Wacky- if most people are making the right decision, then why is it increasingly common for children to be born out of wedlock?
This is well known to be the #1 predictor that a child will be raised in poverty.
You are doing young people no favor if your fail to teach them to save themselves for marriage. We need to return to the time when there is a stigma against being an unwed mother.
We have managed to convince these girls not to have abortions, but they go get pregnant anyway, and think they can live like Madonna, when they haven't got her dough.
As a culture, we not only need to shame girls into not having children out of wedlock, we need to shame them out of having abortions and shame them out of acting like $lu+s in the first place.
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Aside from the part about stigmatizing mothers, this isn't really fundie.
Frankly, I think too many people are going ahead with having kids without thinking about the repercussions.
J.C. (Joan Crawford), that was $hi+!!!
(Am I hyper-sensitive, or are the recent Fundie Posts even nuttier than usual??)
You act like children out of wedlock is a big deal.
It's their lives, their choice, get the fuck over it.
False. Then, go read "The Girls Who Went Away" and come back and tell me again how totally fantastic it was when kids didn't know how babies were made or that condoms existed. Then when little Susie let little Johnny go a little too far, and Susie had to disappear for nine months until her baby could be stolen from her because she really wasn't given any choice-- come home without the baby and forget this ever happened, dear. Maybe someone will still marry you, it sure won't be Johnny though, who is off at college without so much as a postcard.
Funny, I was born out of wedlock and enjoyed a upper-middle class lifestyle.
Mostly because of the hard work of my mother, and the generosity of my grandparents (they watched me for free when mom was finishing up college and helped mom pay the doctor bills).
Actually, the fundemental difference is probably education. And the fact that most fundie christians marry way, way earlier than most people.
Abortions do very, very little to change the statistics of having out of wedlock children. No woman out there is stupid enough to view abortion as another form of birth control.
"why is it increasingly common for children to be born out of wedlock?
This is well known to be the #1 predictor that a child will be raised in poverty."
I think we have a causation/correlation problem here.
Guess what, halfwit, "unmarried parents" doesn't necessarily equal "teenage single mother". My neighbours' oldest daughter, for example, was nearly 18 when her parents finally married, and she definitely wasn't "raised in poverty."
Of course. Return to a time when there was a stigma against being a single mother. In fact, let's all sew big red "A"s to their chests. And while we're at it, let's try to solve all the problems of the world by propagating negative emotions. That would fix everything and make everybody happy. (?)
Or maybe, instead of bitching about other people on a message board, you could actually go out and DO something to alleviate poverty. Just a thought.
Actually, I thought the education level of the parent(s) was the biggest factor in a child being raised in poverty, not whether the parents are married or not.
Stigma against unwed mothers... such as widows? Rape victims?
Correlation =/= Causation
I am guessing that poor people don't bother to get married. It does seem to be an expensive, middle-class thing. Then these unmarried pplz have children.
While there are some valid points, I'm not sure that "shame" has ever been shown to be an effective birth control method.
Interestingly, adding shame to pregnancy out of wedlock is going to increase the desire for abortions. It would seem to me that anyone sincere about decreasing abortions would seek to lessen the stigma of unwed pregnancies.
That they're unwed it doesn't mean that they're poor. And that a couple is married, it doesn't mean that the child is going to be raised with a reasonable income. And by the way, if you focus only in girls, the problem will persist, and don't expect abortions or out of wedlock pregnancies to stop occuring(it has never happened)
Enter the socialist: How about a good wellfare system to prevent single mothers and their children to slip into poverty. Such as free nursing homes, a good public health care, support systems to get young mother an education or a job.
Others have already pointed out how to avoid unwanted pregnancies, but should it happen, here are my suggestions.
OK, i will not go into a clog rant how everything is better in the Netherlands... But atleast we are open about sexuality. And provide proper and working information about sex, std's, birth control, condoms, pills and stuff that most definetly doesn't work (abstinence for instance)
Somehow, with all this sinfull openness about sex (yes, even your parents had it!) we have the lowest rate of teen pregnancies and abortions... i say: nanananaa!
Funny, I know a couple with three kids, they're both doctors, they live happily in a large, comfortable house with a big garden, and yet they're neither married nor inclined ever to marry. Tell me, should society condemn them?
And you know, it's not just girls who are responsible for kids being born out of wedlock - men kind of play a significant role too, yet I see nothing in your little rant condemning them.
From one slut to one nut, I can tell you that anyone who is too prissy and/or superstitious to spell out a perfectly good word should leave discourse on matters of intercourse to the adults.
Here's an example of its proper usage that Mountain Prude should approve of. It's from an old classic Saturday Night Live skit, circa 1977, in which Jane ("Jane, you ignorant slut") Curtain was the target of this charming little ditty:
Slut, slut, slut.
I suppose we could.
OR, we can make sure they undergo comprehensive sex-ed, have easy access to reliable contraception, and fully understand how and why they should use birth control to prevent pregnancy and greatly reduce the odds of contracting an STD.
That would work too.
Somehow, though, I think that my solution won't appeal to you quite so much as your own "Shame & Blame" plan.
God, I hate this idiotic idea that there was somehow an era when "nothing bad evah happened, evah!!1" The only reason things like teen pregnancy, rape, abortion, premarital sex and such "didn't happen", was because they weren't talked about. And if people did do it, they were often completely ostraised if found out, or people did their best to cover their tracks. Personally, I prefer this era, when people face up to reality.
Mountain Rose is as uninformed about the males' role in pregnancy as s/he is about the "good old days."
Not to mention his/her ignorance about causation/corellation, the fact that most teen pregnancies in the US are in the Bible Belt (where there IS a stigma against being an unwed mother), and the existence of birth control.
Obviously, Mountain Rose knows nothing about the world except what s/he learned from old black & white movies.
"Wacky- if most people are making the right decision, then why is it increasingly common for children to be born out of wedlock?"
Mountain Rose, if the out of wedlock birth rate peaked in 1957, why should anyone think any of your post is worth a crap?
"As a culture, we not only need to shame girls into not having children out of wedlock,"
"we need to shame them out of having abortions"
and shame them out of acting like $lu+s in the first place."
Yeah! Don't teach them how to have sex safely, so that, in case of a moment of passion, she's still at least educated enough to do it safely. Just tell her no, and make her feel like shoe gum when she gets an infection, or pregnant, and then stone her to death.
Good thinking! -_-
while I agree that there is (and really always has been) a problem with teenagers having lots of (unsafe) sex, I think you missed the part about it taking a male and a female to make a baby. You make no mention of the responsibility of the men even though in a lot of cases they're the ones craving all the sex.
Oh yes, lay the blame on the woman because she has the uterus. Let's shame her, the dirty little slut. No mention of the fucking boy in all of this. Perhaps teaching children to respect themselves and use contraception would be better than pile driving a shitload of guilt onto girl's shoulders while the boys have no pressure at all. History shows that abstinence-ed, guilt tripping and robbing babies from single moms doesn't work. Quit fucking around (pun intended) and get with the program already!
[/feminist rant]
My brother and I were born out of wedlock, and even though our father was a terrible excuse for a human being, we were raised by a great mum who loved us and always took care of us. We spent our childhoods dividing our time between Russia and various European countries, and we were never poor. Not all unwed mothers are bad parents, you know.
By the way, the boy in this situation played just as much of a part as the girl did.
Sex. An inexpensive sport. Quite harmless, provided proper precautions are observed.
You certainly like the word "shame", don't you?
In the "ideal type" of society with an organic family/clan/tribe structure, every adult is a child's parent.
"We have managed to convince these girls not to have abortions, but they go get pregnant anyway"
The clinical definition of insanity, is repeating a process, and expecting a different result. It is logical then, to assume that if you want to effect change, then TRY A DIFFERENT FUCKING APPROACH.
Actually, it's the other way around- being in poverty increases the chances a kid will be born "out of wedlock" (a phrase that has always grated me...). Marriage is quite expensive, not to mention likely to fail.
Also, in ye olden days when being an unwed mother or "$lu+" was stigmatized, abortions via tansy and pennyroyal teas, hellebore and St. John's Wort, sharp objects shoved up the vagina, or violent beatings around the abdomen (all of which were potentially fatal to the mother as well) were pretty common. As were infanticide, abandonment, and the horrifically abusive "homes for unwed mothers".
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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