Too much pleasure, too few children

St. Paul Pioneer Press ^ | 02/22/2008 | ROD DREHER

[Tax-chick]

I like to try out new words in Scrabble. Sometimes it works, especially if it’s getting late and everyone’s had some wine :-).

[najida]

Ok,
Not everyone needs as much socialization as others. For some folks, being alone is like the best part of their day. For some, seeing people at their workplace is all they need plus an occaisional chat with a friend and a once a month visit to a relative for sufficient family time.

I had a Granny who lived with us and refused to EVER be alone in the house, ever. I thought she was crazy (well, she was actually). She had nine kids and I do believe she was never ever alone more than for 1 hour at a time in her entire life. For many reasons, I formed in the opposite direction, absolutely hating crowds and only feeling safe and happy when I was alone.

Not everyone can be a parent, not everyone can even live under the same roof or even sleep in the same bed with another person.

Are we in the minority? Of course. Do we have happy lives? We’re trying, but we’ve learned the hard way, and to the sadness of others and ourselves that we aren’t meant out for the ‘married, 2 kids and a dog’ life. Happiness and even survival for us is often very very different from what others feel is ingrained in human DNA.

Our purpose I guess is elsewhere.

[Frank Sheed]

Agreeance is perfectly acceptable as an idiomatic and regional alternative to the term, agreement in some areas of Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley where the term, yoonz, is used to designate the personal pronoun, "you," as in the Southern construction, "y'all."

Frank Sheed, General Factotum and Busy Body...
Point to Mrs. Tax.

[Tax-chick]

Hmmm ... it sounds like the Founding Fathers would have said they were in agreeance.

Yoo having a nice day, Frank? It’s cold and raining here, and the little boys keep opening the windows because (as far as I can tell) they are cats. Pat, in fact, just slithered down the stairs wailing that he’s not a boy. Or a girl.

Somebody shoot me?

[sitetest]

Dear Frank Sheed,

If you’re playing ME in Scrabble, you have as much chance of getting “yoonz” or “y’all” in as you have of getting “agreeance.”

Which is to say, none.

;-)

sitetest

[Tijeras_Slim]

Then there's the millions of other ladies that don't have a big, tattooed, long haired, biker.

They can keep company with Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson.

[TMSuchman]

I can only say that when a lot of these folks were starting their famlies, I was on active duty in the MARINE CORPS and proecting our rights. Now that I am older my Wife & I have started our family late in life and have 2 kids, one of which has Down Syndrome. And with that is all that we could afford to have and support. I have had a problem working more than one job [at low pay at the time] So we made a choice that is right for us. May our Daughter finish colledge and bless us with lots of grandchildren [after she graduated first]

[Frank Sheed]

I’d love to play you in Scrabble. We’ll use MY Scrabble game...the one in Gaelic.

;-o)

[Frank Sheed]

So your children are not, then? Children, that is? Have you watched “Cat Woman” on the “Tellie” recently Mrs. Tax?

It is good to hear you are getting rain. You are in the thralls of a drought if memory serves me correctly.

I am having a sterling day. I’m off to the store for a bit!

Frankie

[Tax-chick]

The rain is very welcome. I have to go to the store, too, after I drop Young Bill at his Logic class.

[Sherman Logan]

Yup. Pretty good example of what goes around comes around.

It is quite interesting that Muslim conquest of Christian lands, in that first mad expansion, was pretty well limited to countries which had significant internal religious conflicts.

Syria and Egypt were Monophysite, as you correctly point out. North Africa was still in conflict over the Donatists, and Spain was involved in conflicts between Catholics and Arians.

The Arabs were repulsed when they ran into fully Orthodox populations in Anatolia and Armenia and fully Catholic ones in what is now France.

[Sherman Logan]

Good points. I especially enjoy the attempts to claim that the fall of Greece and Rome was a direct result of their toleration of homosexuality.

This requires ignoring the fact that the heyday of the glorification of homosexual relationships in both Greece and Rome occurred during the very pinnacle of success for both cultures. A turning away from glorification of homosexuality coincided in time with the decline of the cultures. In fact, from the time of Constantine on homosexuality was severely, often capitally, punished in the Roman Empire.

I’m not, unlike some gay activists, proposing that homosexuality caused these civilizations to be great, but I think the timeline shows that homosexuality certainly didn’t cause them to fall.

[Mrs. Don-o]

My cousins say all you ever need is 2 bedrooms: one bedroom for all the boys (because they'll be messy and contentious, but behind closed doors); all the girls sleep in the living room (because they clean up better); Mama and Papa in the 2nd bedroom, with the baby.

We didn't do it that way, though. The boys very occasionally sleep in the living room, but only on really cold nights when they want to be close to the wood stove!

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Really the idea of breeding so you’ll have company in your dotage and genetic immortality is pretty lame, shallow and ego driven."

I don't think those are bad reasons. Not at all. They probably factor into many people's decision to have children. Then one learns broader and more altruistic aspects as one goes along, inasmuch as parenting is many people's gateway to adulthood, in the noblest sense of the word.

[discostu]

Those are horrible reasons. It’s the ultimate in bad Dr Frankenstein type stuff. It’s bringing human beings into the world for your entertainment and sense of accomplishment, pure shallow ego. About the only reason I can think of that’s worse would be Skinner who had a kid basically to prove his psychological theories correct.

I doubt people with so much ego that they think new people need to exist to keep them entertained have any hope of ever learning altruism, nor will they ever enter a noble form of adulthood.

[Mrs. Don-o]

If you have a couple more kids (even adopted), the older kids can eventually help take care of the younger kids, plus run errands and do a lot of the chores (though not initially or invariably up to your standards!) and thus you win back into a state of managerial perks and semi-leisure.

Plus your clever children can keep you supplied with fabulous snacks.

Or so my wise materfamilias tells me...

[Mrs. Don-o]

Good point.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The ring of power! One Ring To Rule Them All!

Heh. Seriously, congratulations! All joy to you and your beloved.

[dighton]

I did not come here to breed.

Scratch one stereotype of rabbits.

;-)

[Theophilus]

"The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy."

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)
British economist. repr. In Collected Works, vol. 2 (1971).
The Economic Consequences of Peace (1919).

Our philosophical nemesis, Keynes, was theorizing that rapid population growth caused the Communist Revolution in Russia in which the "power of ideas" = Western liberalism and the the "errors of autocracy" = Czarist rule. But I think his theory points more appropriately to today, in which "power of ideas" = Conservative ideology and the "errors of autocracy" = Elite, liberal socialist central planning and economic manipulation of his (Keynes') ilk. If Muslims are overcoming Europe with demographics, then we can restore America with demographics.

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace,
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mother's first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow--
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission
Here upon our natal sod!
Keep, oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky--
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
- William Ross Wallace