ideology, in the long term, in the process. Will America (or Europe for that matter) look more like Sweden (today) in 50 years or so, or Peru and Syria if present demographic trends continue? I know lawyers who represen people from these cultures in DV and other criminal matters and he says that they make ME look like a pussycat by comparison.
Kimberly (returns) and asks Richard: "A commitment to what, Dick? A commitment to being abused? Most people when they enter into a marriage make a commitment to enter into a partnership and to love each other. When your wife's mother abused her father, SHE BROKE THAT COMMITMENT. And you and your wife think that it was better that she and her siblings stayed in a two-parent family than to be in a single parent home with just their father (and contrary to what you think, fathers win custody battles a lot more than what most people think even years ago)?"
That's worth quoting in full because if Richard's wife's father had fought for custody, and won, it's no doubt that the woman would have alleged abuse and DV, blah blah blah, and Kimberly and NYMOM would have been the first to say he was just being greedy and out to get the kids to avoid paying child-support and an abuser who got away with custody due to a biased court system. And indeed, that's precisely what happens as Kimberly talks herself down:
"But in the majority of abuse cases it's the FATHER WHO IS THE ABUSER. And most women don't have the financial resources or the physical strength to protect themselves from an abusive spouse. Your wife's father most likely had both."
Translation: "I support father-custody, in theory, provided the father has a dozen witnesses, a signed affidavit from the mother, in blood, that she's a bad person. video certified by the FBI and the man has to defend himself otherwise he's a loser who had it coming anyway."
Kimberly makes a negative proof claim: "There isn't one documented case where a woman was able to get custody by accusing the father of PAS." What does this prove? Maybe men don't commit PAS? And how do you know Kimberly? Did you do hours of research to prove otherwise? Can you argue that England doesn't exist if you never heard of it too? Did Richard or I claim that women had won custody due to PAS?
On the other hand, what we DO know is that there is NO example of a father getting custody of their children via a PAS argument and later being found out to be abusive as many arguing against PAS have claimed. NONE! Feminist groups have been asked repeatedly for such a case and they never produced one.
Your argument appears to be this: Women get custody in most cases, by default, without needing to spend a dime and the men who do after a lot of effort and examination by the courts tend to not commit PAS unlike women who think the court will let them get away with anything. Your conclusion? The system is "definitely" biased against mothers... Yeah... ok.
Kimberly whines: "And you and Polish Knight have been doing the la-la-can't-hear-you-thing throughout this whole thread and every other post you've ever commented on-especially Polish Knight. He deliberately twisted my words up above so he can say I was a prude."
Kimberly, quick education here: Twisting your words (allegedly) isn't the same as pretending to not hear you.
I won't bother quoting your long paragraph justifying you enslaving your mother. My response is that it's not just men who use childcare and cleaning services but also career women. Good going there. Regarding your continual complaint that men dump childcare on the mother. Let's say for a moment he did. Would it get him anything in divorce court? Hell, I have heard such women then gripe non-stop about something else. Right Richard? Women _always_ have something to complain about (someone else.) Check out funny shows that play on this particular well-known cultural fact such as "The Real Housewives of New York."
Kimberly claims that the evil early patriarchies denied women education. HIStory lesson: Most people didn't get formal education. Crack open a history book sometime. Many men came from humble beginnings and learned on their own even before there were books. We're simply amazing. On the other hand, your claim that women were baby-making machines has the unintended premise that you don't think that was an empowering role for women. NYMOM claims that society doesn't recognize the merits of women making babies and here you are with the feminist song and dance that making babies is for LOSERS. Good going.
Kimberly claims: "More recently-Rosalind Franklin discovered the dna double helix, and her work was stolen by James Watson and some other (male) scientists who than won a nobel prize based on HER work, but she never received credit for it by either of them or the scientific community until very recently."
It should be pointed out that Rosalind only CONTRIBUTED DATA to the scientific discovery and never took credit herself. Many graduate students run experiments and don't get a nobel prize. In addition, the nobel prize is not awarded posthumously (no evil Patriarchal conspiracy there.) But it's good you at least acknowledge that there's a world beyond your victim-entitlement princess universe of North-North America and Europe for the past 40 years.
Kimberly claims: "It's nice that men can claim that they achieved civilization and science through patriarchy by deliberately holding women back from achieving anything but having babies and cleaning up after men."
Once again, Kimberly, it's worth emphasizing that you just argued that a woman's place is as primarycaregiver and is a rotten mother if she uses daycare and loses the "bond". That's not men's fault, it's yours. Stay in the home, babe. And it's all our fault you don't win a nobel prize for gestating.
Richard, I agree with Kimberly when she said that you and your wife did not come from divorced homes, and you don't really have any idea what a child, who has divorced parents, actually went through. You like to trot out all those statistics about how bad divorce is for kids, but you ignore the statistics that repeatedly say over and over that children do better in divorced homes than living with two parents in a high conflict marriage. And it's usually the kids whose parents CONTINUE the high conflict, that BEGAN DURING THE MARRIAGE, for years after a divorce that do worse than kids who have divorced parents with low conflict. Like someone said on other posts, IT'S THE QUALITY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PARENTS THAT DECIDES HOW WELL THE KIDS DO AND NOT WHETHER THE PARENTS ARE DIVORCED OR STILL MARRIED. Why you and your wife think staying together is a one size fits all solution to every marriage-abuse or not-is beyond me. In fact, chances are that your wife's childhood would've been better if her father divorced her mother and got custody. Even in those days, more fathers got custody than is currently believed. However, your wife never knew how much better it could've been because her father stayed in a situation that is intolerable for most women. The fact that you confuse this with "commitment" tells me how warped your views really are. Most likely, your wife's father was psychologically beaten down by his wife from all the abuse, and that's why he never left her. It's very common among abused women, and it keeps them from leaving an abusive situation sooner, or in some cases, like your wife's father, they never leave. What bothers me is that you seem to equate your wife's father enduring his wife's abuse as somehow being a martyr for his children. However, I too, have read your comments on other posts. You (and Polish Knight)continually blame abused women for their siutations because they"choose to lay down and make a baby with a bad boy" without concerning themselves with the characters of the men they had children with. Yet, you made it clear that you think these women should just put up with the situation because they are at fault. Yet, you excuse you father-in-law as being some kind of martyr because he put up with his wife's wrongful abuse of him. I don't see you saying that your father-in-law is responsible for his abuse by "laying down and having children with a bad girl". Instead, you blame the actual abuse on the right person- your mother-in-law and see your father-in-law as some kind of martyr. Your double standard is not surprising because in our culture, if a woman endures the abuse of her husband to the point that she ends up dead, no one martyrizes her. Instead, everyone askes what SHE did to provoke him, or what SHE did to drive him over the edge, or whatever. Tell me, Richard, what did your wife's father do to provoke all that abuse? Don't bother answering because I already know what it's going to be-absolutely nothing.
And another thing that bothers me is your attitude about PAS. I'm sure that there are legitimate cases where one person is trying to deliberately alienate the children from the other parent. However, I agree with someone on another post when they said it wasn't so widespread as to be a "syndrome". In fact, there are far more abused women than men who are being deliberately "alienated by their kid's mother". In fact, MORE ABUSIVE MEN ARE ACTUALLY GETTING CUSTODY THAN MEN WHO HAVE GENUINE COMPLAINTS ABOUT BEING ALIENATED FROM THEIR CHILDREN. And why is that? Because it's abusive men who are most likely to fight for custody, and it's abusive men who are more likely to make allegations of PAS. And the courts constantly confuse an abused mother trying to protect herself/children from an abusive father with a mother who may actually be deliberately alienating the child's father. If you want to blame someone for GOOD FATHERS not getting custody from bad mothers, than put the blame on the men who are actually getting physical custody of their kids through false allegations-ABUSIVE HUSBANDS AND FATHERS. And it's all due to our culture's mother-blaming, double standards that set a much lower standard for fathers than it does for mothers, ands stereotyping of women in general because our culture is still at heart a "patriarchal culture", and the courts allow it because the PAS industry makes a hell of a lot of money for all the attorneys, therapists, and the court system in general while giving ABUSIVE MEN ALL THE POWER WHILE ALLOWING THEM TO USE THE COURTS TO ABUSE THEIR VICTIMS (WIFE AND CHILDREN) ALL OVER AGAIN. And in the end, it's the abused mother that ends up being the one ALIENATED FROM THE CHILDREN THAT SHE IS TRYING TO PROTECT. But no, who do MEN want to blame-WOMEN. In fact, here's a good article that talks about how abused women seeking for protection for themselves and their children are confused with PAS in the court system:
http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/NCJFCJ-PAS.pdf
In fact, here's an article on WHY FATHERS SHOULD NOT FIGHT FOR CUSTODY. While I think the article does have it's flaws (it still seems to focus more on mother blaming while trying to give fathers too much of a free pass in my opinion), it's makes some very good point:
"One thing that struck me most clearly and powerfully during the period when Robert Bly was
prominent and father figure to the men’s movement, was the recurring theme in the lives of
many of the men who attended his workshops, of an absent or negative connection to their
fathers. Many hated the father they remembered as having been critical, abusive, alcoholic, selfcentred,
emotionally unavailable, controlling, angry and pretty much impossible to talk to.
Others just felt indifferent, as if they had no father at all.
Their feelings, which determined their memories of their father, were not that different from
what feminists had been saying that these men were like, The irony, however, was that in most
cases these were not absent fathers. These dads had been at home throughout. These were
fathers who, I’m sure, were convinced that they had been good parents, doing the ‘right thing’ as
they believed that to be. In the end these fathers, like my client and the Mr. Mom of my
daughter’s elementary school, were embittered and dumbfounded that after all they had done for
their children, their children could care less about them, and in many cases even hated them."
"How does all this relate to custody issues and battles? These power struggles over access to the
children are usually ludicrous and pathetic as two parents nit-pick over the exact amount of days
and times that they will spend with the children. The custody battles are misguided and
redirected control and revenge battles that have nothing to do with the children and their welfare, nor will the outcome of these battles affect the deeper relationship between the children and each parent, except for traumatizing and polarizing them. Particularly once, when the child is more than three or four years old, the die has been cast. If the bond is positive and present, little will disrupt it except temporarily. If the bond is absent or negative, the custody fight will exacerbate it. The more dad battles mom for custody, the more the children will recoil from him, as they perceive their mother as being abused. If he ‘ wins’, he will have won less than nothing as any potential for positive bonding has been seriously damaged."
"In most families, children have a stronger emotional connection to their mother. In painful custody battles, because the children are vulnerable and threatened, they will bond even more strongly with her and will perceive what father is doing through other’s eyes. Whereas a man may believe his children will appreciate how hard he is fighting for the right to be with them, he is wrong, just as fathers have traditionally been wrong in the belief that they will be loved for being good providers. What the child sees is that
dad is abusing mother and is a jerk."
"If a man has a loving bond already in place with his child, he will be missed by the child
and a mother who blocks the child’s ability to be with him will find her life made hellish
by an angry and rebellious child."
http://www.everyman.org/articles/Ten_Reasons_Not_to_Fight_Custody_Battles.pdf
Kimberly said: "My life improved a thousand times after my mother kicked my father out and divorced him."
Yes, Kim, your life improved so much that you are here expostulating at length about why you are deliberately depriving your child of what all experts agree is the safest family form of all and planning to replace it with the most dangerous and unstable. While my wife learned about responsibility and working through difficulties and made a successful career, marriage and family. I'm afraid you are, like the aforementioned Ms. Marcotte, no poster child for the beneficial effects of divorce.
"It sounds like your wife needs to deal with unresolved feelings of anger toward her parents"
Pot, kettle, black.
PK said: "That's worth quoting in full because if Richard's wife's father had fought for custody, and won, it's no doubt that the woman would have alleged abuse and DV, blah blah blah, and Kimberly and NYMOM would have been the first to say he was just being greedy and out to get the kids to avoid paying child-support and an abuser who got away with custody due to a biased court system."
What you said, PK. No need to say more.
WM said: "but you ignore the statistics that repeatedly say over and over that children do better in divorced homes than living with two parents in a high conflict marriage."
Yes, WM, but like I've already pointed out numerous times, the large majority of divorces, at least two-thirds, involve LOW-conflict marriages.
"I don't see you saying that your father-in-law is responsible for his abuse by "laying down and having children with a bad girl"."
No double standard. I don't need to make a pronouncement because that is exactly how my father-in-law views the whole thing himself. He'll tell you right now that he made a bad choice, chalked it up to his own foolishness, and saw it through. And he's not the only one of his kind, either. But it's easy to pretend they're not out there because you don't hear them doing a lot of whining.
I'll even step into the hot seat here myself. My wife views adultery as the ultimate deal-breaker in marriage. And I agree that it is, and I wouldn't presume to tell anyone that they should put up with it. But for my own part, if I discovered my wife cheating on me, that by itself would not be worth the toll of liquidating my kids' family. They would still love and need their mom regardless of her actions, and if we split they would still suffer the loss of stability and trust in their lives no matter how amicably and equitably we settled things. And eventually there would be the pitfalls of step-parenting. I would not put them through all that for the sake of my own hurt feelings. I would keep it together if I could, for as long as I could. Like PK's pal probably would have if he'd had the chance. I chose mom, they didn't, and the fallout would rightly fall on me.
"Instead, everyone askes what SHE did to provoke him, or what SHE did to drive him over the edge, or whatever."
Everyone, WM? I've not observed any such thing. I know I've asked no such thing. Where is all this "mother-blaming" you're talking about? All I've seen is: Man abuses woman=man's fault, remove him from home. Woman abuses man=man's fault, instruct him about how to be more considerate of her feelings. Man leaves woman=man's fault, give her everything. Woman leaves man=man's fault, give her everything. Man kills woman=man's fault, lock him up. Woman kills man=man's fault, give her probation and counseling. Man kills kids=man's fault, fry him. Woman kills kids=man's fault, give her probation and counseling. Single mom's kids do OK=her heroic sacrifices, man not needed. Single mom's kids go bad=man's fault for being a deadbeat. Need I go on?
But as far as what dad-in-law did to provoke all the shit, hell I don't know what all, I wasn't there and my wife really doesn't like to talk about it much. All I can gather is that he wasn't a very communicative or validating person. He's still not. Very hard to get to know. And he'll always walk away rather than be drawn into any confrontation. That probably drives a lot of women up the wall, although ironically it's exactly what you're supposed to do to avoid DV according to the PC gospel.
And there was some OCD thing going on with her for a long time, too. A lot of rituals she needed everyone to play along with in order for her to feel safe, and she'd tantrum when they wouldn't.
That was a nice little article you quoted from but it's not very consistent with anything else you've argued. For example:
"In painful custody battles, because the children are vulnerable and threatened, they will bond even more strongly with her and will perceive what father is doing through other’s eyes."
You can't argue this and also make the claims you've made about fathers alienating kids from their mothers.
"If the bond is positive and present, little will disrupt it except temporarily."
That should be enormous comfort to dads who have had their kids moved hundreds or thousands of miles away by mom. Or to moms who have supposedly had their kids alienated from them by dad.
"If a man has a loving bond already in place with his child, he will be missed by the child
and a mother who blocks the child’s ability to be with him will find her life made hellish
by an angry and rebellious child."
WM, all of this is simply more and more reason to maintain and repair a disappointing marriage if possible rather than dissolve it. Better that children not be made to miss anyone or be made angry and rebellious, or have any bonds disrupted.
And BTW, WM, can we give the liz library a rest? A while back, somebody, I think Kimberly, asked me and PK not to quote any facts or statistics taken from fathers'-rights sites because they "don't count." While I don't agree that facts are to be dismissed simply because they happen to be quoted on sites you don't like, I'll play along if it makes Kim happy. I don't need FRA websites to make any points.
But in that case I'll also give no faith or credit to any bile lifted from a blatantly sexist, misandric woman-firster website. Understand? Thanks.
Richard
"Kimberly claims: "It's nice that men can claim that they achieved civilization and science through patriarchy by deliberately holding women back from achieving anything but having babies and cleaning up after men.""
Here's a challenge for you, Kimberly. Show us what you think of the ol' stinkin' patriarchy by going and having your baby among the Mosuo. Nobody's held those women back from anything because the men have never cared to do anything but putter around with menial jobs and screw whoever wants some. This place is a lovely example of the glories women can achieve when they're in charge and no one is holding them back.
I hear they've gotten electricity recently (borrowed from the civilized world, unfortunately), which means maybe you can heat up your bathwater on a stove since they still haven't managed running water and sanitation.
And no fair screaming for an airlift out of there when your baby presents transversely and you need a C-section, or when it needs a ventilator for breathing problems or when you need antibiotics for a post-partum infection. They don't believe in modern medicine because they haven't seen it and, having no written language, they can't read about it.
Good luck.
Richard
Richard, I want to add in regards to Kimberly's worthless support of men divorcing abusive mothers is that she set up a catch-22: If a man such as your father-in-law divorced an abusive woman, and he had ample financial and personal resources to fight her off, then she'd argue that he was an abuser making false claims. If, on the other hand, he couldn't fight for himself and the judge gave the kids to mommy and hit him with child-support, then he was a loser who had it coming.
It's amusing that she bashes the evil Patriarchy for allegedly abusing it's power over helpless women but, at the same time, that's the thinking she buys into hook, line, and sinker. She loves bad boys when she thinks that she might reap the benefits but hates it when she's the victim. She's totally amoral and hypocritical at the same time. She's morally bankrupt.
Yet... she thinks she can raise a child on "her own". Of course, what she means by that is mooching off of her relatives even as she casts stones at (some) men getting help from their girlfriends.
Regarding adultery as a deal breaker: All the women I know said the same thing and I responded that the most empowering way to address would be to view it as the adulterer hurting THEMSELVES. Many adultering women write to Dear Abby or Dr. Laura and ask if it's ok if they fess up to an affair and advice columnists tell them that the guilt is their punishment for having done such a thing. It's a lie they have to carry to their grave. My wife enjoys sharing her intimate details of her life with me and vice-versa so why should we want to hurt that?
If my wife cheated on me, my punishment would be simple: I would have a moral right to sleep with another woman for the same period of time. Tit for tat. Then move on. Really. Like you said, it's best for the kids and everyone else concerned.
When I was dating in the states, I was always amused by the singles scene where divorced people were trying to hook up with each other. It kind of reminded me of people who bought, and sold, at garage sales. Isn't it all the same "stuff"? What makes them think they can sell a bad item but then get a good tossaway from someone else?
"Richard, I want to add in regards to Kimberly's worthless support of men divorcing abusive mothers is that she set up a catch-22"
Of course she has. Remember NYMOM's casual dismissal of your friend's entirely legitimate concerns about his ex? She as much as said it was all made up. And on top of all that, she thought the ex should have gotten more child support, even though she was a near equal earner.
That's typical around here. Bad mothers shouldn't have the kids, they profess, but they don't really believe there are any bad mothers.
But I'll go beyond that to say that they're coming from the wrong premise altogether. They're looking at it through the "remove the sucky parent" lens. But that's a gross oversimplification. In most cases the kids LOVE the sucky parent! My wife and her sibs loved their mom and would not have wanted to be separated from her even though she had problems. Just like the kids love all those dads who supposedly don't clean up enough around the house enough, and they don't usually want to be separated.
What gives with all this belly-aching about housecleaning, PK? Hell, I'd come home and clean house and pick up after my wife every night in order to keep my family out of family court. I bet you would too.
They talk about the "misery" of it all but I don't think my wife and her sibs were exactly miserable. There was good along with the bad, and they knew how to work around the bad. My wife really deems herself fortunate. So the marriage sucked, but they got to stay together as a family, they never suffered any physical abuse, and though they didn't have buckets of money they were never deprived in any way.
Maybe their dad had "misery" but he had other positive activities in his life to compensate. And he considered his misery to be his own business, not the kids'.
I'm done talking about my in-laws. Their story says no more about all families than Kimberly's story does, but it did shine some light on woman-firster hypocrisies.
"Isn't it all the same "stuff"? What makes them think they can sell a bad item but then get a good tossaway from someone else?"
Beats me, which is why I stayed away. IMO, a woman who threw her kids' dad out because he didn't clean house enough is at least as bad a find as the guy she threw out for not cleaning, if not worse.
An old divorced aunt of mine had a much more realistic view. When asked if she was looking to marry again, she'd cackle and say "Nah, anybody I'd have wouldn't have me."
Richard
NYMOM, What do you think of the article cited above "Ten Reasons Why Men Shouldn't Fight For Custody"?
http://www.everyman.org/articles/Ten_Reasons_Not_to_Fight_Custody_Battles.pdf
There's a complaint that there are too many references from the Liz library, but this article is not one of them, nor is it from a feminist website. In fact, I think that it's really interesting because the MAN who wrote the article is a therapist for family court. Widowed Mom, I know you think that it's a good article despite the fact that you think he does too much mother blaming, but I think he's just stating that women can get just as bad when it comes to a custody battle. In fact, he says some things that are really true when it comes to men:
"To the children, dad’s presence was toxic. A negative because of how he related and how he was experienced. The more he was around the more he was disliked and
avoided. It didn’t matter what he thought that he was trying to do as a parent. What mattered
was how he came across to the children, how it felt to them to be with him."
"What fathers aren’t aware of, however, is the real reason father-child bonds dissolve, Were the bond there, no amount of physical separation could dissolve and
destroy the relationship."
This is so true. A lot of these fathers who fight for custody just don't see HOW THEY ARE PERCEIVED BY THIER CHILDREN, NOR DO THEY CARE HOW THE CHILD MIGHT FEEL AROUND THEM. Instead, they want to blame the kid's dislike on mom, but in reality, it really has to do with how dad acts. And I like think that it's true when he says that if DAD HAS A POSITIVE BOND WITH THE CHILDREN TO BEGIN WITH, nothing else can really destroy the relationship.
He goes on to say more about the father bond:
"When children are bonded to and love a parent, even if they see them rarely, they will be excited
and happy when they are with them. In between they will be anticipating, longing and thinking
about it. Contrariwise, I’ve seen men who gain joint or full custody in the courts, only to
discover that the weekends or times when they have it, their child doesn’t want to be with them
and is hostile, withdrawn and passive-aggressive. It becomes so painful and ‘impossible’ to be
together that eventually dad gives up and loses interest and desire. It’s not very enjoyable to be
with a child who makes it clear that he or she doesn’t like you and doesn’t want to be with you.
Or worse, to be with a child who sees it as punishment to be with dad."
And he really drives the point home when he said that fathers who fight for custody are really damaging their own relatinships with their kids, and THAT DISCRIMINATION IN THE COURTS AGAINST MEN IS LARGELY DELUSIONAL:
"Growth for fathers means to gain awareness of how it is for the child to be with them, rather than
fighting for their ‘right’ to parent. It is traditionally masculine to turn a relationship problem into an issue of right and wrong, or a battle over rights. However, it is my belief that a protracted custody battle, and the perception that the courts discriminate against men and prevent them from being fathers, is largely delusional and a final nail in the relationship coffin of men."
While he focuses on the bond that children should have with their fathers, he says something really important about THE BOND THAT CHILDREN HAVE WITH THEIR MOTHERS:
"In most families, children have a stronger emotional connection to their mother. In
painful custody battles, because the children are vulnerable and threatened, they will
bond even more strongly with her and will perceive what father is doing through other’s
eyes. Whereas a man may believe his children will appreciate how hard he is fighting
for the right to be with them, he is wrong, just as fathers have traditionally been wrong in
the belief that they will be loved for being good providers. What the child sees is that
dad is abusing mother and is a jerk."
Men want to take this as some kind of alienation, but mothers are more bonded with their children. When mom is upset BECAUSE DAD IS TRYING TO TAKE AWAY A CHILD THAT SHE MOSTLY RAISED AND WHO IS BONDED MORE STRONGLY TO HER, children are going to be upset as well because chances are THEY DON'T WANT TO BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THEIR MOTHERS. Children aren't dumb. They can see that DAD IS BEING AN ASSHOLE."
And he makes in important point that when children ARE STRONGLY BONDED WITH DAD IN A POSITIVE WAY, a mother determined to alienate them, WILL NOT SUCCEED:
"If a man has a loving bond already in place with his child, he will be missed by the child
and a mother who blocks the child’s ability to be with him will find her life made hellish
by an angry and rebellious child"
Again, children aren't dumb. They can figure stuff out. Even Dick says he wife saw through what their mother was trying to do.
This guy makes another good point:
"Fighting custody battles only promotes a masculine nightmare of personal and relationship disconnection. Relationships are not about control, power, winning or losing. They are about emotional connection, empathy and bonding. A man’s energy
should go toward personal transformation to develop ways to maximize his connection to
his child and overcome his relationship shortcomings. To do that, he must first acknowledge them and overcome his belief that he is a maligned but good and loving father who doesn’t have dysfunction but is being abused and misunderstood."
The FRA crowd really isn't going to like that one. He's actually telling dads that they need to focus first ON THEIR SHORTCOMINGS AS A FATHER INSTEAD OF SOME BULLSHIT THAT THEIR BEING ABUSED BY THE COURTS AND THE MOTHER. Instead, the guy says men should concentrate on POSITIVELY BONDING with their kid. Like I said, kids aren't dumb. They know that a father who was never bonded with them to begin with is NOT A GOOD FATHER when he is trying to take them away from a mother that THEY ARE REALLY BONDED WITH.
Finally the real reason PAS is a bunch of crap in family court:
"Finally, lawyers feed on and directly or indirectly promote the alienation and antipathy
between parents. Get out of their clutches. They are the only ‘winners’ in these custody
disputes and the financial price and emotional bitterness can be devastating."
I really think this guy knows exactly what he is talking about because he obviously has spent a lot of counseling MEN in custody battless. I think he sees that a huge part of the problem is that these guys have never actually bonded with their kids in a positive way, and when said kid doesn't want to be with dad, dad wants to blame mom. In other words, DAD IS MORE OF A PROBLEM THAN MOM IN MOST CASES WHERE CUSTODY BATTLES ARE FOUGHT. These men had trouble relating positively with their wives, and they were unable to bond with their children as well. However, instead of concentrating on THEIR OWN SHORTCOMINGS they want to wage a custody battle with MOM and BLAME HER FOR WHY THEY DID SUCH A CRAPPY JOB BONDING WITH THEIR KIDS IN THE FIRST PLACE. I think this guys sees the real problem with men who fight custody battles QUITE CLEARLY.
I also like the fact that he states what should be obvious to everyone, but these men. CHILDREN ARE MORE BONDED WITH THEIR MOTHER. Of course, a lot has to with the fact that the mother carried the child for nine months and gave birth to him/her. This gives most women an advantage when it comes to bonding with their kids intially. However, what really makes the bond so strong is that MOTHER WAS THE ONE WHO DID THE MAJORITY OF THE HANDS ON CHILDCARE. OF COURSE, CHILDREN ARE GOING TO BE MORE BONDED TO THE PARENT (MOTHER) WHO TAKES CARE OF THEM THE MOST. Men like P.K. want to mock women when they complain men don't do their part when it comes to childcare. However, it's this hands-on childcare that helps promote a positive bond to begin with. When men don't do childcare, they miss out on bonding with their kids in any meaningful way. And than they get mad and blame mom when they fight the kid for custody and said kid doesn't want to be with them. Sorry, but all the kid sees is that dad is trying to take him/her away from the parent who took the most care of them because dad didn't want to bother to bond with said kid like he should during the marriage. And even when dad does bond, THE KID STILL (IN MOST CASES) HAS A STRONGER BOND WITH MOTHER. That's nature. However, if dad had a positive bond to begin with, being a non-custodial dad IS NOT GOING TO DESTROY THAT BOND. I think this guy speaks from experience, and he knows what he's talking about when it comes to how men RUIN THEIR CHANCES TO BOND POSITIVELY WITH THEIR CHILDREN WHEN THEY FIGHT CUSTODY BATTLES BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T BOTHER TO POSITIVELY BOND WITH THEIR KIDS TO BEGIN WITH.
Kimberly
Kimberly,
I agree that the author makes a lot of good points. I also agree that he tells a lot of home truths when it comes to how fathers relate to their children. I thought it was interesting how he said a lot of FRAs didn't have good relationships with their fathers back in the Robert Bly days. These guys had complaints about their own fathers that actually are the same complaints about them. And I've seen enough FRA rhetoric to know this is true. These guys are all about getting back at the ex wife. They don't have any interest in their kids. He went on to say that a lot of these guys had fathers that lived at home the whole time they were growing up, and they only remembered their dads negatively. These guys didn't bond with their own fathers, and they didn't bond with their kids. I think the author was right when he said that these fathers don't bond positively with their kids while living at home, and later on, they are so consumed with fighting a custody battle, they lose whatever chance they had to bond because the kids don't want to be with them even if they win. I think this statement is really true:
"Whereas a man may believe his children will appreciate how hard he is fighting for the right to be with them, he is wrong, just as fathers have traditionally been wrong in the belief that they will be loved for being good providers."
I'm sure P.K. or some other idiot will misinterpret the last part of the sentence as "Dad is just a wallet" shit, but the excuse that dads give a lot for not doing childcare is the-I'm the breadwinner, I have to work crap". However, I've read studies where dads who do more hands on care with the children (even in breadwinner/homemaker homes) have a stronger bond with their kids. I think your right that men are giving up the opportunity to really bond with their kids when they dump all the childcare on mom. It's the bond that dad develops with his kids that matters the most-not thinking they're going to love him for being the breadwinner. I read a study where women who were the breadwinners while dad stayed home had a stronger bond with their kids than breadwinner dads because these working mothers came home and still did their share of the hands on childcare. In fact, both parents in a wife breadwinner/stay at home dad had an almost equal bond with their kids while kids in a traditional male breadwinner/ stay at home mom home were more bonded to THEIR MOTHER. I don't care what excuses men give. There just isn't any excuse for them not helping out with and bonding with the kids because they are the breadwinners. Breadwinner mothers do it all the time. In fact, they found that while mom and dad have an almost equal bond with their kids in a mom breadwinner/stay at home dad home, the kids still preferred THE WORKING MOTHER slightly more than the stay at home dad.
I had to laugh at his example of the little girl who's bio dad didn't want anything to do with her because the mom lied about birth control (even though mom never pursued child support). However, years later, the little girl was delighted that her father finally responded to her letters even though he never answered them before. Like I said, I never knew my father because he left my mom when she was pregnant with me. There wasn't any excuse except that he just didn't want to be a dad, and no, my mother did not lie about birth control, and he never accused her of that. He just wasn't interested. I know because he wrote all this in a letter to her when she was pregnant, and I read it as a teenager. I never bothered to contact him, and when he CONTACTED ME AS A TEENAGER, I wasn't interested (nor was I ever interested in meeting him). He didn't even really show any real interest in wanting to get to know me as a teenager because it was obvious that IT WAS HIS WIFE WHO WAS THE ONE WHO PUT HIM UP TO CONTACTING ME. He said, "My wife and kids want to get to know you." He said nothing about him really. This is a guy who never wanted to bond with me when I was a baby, and he really didn't want to get to know me when he contacted me as a teenager. If he was a lot more enthusiastic about wanting to BOND WITH ME than maybe I would have considered seeing him. Even my mother was pushing for that. But I'm not interested in a man who feels like he has to be forced into it. He's not really interested, and neither am I. I found this comment to be especially true:
"Contrariwise, if the child doesn’t want to be with dad, and no positive bond or
connection exists. Even if mom is supportive of the child’s relationship with him, the experience will be negative."
Anyway, Kimberly, Widowed Mom, I think it's a really good article written by a man who knows from his experience as a therapist what he is talking about.
Both Kimberly and Seneca Woman, you didn't actually read the whole article or you mentally cherry picked out the parts you liked.
Senecawoman says: "I don't care what excuses men give. There just isn't any excuse for them not helping out with and bonding with the kids because they are the breadwinners."
Yet, the article provided just that excuse: "Whenever any of his two children had a problem at
school, he was there to meet with their teacher, to defend them against any unfair action and to
straighten things out.
His relationship to his wife wasn’t good. She was often critical of his opinions about the
children and his parenting philosophy. She was withdrawn sexually from him for years because
of her many resentments. Consequently, when his youngest was 14 years old he began an affair
with a prominent local businesswoman and subsequently left his wife to be with her.
What he discovered was that all the years of being there for his children and making them a
priority had resulted in a “worse than nothing” relationship."
In other words, even if the man is Mr. Perfect, the notion of women-can-do-no-wrong prevails and he'll be tossed overboard anyway if he's not careful.
The author didn't exactly imply that mothers were the noble madonnas you make them out to be either: "By the end of a marriage, a woman’s rage over feeling she has been controlled and
abused is at a peak. She sees custody issues as the final battle ground and will
relentlessly fight to any extreme in order to win Attorneys feed on this adversarial tone
and see it as a way to make money as they stoke the rage. She will pull out all the stops,
and drain the father and the finances in this final stand to not let him get his way “this
time”."
How charming.
I find other conclusions of the article to be naive and contradictory:
"In most families, children have a stronger emotional connection to their mother. In
painful custody battles, because the children are vulnerable and threatened, they will
bond even more strongly with her and will perceive what father is doing through other’s
eyes. Whereas a man may believe his children will appreciate how hard he is fighting
for the right to be with them, he is wrong, just as fathers have traditionally been wrong in
the belief that they will be loved for being good providers. What the child sees is that
dad is abusing mother and is a jerk.
3. If a man has a loving bond already in place with his child, he will be missed by the child
and a mother who blocks the child’s ability to be with him will find her life made hellish
by an angry and rebellious child."
So he's saying that the children are going to rebel against the mother if she engages in PAS but, at the same time, they're going to side with her if the mother tries it. Yeah... ok. Right.
Kimberly didn't bother reading the exchange between Richard and I were we discussed the shallow double standard here where women are supposedly held to standards of good mothering but any actual accusations made against them will be dismissed as sour grapes by men. Kimberly blames Richard's wife's problematic childhood on the father, for his sticking around, with an abusive mother rather than the abusive mother herself. On the other hand, if he had left, she would have claimed he was making it all up. In the meantime, the interests of the children themselves fall to the wayside as they are regarded as nothing more than power tools by the mother AS ILLUSTRATED BY THIS ARTICLE.
Regarding SenecaWoman's claim of working mothers being better than SAH fathers: Indeed, it means that women can largely do as they please whether it's dumping the kids in daycare or quitting a job they hate to stay at home, and society and you regard them as heroes but if a man works at in a coal mine and shortens his life to put his kids through school, well, he's a jerk if he doesn't wash dishes after he gets home between coughing his lungs out. Yes, Seneca Mother, I would say that you treat men like a wallet but you also treat them like a house slave too who has to do stuff as a duty that women get nobel prizes for just for deciding to do for their own convenience.
I'm happy to say, though, that society and women themselves are seeing through the notion of the world owing mothers a living and they regard women in the 1950's of being "better" moms than women of today. So believe if you like that doing as you please entitles you to a nobel prize but it's fooling fewer and fewer people.
So a man buys into your point of view. Big deal. There are at least as many, if not more, women therapists who see things differently but we've all read NY's frothing dismissals of them.
Actually I agree that fathers should not fight for custody. Neither should mothers. Most divorces should not happen at all. And rebuttable presumptions of shared parenting should be in place that forestall custody disputes. The public overwhelmingly agrees.
"And he makes in important point that when children ARE STRONGLY BONDED WITH DAD IN A POSITIVE WAY, a mother determined to alienate them, WILL NOT SUCCEED:"
Well glad to hear it! Then perhaps we can hear no more about fathers alienating children from their mothers. We can also erase WM's little tale up above about the girl alienated from her mom. She must not have had a "positive bond" with her mother or she could never have been alienated. :-p
I guess a thousand-mile moveaway shouldn't bother NC mothers either, BTW. It won't destroy any bonds, will it? Oh, no, of course not.
Here's the findings of three WOMEN therapists who actually studied and listened to the CHILDREN of divorce for over 25 years:
"Although childen raised by mothers and those raised by fathers had different experiences in growing up, I saw little difference in the psychological adjustment between children raised in the two groups. This was also true of a much larger group of children, raised by either a father or mother, who were seen at our center."
"Racer [one of the children profiled] is appropriately worried about losing out in important events because of spotty attendance. He also told me poignantly that he misses his mom when he'sat Dad's house and misses his dad at bedtime at his mom's house. I hear this sad complaint from almost every young child in joint custody."
"ALL [emphasis mine] of the children in our study who experienced the divorce when they were preschoolers, except a few whose parents maintained two well-functioning households, felt abandoned and neglected as little children. They lost their mothers to full-time employment, her return to school, and the mother's efforts to establish her social life. They also felt abandoned by their fathers who worked full-time and similarly got caught up in dating...When their marriages fail there is no way most mothers can maintain the same level of physical and emotional involvement with their children...It is the hidden but most significant loss for young children following divorce, and we have almost completely overlooked its impact."
The problems with visitation and switch-overs are not about "positive bonds" or the lack of them but about "having no choice about how you spend your time and feeling like a second-class citizen compared with your friends in intact families who ahve some say about how they spend their weekends and their vacations."
While Kimberly et al. are still rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, fussing about why this or that kind of custody is better, those who have studied the entire last generation of kids of divorce have cut through the outdated but still popular myths and hit the nail on the head about the real source of the problem:
"DIVORCE [emphasis mine] brings radical changes to parent-child relationships that run counter to our current understanding. Parenting cut loose from its moorings in the marital contract is often less stable, more volatile, and less protective of children. When that contract dissolves, the perceptions, feelings, and needs of parents and children for one another are transformed. It's not that parents love their children less or worry less about them. It's that they are fully engaged in rebuilding their own lives-economically, socially and sexually. Parents' and children's needs are often out of sync for many years after the breakup...But at the same time, both parents fully expect their children to accept the immense changes in their lives without protest and without serious distress. If the truth be told (and it's not a truth that people want to hear) parents want their children to conform and not give them any trouble. Many parents are worried about the rightness of their decision and don't want their children to make them feel even worse."
Damn right children aren't dumb. "One message is clear: the children do not say they are happier. Rather, they say flatly, 'The day my parents divorced is the day my childhood ended.'"
All quotes taken from The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study, by Judith S. Wallerstein, Julia M. Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee.
Every last thing you all have quoted up above just add up to more reasons why all incentives for going to divorce court should be removed or minimized. Thanks.
Richard
Richard, there were a lot of insightful points (such as turning their logic of Motherhood-is-forever back on them, but I disagree with you that the author agreed with them or in the least gave them more support for their point of view than undermining it:
On the contrary, the author appears in many cases to portray the mothers as spiteful and out to make the children into a weapon.
In the story the author told, about the liberated dad who spent time with his children as a primary caregiver, neither Kimberly nor Seneca Woman noticed that the father wound up with secondary custody anyway. In other words, "primary parenting" is just a cheap rationalization for awarding custody to the mother based upon a presumption of mommy-baking-cookies Molly Cleaver stereotypes even if she doesn't meet up to it herself. If a woman cheats on her hubby and dumps the kids in daycare, she'll probably still get custody in states where this thinking applies.
For the record, I know of several single fathers and they got custody after fighting for it or at least shared custody because the courts couldn't deny that they were at least as good if not superior to the mothers. Period. This whole blog may be about the problem that society, and children, who automatically assume women are great "primary caregivers" tends to encourage mothers to take it for granted and slack off while fathers who work hard to be a part of their children's lives ultimately are getting recognized, even with 2 strikes against them, and NYMOM and others resent these men getting what they deserve for their hard work she thinks women should get as an entitlement.
Women's liberation was about women getting high paying job as a form of liberation or even pleasure while for fathers who are expected to support their families, they have to do so lest they be called losers or deadbeats. It's not a "hobby" for us.
Ultimately, as the saying goes, the truth will, and does, "out".
"Ultimately, this means that perhaps Kimberly's children, if she ever has them, will be suffering from the negative impact of GENERATIONS of lousy fathers."
Right.
So at least you admit that historically many men have been lousy fathers. I would say most but I don't want to hurt your feelings... BUT NOW we're supposed to believe that there is suddenly a change of heart in this generation of men and we should just hand our kids over with NO questions asked totally ignoring the history here.
Lots of luck with that one...
"If men were such great inventors of civilization and founders of science, why didn't they establish this when EVERYONE WAS FREE AND NOT JUST HALF THE POPULATION?"
Not to mention the fact that societies (even today) that exist with men primarily in charge are hellish places to live not just for women and children but for men as well...I mean any honest review of the historical facts here will show that men had the power and never used it except to advance themselves.
Actually it's only here in the west (a relatively small portion of the population of the world) where women have gained some political power that life for women and children has finally improved tremendously...it's women who have made the west child-centered not men...although they like taking the credit for it.
"The problem with this, Kimberley, is that if you don't think you can find a good biological father for your child you will have an enormously harder time finding a good "social" father. They almost inevitably care far less. Why should they? No blood connection, no investment, a relationship completely based on the caprice of the mother. That's no more a father than a babysitter is a mother. I would wonder about any guy who would settle for this. A good quality man will want his own kids and a real family."
Well Richard I hate to disappoint but fatherhood in it's entirety is nothing but a social construct. It doesn't exist in nature, only motherhood does...
So ANY man's connection to children is tenuous at best, none of you have risked anything or made any investment other then a random sperm deposit...
So a social father is probably just as good or as bad as a so-called real dad...
Again, sorry to disappoint but those are the facts.
NYMOM claims: "Not to mention the fact that societies (even today) that exist with men primarily in charge are hellish places to live not just for women and children but for men as well.."
It's funny that feminists like to claim that men are still in charge. How many women presidents are there, hmmm? And there are plenty of matriarchies here where it's hell on earth and women are in charge. Feel free to go to an inner city and park your car in neighborhoods dominated by single mothers on welfare...
"So a social father is probably just as good or as bad as a so-called real dad..."
Sorry but the facts ain't on your side, NY.
"Well Richard I hate to disappoint but fatherhood in it's entirety is nothing but a social construct. It doesn't exist in nature, only motherhood does..."
A dubious claim, but nevertheless, I'm not interested in nature. I prefer civilization. You know, cleanliness, order, justice, self-restraint, technology, progress, and the like. They don't exist in nature either.
Richard
NYMOM,
"Well Richard I hate to disappoint but fatherhood in it's entirety is nothing but a social construct. It doesn't exist in nature, only motherhood does...
So ANY man's connection to children is tenuous at best, none of you have risked anything or made any investment other then a random sperm deposit..."
NYMOM, your right as usual. I think this is very true. It's nice to see you comment for a change because I get sick and tired of reading the same old recycled b.s. put out by the FRA crowd. But it doesn't matter because I've stopped reading any comments unless they are by you, Widowed Mom, or Seneca Woman.
Kimberly
Too bad, Kimberly. I thoroughly enjoy your old recycled b.s. and read all of it. I haven't been this entertained since Friends ended.
Maybe your "friend" can relay the compliment to you. :-p
Richard
"Regarding single moms avoiding a miniscule loss."
How many times must I tell you this, it is NOT a miniscule loss for a mother to lose her children. It's one of those 'deal breakers' between her and the society she lives in...
"Consequently, like sharks that still follow trade paths in the hopes of picking up sunk ships long after the ships no longer go that way, maybe these women haven't figured out yet that the game is up."
Maybe women would not react this way if their greedy brothers had not been hogging all the resources on the planet for themselves since day 1. What else can we expect???? Since the ONLY way historically women got a damn thing was by marrying one of you or having a rich father????
That is the price we all pay for our brothers past and present greediness.
"A dubious claim, but nevertheless, I'm not interested in nature. I prefer civilization. You know, cleanliness, order, justice, self-restraint, technology, progress, and the like. They don't exist in nature either."
A man can be flying a ship to the moon and it doesn't change anything. When he hops out of it, he is still a man, related to every other living being on the planet...
"Maybe women would not react this way if their greedy brothers had not been hogging all the resources on the planet for themselves since day 1. What else can we expect???? Since the ONLY way historically women got a damn thing was by marrying one of you or having a rich father????"
Logic 101 lesson, NYMOM: How can you claim that men "hogged" all the resources for themselves but, at the same time, shared it with their wives and children?
Let's turn this around for a moment: What have women done for us lately (besides squeeze out babies, of course.) That's the problem with your whole agenda: it reverts back to basic chivalry which argues that women are helpless, noble baby making machines and LITTLE MORE. Yeah, yeah, yeah, women will make money for their independence, or to buy vacations, etc. but working class black and hispanic men who don't make the cut, well, you don't exactly care much about them being railroaded into prison. (Hell, you probably escort them there personally.) Naw. Get mo' jobs for the most oppressed creature on earth: Middle and upper class white women who want hobby jobs! Fiddle dee dee!
The fact of the matter is that without mommy support and welfare, the whole liberated woman nonsense would crumble in seconds. Because when you appeal to chivalry via elitist white males, even you subconsciously concede that you can only bite the hand that protects you because they ALLOW YOU TO.
NYMOM says: "When he hops out of it, he is still a man, related to every other living being on the planet..."
I really like that analogy, NYMOM, because it illustrates that the space missions while seemingly independant in the New Frontier, were really totally dependent upon massive support from Earth.
The beginning of the European colonization of the Americas was similar: Brits brought over by ship EVERYTHING they needed to survive including furniture, housewares, and even food and viewed the East Coast as a primorval rain forest. Eventually, however, they learned to live off of the land.
On the other hand... you seem to think that motherhood is kind of like a space mision where the woman is "independent" and does as she likes apart from the evil Patriarchy that doesn't share with her. You fail to notice that Western Civilization is also a patriarchy, albeit a very nice, good one. Just as there are good mothers and bad mothers (although you don't like to actually name any members of the latter), there are also bad and good patriarchies. Your ability to gripe about how awful women have it is a gift from chivalrous, western men along with welfare, child-support, and requirements that employers hire women whether they want to or not. There's the old joke that a man says in response to "how are you?": "I can't complain". If you lived in other cultures where men were less generous, you wouldn't be complaining. You'd probably also be a lot happier.
"How many times must I tell you this, it is NOT a miniscule loss for a mother to lose her children."
I think my meaning has been inadvertently lost here by both you and PK. I said women face not a miniscule loss but a miniscule RISK of loss. So many women would not bail from their commitments if this were not so. And don't give me that BS about "filing first". Women would not be in lawyers' offices to learn about tricks like that in the first place if they hadn't already decided to crap out on their families.
85% of single mothers either have custody of their kids or have them the greater part of the time. Only 15% of custodial single parents (meaning they have the children the majority of the time) are fathers, and of that 15% the vast majority have the children with the consent of the mother. Of the small remainder, chances are that a good number of them are in joint custody arrangements with the mother having a significant chunk of the time, though I'm only speculating on that.
Compare that to a father's risk of loss of his children. The average guy who makes the leap of faith to start a family faces at least a one-in-three risk of loss of his children before they reach adulthood. Contrary to what you may believe, it isn't a miniscule loss for us, either.
That's why I said it at least makes a lot more sense for a man to go the single-parent-by-choice route than it does for a woman, although it's just as wrong from the kid's perspective and I wouldn't advocate for it.
If we're slower to commit than we used to be, we have good reason. A wrong choice can destroy our lives. It would behoove you women to be just as choosy about who you pick to father your kids. The fact thay you're not says a lot about your relative "risk of loss."
"...he is still a man, related to every other living being on the planet..."
Related but nowhere NEAR the same, NY. Perhaps you would love to return to the wild and pick bugs off your young and with the rest of the lower mammals but human beings simply have not evolved this way. We've evolved to require high paternal investment for the prolonged process of successfully raising and socializating a relatively few young.
Contrast that with the lower mammals who don't require such investment. Species in which lots of offspring are produced to compensate for the inevitable loss of many to predators, disease and starvation. Infancy is very brief. Little socialization is required because almost all behaviors are hardwired into the reflexes. And such creatures don't have the cognitive capacity to know that they have two parents or even to know that they are reproducing at all until the young actually appears.
No, we're not even comparable.
And of course, we humans alone have produced civilization with all its comforts. I like it. And precious little of it exists without whole families. Sorry but your "nature" has little appeal.
Richard
Being philosophical for am moment (or two), consider that civilization is still evolving (or devolving.) About 6000 years ago, civilization as we know it came into being with power concentrated in the hands of the pharaohs and it filtering down from there with a very low, underclass. Women were usually at the bottom but not much beneath men of the same class.
Since then there's been empires that rose, and fell, but little thought given to the fairness of it all. Only recently, mostly in western, white male Patriarchal Europe and America, did consideration occur for justice for women AND for working class men. In many ways, women got better treatment first under chivalry then working class men and military draftees.
In the modern era, these noble, liberal sentiments (in the classical sense of liberalism) have been warped into a cynical, usually hypocritical goodie grab by women and other special interest PC groups at the expense of everyone else. It's truly heartbreaking that these groups given just a teeny, weeny bit of power started to abuse it right away and prove the worst claims of statist patriarchs.
In most ways, the charity, that's right, charity of giving equality to women has resulted in a devolution of society with higher crime thanks to unwed mothers and the massive welfare state that sucks away resources from society that could have gone towards things such as green energy, TRULY ending poverty, etc. along with general mess of it all.
Richard, you claim that we have to move forward and we aren't going back, but you may want to look at the historical precedent set by, say, 400AD Rome. Or the great real estate market that could only go up. Or the Dot com era that was going to redefine business. One of the progresses of our civilization is that we seem to get over our mistakes more quickly and easily than in the past. But one thing hasn't changed and that is people continue to believe in Truths until... they pop and after some damage is done. Human denial is still wonderfully intact since the cave days.
PK said: "In most ways, the charity, that's right, charity of giving equality to women has resulted in a devolution of society..."
It's especially ironic considering the typical argument the early fems used to persuade men to give them political equality: "You need the purifying influence of us morally superior females to perfect society!" And men, completely buying into the Victorian mythology, handed it all over on a platter.
And now after only a few generations the has bubble popped in such a graphic fashion that .
I'm not saying that women should never have been given political equality, but let's quit pretending and just call it for what it was. The extension of basic rights from one half of the flawed human race to the other equally flawed half and the opening of the door for them to participate in the social goody-grab along with everyone else (with the lingering influence of chivalry to give them a head start).
What I think we're headed away from, and not going back to, is the myth of the morally-superior female. Women completely sold out their chance to prove that one.
"...in such a graphic fashion that it can't be ignored." Backspacer ate half my sentence.
Richard
Richard says: " just call it for what it was. The extension of basic rights from one half of the flawed human race to the other equally flawed half "
Richard, you're still using feminist lingo to "call" something what they want to call it.
Most of the recent women's rights are not "basic" at all. Legal residents, but not citizens are not allowed to vote and often not allowed to work. Children are not allowed to do either in many cases. Are children "human" and entitled to basic rights?
I made that comparison for a reason: Women's equality was based upon the logic that women deserved equality with men, as adults, but still needed protection that children enjoyed. There were no feminists on the Titanic. A class of people who are "equal", but protected, is a nobility class and which then regards others as serving their needs. This goes for children as well where women love the kids and the power of keeping them, but abandon them at the firestation when they're too much of a bother.
REAL equality and not a mere goodie grab for women would mean no mo' welfare, child-support for children they want exclusive custody of, and alimony. If this means us tripping over women in cardboard boxes in the park and their kids running around half naked and malnourished, so be it! But most of us are unwilling to call that bluff.
So the question then, for you Richard, is whether "equality" is worth all of that. Is it? The first thing MEN learn about adulthood is that life is about difficult choices. That we can't go to hobby jobs and make fun money and quit them when it suits us. This is a difficult choice you aren't making Richard: Are you willing to give up so much just for this notion of equality between the sexes. Is it worth it?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3OgwBkoGmAc/ST0xnJxBd3I/AAAAAAAAAQ4/VbDEOVh4Fso/s1600-h/motherhood.JPG
"REAL equality and not a mere goodie grab for women would mean no mo' welfare, child-support for children they want exclusive custody of, and alimony. If this means us tripping over women in cardboard boxes in the park and their kids running around half naked and malnourished, so be it! But most of us are unwilling to call that bluff.
So the question then, for you Richard, is whether "equality" is worth all of that. Is it? The first thing MEN learn about adulthood is that life is about difficult choices. That we can't go to hobby jobs and make fun money and quit them when it suits us. This is a difficult choice you aren't making Richard: Are you willing to give up so much just for this notion of equality between the sexes. Is it worth it?"
Oddly enough Polish Knight, I partly agree with you. Women have GOT to stop letting themselves be controlled by the 'goodie bag' that men hand out to them. Otherwise they'll never be truly independent...
We would have to step in however if children were living in cardboard boxes as we cannot allow future citizens to be raised in this manner; but, otherwise women would be on their own...as long as they demonstrated fitness women would be free to raise their children as they see fit.
Hello NYMOM. I don't understand your proposal. At what point should the state step in? Do we wait until the kids are clearly being neglected? Wouldn't such an empowered child-protective custody services be far more intrusive than what you accuse estranged fathers of being?
In addition, we already have a good proving ground for this policy: The inner city welfare matriarchy. True equality would mean rounding up all these children and putting them into orphanages and then sending both the mother and father equal bills for the trouble until they get their act together.
From what I've seen, society isn't capable of that or even worse, society ultimately may just collapse and then the default, the bad patriarchies you've named, will come into power. They make ME look like a nice guy.
"I don't understand your proposal. At what point should the state step in? Do we wait until the kids are clearly being neglected? Wouldn't such an empowered child-protective custody services be far more intrusive than what you accuse estranged fathers of being?"
Well my proposals are not totally fleshed out...that's what I had originally visualized this blog as doing: having logical discussion about new ways of looking at these problems...
The situation now with custody has morphed into fit mothers, who have done nothing wrong, being dragged into a custody fight and losing custody of a child (even an infant) just because some recreational sperm donor gets a bug up his butt or thinks child support is too high...
"The situation now with custody has morphed into fit mothers, who have done nothing wrong, being dragged into a custody fight and losing custody of a child (even an infant) just because some recreational sperm donor gets a bug up his butt or thinks child support is too high"
And that's it in a nutshell right there.
If the father thinks his child-support is too high, then he's not a mere "recreational sperm donor". There's a saying: Follow the money. As you've conceded, until women cut those apron strings the men are going to hang around. Women still lose custody very rarely so the tradeoff of most women getting financial support from men with little risk is acceptable to them.
In regards to the "fit mothers, who have done nothing wrong", the laws still clearly give women either shared or default custody unless they have done something wrong. ANY system that seeks to protect children is going to have cases of children taken away from perfectly good parents on a whim or false accusation. Note that men have lost their children because of false accusations ALL THE TIME! Child protective services takes away children from "fit mothers, who have done nothing wrong." Do you want child-protective services eliminated?
I know from anecdotes as well as the media of cases where women lost custody of their children and the women often made claims that they were "perfectly fit" but the courts had evidence or claims otherwise. I don't know of any case where the courts took a child from a mother they believed was "perfectly fit." However, I know where it happened to men all the time.
"If the father thinks his child-support is too high, then he's not a mere "recreational sperm donor". There's a saying: Follow the money."
Excuse me, but many 'recreational sperm donors' get hit up for child support today as soon as a child's mother goes down to apply for public benefits. Many states even go after a recreational sperm donor if a mother applies for medical benefits or state subsidized child care. So it doesn't turn a man into a father just because he's court-ordered to pay child support.
You continue to fail and make the distinction here. It's an important one.
"As you've conceded, until women cut those apron strings the men are going to hang around."
Well we need to come up with public policies that address these situations. Not just label a man a dad because he pays court-ordered support and suddenly he's entitled to custody of some poor kid. Sorry but I don't accept that courts have a right to do this and if they do, they need to include maternal grandmothers in the same category as these recreational sperm donors, as they are just as closely related genetically and much more emotionally invested then a recreational sperm donor...
I actually think this is the genesis of 'grandparents rights'...grandparents feeling they have to step in to protect their grandchildren from men over-reaching...
"I don't know of any case where the courts took a child from a mother they believed was "perfectly fit." However, I know where it happened to men all the time."
Unfortunately it's not in the best interest of children to have two sets of people with the exact same legal rights (outside of marriage) to custody. It's like having two armed camps set up with the child as war booty...and the growth of single mothers is just going to make it worse unfortunately for men. The male's initial investment is so slight, we have to err on the side of mothers (until proven otherwise).
If you have problems with this, take it up with God, nature or evolution...take your pick. But until something happens to change the basic biology facts on the ground, it's just tough luck for men. Sorry, I truly am, believe it or not. I wish there was a logical and totally fair, gender neutral way to settle this issue. Unfortunately, there isn't...
NY said: "Sorry but I don't accept that courts have a right to do this and if they do, they need to include maternal grandmothers in the same category as these recreational sperm donors, as they are just as closely related genetically and much more emotionally invested then a recreational sperm donor..."
I already explained to you that this is a fallacy, NY. No grandparent represents more than 25% of a child's genetic make-up.
What Liz said about this (you are bound to have gleaned this from her writings as no one else even comes close to making a claim like this) is that a maternal grandmother's body, during pregnancy, manufactures the egg cells that her daughter is born with. In the same way (supposedly) as the father's body manufactures sperm cells.
Never mind that dad's body manufactures his gametes independently, while grandma can't manufacture anything without a one-half contribution from grandpa.
One-half custody to dad, one-fourth to grandma, one-fourth to grandpa, and none to mom since she isn't a real genetic parent by this logic...
Uh, no thanks. "Mother" and "Father" in the traditional sense of the word does just fine.
"I actually think this is the genesis of 'grandparents rights'...grandparents feeling they have to step in to protect their grandchildren from men over-reaching..."
Actually the grandparents' rights movement was the natural response to the divorce boom and the rise of single motherhood where families became fragmented and parents (mostly mothers, of course) often severed loving relationships between children and their grandparents.
But if both parents are tolerably fit, then grandparents can not command anything more than a smidgen of visitation. There isn't much they can "step in" and do (nor should there be).
And PK, yes I could get on board with impoverished children being placed in orphanages until their parents can care for them. It would hurt some kids in the short run but would benefit infinitely more of them in the long run by stopping this nonsense of people breeding kids any which way the wind blows and then looking around for someone to bill.
It wouldn't be much different from the way things used to be only a generation or so ago. NY talks a lot about the good old days when unwed fathers had no parental rights. But she fails to mention that until the SCOTUS used the Equal Protection clause to try to equalize the rights of legitimate and illegitimate children, unwed MOTHERS did not have the same parental rights as married ones either and could easily have their children taken away and put up for adoption.
Yet with the minorities gaining on the majorities, I don't expect anyone to commit political suicide by advocating a solution this simple.
Richard
NYMOM declares: "So it doesn't turn a man into a father just because he's court-ordered to pay child support."
NYMOM, you're denying the nose on your face here. He is turned into a father precisely because the mother or the state declared him as such to get support that she was unable or unwilling to provide on her own. Your position is that women should have all the rights but someone else should pay for them. It's hilarious that you argued above that men only sought to advance themselves and their rights when the opposite is true: You're out for a raw goodie grab.
Your next argument comparing emotional to financial investment ties in neatly with the paradox with your position that men are so unimportant because they provide mere money while emotional and physical gestation is so important, yet the state only seeks to force men or the taxpayer to cough up money lest children starve to death. You can proclaim 2 + 2 = 5 if you like, but in the back of your mind you know that this reality isn't going away. As long as women need an, er, White Knight to rescue them, they won't be getting rid of the Knighthood.
Regarding the best interests of the child: It's interesting you refer to children as war booty when that's what they are: A winner-take-all system where one person has the rights and the money and the other gets weekend visitation, if they're lucky. Naturally you want women to have this just like in a war but is this about the self-interests of the children, or the mother? You neglect to consider the costs of the war itself including the massive legal costs and emotional toil taken on the chattel, er, children as mommy doesn't want to lose her prize. You refer to men as recreational sperm donors, but at least these men aren't intentionally creating children to use as chess pieces like single mothers out for state or child-support. Such women remind me of a James Cagney film where Cagney has a gun to a baby's head and says: "Give me the money... see? Or the little brat gets it in the head! See? You don't want to see the children harmed, see?"
I love how you close with the "might = right" Mother Nature argument. Er, you had just argued that Patriarchies oppressed women above. Yet, isn't it natural when bigger men threaten to beat up smaller women if they don't go along? Who gestates children that grow up as men to be more powerful than women? Who raises these patriarchal boys to oppress women? Your "nature" is nothing more than warped chivalry provided by white males and the welfare state. Enjoy it while it lasts but this "natural" reality of yours is about as real as a Disney ride.
As Obama recently let slip to a reporter: we're out of money. We don't have unlimited funds, especially in the states, to provide taxpayer goodies for single women to pretend to be liberated. About 40 years or so ago, Divorce was the cash prize for women to be liberated, but get goodies from men to pay for it. Then it was gestating illegitimate children and sending the state to make the father pay for a child he has little rights to. But the problem with that paradigm, NYMOM, is that it relies upon the men being stupid enough to be a recreational sperm donor but smart and hard working enough to pay the tab. The inner cities where this model is already matured is an example of your modern Matriarchy. How often do you want to spend time there? Perhaps the reason why there are so many deadbeats is because that's what's left after men such as Richard and I bow out. When I heard a woman going on about equality meaning goodies for women and men paying for them, I told her good luck and walked off. I would then get a phone call from them 2 weeks later crying their eyes out. "biological clock, wah wah wah!"
Richard says: "And PK, yes I could get on board with impoverished children being placed in orphanages until their parents can care for them. It would hurt some kids in the short run but would benefit infinitely more of them in the long run by stopping this nonsense of people breeding kids any which way the wind blows and then looking around for someone to bill."
I chuckled when NYMOM trotted out the "best interests of the child" rationalization for mommy getting all the rights and goodies and men paying all the bills because no perfect "fair" solution presents itself (and anything else she doesn't like is "illogical" by definition.)
If a woman is seeking a taxpayer BAILOUT or running to a judge to find a father she slept around with but barely knows because SHE needs money, then she's already demonstrated she's a lousy mother. Her child is in jeopardy because of her decisions and now the state has to intervene. This is about as "natural" as a mother throwing her infant daughter down a well and calling 911.
A former girlfriend of mine worked as a family law attorney and told me she regularly saw mothers bring their children into court, in rags, to try to get more "child" support. Think about that for a moment: Even working class people can always scrape up clothes from Goodwill or Target to make a decent court appearance yet these mothers think that a court should buy the idea that their children's clothes rotting on their backs implies they are worthy of MORE money for their parenting?
Amazing.
PK said: "I chuckled when NYMOM trotted out the "best interests of the child" rationalization for mommy getting all the rights and goodies and men paying all the bills"
I chuckle whenever ANYONE who sings the praises of unmarried parenthood, whether by choice or divorce, opens their face about "the best interests of the child."
Richard
"I already explained to you that this is a fallacy, NY. No grandparent represents more than 25% of a child's genetic make-up.
What Liz said about this (you are bound to have gleaned this from her writings as no one else even comes close to making a claim like this) is that a maternal grandmother's body, during pregnancy, manufactures the egg cells that her daughter is born with. In the same way (supposedly) as the father's body manufactures sperm cells."
AND I already told you it is true. Why it's true I don't know but it is. I actually got the information from a pharmacy I used to work for on a p/t basis...
I rarely go to Liz's site anymore, although I do agree with much of what she saids but what she saids is applicable to abusive relationships and I simply don't accept that most men or women are in these sorts of relationships. They are a small subset of the population.
"NYMOM, you're denying the nose on your face here. He is turned into a father precisely because the mother or the state declared him as such to get support that she was unable or unwilling to provide on her own. Your position is that women should have all the rights but someone else should pay for them. It's hilarious that you argued above that men only sought to advance themselves and their rights when the opposite is true: You're out for a raw goodie grab"
Which is why I have said many times we must address the issue of child support for single mothers. Haven't I said that dozens of times? I understand this is a 'raw goodie grab" as you say that should be stopped.
So-called single fathers should NOT be permitted to go to court for custody, visitation, stopping adoptions or other legal rights. NOR should single mothers be permitted to drag a single man into court for child support.
I would allow the state to do it IF THE MOTHER WAS APPLYING FOR PUBLIC BENEFITS in order to reimburse itself but that's it...
I have said this many times at different points on this blog and other places...
You keep arguing the same points over and over with me...even when I agree with you. I guess you're getting senile or something. How old are you anyway?
"If a woman is seeking a taxpayer BAILOUT or running to a judge to find a father she slept around with but barely knows because SHE needs money, then she's already demonstrated she's a lousy mother. Her child is in jeopardy because of her decisions and now the state has to intervene."
Then, as I have said many times, the STATE should be permitted to intervene as it always has in the past...
But now you are seeing cases where even rich and famous women who can support their children just fine are being dragged into court for custody by some recreational sperm donors.
It obviously threatens all women when this is permitted to happen. It basically is on the whim of some jerk who can drag you into court at any time even years after the birth of the child. Even if a mother is perfectly capable of supporting her child. Of course the worse case scenario is often used as an example of why this must be permitted. Like you with the child dressed in rags and starving...
"PK said: "I chuckled when NYMOM trotted out the "best interests of the child" rationalization for mommy getting all the rights and goodies and men paying all the bills"
I chuckle whenever ANYONE who sings the praises of unmarried parenthood, whether by choice or divorce, opens their face about "the best interests of the child."
Well historically men put themselves in this position by hogging all the natural resources of the planet and passing all the laws to benefit themselves. So don't come crying over here about it, I'm working on trying to change this.
It will benefit women and children but indirectly benefit men as well...although that's not my aim.
"Why it's true I don't know but it is."
Ah, glorious faith!
Has Columbia dispensed with its science credit requirements?
II. Overview of meiosis: 1diploid cell (2n) duplicates its DNA (In S-phase), then splits that DNA up into 4 genetically unique haploid cells (n).
Question: How can a male (diploid; 46 chromosomes) and a female (diploid; 46 chromosomes) produce a child with 46 chromosomes? Answer: reduce the number of chromosomes in half from 23 pairs to 23 in the eggs and sperm - then combine them to make a new individual with 23 pairs again!)
All cells in a higher eukaryote (like us) are diploid EXCEPT...for our germ cells eggs and sperm.
If you looked at a karyotype of a germ cell - egg or sperm cell - you would see only 1 of each chromosome in a karyotype, not two!!! There are NO paired homologues any more!!! Germ cells have only half the number of chromosomes as a diploid cell one of each pair.
The number of chromosomes is reduced from 46 (23 pairs) to 23 during the process of meiosis.
Because they have only half the total chromosomes in a somatic cell, they are termed haploid (n). In a human egg or sperm, there are 23 chromosomes, one of which is an X or Y.
A human egg is haploid (has 23 chromosomes) and a sperm is haploid (has 23 chromosomes). Upon fertilization, the new baby now has the 'correct' human number of 46 chromosomes in each of its somatic cells.
Fertilization of the egg by the sperm restores the diploid number of 46 chromosomes
http://www.biology.iupui.edu/biocourses/n100/2k4ch9meiosisnotes.html
NY, the only way grandma's genetic contribution could equal dad's is if she donated an egg for her daughter.
Even in 7th grade life science we all learned that 23 chromosomes x 2 = 46.
Why this fixation on grandmothers, NY?
Richard
Didn't I ask you to wait to post on this issue until after we had others with a lot more knowledge on the subject matter reply? I happen to know we have a vet who posts on here from time to time and we had another person some time back (with medical background) who acknowledged I was correct...
So can we wait to hear from one of them or someone like them BEFORE you start sprouting off...
I'm not fixated on grandmothers by any means. I acknowledge that mother should be the primary one to raise the children with her mother stepping in to help from time to time. But because men have begun interfering in this natural process (using dna as a tool to manipulate the legal system) I think it only fair to note that the maternal grandmother has the same genetic linkage and thus should be awarded the same legal rights as recreational sperm donors...
Well by all means, come on vet! Explain to us how 23 x 3 = 46.
And PK, get some popcorn started...
Richard
I asked my wife about this subject over dinner tonight, NY. Since one of her degrees is in psychology she had to take a good deal of biology.
She said as far as averages go I'm correct, that grandparents on average represent 25% of a child's genetic heritage. But she said I'm forgetting the fact that while each parent contributes 23 chromosomes, it's a matter of chance how much of genetic mix came from each grandparent.
It's theoretically possible, but extremely unlikely, that all of the genes a parent passes on could come from one grandparent, rendering that grandparent's genetic contribution virtually the same as the parent's.
However, there's nothing special about maternal grandmothers here. Any of the 4 GP's are equally likely to be over or under represented.
You could theoretically have a paternal grandfather who is equally related to the child as the mother.
Horror of horrors!
But whatever the fuck, everyone can be sure of being 50% related to their mother and father. No one else.
Fascinating, huh?
And with that, I'll bow out of this particular topic and turn it over to the other posters on this terribly crowded blog (all ten of them? Or is it nine?).
Cheers!
Richard
"But whatever the fuck, everyone can be sure of being 50% related to their mother and father. No one else."
And no one else carries the child except the mother. The child's primary bond is with her.
NY and I are talking about genetics here, virago, not pregnancy.
R.
"NY and I are talking about genetics here, virago, not pregnancy."
Oh, well, in that case, let me clear something up for you.
The NUCLEUS of a human cell contains 46 chromosomes. We get 23 chromosomes from our mother and 23 chromosomes from our father. The first 22 PAIRS of chromosomes are called "autosomes" and the final PAIR of chromosomes is called the "sex chromosomes". The final pair of sex chromosomes can be XX resulting in a female, or XY resulting in a male. However, ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE NUCLEUS OF THE CELL IS THE MITOCHONDRIAL DNA. This is DNA that is passed on from MOTHER TO CHILD (both sons and daughters). Fathers pass on 23 chromosomes while mothers pass on 23 chromosomes AND THEIR MITROCHONDRIAL DNA. If custody were to be determined on who contributes how much dna, mothers would win every time.
NYMOM, I guess this means that you are correct as well because if a maternal grandmother contributes on average 25% of the 23 chromosomes, she also contributes 100% of the mitrochondrial dna because it is passed unchanged from her to her daughter and on to her grand children. In other words, the mitrochondrial dna a child has is 100% identical to his or her mother and maternal grandmother. The maternal grandmother actually makes MORE of a dna contribution to her grandchildren than the grandchildren's biological father does.
Um, no, Virago. Mitochondrial DNA carries a grand total of 37 genes. Nuclear DNA carries 30,000. Moreover, M-DNA's function is strictly regulatory with regard to certain cell functions. It carries no true genetic identity (characteristics or behavior) or even a true species identity.
A 25% nuclear DNA contribution from grandma plus a few mitochondrial genes in no way equals a father's genetic legacy.
Over at Gonz's NY touted the process of cloning as a means to remove men from the reproduction equation. She probably isn't aware that this process will eventually make motherhood redundant.
A human cell nucleus implanted within an animal egg and gestated in a mechanical womb will one day leave women in the regrettable position of having to work and achieve for their sense of importance, just like the rest of us.
Richard
"Um, no, Virago. Mitochondrial DNA carries a grand total of 37 genes. Nuclear DNA carries 30,000."
That's 37 more genes that children inherit from their mothers than from their fathers.
"A human cell nucleus implanted within an animal egg and gestated in a mechanical womb will one day leave women in the regrettable position of having to work and achieve for their sense of importance, just like the rest of us."
Why Richard, is that womb envy I hear dripping off your words? I believe it is. You make jokes about morning sickness and labor pains when NYMOM accused you of being jealous of women's reproductive capabilities, but your words just prove her point. Your pissed off that women have a real biological importance to the human race that men just don't have, can't have, and never will. Women give life with our bodies and all men have is 2 seconds of ejaculation. And because we can give life, we have a bond with our children that men are jealous of and want to destroy. No wonder you seem so eager to reduce women's capabilities to a mechanical machine. You see,we naturally have a sense of importance just by carrying and giving birth to children, and now you want to see that taken away from us just so you can make us feel as insignificant as you do. Oh, and I like that bit about making women work and "achieve" their sense of importance. First of all, I really doubt that mechanical wombs are going to make pregnancy for women obsolete. I doubt it's going to be very cost effective to pay to keep all those mechanical wombs running in order to gestate the future human race. In the long run, the cheapest way is going to be the old fashioned way, and that's women getting pregnant as usual. But for the sake of argument, let's suppose that mechanical wombs do make pregnancy obsolete for women. Do you really think this is going to make motherhood redundant? Ha! I got news for you. Motherhood isn't simply carrying a baby for nine months and giving birht. Who do you think is going to actually do the hands-on raising of those children that were gestated by mechanical machines? Do you really think that men are going to run out and start taking care of all those kids? They don't do it now, they sure as hell aren't going to do it than. Technology may make pregnancy obsolete, but societal expectations about women being the primary caregivers aren't going to change. Of course, you don't think taking care of kids is work, or at least, it's not anything to give someone a "sense of importance". After all, it's something that women usually do on top of the majority of housework AND while working a full time job in most cases. But hey, since it's not something that most men do, it's not "real work". Not getting pregnant isn't going to free women from doing most of the childcare/housework while being forced to work to "achieve a sense of importance". Women are still going to be the ones who have to take off work for a sick kid, or be forced to give up job advancement in order to meet the demands of childcare because the "rest of us" with the penis are going to get out of doing any of it just they always have and always will. And I really like the "rest of us" comment? You categorically put women down as being lazy just because we can get pregnant while putting "the rest of us" in the category as "working to achieve your sense of importance" while totally ignoring the fact that the reason you idiots are in that role is because YOU ARE USUALLY RELIEVED OF THE BURDEN OF CHILDCARE AND HOUSEWORK. In other words Richard, "the rest of us" have the freedom to make choices that we women don't have because WE HAVE CHILDREN TO FEED, BATHE, DRESS, TAKE TO SCHOOL, TAKE CARE OF WHEN THEIR SICK, ETC. BECAUSE "the rest of us" don't think that they should have to care for their own children. And you wonder why most women get custody? God, you are as dumb as they CUM.
"That's 37 more genes that children inherit from their mothers than from their fathers."
True, but we were discussing grandmothers.
Moreover, they are 37 genes that, theoretically, need not come from a human being in order to form another human being.
But goodness gracious, such rage at the idea that women will not always control reproduction!
Look here, V, I don't envy any of you a womb. You think I like the idea of where reproduction is heading? I loathe it. Children belong in families.
But it wasn't us men who started mucking around with the nuclear family model that our species has evolved to thrive under. It was you shortsighted women who insisted on fucking procreation around to fit your own little agendas, not that of your children. You opened the door for all of these possibilities and for the eventual demise of your own "unique" role. Please spare us the screams when eventually men follow your lead.
"Technology may make pregnancy obsolete, but societal expectations about women being the primary caregivers aren't going to change."
And once again, PK, housing values will NEVER go down! Never!
Give it all time, m'dear. In the long run a mechanical womb could very well turn out to be more cost-effective, as well as safer and more convenient. Eventually it could probably be rented and run right in the home. The possibilities are endless.
And as far as child care goes, our generation has done more of that than our dads did, and our sons will do more than we did. And their sons will do even more. No reason why we should not continue to evolve in response to social and technological change.
Richard
"Moreover, they are 37 genes that, theoretically, need not come from a human being in order to form another human being."
Apparently, we create a human being with two genetic mothers and one genetic father:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4225564.stm
Hey, the technology may one day exist where we can create a child without a father all together:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3643847.stm
And we might even one day be able to make male children just from the x chromosome:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070819213846.htm
I guess we may one day have the technology to make BIOLOGICAL FATHERS totally obsolete. Just think, we women might one day be able to create male and female children from our own x chromosomes, and we can gestate them ourselves. We don't have to rely on an artificial machine. We come with all accessories included.
"Look here, V, I don't envy any of you a womb. You think I like the idea of where reproduction is heading? I loathe it. Children belong in families."
Sorry, I don't buy it. I can read between the lines. Your posts drip with womb envy, and just think how much worse it's going to be when we use our natural capabilities to gestate with a good dose of technology to create our own children (male and female) that will make bio-dad a thing of the past.
Oh, well, he was overrated anyway. LOL. I read that post with the religious discussion where you were arguing about God giving the virgin Mary a Y chromosome in order to have a male child (Jesus). Hey, since God is the author of genetics, he only had to switch on the right gene in the X chromosome to make Mary have a male child parthogentically. No Y chromosome needed.
"But it wasn't us men who started mucking around with the nuclear family model that our species has evolved to thrive under"
First of all, the nuclear family did not evolve as a matter of biology, but as a result of industrialization. But if you want to see it that way, I'll play along. Did you ever notice how women in western culture have more rights and individual freedom than in eastern culture? Well, there's a reason for this. I agree with posters that the original family unit was a mother, her children, and possibly bio-dad, and HER MATERNAL EXTENDED FAMILY KINSHIP GROUP. Women relied on HER OWN MATERNAL RELATIVES to help out with child care, and to defend her rights against an abusive husband. Husbands left their family of origin to become part of their wive's families, and the children belonged to their mother's kinship group, carried on her name, and belonged to their mothers up a divorce. In other words, women had a very high status in the early matriarchal (matrifocal whatever) cultures, and men were not subordinated to women and their families because they had status of their own as hunters of the group. Enter patriarchy to gradually take over the original matriarchal family structure, and this happened quite early in human history. Now, women left their natal groups to become part of their husband's family, but they basically were subordinated to the men in the family AND to the husband's FEMALE RELATIVES. See, patriarchy did not strenthen bonds between a husband and wife. It worked to destroy it. A husband's primary bond was to HIS MOTHER, and his wife was expected to be subservient to the mother-in-law. The only way women gained any power or status in the family was to give birth to MALE CHILDREN. In the meantime, the wife was expected to be subordinated to her mother-in-law and all male relatives in an EXTENDED PATRIARCHAL KINDSHIP FAMILY. The wife was frequently abused by the males in the patriarchal family, but also, by the females because the husband's mother usually saw the new wife as a THREAT to her bond with her son AND to her power within the family hierarchy. A wife who gave birth to sons could eventually usurp hubby's mama, but a childless wife or a wife who gave birth to only daughters didn't have any power at all. This might be a different situation if the husband felt any love for his wife, but love between husband and wife was not encouraged in the patriarchal family because of the threat to higher ranking females within a patriarchal familly.
If the patriarchal family was POLYGAMOUS, the situation was even worse because the wife also had to compete for the sexual favors of her husband with other wives. Hey, the wife who had the most sex had the most children, and the greater chances of having SONS to carry on the family line, and this was her ticket to power within the family hierarchy. Women usually had to rely on her husband's female relatives to help with childcare just like in a matriarchal family, but she was also more likely to be subject to abuse by those same female relatives and the males in the family. That was a risk that was significantly reduced in a matriarchal family structure. Anyway, while a woman may receive a lot of power in a patriarchal family, it's power that is gained through reproduction of the patriarchal family line. In other words, giving birth to male children. This not only reinforces patriarchy, but it reinforces THE SUBORDINATION OF WOMEN WITHIN THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILY STRUCTURE. No matter how much power a woman may have, she is still subordianted to her HUSBAND.
Why am I getting into all this? Simple. The patriarchal family structure has dominated most of the world for thousands of years. And this is the family structure that still dominates in eastern society today. It is only recently showing signs of erosion. OTOH, the patriarchal family structure dominated most of western culture as well until recently. However, the idea of the nuclear family came into vogue in western culture as the result of industrialization about 200 years ago, but it wasn't possible for the majority of families to live in little self sufficient family units of mom, dad, and the kids until the 1950s. However, the idea of the nuclear was an idea that most families aspired to after the industrial revolution, and more families became and mobile and moved away from their extended kindship families. Of course, while nuclear families were highly mobile, they also still had the characteristics of the traditional patriarchal family until fairly recently. Dad was still seen as the head and master while mom was seen as subordinated to her husband. Feminists like to blame the nuclear family for forcing women to rear their children in isolation without the help of their extended famillies while being dependant on their husbands and under his authority. In part, they are right. OTOH, unlike in eastern culture, the nuclear family has seperated women from being under the domination of the PATRIARCHAL EXTENDED FAMILY. Women were more likely to have a loving and affectionate relationship with their husbands in the nuclear family in western culture than women had within the confines of the patriarchal extended family in eastern culture. Hubby was still considered the head of the house, but women were in a stronger position to assert themselves and demand their rights in western culture than women were in an eastern patriarchal extended family because they were considered subordinate to mommy-in-law. The patriarchal extended family structure of the east kept women under the authority of men much longer than the nuclear family structure of the west. The idea of the highly mobile, independant, self-sufficient nuclear family first came into vogue about 200 years ago with the advent of the industrial revolution. The idea of an organized feminist movement first came into vogue around the same time. This is no accident. The feminist movement didn't destroy the nuclear family. Instead, the nuclear family, despite it's flaws, is one of the main reasons why the feminist movement has been so successful in western culture. However, the nuclear family is only one stage that the western family is going through as we continue to evolve. People want to whine about the nuclear family being destroyed by feminists, single mothers, gay couples, and everyone else who doesn't conform to the idea of the nuclear family, but we are actually in flux as our family structure continues to evolve. We started out as the matriarchal extended family structure, gradually evolved into the patriarchal extended family structure, where we basically stagnated and went nowhere for thousands of years as women were oppressed under the patriarchal family structure, evolved into the patriarchal nuclear family that in turn evolved into a more egalitarian nuclear family that was in constant flux as the tensions still existed between patriarchy and feminism which resulted in single mother homes and other family structures that are less than nuclear. This is where we are now. However, I think that eventually we are going to evolve right back into where we should've been all along. The matriarchal family structure. Btw, I'm not just pulling these theories out of my ass. Read Stephanie Coontz "How Love Conquered Marriage". She does a good job putting all this into prospective when she compares feminism and eastern/western culture.
Sorry long post. I had to keep cutting it in half.
You're absolutely right, V. Eventually neither father nor mother will be essential to the process of reproduction.
Everyone will be able to arrange their lives totally to suit their own little whims, and fit children in wherever it's most convenient.
You females have already set the stage for that.
I'm glad I won't be around to see that kind of world.
Assuming it pans out, that is. Assuming our culture isn't overtaken by the patriarchal Islamic one and civilization has to go through the whole democratization process all over again. I wouldn't want to be around for that, either.
For the time being, smart women will go on doing things the right way and in the right order, while the losers will go on thinking with their glands and wondering why their offspring can't amount to anything.
For the rest, you could have saved yourself the trouble. The point is that our species has evolved to require high paternal investment for the successful rearing of the young. Regardless of the precise form of society that investment occurs in.
"...gradually evolved into the patriarchal extended family structure, where we basically stagnated and went nowhere for thousands of years as women were oppressed under the patriarchal family structure"
Well thanks for starting my day with a hearty laugh! This absolutely takes the cake. We went NOWHERE for thousands of years of patriarchal extended families? So ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Israel, Greece, Rome, to name only a few, took us nowhere. Not to mention the Renaissance, Reformation, or the discovery of the west. Hell's bells, woman, it was society under the patriarchal extended family that brought us to the point where the Industrial Revolution could occur at all.
But it doesn't get any more typically feminist than this. To airily dismiss civilization itself while typing away at a computer keyboard, plugged into a CPU, plugged into a vast-reaching electrical power system, probably while sitting comfortably under an electric air conditioning vent and sipping some nice coffee that you certainly didn't have to build a fire to make.
You know what HAS stagnated and gone nowhere for thousands of years? Every culture where women have dominated. Women give birth but as a group they simply don't drive progress. You couldn't even generate any progress in childbirth, which was completely your domain from time immemorial. It was only when men got involved in the last hundred years or so that it became a safe process that almost all women survive. Not to mention the children, half of whom never survived infancy in the glory days of "matriarchy."
"However, I think that eventually we are going to evolve right back into where we should've been all along. The matriarchal family structure."
Well it's only taken one generation of female dominance in the inner city to return it to a near-Stone Age condition. If you think that's where we need to be, then you are most welcome to it.
Oh, and glad you decided to come back, Kimberly.
Richard
"Well thanks for starting my day with a hearty laugh! This absolutely takes the cake. We went NOWHERE for thousands of years of patriarchal extended families?
I was referring to the STATUS OF WOMEN that stagnated and went no where for thousands of years under the patriarchal extended family.
"So ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Israel, Greece, Rome, to name only a few, took us nowhere. Not to mention the Renaissance, Reformation, or the discovery of the west. Hell's bells, woman, it was society under the patriarchal extended family that brought us to the point where the Industrial Revolution could occur at all."
The greeks were credited with giving western civilization science, technology, and scientific research. The earliest greek civilization and the first great european civilization was the Minoans. During the Middle Bronze Age a "cultural explosion", unparalleled in the history of other ancient civilizations, occurred on the island of Crete. One of the salient characteristics of that cultural development was the architectural and hydraulic function of aqueducts used for water supply in “palaces” and cities. In the entire structures of most Minoan “palaces” and cities, nothing is more remarkable than their elaborate water supply
systems. The Minoan hydrologists and engineers were aware of some of the basic principles of what we call today principles and practices of water sciences with emphasis on the construction and operation of aqueducts. The description of several of the Minoan aqueducts could justify that Minoans could be considered as pioneers in those technologies that wasn't discovered again until the 17th century europeans. Minoans had flush toilets and running water in every home. They also made contributions to astronomy because through their observations of the sun, moon, and constellations. They had telescopes, binoculars, astronomical measuring devices, wells, cisterns. Early greek writing systems was called Linear B which is an adaptation of an early Minoan writing system Linear A. They also made advances in trading and art as well. There is a geometry figure that was attributed to Archimedes in 300 B.C., but it was identified on a Minoan wall painting that was dated 1000 years earlier than Archimedies. There is evidence that Minoan culture was influenced somewhat by the mesopotamians and the egyptians, but neither Egypt nor Mesopotamia had the high degree of technology that the minoans had when minoan civilization existed (nor did they later on).
Btw, the ancient minoans were matrilineal. Women participated in every aspect of minoan society along with men. While minoan rulers were usually male, the priesthood was dominated by women. Minoan religion permeated every aspect of minoan society, and it was centered on GODDESS WORSHIP. THE MINOANS DID NOT HAVE ANY MALE DEITIES IN THEIR PANTHEON. In fact, the priesthood used their technological advances in astronomy in their worship. The minoan civilization was unusual because it had gender equality, social equality, and an even distribution of wealth. Unfortunately, for them, the volcano on the island of Santorini erupted and put an end to their society. Later greek cultures adopted a lot of the minoan culture, but a lot of minoan technology was lost until centuries later. Civilzations like the Romans may have reinvented certain technology like aqueducts, but the minoans had this technology way before the romans did. It's pretty arrogant to say that patriarchy is the cause of all our advances in science and technology. After all, the minoans had flush toilets way before the patriarchal europeans invented them in the 17th century. For example; the minoans were a matrilineal society where the social status of women equaled that of men. The minoans were also technologically advanced in sciences like astronomy. The minoan priesthood used astronomy as a regular part of their worship and they were thought to be the astronomers of that society. The minoan priesthood was DOMINATED BY WOMEN. Connect the dots. There's a real possibility that a lot of the technological advances that the minoans had in astronomy like the invention of the telescope were made by WOMEN. The original inventor of the flush toilet could've been a woman. It's pretty arrogant to say that patriarchy was responsible for all of science and technology. In most patriarchal socieites, women aren't educated, and they are taught to devote their time to being wives and mothers. Even when women were educated, they certainly weren't encouraged to pursue careers in fields like math or science, nor were they allowed to legally. Most of the so-called great male inventors and scientists were educated, wealthy men who had the financial means to devote themselves FULL TIME TO PURSUE A CAREER IN MATH, SCIENCE, OR AS AN INVENTOR. They were free from the burdens of childcare, housework, and running a household because THEY LEFT THAT FOR THEIR WIVES TO DO. Do you think that these male inventors just sat down one day and invented something? NO, it usually took them years and years of hard work, scientific research, and trial and error before they developed and improved their technologies. They also usually had wealthy patrons who were interested in thier inventions and helped foot the bill so that these guys could work full-time.
How many women throughout the history of patriarchy, Richard, have had the education, freedom, finances, and THE TIME TO PURSUE A CAREER IN MATH, SCIENCE, OR TECHNOLOGY? Tell me, Richard, since you know all about how wonderful patriarchy is (for men), how many men throughout the history of patriarchy were willing to devote themselves to childcare and domestic duties while their wives pursued a full-time career as an inventor? How many men were denied education in math and science because they were men? How many men who are educated in math and science are told they aren't smart enough to pursue a career in either one, or laughed at by established and told to go back to the kitchen? Yeah, Richard, patriarchy is responsible for one thing when it comes to science and technology. It's responsible for making sure that all education, credit, finances,and opportunities for science and technology go to one half of the human race while the other half is denied an education, told that they are too stupid to do math and science, openly discouraged or ridiculed from pursuring a career in either one, told that the only thing they should be good at is being a mother and a domestic servant, and in fact, throughtout most of patriarchal history were nothing more than illiterate domestic slaves and broodmares. Yeah, Richard, patriarchy is a great system when it comes to making sure that all science and technological advances come (in most cases) from men while virtually eliminating any competition from the only other living being on the planet who is equal in intelligence-women. Under this kind of oppressive system, of course, your going to see more science and technological advances coming from the male half of the species. The fact that I even have to explain something that is so obvious tells me that your really not very smart.
"You know what HAS stagnated and gone nowhere for thousands of years? Every culture where women have dominated"
By every culture, I presume your talking about the very small handful of matriarchal societies that are still in existence today. It's true that they live in primitive conditions. OTOH, the MAJORITY of the people who still live in primitive conditions today are PATRIARCHAL. Hey, if you want to see what patriarchy really did for the world, let's look at what happened to the Roman empire. The patriarchal Romans were a high technologically advanced people of their time (with the reinvention of aqueducts that had already been invented by the matriarchal minoans centuries earlier I might add). However, the very PRIMITIVE and very PATRIARCHAL GERMAN BARBARIAN TRIBES got fed up with the way the Romans were treating them, and they conquered the Roman empire and plunged us into the DARK AGES where all the technology that the Romans had was lost for centuries. Hey, at least the loss of the technological advances of the matriarchal minoans can be blamed on a volcanic eruption. The
Romans lost out because they wanted to enslave everyone (just like patriarchy).
Oh, and glad you decided to come back, Kimberly.
I think I just had my biggest laugh yet. I have three children and not one of them were created by sperm donors. Anybody who can read, can look over the other posts on this blog to know what has been discussed before and by who. It should be no surprise to you that I might actually agree with what other female commentators have said before. Virago is the name I ALWAYS post under-here and on other blogs.
"Btw, the ancient minoans were matrilineal."
Whether matrilineal or patrilineal, Minoan society was organized around the NUCLEAR family.
"While minoan rulers were usually male, the priesthood was dominated by women. Minoan religion permeated every aspect of minoan society, and it was centered on GODDESS WORSHIP. THE MINOANS DID NOT HAVE ANY MALE DEITIES IN THEIR PANTHEON."
Most ancient cultures had goddess worship in some form or other. But since it was generally a fertility cult that involved human sacrifice almost everywhere it existed, including among the Minoans, I don't see anything terribly desirable about it.
We now have umpteen scientific ways to increase and decrease fertility as we please. We no longer have to throw kids in the fire for this, thanks just the same.
"I was referring to the STATUS OF WOMEN that stagnated and went no where for thousands of years under the patriarchal extended family."
Even if that was your intention, I wouldn't say that the status of women went nowhere in all those years. There were numerous female rulers. There was the advent of Christianity which ended the practice of polygamy, frowned upon the divorcing of wives and deemed women of equal worth as men. If the lives of most women consisted of being domestic slaves and broodmares, well hell, most men weren't much more than workhorses for their families either. Life was hard, and few had the time or energy to contemplate how "oppwessed" they were.
"...how many men throughout the history of patriarchy were willing to devote themselves to childcare and domestic duties while their wives pursued a full-time career as an inventor?"
We've got lots of them around today. I resubmit my previous question: why aren't career women out beating the bushes looking for them? Instead of knocking themselves out trying to find men that can outearn them, thus increasing their chances of being "domestically handicapped," so to speak, once again?
Besides, who the hell has a "full-time career as an inventor," anyway? Most progress throughout human history was simply a matter of people thinking outside the box and hitting upon a better way of doing things.
Again, go and take a sabbatical among the Mosuo. No one has held those women back for thousands of years. They dominate. There's plenty of extended family to shove childcare onto if a woman so wishes. The men, having no families of their own to provide for and protect, have no drive to accomplish anything. It's an open field for women.
But in all these millenia of human history, these people have not even managed to produce a written language, much less any scientific advances or modern comforts.
If matriarchy were so great, it would have survived SOMEWHERE with something worthwhile to show for itself.
But again, you may have it and you're welcome. No one else wants it, that's for sure.
"Virago is the name I ALWAYS post under-here and on other blogs."
Sure.
Your angry and rambling style, typical talking points, and level of maturity are screamingly obvious. If you're not Kim you could be her twin.
You're old enough to have three kids and you're still using the word "cum?"
I'll call you by any name you care to use. I don't give a flying fuck who you are. Just saying there's no need to embarrass yourself.
Your "friend" can tell you I said so, too.
Richard
"Whether matrilineal or patrilineal, Minoan society was organized around the NUCLEAR family."
Your right Richard, the Minoan society was organized around the nuclear family. Your view of the nuclear family is mom, dad, and the kiddies. Archaeology's view is something else:
Archaeology dictionary definition of a nuclear family:
A family group consisting of wife, husband (or one of these) and dependent children.
Archaeology dictionary definition of an extended family:
A family group consisting of more than two generations of relatives living either within the same household or very close to one another.
Early minoan period showed families living in clans of several nuclear families within one large household. Later minoan period, showed smaller family units
clustered together with other smaller family units in settlements where everyone was related to each other. In fact, some of these smaller family units consisted of three generations-grandparents, children, grandchildren. In other smaller family units, they found that the family consisted of grandparents, mothers, and their children. In other words, these smaller family units may have been "nuclear families" (though not necessarily your definition of the word), but they definitely existed among a larger group of extended family members ON THE MATERNAL SIDE who lived close by.
"Most ancient cultures had goddess worship in some form or other. But since it was generally a fertility cult that involved human sacrifice almost everywhere it existed, including among the Minoans, I don't see anything terribly desirable about it."
And your point is? Goddess cults existed in ancient patriarchies, but goddesses usually were subordinated to powerful male warrior deities. The unique thing about the minoans is that not only was goddess worship the dominant religion, it WAS THE ONLY RELIGION. There weren't any male gods at all. That's a sure sign of a matriarchal culture. The status of women in a culture's religon usually reflects the status of the women in that culture. The minoans were definitely matrifocal and matrilineal. Women were in every occupation that men were in, and even dominated some aspects of the society like the priesthood.
"Even if that was your intention, I wouldn't say that the status of women went nowhere in all those years. There were numerous female rulers. There was the advent of Christianity which ended the practice of polygamy, frowned upon the divorcing of wives and deemed women of equal worth as men. If the lives of most women consisted of being domestic slaves and broodmares, well hell, most men weren't much more than workhorses for their families either. Life was hard, and few had the time or energy to contemplate how "oppwessed" they were."
So, some women in some patriarchal cultures had more rights than some women in other patriarchal cultures. So, some women even became rulers. So, most men weren't nothing but work horses to their families. So what? What does this matter? Absolutely nothing! In every social class, in every patriarchy throughout history, there is one fact that you conveniently forget. WOMEN WERE SUBORDINATED TO MEN. A man was a "workhorse"? Big Deal! The "broodmare" was usually subordinated to the "workhorse". Women became rulers? Big Deal! Only after there weren't anymore male relatives to take the throne, and even if a woman managed to inherit the throne, she was in a lot of cases subordinated to her husband who only became king because HE WAS MARRIED TO A WOMAN OF THE ROYAL BLOODLINE. And btw, men in matriarchal societies were never treated like women in patriarchy. Women had a high status, kinship was matrilineal, but MEN WERE EQUAL TO WOMEN. That's quite clear when you look at the Minoan society.
"Besides, who the hell has a "full-time career as an inventor," anyway? Most progress throughout human history was simply a matter of people thinking outside the box and hitting upon a better way of doing things."
Are you for real? Or are you just that stupid? No one said these people didn't "think outside the box", or "hit upon a better way of doing something". It usually takes years of education, money, scientific research, AND TIME to make advances in science and technology. It took Edison 12 years to invent the light bulb. It took Jonas Salk 8 years to develop a vaccine for polio. A lot of these guys were financially supported by wealthy patrons, and many could afford to work around the clock. THESE GUYS HAD THE FINANCIAL, FAMILY, AND SOCIETAL SUPPORT AND APPROVAL THAT MOST WOMEN DIDN'T HAVE, and if they had families, their wives took care of all that.
"We've got lots of them around today. I resubmit my previous question: why aren't career women out beating the bushes looking for them?"
How many of these guys do you think are out there? What you think is "a lot" isn't nearly enough. Every study out there shows that THE MAJORITY OF MEN DON'T DO THEIR SHARE OF THE HOUSEWORK/CHILDCARE. The lack of a supportive spouse and the usual societal barriers against women are usually what keep women from advancing. These are barriers THAT MEN DON'T HAVE. And btw, in homes where men stay home while the wife works, they usually only do housework/childcare while the wife works. When she comes home, SHE USUALLY ENDS UP DOING IT ALL. It's the second shift all over again only this time she makes the money. Basically, stay at home husbands treats his responsibilities as a stay at home dad the same way most men treat paid employment-as a 40 hour a week job. Once dad comes homes from his paid job, he gets to sit in front of the tv while mom continues to do the same childcare/housework she's been doing all day. In the same way, once the working mother comes home from her paid employment, the stay at home dad gets to sit in front of the tv while mom does whatever housework/childcare didn't get done during the day while she was making the money. What a laugh! It's no wonder that studies have found that children still prefer the working mother more than they do the stay at home dad while they find just the opposite with the traditional dad breadwinner/mom homemaker family. And you ask such a stupid question about why women can't don't find these guys because there's "a lot". A load of crap.
"Again, go and take a sabbatical among the Mosuo. No one has held those women back for thousands of years. They dominate. There's plenty of extended family to shove childcare onto if a woman so wishes. The men, having no families of their own to provide for and protect, have no drive to accomplish anything. It's an open field for women.
But in all these millenia of human history, these people have not even managed to produce a written language, much less any scientific advances or modern comforts."
Yeah, it's easy to say that when your talking about one of the few existing matriarchal societies left. Patriarchy spread by force centuries ago, and it became pretty much a universal thing. The fact that the Mosuo even survived AT ALL is a big accomplishment in itself. OTOH, what about the PRIMITIVE PATRIARCHAL SOCIETIES OF TODAY? There are far more of than there are matriarchies. What about the jivaro of the Amazon basin, Dyaks of S.E. Asia, llongats if the phillipines, Maasai of Africa, Zulu of Africa, Carib of South America,Yaghan Indians, Chiquitos, khoikhoi, or the Korowai of Papua New Guinea. What about these people? Patriarchy didn't do anything for them. Even half of the native american tribes were patriarchal when the white man came. What about them Richard? It's easy to pick on a handful of matriarchal societies when there are SO MANY MORE PRIMITIVE PATRIARCHAL SOCIETIES OUT THERE.
"If matriarchy were so great, it would have survived SOMEWHERE with something worthwhile to show for itself."
Easy to say when 99.9% of the modern world is a patriarchy. 4,000years ago, at least half of the world was still a matriarchy, and the most scientifically and technologically advanced civilization was a matriarchy-the Minoans. In fact, they had technology that the patriarchy didn't rediscover until the 17th century. BUT THEY DEFINITELY WERE A MATRIARCHY.
"I'll call you by any name you care to use. I don't give a flying fuck who you are. Just saying there's no need to embarrass yourself."
Coming from someone who embarrassed himself royally by trying to lie about something NYMOM said and having an entire post written about it. Go fuck yourself.
"In other smaller family units, they found that the family consisted of grandparents, mothers, and their children."
No wonder the culture didn't survive.
We have those today too. In the inner cities. Of course, we're on the decline as well.
"There weren't any male gods at all. That's a sure sign of a matriarchal culture."
Tan, Talos, Poteidan...
Your info is a bit outdated.
But no, whatever the case was with the Minoans, a predominance of goddesses was never a sure sign of matriarchy or even necessarily a higher regard for women.
It often reflected exactly the opposite. An identification of the female with the baser elements of "nature" (as opposed to civilization) which must be controlled, by force if possible and by propitiation if necessary.
"How many of these guys do you think are out there? What you think is "a lot" isn't nearly enough."
Surveys show that over 60% of college-educated men would be willing to perform the at-home domestic role for a high-achieving wife. High-achieving women, in contrast, DO NOT WANT domestic husbands. Even if they don't require equal or greater earning husbands, they insist on husbands who at least "contribute" by earning money, even if it necessitates hiring child care and housekeeping.
Because when the shoe is on the other foot they don't see the domestic role as a valuable contribution at all.
"Are you for real? Or are you just that stupid?"
I wouldn't want to go there if I were you. But if you insist...
It wasn't me who tried to argue in one breath that 7537 is "way more" than 15,000, and in the next breath called someone "dumb as they CUM."
I think NY vastly overestimates the readership of her blog, but I hope not, because it would be a shame if only a few got to enjoy that one.
"Coming from someone who embarrassed himself royally by trying to lie about something NYMOM said and having an entire post written about it."
I'm not embarrasssed in the slightest, toots. I said NY didn't consider it criminal for adults to have sex with kids under 18, and she admitted exactly that in her post. I guess she wants an age of consent around 15 or so.
It beats me how she figured this was a "distortion."
But I couldn't care less how much she writes about it. The subject doesn't interest me.
If anyone is embarrassed, it ought to be NY for being so breezy about teenaged boys being "initiated" into sex by older women.
You got a son? You think that's peachy keen?
I don't know what conditions she grew up in but nobody I know was "initiated" that way. I was "initiated" by a very nice girl of my own age, as was most everyone else I knew. And any old "cougar" (or whatever such pervs like to call themselves these days) who tries to "initiate" my son that way will be very very sorry afterward. No need to say more on the subject.
"Go fuck yourself."
Twenty years ago I would have said, likewise. Now, yawn.
Richard
"No wonder the culture didn't survive"
The culture didn't survive because of a volcanic eruption you dope, but it sure that a lot of technology that had to be "rediscovered" by later patriarchies. And no my information isn't outdated. I take night classes at a university that has a big archaeology department. The guy who runs the department veritifed my information for me.
"Surveys show that over 60% of college-educated men would be willing to perform the at-home domestic role for a high-achieving wife. High-achieving women, in contrast, DO NOT WANT domestic husbands. Even if they don't require equal or greater earning husbands, they insist on husbands who at least "contribute" by earning money, even if it necessitates hiring child care and housekeeping."
And I've read studies that have said the opposite.
"I don't know what conditions she grew up in but nobody I know was "initiated" that way. I was "initiated" by a very nice girl of my own age, as was most everyone else I knew. And any old "cougar" (or whatever such pervs like to call themselves these days) who tries to "initiate" my son that way will be very very sorry afterward. No need to say more on the subject."
Well, Richard, you don't have to worry because there are far more adult male pervs looking for little girls than there will ever be "old cougars" going for little boys. Just ask Polish Knight. He ought to know. OTOH, you sure sound a lot like Polish Knight sometimes, you MUST be the same person. LOL.
"I take night classes at a university that has a big archaeology department."
Splendid. Go visit the head of the biology department and collect some info on genetics as well.
And write us a report ASAP.
R.
To emphasize an earlier point:
"NY and I are talking about genetics here, virago, not pregnancy."
"Splendid. Go visit the head of the biology department and collect some info on genetics as well.
And write us a report ASAP."
Your right, Richard, I bow to your superior intelligence and wisdom. However, in the end, it doesn't really matter what genes or how many a child inherits from either it's mother or father. Mothers not only pass on their own genes, but they MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR THE FATHER TO PASS ON HIS. And women are the ones who take on the risks to both themselves AND their children. Yeah, it's easy for you men to dismiss the complications of pregnancy WHEN IT'S YOUR GENES ARE THAT ARE PRIMARILY RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. You men owe every woman who has given birth A HUGE DEBT OF GRATITUDE for the contributions that we make genetically AND for the risks we take in MAKING SURE THAT YOUR OWN GENES ACTUALLY CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING TO THE HUMAN RACE (besides pregnancy related health complications and pregnancy related deaths):
http://www.fathom.com/feature/35541/
"MITOCHONDRIAL DNA. This is DNA that is passed on from MOTHER TO CHILD (both sons and daughters). Fathers pass on 23 chromosomes while mothers pass on 23 chromosomes AND THEIR MITROCHONDRIAL DNA. If custody were to be determined on who contributes how much dna, mothers would win every time."
What we are talking about is a little more complex then mother versus father. We are talking about maternal grandmothers being awarded the same legal rights as recreational sperm donors.
You see our legal system has decided to allow recreational sperm donors to use DNA and award themselves legal rights on par with a child's mother. They don't have to marry or give the mother so much as a vitamin during pregnancy to ensure a healthy delivery, YET one second after a baby is born (that they have contributed absolutely NOTHING to its well-being other then a random sperm deposit) suddenly they are a 'father' with the exact same legal rights as a mother...
So since the courts are using DNA in this manner I think women should begin campaigning for maternal grandmothers to be given the same rights as recreational sperm donors when custody is at issue...
AND my definition of recreational sperm donor is exactly the same as the one the UN uses vis-a-vis international adoptions...men who impregnate women they are not married to...They should have no rights or responsibilities...they are recreational sperm donors only...
NYMOM, you'd have a point if the grandparents were responsible to pay "child-support" just as the father is. It all boils down to responsibilities being matched with rights. You seem shocked that fathers should have rights to match their responsibilities and mothers should have responsibilities to match their smorgasborg of rights.
You continue to claim that men hogged all the resources and passed laws to benefit themselves. I suggest you check out the film "Titanic" sometime and look up the term "chivalry." It's the opposite: Most men worked in coal mines and did dangerous work to make life comfy for women and their children. You seem honestly conflicted between feminism getting women mo' money in the workplace and then griping that men aren't as generous with "child" support and alimony as they were back in the bad old days when they "hogged" everything for themselves!
I think I speak for most men out there that if women want to go and have a child on their own and don't tell us about it or come troling for money, we probably won't gripe and try to get primary custody away from them. Your projecting your own goodie grab onto us which is a massive mistake because all these goodies are totally dependent upon chivalrous romanticism held by western men. I'm amazed the golden goose has put up with it for this long. But not forever...
Richard, I would behoove you to not drop the F-bomb that often. I respect NYMOM if only that we debate the issues here in her space so keep it clean.
In regards to the Goddess. Apparently, Kimberly has never heard of the Virgin Mary yet would that make the Catholic religion a Matriarchy or Western European culture such from 700AD to recent times?
It all boils down to the fact that men can't make babies but they are excellent at producing the stuff that babies need to survive and prosper. As you pointed out, matriarchies work in nature because "babies" develop into "teenagers" within a few weeks or months or so and then go out on their own to fend for themselves. Kimberly/"Virago" fails to consider that the "status of women" was improved with electricity, fire, the wheel, and large luxury liners named Titanic where they had first dips on the lifeboats. The notion that they are "independent" and don't need men is laughable.
It's sad, really, because much of this is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Kimberly rages on about deadbeat dads who are unreliable and men who are jerks and then drives away responsible men who might be interested in raising a family with her. Someone in that state isn't ready for an adult relationship yet she thinks that she can raise a child on her own?
Virago/Kimberly, I've already told you several times that I've never had sex with underage women including prostitutes. This may amaze you to hear, but not all prostitutes (especially where it's legal) are underage. Perhaps your obsession with the age of these women has to do with your first sexual experience...?
You can claim that there are studies that dispute the obvious reality that many men would be willing to be househusbands while most women, including and especially well-to-do career women who need childcare would refuse to marry down but you're just denying the nose on your face. When I last checked out statistics on the fedstats.gov website, there were so few SAH dads that they didn't even have statistics on the matter. They're that rare. Most "SAH" husbands are usually in the category of temporary unemployment, writers/students, retirement, or illness.
Regarding Edison's inventions: The light bulb is a famous example of an invention he referred to as "1% inspiration and 99% persperation" but he got his start as a lowly train conductor and telegraph operator and scored it big on his own sweat and brainpower. He was quite proud of this. He not only made inventions on his own, but he INVENTED the concept of a think tank.
One of his adversaries was Nikola Tesla who pioneered and invented A/C current which powers all of our homes. He was a small guy with big ideas who sold a concept that was claimed to be physically impossible at the time (ALTERNATING current? Are you crazy?) Other great male innovators include Albert Einstein who worked at the patent office.
If you want to argue that these guys got a headstart because their wives did the cooking and childcare then nothing stops modern career women from doing the same except their own sexism.
Deal with it.
PK, I love how NY speaks of men "hogging" all the resources, as if all the planet's resources were simply lying around like daisies waiting to be picked up, not things that are PRODUCED by the sweat and the innovation of (let's be honest) mostly men.
And men were happy to share those resources when women provided them with families in return and honored their obligations.
If women no longer wish to provide men with families then they're as welcome as anyone else to hop a plane to Alaska and get their share of the "natural resources of this planet."
And if someone needs to "step in" for the kids who fall through the cracks then sure, the orphanages can do that just like they did in the good old days when unmarried men had no parental rights. Much more cost-efficient than the current system.
And OK, I'll try to keep it PG.
Richard
INTERESTING observation, Richard! I've heard this marxist tripe about one group "hogging" all the resources from the poor victim group that it hadn't occurred to me that the bourgeois versus proletariat paradigm doesn't apply here. Men ARE the proletariat! If we really were the ones oppressing the women like capitalists allegedly exploit the workers, we'd be the ones sitting at home watching Oprah and popping bon-bons while complaining about how oppressed we are by the women working in the mines!
Marxism and feminism both have evolved into ideologies that now oppress the proletariat rather than empower it for political gains. Welfare recipients vote socialist much more loyally than the working low and middle class. As you know, this turn of events has created environments that are in the long run more hazardous for women such as the inner cities making them even more dependent upon men to help buy SUV's and burglar alarm systems and overpriced homes in safer school districts...
Regarding orphanages: Even THEY are a privilege and not an entitlement. Nature doesn't provide Boyztown for straw kittens when the mother cat is unable to give it milk and the same goes for many third world countries that liberals import future voters from.
"Regarding orphanages: Even THEY are a privilege and not an entitlement."
Very true. Just another one of those things that "don't exist in nature" but certainly make life nicer.
You think it's occurred to NY that we can neatly add Andrew Usher's "basic income" to that list?
But on the bright side, if we ever started using those orphanages the need for them would probably plummet to near nothing "in post and in haste," as Archie Bunker would say.
Richard
" Perhaps your obsession with the age of these women has to do with your first sexual experience...?"
Coming from someone who recommends that Richard take his son to a prostitute for his first sexual experience, that's a laugh. That tells me more about your sexual experience than anything I've said says about mine. God, just reading your words confirms that your nothing but a pedophile. The fact that you like to debate custody of children and while projecting your hatred on women makes me sick to my stomach.
"Regarding Edison's inventions: The light bulb is a famous example of an invention he referred to as "1% inspiration and 99% persperation" but he got his start as a lowly train conductor and telegraph operator and scored it big on his own sweat and brainpower. He was quite proud of this. He not only made inventions on his own, but he INVENTED the concept of a think tank."
Yeah, Edison gave credit to the person who really gave him his start:
In school, the young Edison's mind often wandered, and his teacher, the Reverend Engle, was overheard calling him "addled." This ended Edison's three months of official schooling. Edison recalled later, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint." His mother then home schooled him."
And it's so nice that Edison had THE TIME TO DEVOTE TO ALL THOSE INVENTIONS. I think it was Richard who said "Who the hell has a career as a full-time inventor?":
In 1869, when Edison was twenty-two years old, he patented his first invention and advertised that he "would hereafter devote his full time to bringing out his inventions."
And sure he did it on his own sweat and brain power:
During his most inventive years, Edison conducted experiments at his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory. He did not work alone. A team of talented workers assisted him all hours of the day and night. These men had the skills to make Edison's ideas and sketches into real devices of wood, wire, glass, and metal.
Edison's workers came from all over the world. The group included: Charles Batchelor, Edison's chief mechanical assistant from England; Ludwig Boehm, a German glassblower; John Kruesi, a Swiss clockmaker; Francis Upton, a mathematician, as well as carpenters, machinists, and general laboratory helpers.
Edison married Mary Stillwell in 1871, and they had 3 children. Mary died in 1884 leaving behind the kids ages 6-11. In 1886, he married Mina Miller who gave him three more children.
It's really great that Edison was able to be a full-time inventor and "work all hours of the day and night" because of his MOTHER and the WIVES who raised his children so that he could pursue A CAREER AS AN INVENTOR FULL-TIME.
"If you want to argue that these guys got a headstart because their wives did the cooking and childcare then nothing stops modern career women from doing the same except their own sexism."
What an idiot like you fails to understand is that men may say they want to shoulder the childcare/housework so that the wives work, but when they actually do it (and not sit on their asses in front of the tv all day), they find that BEING A FULL-TIME PARENT IS ACTUALLY HARD WORK. And a lot of these guys can't cope with it and end up going back to work. Plus, a lot of these guys are just daycare. They might do the childcare/housework WHILE MOM IS AT WORK, but MOM ENDS UP DOING IT ALL WITH NO HELP FROM DAD WHEN SHE GETS HOME. This was explained upthread. If you can't understand the concept than shut up about it. I'm not interested in explaining the same concept over and over to an idiot who obviously hasn't any reading comprehension.
"In regards to the Goddess. Apparently, Kimberly has never heard of the Virgin Mary yet would that make the Catholic religion a Matriarchy or Western European culture such from 700AD to recent times?"
Kimberly didn't make the comments about the goddess. I did. And again, if you had any reading comprehension ability you would have read:
"Goddess cults existed in ancient patriarchies, but goddesses usually were subordinated to powerful male warrior deities"
The Virgin Mary is just another example of a patriarchal culture (catholic church) subordinating the so-called goddess to a male god. The Virgin Mary is seen as an INTERCEPTOR between Jesus and his worshipers. Just like a catholic priest is seen as an INTERCEPTOR between God and the catholic people. Yet, the pope forbids REAL WOMEN from becoming priests. All the power of the catholic church sits in the hands of the POPE AND ALL HIS BISHOPS, CARDINALS, AND PRIESTS WHO ARE ALL MEN. The fact that you think this is even remotely matriarchal says what an idiot you really are.
Kimberly/Virago, I chuckled when you accused SAH dads as sitting at home all day while portraying mothers as doing unceasing hard work and saving their men money. Just who watched Oprah then? Or Jenny Jones? Or the home shopping network? These programs are certainly not catering to men!
Edison didn't get handed those laboratories. He made it big, as I said, on his own. I read his autobiography (not just cited a portion of it like you did) and FYI, he had a lot of time because he engaged in cat naps and slept only a few short hours a day.
Your accusations against men as benig lazy slobs is based entirely upon sour grapes with daddy and bigotry rather than observation. Maybe the men don't help out as much as the women might like, but most do make an honest effort.
On the other hand, Kimberly/Virago, you know that most women don't make any effort whatsoever to judge men beyond breadwinner standards or "bad boys". You get what you pay for. Make your bed and lie in it and all that.
Finally, your obsession about my sexual history says more about you than me. Sorry honey, I'm taken.
Oh for crying out loud PK just ignore the feminist shaming BS.
Take it for the backhanded compliment it is, just like all the other canned ad homs they use to avoid the issues (i.e. small penis, woman hater, afraid of women, can't get laid, bedwetter, and so on).
Richard
"Finally, your obsession about my sexual history says more about you than me. Sorry honey, I'm taken"
Yeah, by every prostitute under the age of 18.
"Take it for the backhanded compliment it is, just like all the other canned ad homs they use to avoid the issues (i.e. small penis, woman hater, afraid of women, can't get laid, bedwetter, and so on)."
Pot. Kettle. Black. You and Polish Knight do this stuff all the time. You can dish it out, but you can't take it. Really, if you can't handle it, there are other blogs like "Stand Your Ground" that promote that MRA/FRA crap. Go whine to them if you want someone to suck your dicks for you. I'm sure you'll get plenty of sympathy while you gripe about those evil femi-nazis. Otherwise, if you don't want trouble, don't go looking for it.
Wow! Virago, you proved Richard's point immediately with a cheap shaming ploy and then a sublimely hypocritical accusation of dishing it out and not taking it.
The MRA's aren't the ones simultaneously crying for government goodies and the opposite sex to bankroll them as housewives of the state while complaining that they should be left alone to do as they please. You're like a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum. You are in no way qualified to be a parent except to abandon a child at the many 'safe havens' society has had to construct to protect children from their own mothers' murderous impulses.
"Yaaaaawwwwwwwnnnnnn!" *falls asleep due to boredom* zzzzz...."
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