Background: The '99 ironically named LateComer asks in GQ, “What are algebra tiles?” groman drops his/her pants and drops this turd:
Then answers the question.
Carnac the Magnificent asks the question on my mind only with fewer four-letter words: “You’re jesting, yes?”
groman then posts a fairly well thought out post which culminates with this:
Yeah. Fuck that. Some people flat out suck at certain areas. One of my closest friends is going for a Ph.D in physics and graduated our undergrad program magna cum laude. She couldn’t spell Mississippi if you spotted her the i’s and the s’s. My mother is damn smart, but her writing skills suck on ice.
I’ll put it simply: being a dumbass in one area doesn’t mean that one is a dumbass all around. Sound good?
Well you shouldn’t have opened your maw in on a public message board then. In GQ for Pete’s sake.
I thought social Darwinism/eugenics was a relic of the past to be read about and mocked in history classes. You’re a living time capulse. A gosh darn Encino Man only with less Pauly Shore. Not sure which is worse.
Perfect. I can guarantee you that anybody who’s not a dumbass all around can pick up high school algebra in a day. This isn’t the equivalent of good spelling. It’s so trivial this is the equivalent of getting through the first half of the alphabet without looking at flash cards.
I’m not saying they are necessarily dumb, I’m not saying their children are necessarily dumb.
I’m saying people who are not ready to teach their children well into college level shouldn’t have children. Yes, that includes basic calculus, history, geography, orphography, art, music and a slew of other things. A parent should never answer any question with “I don’t know” and leave it at that. Unfortunately, the realization that you are not educated/capable enough to have children only befalls those who probably are.
People love complaining how kids don’t read these days. Fuck, what do you do when you get home from work? I bet it’s not reading. You want your kids to go to college? Go to college yourself before you have kids, damn it.
I have a hard time believing that anyone could seriously hold this belief, but maybe that’s because I’m pretty dumb. After all, I don’t know what “orphography” is (if you’d said orthography, I could have guessed). And I couldn’t help out anyone in basic calculus, unless he wanted me to hold his textbook while he tied his shoelace. And don’t make me find Ghana on a map unless the map’s labeled.
Despite all that, I think that if I were to have children, they’d do okay. I may not be able to answer all their questions, but I’d find someone who could. After all, my dad’s a math genius (but doesn’t know the first thing about art or literature) and my mom’s a linguist (but can’t calculate her way out of a paper bag). And their kids seemed to make it okay – all fully employed and out on their own, in careers they love, happy and healthy. But I guess that’s not important. Right?
P.S. You used “befalls” incorrectly in that last sentence. I won’t tell if you won’t.
Nowhere in that sentence have I implied that I thought my parents should have had me. I don’t have all the answers, but with 6 billion people on Earth, “Don’t have children” is probably pretty fucking prudent advice whoever you are. Advice that I probably won’t have the willpower to follow.
Jesus Christ on a pogostick. You know, even those of us who studied that back in high school tend to eventually forget a good bit of it. I know I’d struggle to do any calculus these days, and I had it in high school and college. One older father on the show in question ruefully commented how he’d had algebra 30 years ago and wanted something to help him not be rusty, and the parents and teachers thought that it’d be more useful for them to learn it from - what a concept - those who’d be handing out the homework in the first place!
But I guess you’re happier shitting all over some people’s honest efforts to learn about what their kids are being taught. Maybe you’d prefer they picked up older books and tried to teach their kids in a totally different method than their teachers, and just ended up confusing the kids, because hey, they’d be dumbasses to do otherwise.
Oh, now it comes out. Listen, I don’t have kids either and I have the “willpower” to follow through on my desire to not be a really lame parent, because I would be if I did reproduce. However, just because I’m not a fan of children doesn’t mean that I hijack threads uselessly with Zero Population Growth motives or that I tear down honest efforts by parents who just want to help their kids.
You know what else is important to teach to your children? Manners. The basics are even easier than algebra, and can be taught over a longer period of time starting at a much younger age. You wouldn’t think someone would have a kid if they couldn’t teach them the basic principle that feckless unflattering speculation about someone’s intelligence and/or parental fitness (in a public forum, yet) was rude, unacceptable behavior, especially if the forum rules specifically called for decorous behavior.
I am at a bit of a loss for words at the moment, so you’ll please forgive me if I’m not as eloquent as I might be in how I respond to your post.
My dear mother, bless her, had a very poor education. So poor that she is unable to read a newspaper that is said to be geared to the reading level of an average tewlve-year old. She was never able to help me with the homework that I brought home over the years due to what she now suspects was an undiagnosed learning disability. This was the case with all the work myself and my younger brother brought home. I was, later in life, assigned the role of tutor to my brother.
Despite my own struggles with dyslexia, especially in transcribing numbers incorrectly in maths, I was able to hack my way through a degree in Biology and two degrees in English. I am now working on my PhD. My younger brother is finishing up his degree in biology and has plans to become a physician.
My mother, by your standards, should not have had children and did not deserve to have children. As a single parent she worked harder at making us happy and just loving us than so many of the academic and medical parents of my classmates.
As I will have a PhD in a two years, will this qualify me to have children? You say in your post that you don’t want to discuss such matters because ‘it’s a rather sensitive subject’ for you. The subject is one close to my heart as I look at a good possibility of never being able to have children.
While I may be capable of schooling a child through to University, I am in no way capable of providing a loving, nurturing environment. If you will pardon my bluntness in saying so, it is people who cannot provide basic love and affection-- not the schooling for which we require teachers to have training and certification-- that have no business having children.
Sorry if I am in any way incoherent as it is 5 am here.
Of course, I would expect that anyone who had the temerity to hand out unsolicited (and inappropriate) advice on a board devoted to fighting ignorance would be aware that every reputable demographer expects the the world population to flatten and then begin to decline within 50 years (even if we do not kill ourselves off with swine or avian flu or Ebola), so that a person who held outdated ZPG views would simply be embarrased to cover his or her ass by promoting such drivel in a lame attempt to rationalize his or her rude behavior.