Mikey, just because you’re God’s gift to women, it doesn’t mean every man out there is. Get off your high horse. Or better yet, fall off and break your neck.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge…others just gargle.
This comes from your vast knowledge of all men right Moosie?
All I said, and the point I made and will stand by is this; it is not the DUTY of a village to raise your kids but your own.
As in dont be a slacker or bad parent and blame it on society or others, it was all you.
You guys suffer from Tunnel vision a lot. Only see what you want to, and then skew it to use it in an attack. Shows lack of genuine ability.
Who said it was the DUTY of the “village”? What I said was:
You might be able to avoid crap like this if you’d actually make an attempt to absorb what you’re reading instead of skimming. I never said it was the responsibility of society, only that a child learns from those around him. Therefore, while it is the parent’s responsibility to ensure that the child’s influences are positive. So, again, a child growing up to be “good” or “bad” has nothing to do with whether or not he was raised by a single parent, and quite alot to do with the the character and influence of all the people who were involved in his education and upbringing.
Get it yet, “Teach”?
“Wednesday the 15th - Chris made one of her rare good points today.”
Guanolad
My obviously fruitless efforts to reach your cerebral cortex lead me to end this discussion with you. Since you lack presence of mind to see how and where it fits in the scheme of this PAGE, not just your writings. Rather egocentric of you no?
“Teach”
Ho-boy. . . . Get ready for an asskickin!
I am a single parent of three kids, 18, 16, and 9 years old. Very well adjusted, happy, talented, intelligent kids. My 18 year old son recently graduated highschool a year early and is already in college and that is only one example of a kid who “didn’t turn out too well” because of a single mother home.
I will be without a computer for the next few days. My ex made me an offer I couldn’t refuse - I traded him my 17 year old ceramic kiln (that HE bought for me for $600) for a brand new computer system worth $1500. Hey, it was his idea, not mine.
Anyhow, be prepared for the wrath of Diane
the minute I am back up and running.
You have a few days to rethink your words, otherwise I will be back to shove them down your throat.
>^,^<
KITTEN
Fluff yer hair Beula, I’s feelin frisky - M.S.
Fuck off you two and get a room!
Sorry chris, but he obviously wants you big time.
I didnt start this to be a debate about single vs pairs parenting, my point is that is if fair/morally right, whatever, that Rosie (whom I admire BTW) gets to gather a herd, and ‘regular’ folks cant get kids…
Mia Farrow also adopted most of her troup from out of the country, where there were babies needing homes, not homes needing babies.
And mikeywhoeveryouare, the stats show kids are better off with a dead father than one who abandons the family (feelings of unworthyness etc)…families that never have a second parent dont fit those categories. Neither do gay couples for that matter.
Now, if you want to ride this pony into the ground, go start your own thread.
Who so ever quoteth bullshiteth to thine kellibelli shalt kisseth her big fat lily white asseth. This is from the Book of Hippocracy, chapter 4-69.
See, I cited a quote, therefore, it is true.
My apologies Kelli, I yield.
P.S. Nice thread, it started out well too, and I always supported you, somehow.
(Gently wiping off lips afte having knowingly kissed ass, cause I know I was wrong to argue on her thread.)
Hey, folks it’s time for “Who Wants To Be Inconsistent!” Name the poster who wrote both of these selection and win a fabulous prize!
Our first Quote:
Everybody got that one? Sounds like our mystery poster is expounding his theories of childhood education. Did anyone in our studio audience see anything about duty or responsibility for child rearing?
All set for the next one? Now here’s our second quote:
Tell 'em what they’ve won, Johnny!
Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars.
Kelli, it’s still related to Rosie’s situation, (on my end, anyway)…it just happens to be a very multi-faceted topic.
As has been said, there are more children (in the world) who need homes than there are people (in the world) who wish to adopt. Single women who wish to be mothers are opting for artificial insemination. Single women AND married couples who wish to be parents and have had no luck are clamoring for fertility treatments. After all, if Bobbi McCaughey can pop out seven babies in one shot from fertility treatments, why shouldn’t they be able manage just one? As a means of “having” children, very few people are looking toward adoption these
days, and many that are, as Manda pointed out, are doing it privately or within their own families.
As I said above, her celebrity has no doubt allowed her an easier time of adopting, to a certain degree. Keep it mind, it takes money, and not a small amount of it, to adopt just one child, not to mention legal representation. When a person or couple wants to adopt a child, they are subject to having their entire lives scrutinized, past and present. Rosie has the money, she has the lawyers and she has a clean history, an admirable set of causes and interests, and a high-quality, low-profile personal life. Agreeably, the fact that she has the cash on hand is likely why she had an easier time of it than regular, middle-income folks like you and me…but it still remains that she is no less deserving of being a parent than anyone else.
“Wednesday the 15th - Chris made one of her rare good points today.”
Guanolad
Certainly there are any number of individual situations that can be quoted, but one cannot refute the rule by singular exceptions. The vast bulk of evidence suggests without doubt that children in single parent situations suffer in comparison with their peers.
To my admittedly limited knowledge, the longest running study of this problem concerns children of divorce, and was begun by two researchers who, by their own admission, set out to prove that children of divorce were no worse off than children in two-parent households.
In the Spring of 1971 Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, in association with the Zellerbach Family Fund in San Francisco began a study of 60 families, with 131 children, and carefully balanced the chosen families to represent a wide range of backgrounds.
I quote Judith Wallerstein: “But when we conducted follow-up interviews one year to eighteen months later, we found most families still in crisis. . . An unexpectedly large number of children were on a downward course. Their symptoms were worse than before. Their behavior at school was worse. Their peer relationships were worse. Our findings were absolutely contradictory to our expectations.”
As one would expect, they applied for an extension of their study. Fifteen years later, the study (which may still be ongoing, for all I know) was forced to conclude much the same as they found at the one year to eighteen month juncture. While some families, some individuals, and some children were able to heal and get on with it, a startling number, and in fact the majority, were irreparably damaged in every measurable sense. Nearly every reputable study of the children of single-parent households has found the same.
If ye and yers are among the minority that can and do thrive in adverse circumstances, you are to be applauded for overcoming the odds. But do not make the mistake of concluding that the circumstances are not, in fact, adverse, or extending yer personal triumph to the majority, who are not better off for the loss of a ‘traditional’ family.
As concerns the individual circumstance as opposed to the generality of ‘studies’, and with a bow to the O.P., I had a close friend who was unable to conceive, adopted an infant son, bonded to her new infant to the exclusion of her husband, was ‘happily divorced’ from the ‘insensitive bastard’, and subsequently found out that her adopted son had suffered serious brain damage as a result of his birth mother’s crack addiction. If anyone is better off here I’m having a hard time putting me finger on it . . . .
There’s nothing sure in this life, is the only thing sure in this life.
Dr. Watson
“Chickens are just the egg’s way of perpetuating the egg.”
“It takes a Village” has been perverted to meaning that the parents can pawn off their responsibility to a bunch of strangers. What was originally meant (IIRC, it’s an African proverb?) that children need to be in contact with many people, in order to learn skills, ideas and viewpoints that their parents might not have.
Real “villagers”: relatives, teachers, church leaders, coaches
False “villagers”: day-care workers, nannies, flight attendants
“That was a hell of a thing.”
The crack using birthmother came out the winner in that one Crick.
Good post.
Again I would like to point out that non traditional families (single by choice, same sex etc)dont fit in these studies, and those kids wouldnt have the same damaging self-image as those ‘left behind’ by a parent who leaves the family.
“children need to be in contact with many people, in order to learn skills, ideas and viewpoints that their parents might not have.
Real “villagers”: relatives, teachers, church leaders, coaches”
Just in case I wasn’t clear (which is likely) this is what I meant when I said “it takes a village”.
Point well taken kelli – and ye point in the same breath to the inadequacy of relying on ‘studies’ to make individual decisions or to form broad ‘opinions’.
I’ve been unfortunate enough in this life to have had occasion to employ a small army of child paychologists, paychiatrists, (misspellings intended), and other assembled rabble posing as ‘experts’. In the end, regardless of thousands of pages of ‘studies’, three sets of calculator batteries consumed verifying ‘corrolations’, and endless hours listening to every form of drooling pap and apologist sheep dung that could conceivable drip out of the mouths of these imbeciles, I had to rely on me own best instincts.
Those ‘studies’ I have seen, and there have been many, do tend in general to point to a decided disadvantage for children in ‘non-traditional’ households, regardless of the reasons for or composition of the household in question. While I tend to agree with the studies on this point, they can hardly be wielded as a weapon to make ‘all cases’ policy.
Lumping people into statistical catagories is sufficient for those who chart general trends, but one rightly bristles when these trend watchers decide to step into yer Living Room and start dictating individual actions.
All that said, and considering the venue here, I’ll venture that this whole ‘It Takes A Village’ nonsense is so much sloganeering crap designed entirely to assuage guilty consciences. Ye can’t argue out of one side of yer mouth that ye are strong and righteous and perfectly capable of raising yer child alone, and thus have rejected, for whatever reason, the concept of the traditional family, then turn yer cheek and argue that ‘It Takes A Village’, thus bringing all of society to yer aid.
This brand of nonsense sounds just a bit too adolescent, asserting yer rights to do what ye will, so long as someone else is still holding up yer safety net. Everyone needs the broader exposure to society for their proper inculcation, regardless of the form of their family. This is a simple objective truth, and it tires me to see this idea exploited time and again as an appeal and an excuse.
Bein’ as this is the ‘Pit’, I’ll leave that last thought open-ended, and ye may take it where ye may . . .
Dr. Watson
“Still working on his Doctorate in Theoretical Ambiguity. Please send previously undiscovered non-sequiturs.”
Thank you, Crick, for saying what I was about to (and discovering DNA to boot! Amazing!)
I had a feeling I’d get a barrage of flames from single parents and children of single parents.
The lack of a father seems to screw up a lot of little girls. (that’s a LOT, NOT ALL) When they start to mature, they don’t go for boys their own age; they go for men twice their age. Every man they meet becomes “daddy.” This is just how it is. Ask any psychiatrist. Yes, there are exceptions; there are exceptions to everything. But, sadly, for most, this is just the way it goes.
“Yeah you can raise a kid with just one parent. You can steer a car with your feet too! It doesn’t mean that’s the way it SHOULD be done!”
–Chris Rock (I probably bungled that quote a little, but that’s the gist of it)
I’ll take no credit fer the right-handed double helix model, though I do admire the wonderfully simple symmetry of the idea.
Truth be told, in what can only be described as an unexplainable cosmic singularity, the object of me current affections turned out to be named Crick, and although I’m not a James and she is not a Francis, the irony of the pairing made the SN an inevitability.
Dr. Watson
“There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.” --James Lowell
I am not going the the village stuff, because well, basically, I think it means different stuff for everyone, what the hell, here I go…
To me, “It takes a village…” means that yes, you DO stick your nose in! If yousee a child in danger, in an abusive situation, whatever, you SPEAK UP. If you see kids tormenting a dog, you tell them to stop…doesnt matter if its your dog/your kids it needs to be done, so you do it. At the grocery store, if I see a child behaving, I always make a point of telling the parent (making sure the child can hear) What a nice little helper they have, etc. Stuff like this makes kids WANT to try harder, behave better. They have a need to please, and everytime I do this, both parent and child seem two inches taller, and way happier. They belong to my village.
Which brings me to cricks overall point of single vs traditional homes. All the data on earth cant take into account all the factors.
Every situation has a zillion variables.
Certainly I believe a two parent traditional home is the premium growing medium for a ‘perfect’ child.
Unless one of the parents is abusive, or has an addiction problem, is a pedophile, is profoundly unhappy because of the other parents afairs, is neglectful, feels trapped…I could go on and on.
Couple of examples:
!) Subject we will call Kelli. Kelli’s parents stayed together ‘for the children’ until they could no longer stand each other. Kelli lived in constant fear, as far back as her memory goes that if Daddy went out he would never come back. Kelli had the 'benefit of a stay home mom (who was desperately, profoundly unhappy), and a live -in father, until she was almost 15. In virtually all of her teenage and adult relationships, she has been mistreated. Coincidence? Doubtful. In her last long term relationship(shitboy) she was constantly in fear that he wouldnt come home. Coincidence? Again, doubtful. Would she have been better off if her parents had never married shortly after her birth? Its hard to tell…maybe her mother would have found someone who wasnt temped to roam.Maybe her mother would have been happy with another man/a career/whatever, maybe that happiness would have made Kelli a more secure adult. We will never know Statistically though, Kelli’s parents did the right thing. Kelli and her brother both finished high school, no criminal records, no children until marriage. Both were successful in obtaining gainful employment after some post secondary education. Kelli’s brother is happily married, expecting baby # 4 any day. He has virtually no memory of childhood, and becomes annoyed when Kelli reminices.
I am sure this has nothing to do with anything.
- Adult woman,single, employed,has baby, lives with her parents who care for the child as she works and advances to management. The child has no father. Never asks about who he is etc. Mother wants to establish herself on her own. She marries, creating a socially acceptable unit of mom dad and child. man treats child badly, not quite abusive, but not great. mom is not happy with him, but not unhappy enough to leave.She may feel trapped by society/finances etc. They fight/bicker/sulk what have you. Is this a better environment that what the child had when mom was single?
Statistically, she should turn out fine…
In my own home, I know the boys are damaged due to shitboys abandonment of them, but I cant force him to be here. Granted I made a poor choice when I had kids with him, BUT did I make the choice or did my upbringing doom me to repeat the pattern?
Statistics are fine on paper. but they cant be held as a true representation of what is best for the child.
Her babies came out of a turkey baster, just kidding.
It bugs me that money trums the single gay parent hang-up. I think single gay parents SHOULD get kids, but to only allow those with money to do it looks like blackmail or extortion to me.
OR she’s lying to the agency about her lifestyle and they are too stupid to see it just cause she doesn’t wear combat boots and a nightstick.
PS I am gay - I’m just tired of closet media cases, (like her talk show competition)…another string…
Um…Rob, what the hell are you talking about?
You usually make more sense…are you drunk?
If you meant rosie…she adopted the babies…and probably NOT through an agency either.
Did you read the thread?
I think it’s great that three kids in this world will have a parent that loves them…and can provide for them…Rosie is a great mother according to all who have contact with her. After adopting one child it is evident that she knows what she is doing to take on two more. I think it is wonderful…for her and the kids.
“Do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda
You wanna know something about me…ask me…not my friends…