Just Waiting to Pounce
A friend and I were discussing the rip-roaring comment stream over at Feministing and I’ve determined that there are just some people who sit behind their keyboards and wait for the least little tidbit they can glean onto and then they POUNCE, twisting words and unwilling to have a civilized discussion. And it’s extremely immature and juvenile.
In the beginning, this happened.
And it was downhill from there.
All because I have the audacity to say I think people should be able to afford children before they actually have them.
How dare I say that poor people shouldn’t have children. Who the hell do I think I am?
Apparently, simply because people have the right to have children, that means they should have them whether they can afford to feed and clothe them or not. Just pop them out and … and … well, they don’t really have an answer for that. But, by golly, no one should dare say that people should actually be able to afford the children they create.
So many of the comments only dealt with the rights, wants, desires, and needs of the would-be parents, as opposed to the rights, wants, desires, and needs of the potential child. I think that’s what I find most disturbing about the whole discussion. While I was trying to advocate ending the cycle of poverty by helping people work their way out of it and not bringing more people into it, others just didn’t seem to get that. Or didn’t care. Somehow, they translated what I was typing as “oppress the poor.”
Perhaps I wasn’t expressing myself very well, but I did have a friend read through the thread (not the entire thing, since it’s up to about 174 comments last time I checked) to read my comments and tell me if she thought I was out of line. Fortunately, she said she understood what I was saying completely and agreed with me. And she’s one of those women’s studies chicks, so I trust her implicitly on this, since it’s a feminist blog where the ruckus occurred.
One of these days, I’m going to find a website where people comment on serious issues without the trolls and ogres jumping out from behind their keyboards just looking for a fight. Because, while sometimes a fight can be fun, most of time I just want to have an adult discussion with like-minded people.
Sigh.
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February 28th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
It’s pretty crazy over yonder. Perhaps some moderation would help? A touch of: calm the hell down?
February 28th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Honestly, the accusatory tone some of those people use is just completely unnecessary. While I may have used a sarcastic tone in a couple of my comments, it certainly wasn’t until I was provoked. Damn.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Yeah, that is the internet for you. I make the mistake of saying I love my wife on my blog, and the anonymous idiots attack. But these people are why you don’t use your real name, right?
February 28th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Emma,
To a certain extent I agree with you. A lot of the “population” issues would disappear if childrearing wasn’t both subsidized and taxed irrationally.
However, I think you might view poverty (whatever that means in the USA: we are the only country in the world where poor people suffer from obesity) in a rather static way.
People who are poor usually don’t stay poor, if they can stay married, stick to a job long enough to get good at it, and stay out of trouble with the law. In fact I have heard that if you do these three things in the USA, you have a less than 1% chance of staying poor for more than a few years.
Having a family causes responsible parents to work harder and can actually lead them out of poverty, rather than deeper in.
So, having a kid or two (though probably not 5 or 6) when you are poor might not be so bad, since poverty is not the worst thing in the world, and it tends to be temporary.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Sorry, but I find this unconvincing. If poverty–real poverty–isn’t the worst thing in the world, it’ll do ’til the worst thing gets here, to paraphrase Tommy Lee Jones. And plenty of people I know “stick to” their jobs until they’re extremely good at them, only to find that the jobs don’t stick to them: they get shipped overseas where people with a whole different concept of poverty & wealth–and, frequently, many more children–do them for less. None of this is to say that reasonably responsible people with reasonably promising prospects shouldn’t have a kid if they want to, but blithely having “a kid or two” when you’re poor on the assumption that your poverty probably won’t last seems a little reckless.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
What I found on the Feministing blog, where I was getting pummeled left, right, and center for saying that perhaps people living in poverty shouldn’t have children was that everyone was simply defending a woman’s right to have children (which I don’t argue that she has that right), but no one would acknowledge the child in the scenario and how it was my opinion that the well-being of the would-be child trumped the needs and/or wants of the would-be mother. That’s the part that I just do not understand. At. All.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:44 am
Me neither. What you said, if I understood correctly, was “if you can afford it.” You didn’t say (did you?) that only rich or middle-class people can afford it, you didn’t say that affording a child was something that people of modest means can’t possibly manage, & you certainly didn’t say that anybody should be forcibly prevented from having a child. You just said “if you can afford it” was a point to take into consideration, right? So, is there someone out there who thinks that you SHOULD make a point of getting pregnant if you already can’t make your bills? Who thinks that financial considerations SHOULDN’T come into play when you’re considering bringing a new life into the world? Even my happy-face pal Ray D. up above, Mr. Sure-What-The-Heck-If-You-Stay-In-Your- Marriage-&-Keep-Your-Job-You-Probably-Won’t-Be- Poor-Too-Long-Anyway-So-Go-Ahead-&-Pop-Out-A-Coupla-Mouths-To-Feed, qualifies it with “though probably not 5 or 6.” Well, gee, why not? If “5 or 6″ kids requires some thought on the part of responsible people, why wouldn’t one or two kids?
The objection to what you said strikes me, quite honestly, as the sort of high-horse bridling on behalf of “the poor” that mostly middle-class-&-higher people indulge in. If you chat with actual struggling poor folks, you often find that much as they love their kids, in candid moments they’re also willing to admit the exhaustion of the economic burden that they represent. Creating young, hungry, & nearly helpless new lives when you are young, hungry & nearly helpless yourself is no small part of what keeps the underclass the underclass.
March 1st, 2008 at 8:45 am
Precisely, Mark. I never insinuated that only “rich” (whatever the hell that means) or middle class (again, by whose definition?) should have children, just that people should be able to afford to feed, shelter, and clothe their children and they should take this into consideration before the make the life-altering decision to have them.
There’s a rather famous story in our family, as told to us by my sister-in-law. My brother and sister-in-law were sitting around having a few drinks with friends. The friends (probably in the “middle class,” economically speaking) started bemoaning the fact that they were expecting their fourth child and they just didn’t know how they were going to afford daycare. My brother, not one to mince words, said to them, “Don’t you people think before you fuck?” And yes, as far as I know, they are still friends.