More from the teen mom: Responding to statements about bastard children
I think I’ve mentioned her before, but I have to give some more link love to Violent Acres. For someone without kids of her own, she seems to have her finger on the pulse of what I call “incidental parenting”. You know, this trend of women half-heartedly cranking out children as a past-time, fashion accessory, or most contemptibly; as a source of income from the cheated and manipulated fathers.
In her latest post, she makes the point that “there is no commitment greater than having a child…and it should never, ever, ever be taken lightly.” I agree, I soooo agree, I do.
There is just the teeny-tiniest point that we diverge on: commitment to the father.
The second you get knocked up, you have made a lifelong commitment to a man. Part of being a responsible parent is taking care to choose the right father. When parents fail to make a joint commitment to each other and their children…society suffers from their irresponsibility.
I know she’s not talking to me, but I can’t help but feel that in a way she’s talking about me.
I’m sorry VA, but the moment I got knocked up I had no commitments to anyone but myself. When I chose to keep the baby yes, I had a commitment to myself and to my baby and the father. But when I told the father about my choice, and he told me I should have an abortion, that’s when the triad of commitment between the father, myself, and my baby ceased to exist.
I think a better statement would be more like “THE SECOND YOU DEMAND CHILD SUPPORT, YOU HAVE MADE AN EIGHTEEN-YEAR COMMITMENT TO A MAN.” Can we agree on that?
If part of being a responsible parent is taking care to choose the right father, maybe another part is choosing to go on without the wrong father. I think if more women were faced with that choice; the choice to raise the child completely on their own, we’d have less bastard children. The few bastard children that were born would be born to commited mothers who made a very hard and important decision.
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4 Comments on “More from the teen mom: Responding to statements about bastard children”
Actually, court-mandated child support payments can extend to the 25th birthday of a child, especially if the child is enrolled in higher education.
Being a “bastard” should simply a legal definition at this point. I feel the stigma is nothing like it used to be even twenty years ago. Funny that a thousand years ago it wasn’t such a big deal, either.
There is a clearly visible historical trend between the price of bread and the rate of bastard children: when bread prices were high, illegitimate births increased. The possible reason for this could be that when it is expensive to get married and support a family, couples don’t get married, but they still have sex.
Looking again at history, there were many clan and tribal societies which were matrifocal and matrilineal. The fathers of children had less responsibility to them than did their mothers or even their uncles (on the mother’s side, of course). The brothers helped to support their sisters’ children, and the father was probably supporting HIS sisters’ children.
The nuclear family has been pushed as the perfect model since the first half of the 20th century. Even before that, the patrilineal system goes back centuries and milennia for most of us. The matrilineal model, however, is so much easier to adjudicate because there can be practically no doubt who the mother is, especially in a village. Without a way to prove paternity, it was easier to reduce or eliminate its legal importance.
But that is all theory. Here and now, men who step up to the plate and support their children and their spouses (and I don’t just mean financially) should be applauded. Those who choose not to support their children should be shamed and ridiculed.
In any event, I applaud your courage and resolve to raise your child alone. That young man wasn’t ready to be a dad. Trying to force him to be one would have just added pain and suffering to your life and your child’s life. Your decision allowed you to move on and get your life headed in the right direction.
NO, we can’t agree on that. It takes two, count ‘em, two parents – a father and a mother, to raise a successfully functioning child. Not Mom plus the series of men she dated, not Mon plus some other guy she married. Two PARENTS.
The point of V’s article is this: You should not be fucking without birth control unless you are in a fully committed relationship and have jointly decided to not just have, but raise a child.
Having grown to nearly age 50, I can count on one hand the number of people who grew up “not fucked up” in a one-parent home.
All the dumbasses think they know better than the thousands of years of reproductive activity that has preceded them, or thing they’re fucking unique or something.
The discussion about raising a baby should have been had before you you let him put his pee-pee in your pee-pee, get it?
I have nothing but admiration for Amy and her success on the difficult and rewarding path that she has chosen. I think that she is raising a wonderful and intelligent child whom I feel priveledged to have in my little world. Terabyte talks about counting on one hand the number of people who grew up not fucked up in single parent homes, I would counter that with the fact that I cannot count on BOTH hands the number of people raised in terribly dysfunctional TWO parent homes that grew up fucked up. So hey, how about we agree that crazy fuck ups probably shouldn’t breed regardless of financial/marital status.
As a women i am tired of women saying that men have the job of paying for your rights!!! If a man marries you then he wants to take care of you and anything the to of you make as a team, if a man has sex with you he is agreeing to no more then sex and god made it so men only had enough blood for one head, if you take his sperm and choose to make a baby with it (ie women have all the choices) and he does not agree to the production of one you have stolen his rights and then for you to think he should pay for your theft is sick and its why we have so many children running around trying to find self worth. Women are doing this to our children we have held up our rights as a way to steel for our own wants and needs. I wanted something to love and that would love me back (something we hear everyday) so what the hell about the mans rights and the child who feels dirty from the get go or for that matter the womens rights who he will some day marry or the unlucky slob who has to keep making the kid feel ok. God gave women much more control not to be used to steel and make bastards but to think before doing it. If we stopped making it so nice and having such great baby showers for these women and go back to the past were we looked down on it we would have less children reading self help books to feel better about themself and less men stuck paying for something they did not agree to and they do not want and the hell with the stupid women they deserve to suffer.