Biology is Neat

There have recently been a slew of progeny-related posts on the blog (here, here, and here) and I've been thinking on the subject a lot lately. Because here's the situation: I am a twenty-three year old female, fresh in the real (read: non-scholastic) world. I'm in a committed relationship (sorry boys) but I'm not married. It's 2009 and society and technology are leaps and bounds ahead of where they were even ten or twenty years ago, let alone hundreds or thousands. But my body doesn't know all that. My body doesn't know (or really care about) any of that.

My body knows I am a twenty-three year old female, and that I hit puberty about eleven years ago. It doesn't know about trans fats but it knows when I'm hungry, you know what I mean?

It doesn't know about the sexual revolution and medical advancements, but it knows my biological clock. It doesn't know about personal politics and overpopulation, but it knows when I see, hear, smell, touch a baby. It knows and it reacts extremely viscerally, because it wants one. It wants one bad.

To my body, it is lucky to have survived and prospered twenty-three years and there is no time to wait. Who knows if a sabre-toothed tiger or a famine lurks around the next corner?

And I think that's amazing. Because for all the pomp and circumstance we give our brains and our ideas, our bodies are ancient and steadfast. They're also wise in ways we often (especially the "we" in our Puritan-based society) refuse to accept, but that post is for another day. This post is just to marvel at all of modern society and medicine in the face of one ancient instinct: to continue the species.

I heard somewhere that babies are cute for their own survival; so that their mothers will want more to take care of them. And that ever-enticing baby smell? It's a special pheromone that wears off about two years into the baby's life, one that the mother will notice its lack and literally crave it again, thus assuring babies spaced out in a manner so that the parents will continue having children without being unreasonably overburdened or undernourished themselves.

And most everyone knows that women have 10% more body fat, and in general it is much more difficult for a woman to lose weight than a man, but I recently learned why: back in the hunter/gatherer days, a famine could wipe out an entire generation of unborn babies, so the women who passed on their genes were the ones who could keep and store fat for ten months, even when there were little to no new nutrients coming in. So here we are with our accelerated fast food and fertilization technology and our ancient, ever so meticulously evolved bodies, and it's no wonder we're a mess. But maybe we wouldn't be if we listened a little closer to what our bodies are telling us and why, and thought about how we can fit better, healthier, in our accelerated world.

Bodies are amazing. Nature is amazing. And me? I'm going to try to let my intensely burning nurturing instinct run wild on my pets, who were almost all saved from terrible fates in some way or another, in my relationships, and in my art. For now, anyway.

Not a sermon, just a thought.

In Defense of the Childbearing

There's been a lot of talk on the blog this week about kids. Some points were valid. Some were made in satirical jest. Others were definitely arguable. I write this response not to contest the thoughts of any fellow Gentlemen or of our readers, but to simply provide an alternative point of view from someone who weighed the merits of marriage and children at age 18.

But first, a story about my friend Katie:

Katie is the second-oldest in her family. She has an older brother, and 10 younger brothers and sisters. When she was only the second of 10 children, her family lived in a trailer, because that's what they could afford. After high school Katie went to the Ecumenical Institute in North Carolina, where she met Andrew. Andrew and Katie entered into a courtship, and when we were both 20, I sang at Katie's wedding.

I know a number of Katies, because I had an experience in high school that I've discovered was somewhat unusual. I've mentioned in previous posts that when I was younger I worked as a swim instructor at Beachmont Christian Camp. Not only did I work there for three summers, though, but for the four summers prior, I volunteered as a Junior Counselor. I was a camper for nine years before that. By the time I was 15, Beachmont was my summer, and the friends I had made there were the people I hung out with all year long.

The majority of my friends from Beachmont were fundamentalist Christians with Calvinistic leanings. And most of them were from big families who were home-schooled. That was the norm. It was its own peculiar, insular society, and I was a part of it. 

As a result, I have a lot of friends who are married. Because it was also the norm for those kids to start looking to settle down in their late teens. (I have my suspicions about the role of strict abstinence until marriage in this decision-making process, but it doesn't really pertain to my point.) It's not unusual for two 18-year-olds to find love and decide to get married. Beyond that, these unions are both expected and supported by the community, so they tend to thrive in a way that teenaged couples might not otherwise. Sometimes, two people just know that they're meant for each other (and in the Beachmont case, feel that their joining has been ordained/blessed/decided by God), and choose not to wait.

And they have babies. Not all of them, and not always right away, but I have friends (and a cousin) who were parents at 19 or 20. And they're great parents who have wonderful, sweet children. They have their lives put together and support happy little families. Granted, it's not the typical situation involving young parents, but I've seen so many examples of how well it can work that I can't for one second judge all instances of teen pregnancy outright.

And now, another story, this time about Bev:

Bev married Dave when she was 18. She gave birth to Julia when she was 19. By the time she was 30, Bev had 8 children (all singles, no twins or trips) and a 12-passenger van. It was rumored that her brother, Russ, once asked their mother how many kids Bev and Dave wanted to have, and her response was that they would take as many kids as God sent them, but that, "14 sounded like a good number."

Many of my friends do not agree with the use of birth control. They often rely on family planning, but otherwise they truly believe that God will bless them with as many children as they are supposed to have and can handle. They're not creating as many children as they can so that their lives and views will live on and spread - they're just going with the flow. And it works for them. They're not reality show poster children, they're families. They're families that may be different from yours, but they're just families. They're not a drain on the economy or the environment and they're not angling for attention or handouts. They were just raised in a culture that has different values regarding family size.

I know that this might seem like a generalization made based on a small slice of American society, but my point is primarily that as I read about alternative decisions regarding families, I can think of a dozen real-life examples of families that have made it work, and not because they were stupid and got stuck in a bad situation, but because they chose that life for themselves. Had a certain set of events turned out differently, I might have joined them. (The mindset that led me to that decision feels like a lifetime ago, and I am extremely grateful that I chose a different route.) While mindless fundamentalism (or whatever might adjust a person's family values) is detrimental to both the individual and society (and I also have dozens of examples of that), I have no problem with seemingly unusual cultural standards.

They may not be for me or for you, but I can't deny how happy I've seen them make my friends.

Kids Finale

In the interest of covering a some additional bases and covering my ass (and avoid being punched by Nevie in the face the next time our paths cross) I will address a few things, then I will slink quietly away to silence at SilverDocs for the rest of the week except for one controversy-free hidden post I have on deck.

* Yes, JStone, there are really people who think vaccines cause autism and they are batshit crazy. I am employing no exaggeration when I say that.

* I have nothing against technical colleges, community colleges, culinary schools or Microsoft accreditation courses for that matter. But I would say that anyone who, when their child is born, does not hope and believe that that kid will get to college is selling their kid short. So Brittany I do agree for the most part. Also, if you can field two baseball teams, you probably have too many kids.

* Now for the abortion/adoption. I realize I probably shouldn't have mixed something pretty serious (college savings, vaccines) with something where I was trying to be a bit Swift-ian. It's dangerous to be Swift-ian. The safest bet really would have been to eat the kids, rather than put them up for adoption. A few last thoughts . . .

* I do not ever ever encourage eugenics. I certainly root for and against certain teams. For example I'd like David Bowie and Iman to crank out dozens of immaculate super-children. And I'd like Nascar fan's genital to fall off. But if two consenting adults want to have a kid, so be it.

* I probably should have more reasonably said people under 18 shouldn't have kids. But y'know given the maturity shown by 19 and 20 year olds I often interacted with in college, I bumped it up a bit for good measure.

* Nevie, I think any man of any ages who impregnates a teenage girl should probably have their balls chopped off. Probably.

* There are exceptions to every rule. Shit, Bill Clinton became President and his home life wasn't a bowl of cherries. But the odds are stacked against teen parents and their offspring in quite in a variety of ways. It's fucking tough to end up like Rory Gilmore.

* I absolutely believe that the Robbie Williams - Kylie Minogue duet Kids is better than the Matthew Good discography. (I kid cuz I love Jason.)

Dodecahemoms in the 21st Century

Recent television, TLC in particular, seems to be in l-u-v looove with people who have more than the recommended number of children. 18 Kids and Counting, Jon & Kate Plus 8, Table for 12, even the infamously whacked Octomom supposedly has a new show coming out.

And here's the thing. The world human population reached 6 billion in 1999. That's ten years ago, before most of these glorified litters were born. We're living in a world in which the environment weeps openly at the walloping footprint we leave, and TLC, you know, THE LEARNING CHANNEL, can't think to program anything more helpful than "have more kids because then you get a reality show." And to me, purposely bringing 10 times the number of people in the world as are going to leave it just seems incredibly narcissistic, and flat out mean. Because your 10 or 20 progeny are going to have to live in a world that is more crowded and more strapped for natural resources than your generation could ever have imagined. And it's your fault. Yours, and others like you.

And I'm not talking about all people who have multiples, or people who have a few surprises along the way, those are both pretty hard to plan. I'm talking specifically about people who purposely set out to procreate as much as humanly possible, the reality shows that follow, and the people who encourage them.

There are just so many children already in the world who could use a loving family that it seems ludicrous to be so fascinated with people who are bringing more and more and more people onto the packed earth. Do they have a special DNA strain that needs repeating? Will human society be irrevocably damaged if they DON'T unleash their seed onto the world? I know of some people(/cults) who do actually believe that, and it derives from the same concept of "if we don't get more people just like us in the world we will die out and our lives will be for naught." Because I get that about biological children; they ensure that a physical piece of you will live on after you die. It's a comforting thought. But twenty just seems a little bit of overkill.

All I'm saying is, if you have so much love in your heart for children and that's what you want to do with your life, then that's great. We need more people like you. But maybe adopt at some point, or foster a kid. Do something to help heal this broken world, instead of simply filling it with new people because the last ones didn't work out. Leave more than just your DNA.

And TLC, stop. Just stop. Take a good, long look at your life, and your programming schedule, and STOP IT.

Author's Note: This post was written a week before Max Nova's most recent post on kids, and really has nothing to do with it, but it is interesting that progeny was separately on our minds. Maybe it's The Age.

Kids

A few weeks ago I heard a story on NPR about how teenage mothers in North Carolina (I think it was NC) were being paid $1 a day for every day they were not pregnant again. And it was working! Just a dollar a day was keeping most of these teenagers from having another kid. Which got me thinking about a few child related issues. I suggest all these things only partially in jest, and I can't say how exactly they would be implemented, although if we've put men on the moon, this should be cake.

* Ban mothers from having kids under the age of 21. The government can and does regulate all manner of things for minors, and this should be no exception. Quite simply if someone under 21 gets pregnant they would have two options - abortion or adoption. I imagine some on the right would complain but this simply reinforces our previous president's Abstinence Only policy. I admit that they are right to say that the only way to 100% having a baby is not having sex. But even if teens do have ignorant condom/pill-free sex, they still don't get to keep the kid. Nor do their parents. The kid goes away one way or another.

In the year 2009 with the average life expectancy well over 70 years, there is no earthly reason that people should be cranking out babies before they can drink. I don't care what you're religion/cult says. If you can't keep your dick in your pants to 21, tough.

* Enforce college savings. There would be exceptions of course. If you're under the poverty line, you get a pass while you are trying to feed your family. Plus it doesn't have to start the day the kid is born, it could start at age 3. But it's mind blowing how many families, rich and poor alike aren't saving enough for college. People don't need to be saving enough for Harvard, but certainly enough for a community college.

And what if the kid doesn't get into college? Then they get a nice lump sum when they graduate high school or complete their GED. But if they don't do one of those, the money is given to more deserving kids. Obama put it quite well in his sort-of State of the Union address that anyone not getting a high school education is letting their country down.

* No avoiding inoculations. Apparently Jenny McCarthy, who of course earned her medical degree between stints on MTV's Singled Out, has become the lead voice of crazy people who think vaccines cause autism. (A) Studies have shown that there is not a link between vaccines and autism and (B) It's dangerous for their kids and other kids they play with. This isn't a change as much as a wish that we don't start sliding backwards.

What Do You SAY to That?

Sometimes kids expose you to things you wish they hadn’t. I’m relatively certain that my mom wishes she’d never seen “Jizz in my Pants,” but I showed her anyway. And when I was in college, I spent one spring weekend babysitting for a family while their parents were on a trip. Unfortunately, it happened to be about six weeks after the original High School Musical came out. The Disney Channel repeated it multiple times that weekend, and those kids watched it (or at least had it on in the background) Every. Single. Time.

I wish I could say that was the worst thing I heard and saw that weekend.

Now please understand, I like this family. The kids are a little spoiled, but for the most part, they’re nice.  There are four of them, but the older three were mostly able to take care of themselves, and I just had to make sure nothing catastrophic happened. My job was essentially to take care of and entertain the youngest girl (9) and her cousin (11).

NOTE: For the sake of anonymity (and for the amusement of any UMD Theatre kids), any names in this story have been changed. Let’s call the youngest member of the family Little Sally and her cousin Young Jane.

Little Sally’s parents left me some money to take the kids out and do something fun, so on Friday night I suggested we go see a movie.  The three of us piled into my car and headed out to the Hunt Valley shopping-complex-extravaganza to see She’s the Man. (I’m not going to lie, I might have pushed a bit to influence that decision. I neither regret it, nor am I ashamed to share that fact here.) Things started to go downhill as soon as we pulled in the parking lot and started looking for a spot. The girls looked toward the entrance of the movie theater, and upon seeing people hanging around outside (because that, after all, is what the entrance to movie theaters are for – loitering), I suddenly heard from the backseat:

“Ew! Black people! They always ruin EVERYTHING.”

Excuse me? WHAT. Do I SAY to that?! I think I stammered out something like, “They have as much right to be here as we do,” but truly, I was far too flabbergasted to make any kind of response at all, because I had no idea how to react to this situation. I was offended and horrified, but it wasn’t my job to educate/chastise/punish these kids! So I ignored it and we went inside.

While standing in line for snacks, I told them that we were only going to wait once, so get everything they wanted. They had fair warning, but they still decided not to get drinks. When, 20 minutes later, they wanted soda, I reminded them that I was not getting back in line, and suggested they take a drink from the water fountain that was five feet away. (We had already spent, in one hour, half of the money for the entire weekend at this point anyway, which was my primary reason for avoiding over-priced Sprites.)

You would have thought I had suggested they drink out of the dirty toilets. “Ewwww, you are so disgusting! Other people’s mouths have been on that! I’m not touching that dirty thing!”

Seriously? News flash, you stuck-up brats: long before companies started bottling water from the fresh, clear springs of Deer Park, kids drank water from fountains.  I am neither dead, nor a freak of nature for having done so, as you are so strongly implying right now.

After the movie I took them to Cheeburger Cheeburger for dinner. I was fasting on Fridays during that particular Lent (something unfortunately probably tied more to body image than to Jesus, but I digress), and they couldn’t figure me out. Young Jane kept trying to force french fries into my face. “Just eat one.” I took this as an opportunity to explain a bit about how meaningful Lent can be. Their response?

     Young Jane: Oh yeah, that’s right, you work at Beachmont. (A local Christian day camp where I          was a junior counselor and then a swim instructor for a number of years.)

     Little Sally: Oh my gosh, like, EVERYONE goes to Beachmont.

     Young Jane: Yeah, OH, but except they don’t let Jews in.

Oh. My goodness. I calmly explained that yes, they accept campers of any race or religion. Everyone is welcome there, they just TEACH Christianity.

And in my head I slumped in defeat as I realized that these girls were, at such a young age, learning to polarize themselves from culturally divergent groups. A nine year old and an eleven year old spent the evening being racist, rude, offensive, and elitist. Where were they learning this behavior? Probably from their parents. Welcome to your post-race America.

Should I have said more? Years later it bothers me that yes, I probably should have. It just didn’t seem like my place.

And what, oh WHAT, do you SAY to that?

In Defense of the Childless

I have no plans of having children. Ever. At least for the foreseeable future. I may reevaluate at 30. Maybe. But probably not.

Instead I've been thinking that childless folks are a real boon to a company. If you have children then whenever your child is sick, you (or the other parent) are effectively sick. When your child misses school for a snow day, you will need to stay home as well. If you child is on a school break, you will either need to take off time or pay for day care. Plus there are all the lessons, practices, school plays, play dates and other things that mean that you as a parent are probably less likely to work extra hours, and will have a reasonable excuse not to.

Over the course of a career, this means the childless are giving a lot of additional time and energy to their work, but they really have little recourse to say, take a month or two off, work part time, or leave early once in a while. Imagine a person saying "I'm going to be away from work for a month, since my wife and I are having a baby." And then imagine someone saying "well, I've just turned 30 and I've worked pretty hard so I'm going to take a month off." One of these things would probably get you fired.

I think those who forgo children deserve a little something for the time they've given. Nothing extravagant, but here's a small thought - let childless workers convert a few sick days to vacation days each year, assuming that they're a good worker and not using all their sick days. I think this would be a lovely way to say to a worker - "We think the time you get in and out of work is as valuable as those with children."

Now I know this will never happen, and that's because even in 2009 in our post-race, post-class, post-gender, post-everything world, it's still mainly going to be mothers taking off for snow days, taking kids to cello lessons, and working a shorter schedule. Still, I don't think a few vacation days will set back gender relations.

Don't Make Me Get the Belt!

Fellow Gentleman JohnOzkirbas posed a parenting question to resident relationship guru Max Nova recently. Should you ever chastise a parent for his/her child's behavior? If yes, how would you go about it? I think the question is apt and timely in today's society, and with that statement, I'm about to make a startling confession:

I was spanked as a child.

That's right, when I misbehaved, my parents used their hands to smack my ass until it was red and raw. Furthermore, when I mouthed off to my mother, she put pepper on my tongue. And on one particularly memorable evening, I was forced to sit in the bathroom with a bar of soap in my mouth for what seemed like an eternity. (I think my offense had been telling one of my sisters to 'shut up,' but I can't promise that I remember the incident perfectly.) I know that all of you gentle readers are already shocked and appalled, but I'm afraid I must make one more astonishing revelation:

I turned out all right, actually.

I'm not a social delinquent or a sexual deviant. I'm capable of having functional relationships with people. I still love my parents. And most importantly, you'd better believe that I respect rules and authority figures. When I did something wrong as a kid, I'd walk around for hours (sometimes days) with my hands over my butt just in case I got caught. The fear of punishment was usually enough to keep me from doing whatever it was again, and I've spent most of my life walking the straight and narrow.

And yet, these days parents can be arrested for spanking their children. In my education classes it was suggested that telling a wee young one that they're wrong might damage their precious psyches - and we can't have that, can we? The world seems to be going soft on discipline, and even worse, parents seem more than happy to grasp at any excuse not to take responsibility for their children's actions. "They're at that age." "I just can't control them." And my personal favorite: "I don't want to stifle their individuality by imposing my rules on them." 

The result? Kids have no sense of boundaries because parents aren't giving them any. When children have no parameters on their energy and they aren't taught that certain behaviors are wrong, they can end up running amok, leading to little monkeys swinging around the metro. There is a big difference between letting your child make his/her own decisions, and not setting a standard for appropriate behavior, especially in public. I see kids yelling and cussing at their parents, acting (and dressing - don't get me started) however they want in public, and completely disrespecting the lives of those around them, and not a damn thing is done about it. The more children are allowed to do whatever they want (and are given whatever they want), the more likely it is that they'll grow up into spoiled, indulged adolescents who become spoiled, irresponsible adults. Now, am I talking about all parents/kids? Of course not. But stay tuned for future posts telling stories of behavior that deserved a good smack - if only I'd been allowed to dole it out.

But who knows, maybe that's just the spanking talking. It could have had more negative effects on me than I know.

**Now, having said all this, there is a caveat to my musings: an adult should never raise a hand toward a child out of anger. If a parent rationally decides that a spanking is the best course of punishment for a child's action, it's one thing, but as soon as that parent hits their child out of anger, they are walking the dangerous line of abuse. Parents, don't beat your kids. Not cool.**