I finally found this study, it took a while since it was posted all the way back in 2005...I guess time flies when you're blogging.
Anyway, I love the spin they put on it: men are deciding to have fewer children due to higher child support...like men are the ones who make these decisions. It reminds me of the joke about how men change a light bulb: they just stand there and wait for the world to turn around them and twist the bulb in...self-centered...
Well we finally have a study linking child support enforcement to a lowering of single mother birth rates.
“Researchers at the University of Washington and Columbia University said Friday that child support laws' power to reduce single parenthood is an unintended consequence of a policy designed to help children and cut public welfare costs.”
Often the unintended effects are bad, so it's refreshing to see that," said lead study author Robert Plotnick, a University of Washington professor of public affairs. "Women living in states that do a better job of enforcing child support are less likely to become an unwed mother."
The really GOOD NEWS is that this clearly demonstrates that women do NOT have children to get child support; as the states that collect the MOST child support have demonstrated a 20% DROP in single motherhood. So if women were having kids to collect support you would see just the opposite happen with a 20% increase in single mothers to match the child support collected.
So another urban myth shot down.
This could be more BAD NEWS for those who hate mothers and like to spread lies about us.
AND MORE BAD NEWS:
Additional research will now be required to ascertain if actual population NUMBERS in any particular community are being impacted OR if this study's results just means more mothers getting married now, so no drop in overall population for any community has occurred. Although somehow I suspect this drop in numbers of single mothers is mainly translating into lower population within the African-American community.
AND one must always suspect any public policy where this is the ultimate outcome.
Thus the search for truth continues.
Study Ties State Laws, Unwed Child Births
By REBECCA COOK, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jun 18, 2005, 1:52 PM ET SEATTLE - Tough child support laws may dissuade men from becoming unwed fathers, as states with the most stringent laws and strict enforcement have up to 20 percent fewer out-of-wedlock births, a new study shows.
Researchers at the University of Washington and Columbia University said Friday that child support laws' power to reduce single parenthood is an unintended consequence of a policy designed to help children and cut public welfare costs.
"Often the unintended effects are bad, so it's refreshing to see that," said lead study author Robert Plotnick, a University of Washington professor of public affairs. "Women living in states that do a better job of enforcing child support are less likely to become an unwed mother."
The percentage of unmarried births in the United States has increased from 10 percent in the 1960s to about a third of all births today. Because children of single parents run a higher risk of poverty, academic failure and other problems, lawmakers are always seeking policies that will discourage unwed births — usually focusing on the mothers.
Researchers said their study recognizes the father's responsibility. "Decisions about sexual intercourse and marriage involve two people," said study co-author Irwin Garfinkel, a Columbia University professor and one of the nation's top experts on child support. The study, which has not yet been published, looked at a nationwide sample of 5,195 women of childbearing age using data from 1980-1993.
It didn't show whether tougher child support laws prevented pregnancies or encouraged marriage. Plotnick said the data limited the researchers to observing a strong correlation between tough child support enforcement and fewer out-of-wedlock births. Whether that's caused by fewer unmarried people getting pregnant or more couples marrying when the woman is expecting, he could not say. But he said the findings warrant further study.
"It's been very hard to find conventional programs that reduce unwed childbearing that work," Plotnick said Friday. "If you found a program cutting nonmarried births by 20 percent, you'd be happy."
Researchers noted wide disparities in child support policies. For example, in 2002 — the most recent year for which data were available — only one state, New Jersey, collected at least 80 percent of owed child support.
According to Columbia University's National Center for Children in Poverty, 31 states collected 41 percent to 60 percent of child support orders. The District of Columbia collected less than 20 percent of all child support owed.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
So-called Progressive Rulings Undermine Mothers' and Childrens' Rights
Virago, I was looking for some old posts of mine on how adoption of western legal systems in both Japan and Lebanon have been negatively impacting mothers and children in custody cases and I came across this...and I thought I'd re-post it...
I'm still searching for those other posts and the one on the Columbia University research...
But this one was interesting.
More of the On-going Manipulations of Men in their Never-Ending Attempts to be in Charge of Everything Again
Court hands sisters over to mother's lesbian lover
By Nick Britten
(Filed: 07/04/2006)
Two young sisters at the centre of a bitter custody battle were taken from their biological mother yesterday and sent to live with her former lesbian lover following a landmark court ruling.
The Court of Appeal ruled that although the natural mother had blood ties to the girls, that would no longer be deemed an advantage when both parties had brought the children up.
Because of their joint involvement they might both be considered the "natural parent", Lord Justice Thorpe said. The girls would be unable to distinguish between them on biological grounds.
The ruling marks a shift from the traditional view that the biological parent holds an advantage in custody battles.
The judge said: "We have moved into a world where norms that seemed safe 20 or more years ago no longer run. In the eyes of the child, the natural parent may be a non-biological parent who, by virtue of long settled care, has become the psychological parent."
The girls' natural mother, referred to as CG, had a seven-year relationship with her girlfriend, referred to as CW. She gave birth to the seven- and four-year-old sisters, known as A and B, via artificial insemination.
None of the parties can be identified to protect the girls' anonymity.
The court heard that the relationship broke down in 2002 and CG moved to a neighbouring house until she found a new lesbian partner in Leicester. They recently "married" in a civil partnership.
CW, 47, was denied access and any parental responsibility by a county court judge but this was overturned by the Court of Appeal last April and she was granted shared contact.
The judges said shared responsibility was "vital" for the girls' psychological health.
But as the children spent their summer holidays with CW, CG, a "headstrong and selfish" teacher, and her new partner secretly sold their house in Leicester and bought one in Cornwall, registering the children in a new school, a move the judges called "an appalling decision made in an afternoon". It was "a flagrant breach of the court's control of the arrangements for the children and an elaborate deception of CW".
When the family was tracked down, the High Court granted primary care of the children to the former partner, a decision ratified by the Court of Appeal yesterday.
Lord Justice Thorpe, dismissing the appeal, said that same-sex partners should have the same rights as estranged heterosexual couples, and that the child's views on which partner was the psychological parent should be considered.
Lady Justice Hallet said she dismissed the appeal but "with a degree of hesitation".
"I am very concerned at the prospect of removing these children from the primary care of their only identifiable biological parent who has been their primary carer for most of the young lives and in whose care they appear to be happy and thriving."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=SJGG2NJVRAPTFQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/04/07/nlesbian07.xml
Well it’s nice to see that this woman Lady Justice Hallet, had doubts, YET went along with the ruling anyway. How many ways can we say useless in English?
Once again demonstrating to mothers that putting other women into positions of power is no guarantee of any mercy being shown either to us or our children. Since some of the most vicious custody rulings against mothers have been handed down by other women.
Anyway, people are acting so stunned about this ruling but it’s nothing new, at least not in the US anyway and generally whatever we do here eventually finds it way to UK and every other country in western civilization.
So it was just a question of time before this lastest gender neutralized feminist fad hit British shores as well.
American Judges have been tossing out the whole notion of the mother/child bond for the last decade or so now and awarding children to live-in boyfriends (Christopher Rhodes perfect example: live in boyfriend who wanted a baby to play with, probably like you pick out a cute puppy at the pet shop), step persons, grandparents, recreational sperm donors missing in action for years. Probably even nannies and/or school teachers, a friendly neighbor will be eligible for custody next. That will be the next logical step in the progression of this mother-envy from a group of jealous male misfits and gender-neutralized feminists determined to destroy the last vestige of the bond between mother and child.
This is just more of the continuing disrespect and envy of men for mothers’ more important role in the bringing forth of life . Men cannot stand not being the center of the universe in something, so this is more of their never-ending attempts to neutralize mothers, more of their attention getting techniques such as this fixation with clown fish, penguins, other nonsense to give themselves a bigger role then merited by their actual real-life contribution.
As I have said in past posts, men are using these lesbian cases to get precedent set which will eventually negatively impact all mothers, both gay and straight.
Lesbians don’t appear to understand that going to court and winning these short-term victories ultimately winds up empowering MEN over WOMEN, each time they win a case.
This will eventually result in mothers having LESS RIGHTS overall, all mothers, BOTH gay and straight. It’s just a question of time before every one of these rulings will backfire on ALL mothers, ALL OF THEM. AND then everyone will be sitting around saying “how did that happen”…Well we can look back to this ruling and a 101 other rulings throughout western civilization that initially appear to be favoring lesbians, but in fact are nothing but men setting the backdrop for a loss of rights, respect, etc., for ALL mothers.
As EACH AND EVERY TIME a Judge tosses aside the biological connection between parent and child (like an old pair of shoes) that’s another nail in all mothers’ coffins as we are the supreme definitive biological connection to children…in spite of the way everyone wishes to paint a mother and father as being exactly alike in every way. In their hearts, I believe men know this to be a lie and this explains why their courts continue throwing out the biological connection to children and painting it as nothing very important. What they should be saying it that it’s not important to men, as their biological connection to children is tenuous, slight; something they sell in Great Britain for 15 lbs., obviously not something very important to them. However, God, evolution and nature obviously decreed only ONE of us to be the bearer of life…and that’s women in her role as mother.
Mother, under natural law, should automatically be deemed the custodian of her children, except in the rare cases of abuse and neglect, however the courts of men will continue to try to defy natural law. Mostly for reasons of envy, jealousy and greediness for the financial gain that comes with having custody of children today.
Additionally, I am going to make a small prediction. In another ten years NO WOMEN will be able to get impregnanted through anonymous insemination. NONE. Actually last year Great Britian made it illegal for a woman to have a child using anonymous insemination and I guarantee that this law will spread. YET now they have the audacity to paint themselves as concerned about lesbian families? This family they just decimated would not have EXISTED today, if it was up to Great Britain. It could NOT have, it would be illegal. Eventually it will probably be deemed some sort of crime to not name a man on the birth certificate of ever child born.
Thus, the gains lesbians thought they were making regarding creating their own families will have disappeared.
YET what will remain behind is the premise that a Judge can decide that the mother/child bond, which has existed since humanity first crawled out of the primal mist, is no longer of very much importance and that the courts of men have the right to hand a mother’s child over to someone else.
That is going to be the lesbian legacy to mothers and children.
Sadly, they are being used by men to pave the way for this continuing war against mothers and children, yet they just don’t see it and continue aiding and abetting these demented, jealous nitwits.
I'm still searching for those other posts and the one on the Columbia University research...
But this one was interesting.
More of the On-going Manipulations of Men in their Never-Ending Attempts to be in Charge of Everything Again
Court hands sisters over to mother's lesbian lover
By Nick Britten
(Filed: 07/04/2006)
Two young sisters at the centre of a bitter custody battle were taken from their biological mother yesterday and sent to live with her former lesbian lover following a landmark court ruling.
The Court of Appeal ruled that although the natural mother had blood ties to the girls, that would no longer be deemed an advantage when both parties had brought the children up.
Because of their joint involvement they might both be considered the "natural parent", Lord Justice Thorpe said. The girls would be unable to distinguish between them on biological grounds.
The ruling marks a shift from the traditional view that the biological parent holds an advantage in custody battles.
The judge said: "We have moved into a world where norms that seemed safe 20 or more years ago no longer run. In the eyes of the child, the natural parent may be a non-biological parent who, by virtue of long settled care, has become the psychological parent."
The girls' natural mother, referred to as CG, had a seven-year relationship with her girlfriend, referred to as CW. She gave birth to the seven- and four-year-old sisters, known as A and B, via artificial insemination.
None of the parties can be identified to protect the girls' anonymity.
The court heard that the relationship broke down in 2002 and CG moved to a neighbouring house until she found a new lesbian partner in Leicester. They recently "married" in a civil partnership.
CW, 47, was denied access and any parental responsibility by a county court judge but this was overturned by the Court of Appeal last April and she was granted shared contact.
The judges said shared responsibility was "vital" for the girls' psychological health.
But as the children spent their summer holidays with CW, CG, a "headstrong and selfish" teacher, and her new partner secretly sold their house in Leicester and bought one in Cornwall, registering the children in a new school, a move the judges called "an appalling decision made in an afternoon". It was "a flagrant breach of the court's control of the arrangements for the children and an elaborate deception of CW".
When the family was tracked down, the High Court granted primary care of the children to the former partner, a decision ratified by the Court of Appeal yesterday.
Lord Justice Thorpe, dismissing the appeal, said that same-sex partners should have the same rights as estranged heterosexual couples, and that the child's views on which partner was the psychological parent should be considered.
Lady Justice Hallet said she dismissed the appeal but "with a degree of hesitation".
"I am very concerned at the prospect of removing these children from the primary care of their only identifiable biological parent who has been their primary carer for most of the young lives and in whose care they appear to be happy and thriving."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=SJGG2NJVRAPTFQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/04/07/nlesbian07.xml
Well it’s nice to see that this woman Lady Justice Hallet, had doubts, YET went along with the ruling anyway. How many ways can we say useless in English?
Once again demonstrating to mothers that putting other women into positions of power is no guarantee of any mercy being shown either to us or our children. Since some of the most vicious custody rulings against mothers have been handed down by other women.
Anyway, people are acting so stunned about this ruling but it’s nothing new, at least not in the US anyway and generally whatever we do here eventually finds it way to UK and every other country in western civilization.
So it was just a question of time before this lastest gender neutralized feminist fad hit British shores as well.
American Judges have been tossing out the whole notion of the mother/child bond for the last decade or so now and awarding children to live-in boyfriends (Christopher Rhodes perfect example: live in boyfriend who wanted a baby to play with, probably like you pick out a cute puppy at the pet shop), step persons, grandparents, recreational sperm donors missing in action for years. Probably even nannies and/or school teachers, a friendly neighbor will be eligible for custody next. That will be the next logical step in the progression of this mother-envy from a group of jealous male misfits and gender-neutralized feminists determined to destroy the last vestige of the bond between mother and child.
This is just more of the continuing disrespect and envy of men for mothers’ more important role in the bringing forth of life . Men cannot stand not being the center of the universe in something, so this is more of their never-ending attempts to neutralize mothers, more of their attention getting techniques such as this fixation with clown fish, penguins, other nonsense to give themselves a bigger role then merited by their actual real-life contribution.
As I have said in past posts, men are using these lesbian cases to get precedent set which will eventually negatively impact all mothers, both gay and straight.
Lesbians don’t appear to understand that going to court and winning these short-term victories ultimately winds up empowering MEN over WOMEN, each time they win a case.
This will eventually result in mothers having LESS RIGHTS overall, all mothers, BOTH gay and straight. It’s just a question of time before every one of these rulings will backfire on ALL mothers, ALL OF THEM. AND then everyone will be sitting around saying “how did that happen”…Well we can look back to this ruling and a 101 other rulings throughout western civilization that initially appear to be favoring lesbians, but in fact are nothing but men setting the backdrop for a loss of rights, respect, etc., for ALL mothers.
As EACH AND EVERY TIME a Judge tosses aside the biological connection between parent and child (like an old pair of shoes) that’s another nail in all mothers’ coffins as we are the supreme definitive biological connection to children…in spite of the way everyone wishes to paint a mother and father as being exactly alike in every way. In their hearts, I believe men know this to be a lie and this explains why their courts continue throwing out the biological connection to children and painting it as nothing very important. What they should be saying it that it’s not important to men, as their biological connection to children is tenuous, slight; something they sell in Great Britain for 15 lbs., obviously not something very important to them. However, God, evolution and nature obviously decreed only ONE of us to be the bearer of life…and that’s women in her role as mother.
Mother, under natural law, should automatically be deemed the custodian of her children, except in the rare cases of abuse and neglect, however the courts of men will continue to try to defy natural law. Mostly for reasons of envy, jealousy and greediness for the financial gain that comes with having custody of children today.
Additionally, I am going to make a small prediction. In another ten years NO WOMEN will be able to get impregnanted through anonymous insemination. NONE. Actually last year Great Britian made it illegal for a woman to have a child using anonymous insemination and I guarantee that this law will spread. YET now they have the audacity to paint themselves as concerned about lesbian families? This family they just decimated would not have EXISTED today, if it was up to Great Britain. It could NOT have, it would be illegal. Eventually it will probably be deemed some sort of crime to not name a man on the birth certificate of ever child born.
Thus, the gains lesbians thought they were making regarding creating their own families will have disappeared.
YET what will remain behind is the premise that a Judge can decide that the mother/child bond, which has existed since humanity first crawled out of the primal mist, is no longer of very much importance and that the courts of men have the right to hand a mother’s child over to someone else.
That is going to be the lesbian legacy to mothers and children.
Sadly, they are being used by men to pave the way for this continuing war against mothers and children, yet they just don’t see it and continue aiding and abetting these demented, jealous nitwits.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Best of Luck Silverside with your new Blog....
One of my old posters started her own blog called Dastardy Dads. It's a little gory but I thought I'd post a comment on it when I read this story...however, I couldn't so I put the comment on my blog instead.
Anyway, best of luck with your blog Silverside.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Custodial dad murders 3 children (Taif, Saudi Arabia)
UNNAMED DAD had custody of the children, as is the legal custom in Saudi Arabia. His wife had left him and returned to her father's home. She had wanted, somehow, to get the children back. But that won't happen now that Dad has stabbed two of the children to death, and beheaded the third.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=124700&d=20&m=7&y=2009&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
Monday 20 July 2009 (27 Rajab 1430)
Soaked in blood, killer dad called cops
Arab News
TAIF: More details have come out in the cold-blooded murder of three children by their father in Al-Qumriyah district of this highland city in the Western Region. According to Sunday’s edition of the local daily Shams, the father is a former military police officer in his 50s who was crippled last year in a car accident that ended his career. His wife left him some time after the accident and went back to live with her family.
After murdering his three children, the man — whose name is not being made public — called police to inform them of his crime and waited at his home, drenched in blood, for the authorities to arrive and arrest him.
Shams described the crime in detail, presumably citing official reports. After his brothers left the house, the man began with his six-year-old daughter, Siham, stabbing her more than 10 times in the chest and abdomen. Five-year-old Raid came next; the father beheaded him. Then the man went after seven-month-old Lamis, stabbing the baby girl to death.
Some neighbors say the father committed the crime after receiving a telephone call from his wife who threatened that she would take the three children from him.
Posted by silverside at 8:10 AM
Labels: child death, custodial dad, murder
Response by NYMOM
I don't know if you are aware of it but under strict Islamic Law a child under the age of 7 or 9 years old is supposed to be in the custody of their mother and her family (in the event or divorce)...
So as usual men want to have it both ways...they want to claim they are strictly religious and go by Sharia law but then they also want to follow the western secular law code to give themselves custody when Sharia law and custom would deny it...
What else is new.
Actually Sharia law codes can be better for mothers of young children then our secular western ones.
Fancy that now!!!!!
Anyway, best of luck with your blog Silverside.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Custodial dad murders 3 children (Taif, Saudi Arabia)
UNNAMED DAD had custody of the children, as is the legal custom in Saudi Arabia. His wife had left him and returned to her father's home. She had wanted, somehow, to get the children back. But that won't happen now that Dad has stabbed two of the children to death, and beheaded the third.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=124700&d=20&m=7&y=2009&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
Monday 20 July 2009 (27 Rajab 1430)
Soaked in blood, killer dad called cops
Arab News
TAIF: More details have come out in the cold-blooded murder of three children by their father in Al-Qumriyah district of this highland city in the Western Region. According to Sunday’s edition of the local daily Shams, the father is a former military police officer in his 50s who was crippled last year in a car accident that ended his career. His wife left him some time after the accident and went back to live with her family.
After murdering his three children, the man — whose name is not being made public — called police to inform them of his crime and waited at his home, drenched in blood, for the authorities to arrive and arrest him.
Shams described the crime in detail, presumably citing official reports. After his brothers left the house, the man began with his six-year-old daughter, Siham, stabbing her more than 10 times in the chest and abdomen. Five-year-old Raid came next; the father beheaded him. Then the man went after seven-month-old Lamis, stabbing the baby girl to death.
Some neighbors say the father committed the crime after receiving a telephone call from his wife who threatened that she would take the three children from him.
Posted by silverside at 8:10 AM
Labels: child death, custodial dad, murder
Response by NYMOM
I don't know if you are aware of it but under strict Islamic Law a child under the age of 7 or 9 years old is supposed to be in the custody of their mother and her family (in the event or divorce)...
So as usual men want to have it both ways...they want to claim they are strictly religious and go by Sharia law but then they also want to follow the western secular law code to give themselves custody when Sharia law and custom would deny it...
What else is new.
Actually Sharia law codes can be better for mothers of young children then our secular western ones.
Fancy that now!!!!!
Monday, July 13, 2009
Interesting Retrospective
I had a comment on this post (which I had forgotten about) so I decided to re-post it for two reasons. One, the comments were interesting; and two, I banned a poster named Anne...
In retrospect, I should not have banned her(especially considering I've let Polish Knight and Richard remain w/o banning them for the same behavior)...
Oh well, with age comes wisdom...
Monday, May 29, 2006
Swimming Against the Tide of Historic Change
Divorce ruling could apply to old cases
Lords decision means women may go back to court to claim more money
Clare Dyer, legal editor
Monday May 29, 2006
The Guardian
A landmark House of Lords ruling last week could open the way for hundreds of divorced women to go back to court for more money, according to leading lawyers.
The principle laid down by the law lords that women who gave up a well-paid career to raise children were entitled to compensation for their sacrifice has come too late for partners who divorced with a clean break. But those still receiving maintenance from high-earning former husbands could go back to court to ask for a big increase, lawyers said, even if their divorce was years ago.
This week the Law Commission, the official legal reform body, will unveil proposals to give unmarried partners who live together the right to claim limited financial support and a share of property when the relationship ends. The consultation paper, commissioned by the government, will stop short of recommending full divorce rights but will suggest a safety net to prevent hardship. A draft bill is due in August next year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,1785195,00.html
My first thought is that this ruling (similar to the recent one which made anonymous sperm donations illegal) was more of the tendencies of Great Britain to hold back the forces of historic change. Men clearly do not wish to be constrained by society in their behaviors. They wish to have sex freely, married or not, and if a pregnancy unexpectedly occurs, they wish to have the sole up or down vote on whether to be an involved father or not, pay child support or not, marry the mother or not, whatever.
Yet there is no obvious advantage for women in any of this.
Thus societies that allow men to avoid the responsibility to provide for womens' security and welfare, while still allowing men legal rights to the children women alone bear, will continue to decline in numbers.
Men just can't seem to accept the fact that this is something that woman is the final arbitrator of: IF, WHEN and how MANY children she'll ultimately bear. The old days are gone FOREVER as reproductive technology changed the equation.
Okay.
Women now control their own bodies, reproductive choices and there isn't anything that is going to change that. If anything as the technology improves, it will get worse. Men will NEVER be in charge of those decisions again. Involvement with children will be a gift women chose to share with men, MAYBE, always contingent upon you being on your BEST behavior.
Okay, just to be clear.
So what to do?
I think the more sensible, but politically more difficult, way to handle it would have been to accept the irreversible nature of the change and allow women, who wished to be mothers but didn't have a husband, to access reproductive services and public benefits freely, openly, and without finger pointing on an as needed basis. This would have had the benefit of keeping women who wished to be mothers happy, the countries' population numbers stable as the idea caught on and having children through anonymous sperm donations lost its stigma.
Most importantly it would have shown men that if they wished to play at being head of a family (becoming a father), they would have to pay (through a marriage). Those who were actually concerned with being fathers would have married to do it as they have in the past and toed the line thereafter. Those who weren't would not have and thus have no rights or responsibilities to any children they carelessly spawned but could keep all their money/property for themselves (outside of taxes) and that would have shut them up.
NOW Great Britian has alienated most men by this ruling and while it has made most women happy, I see it as just a question of time before the law gets subverted by men from its original intent. Which is to provide women with the security that would allow them to bear children (and be a stay-at-home mother to them if they wished) without having to worry about economic penalties at some later date.
I guarantee you that looking back a year or two from now, women will have gained little or no real benefit from this law.
Just my opinion.
But anyway...
There is nothing so unusual about this ‘new’ law in Great Britain which allows women, who gave up their career to bear children and then become stay-at-home mothers, to be compensated adequately in the event of a later divorce. Frankly I think it makes a lot of sense as Great Britain, which is trying to get their population numbers up like every other industrialized country, has finally seen which sex is directly at fault for their declining birth rates and it’s clearly selfish men.
Women will have few children if they have to charge back to work again immediately after birth, not to mention the constant delays that inevitably ensue if she is forced to jockey for positions in her career choice. Frequently the time involved in this translates into no kids. We only need to look at the successful career women such as Maureen Dowd or Condi Rice in our own society to see the impact this has. As how many men at that ‘uber’ level would be alone with no children???
Anyway, their American cousins and many other countries have been following this formula for awarding alimony for years. Actually it doesn’t impact a lot of people as few couples today can afford to NOT have both parents working. Yet for the high-income men whose wives do stay home to bear and raise their children, then yes, it’s a good thing for those women and children and should be encouraged. Only a stingy cheapskate would be against his kids having their mother around when they are young and then him compensating her for that sacrifice later. Most of these men, who will be impacted by this, are worth millions, so too bad about them if they don’t like it.
In the US only 15% of all divorces include any award of alimony and only half collect (and this includes men who collect alimony as well after contributing nothing unique to the marriage, just because they can collect it), so this won’t be a big issue in most people’s lives. I’m sure Great Britain will follow the trajectory of the US pretty closely in this as it does much else since our societies are similar.
As always, men will now try to latch onto this ruling to benefit themselves and attempt to get alimony from so-called ‘high flying’ women, who frequently are just ordinary women who managed to buy a house before marriage or inherited a small sum from a deceased family member, but the bottom line is this sort of ‘sacrifice compensation’ needs to be limited to women ONLY. The ones who actually bring something unique to the marital relationship, womens childbearing capacity, This should not include some man who just up and quits his job one day and decides to lay around on the couch watching TV 24/7. Tossing a stale potato chip to the kids every once in a while during a commercial should not entitle you to anything.
So that aspect of it needs to be carefully monitored, but otherwise this ruling was ‘spot on’.
The other ruling from the House of Lords, which wasn’t mentioned in this article, pertained to fault being taken into account when settling marital property issues. This law is far more likely to affect ordinary people. Yet again, the Lords were spot on in their decision. The US also takes fault into account vis-à-vis property issues (at least many states do); although fault cannot be used to decide custody. Although frankly I think it should be used in the event of a tie-breaker custody situation, everything else being equal, the one at fault should forfeit custody.
Anyway to use fault to decide property issues is completely just. You’re a bad boy or girl during the life of the marriage and it causes a divorce, you should be ‘punished’ and a hit in the pocketbook seems to be appropriate for a capitalist society to use as punishment. I mean what else can we do, flog them??? Not that some of them don’t deserve it, as I could easily see that Charlie Sheen meriting a good whipping for all the stuff he does; yet we are in a civilized society, so must adhere to the norms of where we live.
Unfortunately in some cases...
Last, but not least the most interesting part I find is what they haven’t done yet, but are just looking into, which is the abililty to treat live-in relationships as if they were defacto married ones. I’m not completely sure this is right, especially if children are involved. Yet if it makes parents stop and think before they carelessly expose their children to a casual relationship by moving in with someone they hardly know, then it could morph into a good thing.
Clearly parents should know better but many don’t. So again what else can we do but hit them in the pocketbook when they exhibit unsavory behavior. Again, this is appropriate for a capitalist society to do. Parents who persist in exposing their kids to one live in relationship after another raise the sorts of screwy, unstable adults that impact all the rest of us negatively, so, the House of Lords could be spot on for three in a row.
These are ALL good rulings.
Men don’t like it, don’t marry, don’t have kids, actually go live on a desert island somewhere so you can just die off and not impact anyone else with your behavior. But don’t think that the societies that allow you to become as wealthy as you are will continue allowing you to use them for all your benefits, while giving nothing back but aggravation.
Of course, as I said above, these rulings were the lesser of two evils that the British lords chose to go with, since anything else would have caused too much unheaval in their society over the short-term.
Long-term these laws will just delay the inevitable change that has followed the advent of reproductive technology which has swung the balance of power in favor of women for the first time in history. It's application plays to womens' ONE essential strength, which is that we are the ONLY ones who are the bearers of life and can chose to quite simply not bear any. Thus, we can as passive/aggressive as we wish and still hold all the aces up our sleeves. It's called Anne Boleyn's Revenge for those history buffs out there: ie., "You're never going to have a son Henry or any other kids because me and my girlfriends just decided to form a bowling league and I can't bowl and be pregnant at the same time. Or a shopping league or need to be at work early everyday for the next decade. Truly sorry old bean. Why not get a little dog to play with instead?"
Women don't need to start any wars or invent some new destructive technology to wield this power either, that's the beauty of it.
Men, unable or unwilling to accept womens new status are the source of much of the current unroar, yet they will just have to get over it...
posted by NYMOM | Monday, May 29, 2006
11 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
12:36 AM
Anonymous ManMan said...
Now men now can have surrogate mother to bear their children or adopt. So using yout crass logic and inane thinking I would say we should encourage men to use surrogate mother more often especially third world mothers and make sure they are paid adequately. It should be freely given by the government and using our taxes. That way we can increase the population and men can become fathers.
I feel sorry for any sons that have a mother like you. Damn feminist, your sons will eventually become men who will get screwed by the system you helped create.
A few words you should learn the meaning of: Misandry, Fascism, Feminazism and Dementia.
Statistics: Single mothers in the UK still provide the highest number of violent criminals and murders. What life givers! Great for our prison system and society as a whole, as it help employment levels in these sectors.
Men remember that there are always other oriental fish in this world. Go abroad, marry abroad and live abroad. The UK sucks. You can still find Italian women that are still feminine, and we all know about Asian women. The world is your oyster.
10:01 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hi, NYMOM.
"Women now control their own bodies, reproductive choices and there isn't anything that is going to change that. If anything as the technology improves, it will get worse. Men will NEVER be in charge of those decisions again. Involvement with children will be a gift women chose to share with men, MAYBE, always contingent upon you being on your BEST behavior."
I would not go so far as to say "never" here. The same reproductive technology that has given women most of the control over reproduction at the present time will eventually render actual physical childbearing unnecessary. Though I'm sure I won't be alive to see it, I would be very interested to know how laws will evolve to serve the interests of children and the family when childbearing itself is no longer a "unique" contribution and neither gender has any clubs to use against the other with regard to children.
"This should not include some man who just up and quits his job one day and decides to lay around on the couch watching TV 24/7. Tossing a stale potato chip to the kids every once in a while during a commercial should not entitle you to anything."
Do you really want to perpetuate negative stereotypes about stay-at-home parents, exactly as Mr. Nemko was doing?
"It's application plays to womens' ONE essential strength, which is that we are the ONLY ones who are the bearers of life and can chose to quite simply not bear any. Thus, we can as passive/aggressive as we wish and still hold all the aces up our sleeves."
NYMOM, this is the classic radical MRA "marriage strike" philosophy turned around. The thing is, if men really are less interested in having children than women are, as I know you believe and which I personally doubt, then it doesn't work very well the way you've set it out.
Thanks,
Anne
4:31 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
Sorry I was away on vacation and just got back yesterday so missed that vulgar comment which I just removed. I told people already that I am not allowing any more vulgar language or senseless nonsense to be posted on this blog.
If you have something interesting to add to the debate or ideas (as I've said in my introduction) to assist mothers, fine. Otherwise don't bother posting.
5:56 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
"Now men now can have surrogate mother to bear their children or adopt."
Yes men can, however I believe few will do so. As my feeling remains that few men are that interested in children. Most will not go through the trouble and expense of locating a surrogate and/or arranging an adoption.
Just like we went through the whole emotional trauma route 20 years or so ago about agreeing to allow single men to adopt. We finally got the laws to allow it in most states and guess what, 20 years later few single men, gay or straight, have adopted kids.
So people's essential natures don't change because technology does.
AND don't think this business of going to third world countries to use their young women as egg donors or surrogate mothers is going to be allowed to continue much longer. I guarantee you that those countries will get fed up with it as well. Just as soon as the information becomes widely disseminated amongst the common people there, they'll veto this nonsense, so don't be making plans for much longer thinking this will be continuing. It's a fluke or short-term condition, like cheap oil used to be which will end as soon as people in those countries become aware of what's going on.
BTW, you don't need to feel sorry for any of my sons. A. I don't have any. I'm a grandmother and not having any more kids, and B. even if I did have any sons, I'd still feel the same way.
You don't encourage your children to take advantage of others just because they can. It's like telling me if my kids owned slaves I wouldn't be against slavery because it benefitted my children.
No, a moral wrong is wrong whether or not your kids or you are advantaged by it.
6:11 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
"I would not go so far as to say never here. The same reproductive technology that has given women most of the control over reproduction at the present time will eventually render actual physical childbearing unnecessary".
First of all this is a mistake most people make. The assumption that technology has given women our control over reproduction.
Women have NOT been given OUR control over OUR reproduction by technology. This is something that the female of every species, as well as our own, has ALWAYS had.
It is our birthright.
Not something men, feminism, technology or laws have 'given' us; like a gift or something that women need to be grateful for...
No.
Wrong. That's ours, not something we've been given.
AND again, as I've said before, technology might allow men to bypass women someday in order to have their own children; however, I don't think most of them will bother doing it. Frankly I don't find men to be that interested in children and if it becomes costly and/or troublesome to have them, I believe most will just forego the whole thing.
As Polish Knight pointed out to me, (and I must admit I hadn't thought of it until he did) women themselves will probably use the artificial womb technology more then men. They'll do it to have children w/o disfiguring their bodies through a pregnancy. The same way MOST women jumped on the technology of bottle feeding formula to not disfigure their breasts.
"Do you really want to perpetuate negative sterotypes about stay-at-home parents"
I NEVER claimed to support stay-at-home PARENTS but stay-at-home mothers. I do happen to believe that children benefit from having their mothers around in their early years. She's the one who has invested the most in them up to that point and God, evolution and nature itself has already designated mothers as the one most likely to always act in her childrens' best interest.
That's the way it has been for million of years in every species as well as our own, with the exception of a few snakes, bugs and penguins which I don't care about...so I'm not going to second guess evolution the way others always like to do.
Women can chose to allow their childrens' fathers or other caretakers to raise them if they wish (I would never outlaw these choices), but as far as I'm concerned it's the second best option and always will be.
"...this is the classical radical MRA marriage strike turned around..."
Again wrong.
My observation is new as women were never credited with having any power before this.
As I don't consider the MRA marraige strike to be something radical or new. As men have been trying to get out of marriage since the time of Augustus Caesar. Probably even before that, but the Romans just kept better records then other civilizations, so we know more about them.
We have to face the fact that men contribute nothing unique to society when they don't marry today (actually if you want to be honest about it, even when they do marry they bring little to the table nowadays)...Women, on the other hand, even w/o marrying still clearly wish to have children. Actually the out-of-wedlock birth rate is growing faster then the in-wedlock rate and many believe will soon surpass it.
So women are still fulfiling the vital role of providing the next generation, even when men fail to hold up their end of the social contract because they've decided to go on strike.
Overall if you want to be honest, you could make the case that for a capitalist society, we are better off w/o people marrying since having two households is better then one since two spend more on goods and services.
However, we still need children.
Our government is ONLY interested in people marrying because marriages USED to be the ONLY way to produce the new citizens every society needed to flourish. Thus, in a society like ours where men refuse to marry, guess what, their value goes waaaaay down.
Most women on the other hand, retain the same value.
Combine that observation with the higher rates of crime, civil unrest, wars and other violence perpetuated by societies with a lot of men and societies populated mainly by women start to look a lot more attractive.
That's why I also mentioned but you overlooked it that it was foolish for England (a rapidly depopulating country) to make it illegal for single women to use anonymous sperm donors any longer. Actually they should have made it easier for women to obtain these, even offering a bonus to women for having children (even if single).
But men as always, would rather cut off their noses to spite their faces, then relinguish control of anything...their motto as always remains if they aren't in charge of it, it just can't happen.
They and you continue trying to ignore the fact that women contribute something unique to the world and men simply do not. AND until they can accept the fact of women's uniqueness and more valuable contribution as being the bearer of life, this power struggle will continue.
Those days of women being second-class citizens are over.
7:05 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
"Women have NOT been given OUR control over OUR reproduction by technology. This is something that the female of every species, as well as our own, has ALWAYS had."
You just got through stating that women now control their own bodies (thru effective birth control and safe abortion, if I understand you correctly) and that this is something new, and that you believe that developing technology with even increase that control. Of course technology HAS given women control over reproduction. How many women in times gone by actually WANTED to give birth to ten-plus children? Queen Victoria, mother of nine, considered childbearing the dirty little trick God plays on women for enjoying sex. My own grandmother didn't even want the one child she had, but if she wanted to make love with her husband she had to assume the risk and the consequences. And she was far from unique. This is no longer the case today.
"So women are still fulfiling the vital role of providing the next generation, even when men fail to hold up their end of the social contract because they've decided to go on strike."
I've seen little evidence that "men" in general are on strike, although doubtlessly they have more to lose on average by risking marriage than does the average woman. Only a few on the fringe, relatively speaking, are decidedly shunning marriage.
"Overall if you want to be honest, you could make the case that for a capitalist society, we are better off w/o people marrying since having two households is better then one since two spend more on goods and services. However, we still need children. Our government is ONLY interested in people marrying because marriages USED to be the ONLY way to produce the new citizens every society needed to flourish."
And two single-parent households, require more public help than one married household (which is the main reason why government is interested in people marrying) and if we're talking economics and capitalism then such homes most certainly will have less capital, if any, for discretionary spending and, more importantly, investment. Which is why I always hate to see the cycle of single parenting start in a family, since it is strongly self-replicating and seldom leads upward. At the risk of sounding elitist, which is not my intention, it appears that the more intelligent, educated, successful and upwardly-mobile classes are predominately made up of those who understand that the best way to accumulate wealth and to ensure the success and security of one's offspring is to become educated, to marry at an appropriate time, to have children within that marriage only, and most importantly to REMAIN married.
"...actually if you want to be honest about it, even when they do marry they bring little to the table nowadays..."
Except the proven advantage that children from intact homes possess.
"As Polish Knight pointed out to me, (and I must admit I hadn't thought of it until he did) women themselves will probably use the artificial womb technology more then men."
I agree.
"Women can chose to allow their childrens' fathers or other caretakers to raise them if they wish (I would never outlaw these choices), but as far as I'm concerned it's the second best option and always will be."
Be that as it may be, it is nevertheless rather unfair to characterize the work of stay-at-home dads, many of whom are doing a fine job, in such a derogatory manner.
Hope you had an enjoyable vacation. We're saving ours for the hottest part of the summer, when we hope to escape to Pennsylvania.
Thanks,
Anne
3:28 AM
Blogger NYMOM said...
"You just got through stating that women now control their own bodies..."
Sorry I took your original response to mean (as you referenced men having children without women) that technology has finally given women control over our CHILDREN. AND I don't accept that as being valid.
Yes, technology has given women control over their reproduction processes but women in every society, in every age, in every species as well as our own, have always had control over the children our bodies produced...this is a misunderstanding of history to suggest otherwise.
Actually it just came to my attention that under Muslim 'sharia' law there is a recognition that children should be under their mother's care at least until the age of 7, some say 9 years old...so although western man talks a lot of crap about how much better he is then his Islamic brothers regarding the treatment of women, I find no equivalence in the west to that bit of common sense...
"but if she wanted to make love to her husband, she had to assume the risks and consequences"
Yes, of course, I'm sure that was the driving force behind the invention of birth control. So WOMEN could have sex without consequences.
"I've seen little evidence that 'men' in general are on strike."
So why did you bring it up then? Just to invalidate what I said I guess. So it's okay to say anything, even if you don't believe it is true, as long as you can use it to invalidate your opponent's argument.
Got it.
"they have more to lose on average by risking marriage then the average women"
Really, like what. Since according to the census only 15% of ALL divorces involved alimony and of that 15% ONLY 7% actually collect it. AND that figure includes men like Halle Berry's husband who cheated on her 29 times and STILL got awarded alimony. I'm still trying to figure out how the Judge figured he deserved that in a short-term marriage, that produced no children, where he contributed absolutely NOTHING...
Actually he could have damaged her career by his behavior if she had continued ignoring it.
In a world where both people generally work in most households, at least in the US and few have assets other then their marital home and maybe a TDA what do men risk exactly????
This is more statistical lies and bullcrap being fed to men about how much they stand to lose in a marriage. MOST stand to lose nothing as most have little...
"two single parent households require more help then one married household"
Exactly my point: the government doesn't CARE about your marital status if you are not producing children...thus, the children are the reason for the focus, not the marital status.
So men being on a 'marriage strike' means diddly squat to the state if women continue producing children without benefit of marriage.
"which is why I always hate to see the cycle of single parenting start in a family"
Even if most of the statistics about single mothers are based upon men's statistical lies???? Like their marriage strike lie? Then how do you feel about them?
I don't consider this blog to be about fairness to stay-at-home dads. This is a site about women in their role as mothers. If you want to hear great things about dads, there are plenty of other places to find that sort of propaganda.
10:35 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
2:28 AM
Blogger NYMOM said...
Goodbye Anne.
I told you already I'm not interested in this constant back and forth of you trying to invalidate everything I post here.
Thanks but no thanks.
If you have some ideas to contribute to help with the current situation where millions of mothers have lost their children, fine. I'm open to hearing them.
Otherwise don't bother coming here.
11:10 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I love the hostility to men and general presumption that women are better than men on this site. It so reflects British and American society.
No sensible man is going to marry under current laws. We're not going to pay taxes so women can live off public assistance either.
We can always go to other countries where there is more equality and surrogate parenthood is open to us as well. If women don't want equal relationships we can have families without them.
4:39 PM
In retrospect, I should not have banned her(especially considering I've let Polish Knight and Richard remain w/o banning them for the same behavior)...
Oh well, with age comes wisdom...
Monday, May 29, 2006
Swimming Against the Tide of Historic Change
Divorce ruling could apply to old cases
Lords decision means women may go back to court to claim more money
Clare Dyer, legal editor
Monday May 29, 2006
The Guardian
A landmark House of Lords ruling last week could open the way for hundreds of divorced women to go back to court for more money, according to leading lawyers.
The principle laid down by the law lords that women who gave up a well-paid career to raise children were entitled to compensation for their sacrifice has come too late for partners who divorced with a clean break. But those still receiving maintenance from high-earning former husbands could go back to court to ask for a big increase, lawyers said, even if their divorce was years ago.
This week the Law Commission, the official legal reform body, will unveil proposals to give unmarried partners who live together the right to claim limited financial support and a share of property when the relationship ends. The consultation paper, commissioned by the government, will stop short of recommending full divorce rights but will suggest a safety net to prevent hardship. A draft bill is due in August next year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,1785195,00.html
My first thought is that this ruling (similar to the recent one which made anonymous sperm donations illegal) was more of the tendencies of Great Britain to hold back the forces of historic change. Men clearly do not wish to be constrained by society in their behaviors. They wish to have sex freely, married or not, and if a pregnancy unexpectedly occurs, they wish to have the sole up or down vote on whether to be an involved father or not, pay child support or not, marry the mother or not, whatever.
Yet there is no obvious advantage for women in any of this.
Thus societies that allow men to avoid the responsibility to provide for womens' security and welfare, while still allowing men legal rights to the children women alone bear, will continue to decline in numbers.
Men just can't seem to accept the fact that this is something that woman is the final arbitrator of: IF, WHEN and how MANY children she'll ultimately bear. The old days are gone FOREVER as reproductive technology changed the equation.
Okay.
Women now control their own bodies, reproductive choices and there isn't anything that is going to change that. If anything as the technology improves, it will get worse. Men will NEVER be in charge of those decisions again. Involvement with children will be a gift women chose to share with men, MAYBE, always contingent upon you being on your BEST behavior.
Okay, just to be clear.
So what to do?
I think the more sensible, but politically more difficult, way to handle it would have been to accept the irreversible nature of the change and allow women, who wished to be mothers but didn't have a husband, to access reproductive services and public benefits freely, openly, and without finger pointing on an as needed basis. This would have had the benefit of keeping women who wished to be mothers happy, the countries' population numbers stable as the idea caught on and having children through anonymous sperm donations lost its stigma.
Most importantly it would have shown men that if they wished to play at being head of a family (becoming a father), they would have to pay (through a marriage). Those who were actually concerned with being fathers would have married to do it as they have in the past and toed the line thereafter. Those who weren't would not have and thus have no rights or responsibilities to any children they carelessly spawned but could keep all their money/property for themselves (outside of taxes) and that would have shut them up.
NOW Great Britian has alienated most men by this ruling and while it has made most women happy, I see it as just a question of time before the law gets subverted by men from its original intent. Which is to provide women with the security that would allow them to bear children (and be a stay-at-home mother to them if they wished) without having to worry about economic penalties at some later date.
I guarantee you that looking back a year or two from now, women will have gained little or no real benefit from this law.
Just my opinion.
But anyway...
There is nothing so unusual about this ‘new’ law in Great Britain which allows women, who gave up their career to bear children and then become stay-at-home mothers, to be compensated adequately in the event of a later divorce. Frankly I think it makes a lot of sense as Great Britain, which is trying to get their population numbers up like every other industrialized country, has finally seen which sex is directly at fault for their declining birth rates and it’s clearly selfish men.
Women will have few children if they have to charge back to work again immediately after birth, not to mention the constant delays that inevitably ensue if she is forced to jockey for positions in her career choice. Frequently the time involved in this translates into no kids. We only need to look at the successful career women such as Maureen Dowd or Condi Rice in our own society to see the impact this has. As how many men at that ‘uber’ level would be alone with no children???
Anyway, their American cousins and many other countries have been following this formula for awarding alimony for years. Actually it doesn’t impact a lot of people as few couples today can afford to NOT have both parents working. Yet for the high-income men whose wives do stay home to bear and raise their children, then yes, it’s a good thing for those women and children and should be encouraged. Only a stingy cheapskate would be against his kids having their mother around when they are young and then him compensating her for that sacrifice later. Most of these men, who will be impacted by this, are worth millions, so too bad about them if they don’t like it.
In the US only 15% of all divorces include any award of alimony and only half collect (and this includes men who collect alimony as well after contributing nothing unique to the marriage, just because they can collect it), so this won’t be a big issue in most people’s lives. I’m sure Great Britain will follow the trajectory of the US pretty closely in this as it does much else since our societies are similar.
As always, men will now try to latch onto this ruling to benefit themselves and attempt to get alimony from so-called ‘high flying’ women, who frequently are just ordinary women who managed to buy a house before marriage or inherited a small sum from a deceased family member, but the bottom line is this sort of ‘sacrifice compensation’ needs to be limited to women ONLY. The ones who actually bring something unique to the marital relationship, womens childbearing capacity, This should not include some man who just up and quits his job one day and decides to lay around on the couch watching TV 24/7. Tossing a stale potato chip to the kids every once in a while during a commercial should not entitle you to anything.
So that aspect of it needs to be carefully monitored, but otherwise this ruling was ‘spot on’.
The other ruling from the House of Lords, which wasn’t mentioned in this article, pertained to fault being taken into account when settling marital property issues. This law is far more likely to affect ordinary people. Yet again, the Lords were spot on in their decision. The US also takes fault into account vis-à-vis property issues (at least many states do); although fault cannot be used to decide custody. Although frankly I think it should be used in the event of a tie-breaker custody situation, everything else being equal, the one at fault should forfeit custody.
Anyway to use fault to decide property issues is completely just. You’re a bad boy or girl during the life of the marriage and it causes a divorce, you should be ‘punished’ and a hit in the pocketbook seems to be appropriate for a capitalist society to use as punishment. I mean what else can we do, flog them??? Not that some of them don’t deserve it, as I could easily see that Charlie Sheen meriting a good whipping for all the stuff he does; yet we are in a civilized society, so must adhere to the norms of where we live.
Unfortunately in some cases...
Last, but not least the most interesting part I find is what they haven’t done yet, but are just looking into, which is the abililty to treat live-in relationships as if they were defacto married ones. I’m not completely sure this is right, especially if children are involved. Yet if it makes parents stop and think before they carelessly expose their children to a casual relationship by moving in with someone they hardly know, then it could morph into a good thing.
Clearly parents should know better but many don’t. So again what else can we do but hit them in the pocketbook when they exhibit unsavory behavior. Again, this is appropriate for a capitalist society to do. Parents who persist in exposing their kids to one live in relationship after another raise the sorts of screwy, unstable adults that impact all the rest of us negatively, so, the House of Lords could be spot on for three in a row.
These are ALL good rulings.
Men don’t like it, don’t marry, don’t have kids, actually go live on a desert island somewhere so you can just die off and not impact anyone else with your behavior. But don’t think that the societies that allow you to become as wealthy as you are will continue allowing you to use them for all your benefits, while giving nothing back but aggravation.
Of course, as I said above, these rulings were the lesser of two evils that the British lords chose to go with, since anything else would have caused too much unheaval in their society over the short-term.
Long-term these laws will just delay the inevitable change that has followed the advent of reproductive technology which has swung the balance of power in favor of women for the first time in history. It's application plays to womens' ONE essential strength, which is that we are the ONLY ones who are the bearers of life and can chose to quite simply not bear any. Thus, we can as passive/aggressive as we wish and still hold all the aces up our sleeves. It's called Anne Boleyn's Revenge for those history buffs out there: ie., "You're never going to have a son Henry or any other kids because me and my girlfriends just decided to form a bowling league and I can't bowl and be pregnant at the same time. Or a shopping league or need to be at work early everyday for the next decade. Truly sorry old bean. Why not get a little dog to play with instead?"
Women don't need to start any wars or invent some new destructive technology to wield this power either, that's the beauty of it.
Men, unable or unwilling to accept womens new status are the source of much of the current unroar, yet they will just have to get over it...
posted by NYMOM | Monday, May 29, 2006
11 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
12:36 AM
Anonymous ManMan said...
Now men now can have surrogate mother to bear their children or adopt. So using yout crass logic and inane thinking I would say we should encourage men to use surrogate mother more often especially third world mothers and make sure they are paid adequately. It should be freely given by the government and using our taxes. That way we can increase the population and men can become fathers.
I feel sorry for any sons that have a mother like you. Damn feminist, your sons will eventually become men who will get screwed by the system you helped create.
A few words you should learn the meaning of: Misandry, Fascism, Feminazism and Dementia.
Statistics: Single mothers in the UK still provide the highest number of violent criminals and murders. What life givers! Great for our prison system and society as a whole, as it help employment levels in these sectors.
Men remember that there are always other oriental fish in this world. Go abroad, marry abroad and live abroad. The UK sucks. You can still find Italian women that are still feminine, and we all know about Asian women. The world is your oyster.
10:01 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hi, NYMOM.
"Women now control their own bodies, reproductive choices and there isn't anything that is going to change that. If anything as the technology improves, it will get worse. Men will NEVER be in charge of those decisions again. Involvement with children will be a gift women chose to share with men, MAYBE, always contingent upon you being on your BEST behavior."
I would not go so far as to say "never" here. The same reproductive technology that has given women most of the control over reproduction at the present time will eventually render actual physical childbearing unnecessary. Though I'm sure I won't be alive to see it, I would be very interested to know how laws will evolve to serve the interests of children and the family when childbearing itself is no longer a "unique" contribution and neither gender has any clubs to use against the other with regard to children.
"This should not include some man who just up and quits his job one day and decides to lay around on the couch watching TV 24/7. Tossing a stale potato chip to the kids every once in a while during a commercial should not entitle you to anything."
Do you really want to perpetuate negative stereotypes about stay-at-home parents, exactly as Mr. Nemko was doing?
"It's application plays to womens' ONE essential strength, which is that we are the ONLY ones who are the bearers of life and can chose to quite simply not bear any. Thus, we can as passive/aggressive as we wish and still hold all the aces up our sleeves."
NYMOM, this is the classic radical MRA "marriage strike" philosophy turned around. The thing is, if men really are less interested in having children than women are, as I know you believe and which I personally doubt, then it doesn't work very well the way you've set it out.
Thanks,
Anne
4:31 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
Sorry I was away on vacation and just got back yesterday so missed that vulgar comment which I just removed. I told people already that I am not allowing any more vulgar language or senseless nonsense to be posted on this blog.
If you have something interesting to add to the debate or ideas (as I've said in my introduction) to assist mothers, fine. Otherwise don't bother posting.
5:56 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
"Now men now can have surrogate mother to bear their children or adopt."
Yes men can, however I believe few will do so. As my feeling remains that few men are that interested in children. Most will not go through the trouble and expense of locating a surrogate and/or arranging an adoption.
Just like we went through the whole emotional trauma route 20 years or so ago about agreeing to allow single men to adopt. We finally got the laws to allow it in most states and guess what, 20 years later few single men, gay or straight, have adopted kids.
So people's essential natures don't change because technology does.
AND don't think this business of going to third world countries to use their young women as egg donors or surrogate mothers is going to be allowed to continue much longer. I guarantee you that those countries will get fed up with it as well. Just as soon as the information becomes widely disseminated amongst the common people there, they'll veto this nonsense, so don't be making plans for much longer thinking this will be continuing. It's a fluke or short-term condition, like cheap oil used to be which will end as soon as people in those countries become aware of what's going on.
BTW, you don't need to feel sorry for any of my sons. A. I don't have any. I'm a grandmother and not having any more kids, and B. even if I did have any sons, I'd still feel the same way.
You don't encourage your children to take advantage of others just because they can. It's like telling me if my kids owned slaves I wouldn't be against slavery because it benefitted my children.
No, a moral wrong is wrong whether or not your kids or you are advantaged by it.
6:11 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
"I would not go so far as to say never here. The same reproductive technology that has given women most of the control over reproduction at the present time will eventually render actual physical childbearing unnecessary".
First of all this is a mistake most people make. The assumption that technology has given women our control over reproduction.
Women have NOT been given OUR control over OUR reproduction by technology. This is something that the female of every species, as well as our own, has ALWAYS had.
It is our birthright.
Not something men, feminism, technology or laws have 'given' us; like a gift or something that women need to be grateful for...
No.
Wrong. That's ours, not something we've been given.
AND again, as I've said before, technology might allow men to bypass women someday in order to have their own children; however, I don't think most of them will bother doing it. Frankly I don't find men to be that interested in children and if it becomes costly and/or troublesome to have them, I believe most will just forego the whole thing.
As Polish Knight pointed out to me, (and I must admit I hadn't thought of it until he did) women themselves will probably use the artificial womb technology more then men. They'll do it to have children w/o disfiguring their bodies through a pregnancy. The same way MOST women jumped on the technology of bottle feeding formula to not disfigure their breasts.
"Do you really want to perpetuate negative sterotypes about stay-at-home parents"
I NEVER claimed to support stay-at-home PARENTS but stay-at-home mothers. I do happen to believe that children benefit from having their mothers around in their early years. She's the one who has invested the most in them up to that point and God, evolution and nature itself has already designated mothers as the one most likely to always act in her childrens' best interest.
That's the way it has been for million of years in every species as well as our own, with the exception of a few snakes, bugs and penguins which I don't care about...so I'm not going to second guess evolution the way others always like to do.
Women can chose to allow their childrens' fathers or other caretakers to raise them if they wish (I would never outlaw these choices), but as far as I'm concerned it's the second best option and always will be.
"...this is the classical radical MRA marriage strike turned around..."
Again wrong.
My observation is new as women were never credited with having any power before this.
As I don't consider the MRA marraige strike to be something radical or new. As men have been trying to get out of marriage since the time of Augustus Caesar. Probably even before that, but the Romans just kept better records then other civilizations, so we know more about them.
We have to face the fact that men contribute nothing unique to society when they don't marry today (actually if you want to be honest about it, even when they do marry they bring little to the table nowadays)...Women, on the other hand, even w/o marrying still clearly wish to have children. Actually the out-of-wedlock birth rate is growing faster then the in-wedlock rate and many believe will soon surpass it.
So women are still fulfiling the vital role of providing the next generation, even when men fail to hold up their end of the social contract because they've decided to go on strike.
Overall if you want to be honest, you could make the case that for a capitalist society, we are better off w/o people marrying since having two households is better then one since two spend more on goods and services.
However, we still need children.
Our government is ONLY interested in people marrying because marriages USED to be the ONLY way to produce the new citizens every society needed to flourish. Thus, in a society like ours where men refuse to marry, guess what, their value goes waaaaay down.
Most women on the other hand, retain the same value.
Combine that observation with the higher rates of crime, civil unrest, wars and other violence perpetuated by societies with a lot of men and societies populated mainly by women start to look a lot more attractive.
That's why I also mentioned but you overlooked it that it was foolish for England (a rapidly depopulating country) to make it illegal for single women to use anonymous sperm donors any longer. Actually they should have made it easier for women to obtain these, even offering a bonus to women for having children (even if single).
But men as always, would rather cut off their noses to spite their faces, then relinguish control of anything...their motto as always remains if they aren't in charge of it, it just can't happen.
They and you continue trying to ignore the fact that women contribute something unique to the world and men simply do not. AND until they can accept the fact of women's uniqueness and more valuable contribution as being the bearer of life, this power struggle will continue.
Those days of women being second-class citizens are over.
7:05 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
"Women have NOT been given OUR control over OUR reproduction by technology. This is something that the female of every species, as well as our own, has ALWAYS had."
You just got through stating that women now control their own bodies (thru effective birth control and safe abortion, if I understand you correctly) and that this is something new, and that you believe that developing technology with even increase that control. Of course technology HAS given women control over reproduction. How many women in times gone by actually WANTED to give birth to ten-plus children? Queen Victoria, mother of nine, considered childbearing the dirty little trick God plays on women for enjoying sex. My own grandmother didn't even want the one child she had, but if she wanted to make love with her husband she had to assume the risk and the consequences. And she was far from unique. This is no longer the case today.
"So women are still fulfiling the vital role of providing the next generation, even when men fail to hold up their end of the social contract because they've decided to go on strike."
I've seen little evidence that "men" in general are on strike, although doubtlessly they have more to lose on average by risking marriage than does the average woman. Only a few on the fringe, relatively speaking, are decidedly shunning marriage.
"Overall if you want to be honest, you could make the case that for a capitalist society, we are better off w/o people marrying since having two households is better then one since two spend more on goods and services. However, we still need children. Our government is ONLY interested in people marrying because marriages USED to be the ONLY way to produce the new citizens every society needed to flourish."
And two single-parent households, require more public help than one married household (which is the main reason why government is interested in people marrying) and if we're talking economics and capitalism then such homes most certainly will have less capital, if any, for discretionary spending and, more importantly, investment. Which is why I always hate to see the cycle of single parenting start in a family, since it is strongly self-replicating and seldom leads upward. At the risk of sounding elitist, which is not my intention, it appears that the more intelligent, educated, successful and upwardly-mobile classes are predominately made up of those who understand that the best way to accumulate wealth and to ensure the success and security of one's offspring is to become educated, to marry at an appropriate time, to have children within that marriage only, and most importantly to REMAIN married.
"...actually if you want to be honest about it, even when they do marry they bring little to the table nowadays..."
Except the proven advantage that children from intact homes possess.
"As Polish Knight pointed out to me, (and I must admit I hadn't thought of it until he did) women themselves will probably use the artificial womb technology more then men."
I agree.
"Women can chose to allow their childrens' fathers or other caretakers to raise them if they wish (I would never outlaw these choices), but as far as I'm concerned it's the second best option and always will be."
Be that as it may be, it is nevertheless rather unfair to characterize the work of stay-at-home dads, many of whom are doing a fine job, in such a derogatory manner.
Hope you had an enjoyable vacation. We're saving ours for the hottest part of the summer, when we hope to escape to Pennsylvania.
Thanks,
Anne
3:28 AM
Blogger NYMOM said...
"You just got through stating that women now control their own bodies..."
Sorry I took your original response to mean (as you referenced men having children without women) that technology has finally given women control over our CHILDREN. AND I don't accept that as being valid.
Yes, technology has given women control over their reproduction processes but women in every society, in every age, in every species as well as our own, have always had control over the children our bodies produced...this is a misunderstanding of history to suggest otherwise.
Actually it just came to my attention that under Muslim 'sharia' law there is a recognition that children should be under their mother's care at least until the age of 7, some say 9 years old...so although western man talks a lot of crap about how much better he is then his Islamic brothers regarding the treatment of women, I find no equivalence in the west to that bit of common sense...
"but if she wanted to make love to her husband, she had to assume the risks and consequences"
Yes, of course, I'm sure that was the driving force behind the invention of birth control. So WOMEN could have sex without consequences.
"I've seen little evidence that 'men' in general are on strike."
So why did you bring it up then? Just to invalidate what I said I guess. So it's okay to say anything, even if you don't believe it is true, as long as you can use it to invalidate your opponent's argument.
Got it.
"they have more to lose on average by risking marriage then the average women"
Really, like what. Since according to the census only 15% of ALL divorces involved alimony and of that 15% ONLY 7% actually collect it. AND that figure includes men like Halle Berry's husband who cheated on her 29 times and STILL got awarded alimony. I'm still trying to figure out how the Judge figured he deserved that in a short-term marriage, that produced no children, where he contributed absolutely NOTHING...
Actually he could have damaged her career by his behavior if she had continued ignoring it.
In a world where both people generally work in most households, at least in the US and few have assets other then their marital home and maybe a TDA what do men risk exactly????
This is more statistical lies and bullcrap being fed to men about how much they stand to lose in a marriage. MOST stand to lose nothing as most have little...
"two single parent households require more help then one married household"
Exactly my point: the government doesn't CARE about your marital status if you are not producing children...thus, the children are the reason for the focus, not the marital status.
So men being on a 'marriage strike' means diddly squat to the state if women continue producing children without benefit of marriage.
"which is why I always hate to see the cycle of single parenting start in a family"
Even if most of the statistics about single mothers are based upon men's statistical lies???? Like their marriage strike lie? Then how do you feel about them?
I don't consider this blog to be about fairness to stay-at-home dads. This is a site about women in their role as mothers. If you want to hear great things about dads, there are plenty of other places to find that sort of propaganda.
10:35 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
2:28 AM
Blogger NYMOM said...
Goodbye Anne.
I told you already I'm not interested in this constant back and forth of you trying to invalidate everything I post here.
Thanks but no thanks.
If you have some ideas to contribute to help with the current situation where millions of mothers have lost their children, fine. I'm open to hearing them.
Otherwise don't bother coming here.
11:10 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I love the hostility to men and general presumption that women are better than men on this site. It so reflects British and American society.
No sensible man is going to marry under current laws. We're not going to pay taxes so women can live off public assistance either.
We can always go to other countries where there is more equality and surrogate parenthood is open to us as well. If women don't want equal relationships we can have families without them.
4:39 PM
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)