90% of Eggs gone by age 30…

[sadangel]

Ok, I'll bite.

The entrance of women into the workforce brought about one of the biggest booms in the US economy ever seen. Over several decades productivity soared, jobs were created, standards of living rose and many more intelligent and qualified women gradually replaced less talented men.

There were of course downsides. Certain formerly female dominated fields like nursing and primary education suffered a bit of a "brain drain" as women left these relatively non-lucrative field for areas like sales, law, medicine and business in a stunning show of free-market gumption. And of course the monopoly on high paying jobs held by christian white men eroded, one of the big stories of the late 20th century: good if you're in the majority and not a christian white male, bad if you are.

It's of course not trivial to mention the role of The Pill in helping create this revolution. The Pill served to normalize delaying childbirth and has helped avoid a lot of "shotgun" weddings (along with safe and legal abortion).

Statistics clearly show that children born to parents later in life beat their peers in almost all aspects of aptitude and success. Correlation is not causation; more often it's college-bound kids who successfully delay unplanned pregnancy and intelligence is probably tied to this rational thought process.

Also, in a post-globalization world, there just aren't any good jobs available to your typical "blue collar joe" anymore. When Amicus was a young man I'm sure he could have walked to any number of factories and gotten a job he could easily support a family of 4 or 5 on. Today those jobs have been outsourced. The economic earning power of men without college degrees has steadily fallen.

Having fewer children later in life with more resources to support each child is a highly rational choice. Private schools, tutors, and college education sure aren't free, and each child increases the cost of those. Not to mention clothes and luxury items like video games. It's rational to have one or two children late in life and commit a lot of resources to those two rather than having 5 or 6 and relying on the Public School system to raise them. Every family has a budget, and each child increases strain on that budget. While many people choose to have large families for non-rational, non-economic reasons, the fact is for most Americans children are an emotional decision.

Of course there are downsides. There's evidence that long-term pill usage may have some negative impact on fertility for at least some women. And it's pretty well established that a woman's fertility is highest in her teens and early 20s. This doesn't mean women in their 30s can't conceive healthy children. For every woman I know who had trouble conceiving, I know another who went off the pill and was knocked up within 2-3 months. The tricky thing is there's no way for a woman to know if she'll have trouble conceiving until she tries.

Still, women in the workforce gave us an unprecedented period of economic growth that isn't likely to be repeated any time soon. It may have given us unrealistic expectations of how fast our economy "should" grow.

Well said and thank you.

 

[xssve]

In every statistic ami cites, the culprit is most readily ascribed to his own ideology, one that values profits ahead of family life - women in the workforce drive down labor prices, and consequently, costs the ability to manipulate the labor market with monetary policy also works to control inflation by keeping wages down - which translates to higher profit margins for management/owners, the Randist archetypes of "productive individuals", but naturally, squeezes labor, reduced in economic terms to a variable cost, a number in a quarterly report, in the process.

Most workers simply cannot afford to have children until they're on relatively solid ground financially, usually not until their Thirties, while those who earn a living wage, enough to sustain a family, still find a family and encumbrance, as they are often required to move frequently, work long hours, etc.

Clearly, when more bedrooms are available, the birth rate still goes up in spite of this, and down when housing is less easy to come by - naturally housing prices are subject to the laws of supply and demand, an so the birth rate will rise and fall according to supply, which is also both elastic, and subject to manipulation, particularly low income housing, which there is almost no incentive to build - and low income here increasingly includes median income housing in areas where the housing shortage is severe.

High income households, by and large, tend to have fewer children anyway, part of the reason they're high income - bottom line, children cost money, and wages are simply not structured to account for this anymore, it's structured to maximize profit margins, period - just enough to keep the average worker alive and not much more, all, of course, justified with the argument that these profits will be invested to create more jobs, but so far, this effect appears to be spotty or non existent, and this is the Third "Jobless recovery" in a row.

You can't have it both ways ami, unless you're advocating rape camps, or whatever the religious rights version of same is, otherwise, yes, the birthrates will tend to be higher at the very bottom of the labor scale, because they have little to lose, and biologically, most organisms, including humans, associate stress with higher infant mortality rates and shorter lifespans, and this tends to accelerate the natural reproductive cycle, which is why India, Africa and China tend to exhibit steeper population growth, and this is very much reflected in child mortality statistics.

So, various political economies historically, have tried to drive up the birthrate by the squeezing labor sector, though of course, this leads to a two tiered political economy, due to the supply and demand differences between skilled and unskilled labor, skilled labor being harder to squeeze - with all the population growth happening in the bottom part of the economy, which of course they turn around and bitch about, and/or enact Draconian measures to try and correct - in the Brazilian slums for example, they simply hunt down and shoot feral children, who run in packs.

It's a phenomena recorded at least as far back as the Roman empire, though the Romans, for the most part, enslaved the surplus population.

 

[amicus]

Ok, I'll bite.

The entrance of women into the workforce brought about one of the biggest booms in the US economy ever seen. Over several decades productivity soared, jobs were created, standards of living rose and many more intelligent and qualified women gradually replaced less talented men.

There were of course downsides. Certain formerly female dominated fields like nursing and primary education suffered a bit of a "brain drain" as women left these relatively non-lucrative field for areas like sales, law, medicine and business in a stunning show of free-market gumption. And of course the monopoly on high paying jobs held by christian white men eroded, one of the big stories of the late 20th century: good if you're in the majority and not a christian white male, bad if you are.

It's of course not trivial to mention the role of The Pill in helping create this revolution. The Pill served to normalize delaying childbirth and has helped avoid a lot of "shotgun" weddings (along with safe and legal abortion).

Statistics clearly show that children born to parents later in life beat their peers in almost all aspects of aptitude and success. Correlation is not causation; more often it's college-bound kids who successfully delay unplanned pregnancy and intelligence is probably tied to this rational thought process.

Also, in a post-globalization world, there just aren't any good jobs available to your typical "blue collar joe" anymore. When Amicus was a young man I'm sure he could have walked to any number of factories and gotten a job he could easily support a family of 4 or 5 on. Today those jobs have been outsourced. The economic earning power of men without college degrees has steadily fallen.

Having fewer children later in life with more resources to support each child is a highly rational choice. Private schools, tutors, and college education sure aren't free, and each child increases the cost of those. Not to mention clothes and luxury items like video games. It's rational to have one or two children late in life and commit a lot of resources to those two rather than having 5 or 6 and relying on the Public School system to raise them. Every family has a budget, and each child increases strain on that budget. While many people choose to have large families for non-rational, non-economic reasons, the fact is for most Americans children are an emotional decision.

Of course there are downsides. There's evidence that long-term pill usage may have some negative impact on fertility for at least some women. And it's pretty well established that a woman's fertility is highest in her teens and early 20s. This doesn't mean women in their 30s can't conceive healthy children. For every woman I know who had trouble conceiving, I know another who went off the pill and was knocked up within 2-3 months. The tricky thing is there's no way for a woman to know if she'll have trouble conceiving until she tries.

Still, women in the workforce gave us an unprecedented period of economic growth that isn't likely to be repeated any time soon. It may have given us unrealistic expectations of how fast our economy "should" grow.[/QUOTE]

~~~

Hello and thanks, JamesSDl a well thought out and well presented argument.

The entrance of women into the workforce brought about one of the biggest booms in the US economy ever seen. Over several decades productivity soared, jobs were created, standards of living rose and many more intelligent and qualified women gradually replaced less talented men.

On the surface, that appears to be a sound presentation, however....(there is always a 'however')...most of what you offer is false. The big 'economic boom' of the fifties was largely the result of military men returning from war and the change from manufacturing war materials to consumer goods as no cars or refrigerators were built in the US from 1941 through 1945.

You may not remember or know the wages and salaries paid in the 50's, but I do, and if memory serves, there was no such artificial government edict controlling minimum wages. Further, if you do the math, taxes paid by women working, even with two working parents, consumed such a percentage of the combined income that the woman's wages were consumed by pruchased child care and the necessity of transportation involving a 'two car family', for the first time in history.

"...many more intelligent and qualified women gradually replaced less talented men...."

I am sure that statement pleases the ladies and the ardent feminists but it remains patently untrue. Women in the factories making tanks and aircraft during world war two, were barely qualified as factory line operators. This factors into your post war boom as women were seldom educated even to the high school level before and during the war and few were college educated.

Further, if you do not recognize the physical and biological limitations of the female worker, which dictates fewer working hours, more days off, more medical and health problems and stress related lethargy concerning child care of the working mother, then you fail to perceive the entire scope of women in the work force.

Your second paragraph is an insult to anyone with knowledge of affirmative action programs, the results of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique", the 'Glass Ceiling', and the nationwide effort to lower standards of performance to accommodate women attempting to perform work previously done by men only.

If anything, women in the work force are the limiting factor in any economic surge as the conveniences they require dictate higher wages, lower production and increased prices for the consuming public.

However, the biggest and worst effects of women in the workplace is the 'latchkey children', who are in effect raised by the public school system, after school activities and being left alone without a parent at home and when the parents do arrive, both are exhausted and are, essentially, unfit to parent children.

Noting the destruction of the family, the failure of more than half of all marriages, the failure of children to perform in school work, the two million yearly runaway children in the US, one can easily make the argument that women in the workforce have basically destroyed the family structure and abandoned child nurturing as a lost art.

I know you are defending an ideology and a belief in the feminist revolution and you did a fine, rational and unemotional job of it. But beginning with a faulty premise, your following logic is suspect as building a false argument.

Before you dismiss my thoughts entirely, look around you and assess the world as it is in this day and age and ask yourself, in view of all the statistics concerning poverty levels, educational accomplishments, employment statistics, food stamp and welfare numbers, then tell me your half century of progress is still a good thing.

Amicus

 

[amicus]

In every statistic ami cites, the culprit is most readily ascribed to his own ideology, one that values profits ahead of family life - women in the workforce drive down labor prices, and consequently, costs the ability to manipulate the labor market with monetary policy also works to control inflation by keeping wages down - which translates to higher profit margins for management/owners, the Randist archetypes of "productive individuals", but naturally, squeezes labor, reduced in economic terms to a variable cost, a number in a quarterly report, in the process.

Most workers simply cannot afford to have children until they're on relatively solid ground financially, usually not until their Thirties, while those who earn a living wage, enough to sustain a family, still find a family and encumbrance, as they are often required to move frequently, work long hours, etc.

Clearly, when more bedrooms are available, the birth rate still goes up in spite of this, and down when housing is less easy to come by - naturally housing prices are subject to the laws of supply and demand, an so the birth rate will rise and fall according to supply, which is also both elastic, and subject to manipulation, particularly low income housing, which there is almost no incentive to build - and low income here increasingly includes median income housing in areas where the housing shortage is severe.

High income households, by and large, tend to have fewer children anyway, part of the reason they're high income - bottom line, children cost money, and wages are simply not structured to account for this anymore, it's structured to maximize profit margins, period - just enough to keep the average worker alive and not much more, all, of course, justified with the argument that these profits will be invested to create more jobs, but so far, this effect appears to be spotty or non existent, and this is the Third "Jobless recovery" in a row.

You can't have it both ways ami, unless you're advocating rape camps, or whatever the religious rights version of same is, otherwise, yes, the birthrates will tend to be higher at the very bottom of the labor scale, because they have little to lose, and biologically, most organisms, including humans, associate stress with higher infant mortality rates and shorter lifespans, and this tends to accelerate the natural reproductive cycle, which is why India, Africa and China tend to exhibit steeper population growth, and this is very much reflected in child mortality statistics.

So, various political economies historically, have tried to drive up the birthrate by the squeezing labor sector, though of course, this leads to a two tiered political economy, due to the supply and demand differences between skilled and unskilled labor, skilled labor being harder to squeeze - with all the population growth happening in the bottom part of the economy, which of course they turn around and bitch about, and/or enact Draconian measures to try and correct - in the Brazilian slums for example, they simply hunt down and shoot feral children, who run in packs.

It's a phenomena recorded at least as far back as the Roman empire, though the Romans, for the most part, enslaved the surplus population.[/QUOTE]

~~~

Xssve...like JamesSD, you are touting an ideology and in a fairly rational manner, with a minimum of slams or emotional content, which is appreciated.

However...

Throughout all of your threads, especially those addressed to an issue I have raised, you are highly critical of the free market, capitalism and most economic systems that preserve individual rights and liberties, but you never, ever, offer a structured presentation of just what economic and political system you feel would resolve the problems you perceive.

Why is that?

There are only so many 'smart people' men and women in the world; the bell curve of the intelligence quotient illustrates the percentages which I am certain you are well aware of.

This is another argument, but pertinent: in that the Intelligence Quotient, the IQ, also identifies racial and ethnic differences which are not well publicized, but also indicate a gender differential, which is also ignored and discarded in most arguments.

The dirty little secret of most Statists, is that they are well aware that half the population can be manipulated and essentially brainwashed to believe that a strong central government can and will solve all there problems.

To embrace human individual liberty as both a philosophy and a political and economic imperative is the most difficult of all positions to present and defend because it requires individuals to actually think before they act and then assume the responsibility for their actions.

Both formal Religion and Statism promise to relieve the individual of the burden of thought and offer a blissful 'belief' that God or Big Brother will solve all their problems.

Far any thinking person, a rational person, to advocate such surrender of the self to a greater good, God or the State, is intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible.

Your transparent advocacy of Class Conflict, a Marxist idiom or dialectic, needs to be pointed out and clarified, which I attempt to do in each response to your diatribes opposing individual liberty and freedom.

As one of high intelligence, which I am sure you are, there must be a tremendous feeling of guilt and inadequacy as you attempt to prosyletize the unwashed while all the time knowing your words and thoughts are morally inept and openly advocate enslaving all who oppose you.

Amicus

 

[amicus]

It's difficult to come into this, or any discussion, without an objective and armed only with non-personal and non-emotional commentary, Ami. I guess the best response to you under these terms is ...

whatever. [/QUOTE]

~~~

Hello CharleyH, I have been wanting to welcome you back to North America since you announced your return and to wish you the best of all things in your new circumstances.

We all have "personal and emotional" outlooks, opinions and conclusions, based on our unique, personal life experiences and they are of value and it is difficult for most, impossible for some, to separate the rational from the emotional.

An objective, rational discussion, is usually the unstated intent of many who participate in forums such as this. Personal attacks, name calling, emotional outbursts are simply not part of any attempt to discover meaning in human affairs.

When I make a statement or offer a conclusion on such controversial topics as abortion and homosexuality, I attempt to do so without personal experience entering into the discussion. That is not to say that I do not have personal opinons on both subjects, as I centainly do, but in debating or discussing any topic, I do my best to withhold the personal, emotional aspects and deal only with the rational and objective comprehension of the subject, bringing whatever knowledge I have to the debate.

For those who have had an abortion or who are homosexuals, I can understand the difficulty in divorcing one's personal and emotional involvement in the subject from an objective observation.

Welcome back! Happy to have you in the mix again.



Amicus

 

[amicus]

That's just idiotic, saturation point is a long accepted phenomena in biology, every species has one, relative to it's ecological niche - populations expand and contract all the time, usually depending on average rainfall for that particular year.

There is a minimum arable acreage a human being requires to survive, our saturation point is where arable acreage per person falls below that minimum.

So far, we've been able put this off with better science but there is a minimum beyond which one can no longer reduce the necessary acreage. This isn't ideology, this is biology.

We also compensate through fishing, but that appears to be threatened now - the BP oil spill may well end up pushing us into ecological crisis on a grand scale, whether you "like it or not"[/QUOTE]

~~~

You already know that aol the research on, 'saturation point', was conducted mainly on rats and a few other insentient animals.

Perhaps you are city-bound and have not had the opportunity to drive the length and breadth of America and Canada and parts of Mexico, as I have. I can assure you and perhaps others will confirm if you choose not to believe my statement concerning the vast open lands, arable land available for human habitation that exists in North America. And that does not even count the 31% of all US land owned by Federal and State governments.

If there is an upper limit to the population the US could support in luxury, it is upwards of ten times, three plus billion, and you need not concern yourself over it.

My calculations of course stipulate a free and open society with a free market system in place to supply the demands of the consumer. If you have based your conclusions on closed societies such as the former Soviet Union, Communist China or Cuba, then I can understand your concern that any centrally controlled statist economy cannot feed their people...that is a fact.

Not that you will see, but others might, that it is your ideology that clouds your vision of the ability of free men in a free society to supply their own needs and even export food to the rest of the world as America does.

One should also quetion those who base their argument of the lifestyle of overcrowded rats.

Silly.

Amicus

 

[CeriseNoire]

Personally, as liberal as I may be on some fronts, I believe in being mature, financially stable, and in a serious relationship before having kids. I think the main reason behind it is that I feel I had a great childhood: I had two parents who actually liked each other, both of them were fairly educated, and they worked to make enough to cover all of our needs and a few wants, yet no so much that they wouldn't have time for us. I want my kids to have at least as much as I had, so having them very early was not an option.

However, I would not consider having children very late either. My mother used to work in the fertility department of a university hospital, and so it was ingrained in me that the optimal childbearing window was 23 to 33. Because of this, and family history, if I turn 33 before I have children, then I will not bear any. We'd likely adopt if that is the case.

As it turns out, I'll be in the situation I described in my first paragraph, soon. I've been working for a few years, purchased a house last September, and I will be marrying my longtime boyfriend next month. As things stand, we plan on waiting about a year, and then try to conceive.

I know you wanted objective, Ami, but I'm feeling contrary today.

 

[JamesSD]

I am sure that statement pleases the ladies and the ardent feminists but it remains patently untrue. Women in the factories making tanks and aircraft during world war two, were barely qualified as factory line operators. This factors into your post war boom as women were seldom educated even to the high school level before and during the war and few were college educated.

Further, if you do not recognize the physical and biological limitations of the female worker, which dictates fewer working hours, more days off, more medical and health problems and stress related lethargy concerning child care of the working mother, then you fail to perceive the entire scope of women in the work force.

Ignoring your dismissive, combative, and somewhat offensive tone you always take when trying to "debate", I'll point out that I was talking more of the boom period seen from the late 40s into the late 60s. It's pretty obvious that a woman with no significant work experience or a couple years of wartime factory work would be less competitive than men with 10-20 years experience. Women who were 30, 40 or older benefited far less than their younger counterparts. Still, it's pretty hard to argue that with a level playing field and equal educational opportunities women don't perform as well as men*. As I noted, a major part of the current educational crisis stems from the fact that in the past women with exceptional IQs often ended up as poorly paid schoolteachers rather than doctors and lawyers. So again, obviously it's not like the door was opened and a huge flood of qualified women rushed the gates. However the US isn't the only country to see a boost in productivity that corresponds with increased opportunity for talented and intelligent women in the workforce.

Your paragraph about women's limitations has a kernel of truth to it with regards to physically intense, formerly lucrative and now mostly poor paying jobs. There was a time not so long ago women were thought of as being better at clerical work than men. Now that all the good jobs are clerical, what has changed?

(*When scientifically measuring things like IQ and performance, while women inevitably have a mean and mode right in line with men, for whatever reason there do tend to be a few more male outliers. This difference is negligible when talking about men and women as a whole, but not completely unimportant when looking for the next Bill Gates or Einstein)

I'm going to just skip your part about affirmative action on account of it making no sense whatsoever.

However, the biggest and worst effects of women in the workplace is the 'latchkey children', who are in effect raised by the public school system, after school activities and being left alone without a parent at home and when the parents do arrive, both are exhausted and are, essentially, unfit to parent children.

Noting the destruction of the family, the failure of more than half of all marriages, the failure of children to perform in school work, the two million yearly runaway children in the US, one can easily make the argument that women in the workforce have basically destroyed the family structure and abandoned child nurturing as a lost art.

I know you are defending an ideology and a belief in the feminist revolution and you did a fine, rational and unemotional job of it. But beginning with a faulty premise, your following logic is suspect as building a false argument.

Before you dismiss my thoughts entirely, look around you and assess the world as it is in this day and age and ask yourself, in view of all the statistics concerning poverty levels, educational accomplishments, employment statistics, food stamp and welfare numbers, then tell me your half century of progress is still a good thing.

You try to lump a lot of social problems together here and somehow pin all the blame on women working. A few minor points: Are you demonizing after school activities, the sort of thing colleges look for on applications? Are you saying that all work is so draining it makes your typical 9-5er completely unfit as a parent?

The divorce rate is something that is complex and deserving of a separate discussion. I will grant that increased economic freedom allowed women to exit marriages they might have been unhappy in but stayed in for economic security. But a big part of the increased divorce rate came from the US becoming less Catholic. Also, please note that studies show there is no real benefit to a two parent household if there is disharmony in the marriage - in terms of things like grades children from unhappy marriages perform at the same level as those from divorce.

Your final attempt to claim poverty and unemployment are caused by women working is somewhere between absurd and intellectually lazy. The Great Depression happened when women largely stayed home. Unemployment is currently high (but falling) thanks to a combination of corporate greed, reckless policymaking and natural economic cycles (mostly the latter).

There certainly are challenges to a free-market approach to women's employment. But as a Capitalist nation, it would truly be wrong on every level for women not to be part of the workforce, treated as equals, achieving and earning according to their merits and talents. And individual man is free not to marry a woman who puts her career first; in many ways the dating and marriage world is the ultimate free market. And there are plenty of women who choose to exit the workforce during key child-raising years and re-enter later. Individual Choice is a wonderful thing and the basis of Capitalism, and to limit it would be Un-American!

 

[xssve]

Xssve...like JamesSD, you are touting an ideology and in a fairly rational manner, with a minimum of slams or emotional content, which is appreciated.

However...

Throughout all of your threads, especially those addressed to an issue I have raised, you are highly critical of the free market, capitalism and most economic systems that preserve individual rights and liberties, but you never, ever, offer a structured presentation of just what economic and political system you feel would resolve the problems you perceive.

You're the one whining about low birth rates and rising ages of first time parents ami - remember?

We don't really have a problem, other than we use far too many resources, and probably some statistical increases in birth defects - James has it about right, but there's always going to be tradeoffs, that's how economics is. Oh, and your beloved corporate machine dumping estrogen and other chemical into the water supply, and engineered genomes into the food chain, will also introduce certain unpredictable externalities, possibly even the one mentioned in the thread title!

Contrary to your strawman, I have nothing against business, I don't think that large swaths of the population should pay with their health so that handful of greedheads can afford their own personal congressman. The fact is, you don't seem to like people much.

Countries like India have a problem, as their population outstrips their capacity to feed themselves, supply and demand, remember? Read the fucking article, you moron, you're living in a fantasy world, look at the calender, it ain't 1950 anymore.

 

[xssve]

Every single thing you complain about is because of dipshits just like you, who think they can find a workaround to avoid ethical behavior and social justice, skim the cream off the top without incurring consequences - and there isn't one, acting like a halfway decent human being is the solution, always has been.

Some things never fucking change.

 

[amicus]

Personally, as liberal as I may be on some fronts, I believe in being mature, financially stable, and in a serious relationship before having kids. I think the main reason behind it is that I feel I had a great childhood: I had two parents who actually liked each other, both of them were fairly educated, and they worked to make enough to cover all of our needs and a few wants, yet no so much that they wouldn't have time for us. I want my kids to have at least as much as I had, so having them very early was not an option.

However, I would not consider having children very late either. My mother used to work in the fertility department of a university hospital, and so it was ingrained in me that the optimal childbearing window was 23 to 33. Because of this, and family history, if I turn 33 before I have children, then I will not bear any. We'd likely adopt if that is the case.

As it turns out, I'll be in the situation I described in my first paragraph, soon. I've been working for a few years, purchased a house last September, and I will be marrying my longtime boyfriend next month. As things stand, we plan on waiting about a year, and then try to conceive.

I know you wanted objective, Ami, but I'm feeling contrary today.[/QUOTE]

~~~

Hello Cerise, good to see you again....and contrariness is not unknown to me...

I also want to applaud you for the personal touch that underlines and adds to your thoughts.

I am, however, going to disagree with your conclusions; not on a personal basis and I should not need to say that you have every right to choose and plan your own lifestyle without interference from anyone, for that is my conclusion and it applies to all as long as no one's rights or freedoms are violated.

I have never attempted to make this argument before, so there may well be vacancies in my presentation and openings for refutation, but then, thas what discussion and debate is all about.

You present such excellent logic for parenting to be commenced when one is settled, responsible and economically prepared to begin a family, that most would never question your premises.

I shall begin by acknowledging that nature, by preparing the female to bear children at what is now considered a ridiculously young age, beginning, in some cases, as early as age eleven or twelve. That may well be an evolutionary left-over, when the lifespan of mankind was less than 30 years.

Thee are also studies, many of them, that indicate a female in her early teens is neither physically nor psychologically prepared to bear children. There is also the societal change wherein the extended family is no longer available to assist the young woman or young couple, to deal with the responsibilities of beginning a family unit.

Even so, reason demands that I pay heed to nature's imperatives and explore what benefits may arise from childbearing in the early to mid-teen age span.

As I told my daughter, who unmarried and childless at the ripe old age of 26; not every woman, of necessity, must become a mother, and some are simply not suited for child rearing. I also discussed the possibility of that inner urge that most, if not all women experience, the desire to bear and nurture a child.

I mentioned I had not made this argument before and, hell, I may change my mind halfway through this as I am providing evidentiary grounds for your case.

Education is a wonderful thing; it opens intellectual doors that offer opportunities the uneducated never realize. I doubt I can make a good case that education is a benefit to a teen aged child bearing mother. Yes, yes, I know all about nutrition and such and here is where the ephemeral mystery of the female psyche becomes a factor.

I would also add that work experience, competition in the market place, performance according to standards set by others; all this and more, are no doubt valuable experiences and add to the fullness of any life...but...are those things benefits in motherhood, or do they detract from the nurturing experience?

There was a period of time, I think it is now on the wane, wherein declaring: "I'm a housewife, I don't work outside the home...", was a declaration of ignorance and old fashioned thinkiing.

Here is where my political premises come into play and spill over into a social matter. Many young couples feel they are forced to both work to afford what are considered the basic necessities of modern life.

My observation and studies illustrate that the larger size of government, the higher taxes brought about by environmental and ecological issues and a philosophy that expansion and growth are evil twins and that there are already too many people, are the culprits in forcing both parties in a marriage to work to support a family.

I think I am not in error in my conclusion as it is supported by hundreds of responses on my old talk radio show by women who stated they would not choose to work outside the home if they had the choice.

I am going to probe what will no doubt be a touchy area of discussion; that of love, that four letter word that entrances most as they venture into puberty. I also want to gingerly present 'chastity', as a value for young people, some of whom want their 'first time' to be with their partner for life, excluding all others. And, yes, I write romance stories....

I will propose the obvious and then try to explain why: I purport that a sexual experience is the most intimate and personal experience a human being of either sex will ever experience. That intimacy and personal nature places a moral 'value' on the act and is the reason why betrayal and infidelity have always been of such contention.

This becomes political again when I state that knowing pregnancy is a possible outcome of a sexual encounter, it naturally follows that multiple sexual experiences detract from the value of the event and present, inevitably, a moral or ethical dilemma.

I offer those observations because I was once a horny teen-aged guy, panting around with tongue hanging out (not really, but it makes a nice visual) and chasing every skirt (that's all they used to wear), that appealed to me.

I am saying in short that those pubescent hormonal urges play a role in child bearing and properly so as having a baby is a life changing event.

To be really radical, I will question the continuing education of females into their teens and the purpose it really serves, if any. (egads)

Although it is considered totally passe' in our modern hip society, I offer that most if not all human values begin with child birth when the child becomes father to the man and mother to the woman. There is a current television commercial that says, "When you go from Dude to Dad..." I think it is an Insurance advertisement.

My philosophy has a basic premise: 'individual human life is the basic and fundamental value from which all other values are born....' thus it follows that giving birth to life and nurturing it, are also fundamental values.

I will offer a conclusion of sorts, that the earlier in life one respects, cherishes and acts upon those values, the better. Youth is a wonderful time of life, never to be repeated, as those first experiences cannot be repeated and should have the inherent value recognized and sought after.

I also suggest that mother nature, in providing mankind with that ineffable ability to 'fall in love head over heels', that wondrous, inexplicable feeling of completeness provided by another human being, is an experience one should not dispense with impunity.

I am reminded of a scene from "The Russia House" when Sean Connery expresses his adult love for Michelle Pheiffer, who has two children and Connery has grey hair...that kind of love, I suspect, is rare in later periods of life when one has perhaps been sated by many experiences.

So, yes, I will stay with my position that the younger the marriage the better. I suggest that overcoming the challenges of economic stability as a shared experience acts as a bond between those two people that will last a lifetime. I also suggest that the sudden and irrefutable responsibility of caring for and nurturing a new born child, is one of the most valuable lessons in morality that one can experience.

Dear Cerise and anyone else who has waited, please take this as a generic response to an objective question and not a personal affront. To each his own goes with every moral pronouncement I make, stipulating, as I did before, that no one's inalienable human individual rights are violated.

Thank you for the opportunity to do a little thinking outside the box...like it or not, I found it challenging.



Amicus

 

[amicus]

JamesSD & xssve....a quote from the latter:

"...We don't really have a problem..."

~~~

I appreciate both your lengthy rejections and refutations of my thoughts and feel obligated to respond in some way that I hope will be rational to all who may or may not follow our exchanges.

Actually, 'we have a lot of problems...' the difficulty between us is that we perceive those problems from polar opposites.

An old addage and a truthful one: "Everything changes, nothing remains as it was..." I get the feeling from both of you that you envision a time of perfect harmony and unity...that you want to achieve that status and then freeze it forever.

Life doesn't work that way; never has, never will.

Most people do not have the time or the energy, the education or the opportunity to do as we do on this forum, express and discuss our perceptions of life in general and many topics in specific.

Most of the conflicting opinions arose during the late 19th and 20th centuries and they, in my observation, coincide with the Industrial Revolution and the events that followed.

I defend, willingly, free market capitalism because it is the only economic system that offers the opportunity to express all the aspects of an independent, free, individual human being.

You both claim to support the free market concept, yet you both continually criticize the theory and the practice, as do most on this forum. Criticism can be a good thing as it presses those who advocate otherwise to work to defend their basic concepts and premises. I don't mind that, as long as it is conducted with some degree of civility and reason.

I find it difficult to converse with xssve particularly because the concepts and premises presented are from a righteous, superiority complex attitude, condescending as if you were stating matters of faith and can never be questioned concerning your basic premise that your God is the only God and all others are heathens.

Aside from free market arguments, you brook no criticism of a dozen subjects including, but not limited to, female emancipation, civil rights, socialized medicine, corporate enterprise and environmental issues, just to name a few.

On these and other subjects, you claim to be infallible and righteous in your convictions and permit no criticism and display anger when one even questions your omniscience.

Perhaps 80% of the worlds population oppresses females and treats them as chattel, yet you never criticize socialism or Islamic rule. Why?

For most of human history, all women were treated as second class citizens or worse....WHY?

When anyone criticizes feminine characteristics, most on this forum go ballistic, as if this is sacred territory and no one is permitted to even question the efficacy of the liberation of women. Why?

The same can be truthfully said about slavery and homosexuality; no criticism is tolerated; both subjects are treated as 'settled' issues sacred beyond righteousness. Why?

In most of the world, Africans are still treated as second class citizens. Why?

Homosexuals are sent to prison in most parts of the world. Why?

You are righteously, religiously closed minded on these issues and will tolerate no opposing opinion. Why?

Preserving Pristine wilderness, ecological and environmental fanaticism; most are of one mind on this issue,again with such a strong religous conviction that people sacrifice themselves to save Whales and Harp Seals and Spotted Owls and are willing to destroy an economy to preserve a species of fish. Why?

I am an atheist, a militant atheist, because I never again want a Church so powerful it can call an inquisition or burn witches at the stake and yet this is the course you follow. Your expressed hatred at any who disagree with you, had you the power, you damn well be tack me up on a stake; right?

Christianity, Religion in general, demands that each individual sacrifice their own identity and become 'one' with their God. Your expressed sense of life, philosophy, demands the same; you demand the individual sacrifice his or her free choice of life, even to the point of not having children because of your false perception of over population, another false religious belief to which you brook no opposition or disagreement.

The tragedy of those who give their souls to a cause, religious or otherwise, is that they find themselves without a personal, individual identification and becoming willing foot soldiers in a quest to stamp out all opposition no matter what the human cost.

Don't evem pretend that you don't know what I mean, for you do and it is that dirty little secret at the heart and soul of every believer.

It is my hope that others who read will recognize the inherent evil in your faith and reject it as one turns aside from maggots; with utter disgust.

Amicus

 

[xssve]

JamesSD & xssve....a quote from the latter:

~~~

Actually, 'we have a lot of problems...' the difficulty between us is that we perceive those problems from polar opposites.

Huh, and in your last reply, I was the one seeing problems everywhere, go figure.

An old addage and a truthful one: "Everything changes, nothing remains as it was..." I get the feeling from both of you that you envision a time of perfect harmony and unity...that you want to achieve that status and then freeze it forever.

Life doesn't work that way; never has, never will.

This sounds a lot more like you than anybody else in here, you want to "freeze it forever" at some imagined golden age gone by where men were men, and women properly barefoot and pregnant.

Most people do not have the time or the energy, the education or the opportunity to do as we do on this forum, express and discuss our perceptions of life in general and many topics in specific.

Most of the conflicting opinions arose during the late 19th and 20th centuries and they, in my observation, coincide with the Industrial Revolution and the events that followed.

Again, an apt description of yourself.

I defend, willingly, free market capitalism because it is the only economic system that offers the opportunity to express all the aspects of an independent, free, individual human being.

Who is attacking it? The big difference here is that you seem to think collective labor has no right to self defense against collective management, because it threatens to narrow their profit margins.

You both claim to support the free market concept, yet you both continually criticize the theory and the practice, as do most on this forum. Criticism can be a good thing as it presses those who advocate otherwise to work to defend their basic concepts and premises. I don't mind that, as long as it is conducted with some degree of civility and reason.

So to be a "free market capitalist" you have to stick your head in the sand and your ass in the air? That's you ami, all blind faith - faith is for religion, not economics, in economics we deal with actual demonstrable fact, not fairy tales, and businessmen are like everybody else, they come in both good and bad varieties, you don't give them a pass just because they're businessmen, pimps and drug dealers are businessmen.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that is how the free market works - it encompasses the right to complain: not just for you, for everybody.

I find it difficult to converse with xssve particularly because the concepts and premises presented are from a righteous, superiority complex attitude, condescending as if you were stating matters of faith and can never be questioned concerning your basic premise that your God is the only God and all others are heathens.

Try addressing the facts sometime, instead spouting your usual stew of fatuous blather - you haven't argued with a single fact I've presented, because you can't spin it.

Aside from free market arguments, you brook no criticism of a dozen subjects including, but not limited to, female emancipation, civil rights, socialized medicine, corporate enterprise and environmental issues, just to name a few.

Again, fact have been presented, to be countered by your memories of callers to some radio show you once hosted, no doubt designed to appeal to to people like yourself - that's called anecdotal evidence, and it has no empirical statistical value. "Many women" don't like to work, many Men don't like to work, but many of those do appreciate getting paid to do it, and enabling them to make choices that most women simply didn't have before they had the option of going to work - now, they work, pretty much because they have to, because nobody in the bottom Four quintiles makes enough money to support a single wage earner household.

The largest percentage of households below the poverty line are single wage earner households, which is why Hispanics are overrepresented - because they're Catholic, and they stubbornly cling to their family values - the women don't typically work outside the home.

No sweat, more power to 'em, but the trade of is, they live below the poverty line.

On these and other subjects, you claim to be infallible and righteous in your convictions and permit no criticism and display anger when one even questions your omniscience.

Look it up, it's not rightous conviction, that's you, this is information you can easily confirm independently.

Perhaps 80% of the worlds population oppresses females and treats them as chattel, yet you never criticize socialism or Islamic rule. Why?

Maybe because I'm not a Muslim, they can clean up their own backyard.

For most of human history, all women were treated as second class citizens or worse....WHY?

You tell us, it's your philosophy - go ahead, explain it to us.

When anyone criticizes feminine characteristics, most on this forum go ballistic, as if this is sacred territory and no one is permitted to even question the efficacy of the liberation of women. Why?

Aw, poor baby - I do it all the time, and I get pounded for it, but guess what? I don't go crying about it, like every word I say must be accepted without question - I don't need some mythical patriarchy to rush to my defense, I can handle myself, thank you.

So quit whining: if you're wrong, and you usually are - you're wrong - deal with it.

The same can be truthfully said about slavery and homosexuality; no criticism is tolerated; both subjects are treated as 'settled' issues sacred beyond righteousness. Why?

What the fuck are you talking about - when did slavery come into it? As for homosexuality, in what way is it even any of your business? In what way do you imagine you can do something about it? Deal with it, it's a fact of life, all the criticism in the world isn't going to change it, so stop boring everybody already.

In most of the world, Africans are still treated as second class citizens. Why?

Again, your philosophy, you explain it to us.

Homosexuals are sent to prison in most parts of the world. Why?

Maybe you should just move to one of those countries - have they solved the "problem" in those countries? have People stopped being homosexual becuse it's against the law?

You are righteously, religiously closed minded on these issues and will tolerate no opposing opinion. Why?

It's called "being realistic" - try it.

Preserving Pristine wilderness, ecological and environmental fanaticism; most are of one mind on this issue,again with such a strong religous conviction that people sacrifice themselves to save Whales and Harp Seals and Spotted Owls and are willing to destroy an economy to preserve a species of fish. Why?

Uh, because I find eating, drinking and breathing to be quite beneficial to maintaining my physical health? To you that makes me a "fanatic", to me, see above - these things are not ideologies, they're necessary for life.

Again, it's the free market you claim to worship - it's not a one sided deal.

I am an atheist, a militant atheist, because I never again want a Church so powerful it can call an inquisition or burn witches at the stake and yet this is the course you follow. Your expressed hatred at any who disagree with you, had you the power, you damn well be tack me up on a stake; right?

Wait a sec, weren't you just advocating throwing homosexuals in prison? That's not fanatical, no sirree.

Stop with the martyr complex already, the worst danger you're in is simply being ignored, which prospect I'm certain terrifies you beyond words.

Christianity, Religion in general, demands that each individual sacrifice their own identity and become 'one' with their God. Your expressed sense of life, philosophy, demands the same; you demand the individual sacrifice his or her free choice of life, even to the point of not having children because of your false perception of over population, another false religious belief to which you brook no opposition or disagreement.

Who is demanding what from you? Go fucking knock up as many bitches as you want, who's stopping you? But you deal with the consequences, ok?

The tragedy of those who give their souls to a cause, religious or otherwise, is that they find themselves without a personal, individual identification and becoming willing foot soldiers in a quest to stamp out all opposition no matter what the human cost.

Again, please furnish any evidence whatsoever that this reflects any philosophy but your own.

Don't evem pretend that you don't know what I mean, for you do and it is that dirty little secret at the heart and soul of every believer.

The mirror, look into it.

It is my hope that others who read will recognize the inherent evil in your faith and reject it as one turns aside from maggots; with utter disgust.

Amicus

So after all that, anybody who doesn't blindly accept your ideology without qualification is an evil, disgusting maggot?

Heil amicus.

Now whine about how mean I am, calling you names child - typical liberal, yeah?

I mean seriously, if you're going to call somebody an evil, disgusting maggot, just grow a pair and do it, don't hide behind some ideological doubletalk, that's chickenshit.

 

[Guest]

So after all that, anybody who doesn't blindly accept your ideology without qualification is an evil, disgusting maggot?

Heil amicus.

Now whine about how mean I am, calling you names child - typical liberal, yeah?

I mean seriously, if you're going to call somebody an evil, disgusting maggot, just grow a pair and do it, don't hide behind some ideological doubletalk, that's chickenshit.

Nope.

That's just ami.

 

[LaRocha]

I'm so liberal. My right hand doesn't know what my left hand is up to.