Pendragons Princess

I figured it is time for a post on some personal thoughts drawn from real life experiences, even though these do not frequently happen to me. The most recent one was not long after I left my job working in ice cream in the food court of a local small. I was speaking with some of the new, younger employees who were girls and talking about nothing but babies. By girls, I mean teenagers, kids who are not quite ready to assume responsibility for a tiny human life. But that is what they were talking about, amking babies and actually looking forward to it. To set the record straight, Arizona still has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation. Pretty soon the subject turns to me when I said “Not me”, meaning I’m not going to be squeezing out a few watermelons this year or in the future. I didn’t go into the semantics since these kids seem to have no concept whatsoever of birth control, so I’d figure, why waste my time explaining that? Well, at the rate these girls were going, getting almost straight F’s in high school, screwing around with boys, I would not be surprised if they wind up giving birth before their senior year. They were truly baby rabid.

Prior to that, I was working nearby in a department store in the accessories section, which I loved. One of my employees, a sweet Mexican lady, starts telling me about her family, which is fine, since I am a listener by nature. She aksed me if I had any kids and I replied “No, I don’t.” She then actually asks me if I want to play with one of her daughter’s new babies. Well, naturally I did not ask her how many babies her daughter had, but when I responded “No thank you” with a slight laugh, I explained to her my husband and I were not going to have any kids. She had a blank look on her face then said “Everyone has to change a diaper.” I thought to myself, ‘Not me’, but as with the ice cream shop, did not bother to waste my time explaining the necessity of using birth control.

Okay, so it sounds like the majority of people in Tucson, AZ are baby manufacturers but in truth, I have met a few people who are child free. One is an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, another was a guy a few years younger than me who is originally from Oklahoma. Yeah I know OK is the Bible Belt but this guy is a bit to the left in his ideology. It’s gotta be tough being childfree and living in the Bible Belt. But like me, he is college educated, and he makes good money, and if I wasn’t already married, might consider him, but he acts more like a sibling which is good because I’m already married.

Outside of these guys though, the rate of babies born directly corelates to the poverty in this city, even under the guise of ‘Family Values.” I find it sad that many teen girls have no real ambitions to look forward to, since once they have a baby, they will be on welfare and perpetuate the cycle. Saddled and burdened with having to care for a child, these girls will be burned out long before they hit their middle age years. I certainly do not envy that. Young girls having sex, having no real knowledge of what they are doing, which is royally screwing up their lives, being unable to get a higher education, get a job that pays well, and have real money in the bank, not food stamps and welfare checks like the infamous Nadya Suleman. Babies are not the biggest goal in anyone’s life, and they certainly are not the greatest achievement, either. It doesn’t take a person with a brain to sprog; that’s what microbes do. I feel sorry for these misguided girls. All having babies does is relegate them to second-class citizenship.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6585760.ece

June 27, 2009

‘Adults only’ should mean more than porn

The decision to reclassify certain films strikes a blow for grown-ups. Not all movies or books have to be child-friendly

Natalie Haynes

It’s impossible to guess what will scar children for the future. My boyfriend watched Halloween, Death Ship and Jaws as a child, and remains unafraid of Hallowe’en, Nazi ghost ships and sharks. Actually, he loves sharks, and would cheerfully keep one as a pet if our bathroom were slightly bigger. I, meanwhile, saw an episode of Hart to Hart in which chefs were killed in the manner of their speciality. The beef expert was found hanging in a meat locker, on a hook. I am now vegetarian, and so afraid of an enclosed cold space that I won’t go anywhere that doesn’t have a window, and never travel without a coat.

So when the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) announced this week that it was reclassifying some films and DVDs, most notably an episode of Friends, containing the phrase “laundry spaz”, I was unconcerned. Children don’t necessarily learn to do things because Jennifer Aniston does them. Otherwise they would all have perfect teeth, wistful expressions and the baleful eye fixed on Angelina. Children call each other spaz, mong or, when I was a child, flid, because they sometimes wish to be hurtful. Mostly, they grow out of it, along with pushing, shoving and hair-pulling, round about the time when they realise that name-calling will get them punched in the face and/or fired.

The really good news about the BBFC’s announcement this week is that it has passed Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, uncut. And in so doing, it has struck a blow in favour of grown-up culture. It has acknowledged, firmly and publicly, that some things are just for adults, and this is a crucial distinction. I’m very happy that there are films with universal appeal: everything Pixar produces, for example, is for families — smart enough for adults, fun enough for kids. But I also want to see films that have been made by adults for adults (and aren’t porn, obviously. It looks so unhygienic).

The Oscar-winning The Dark Knight, last year, was a case in point; and the BBFC received more complaints about its 12A rating than any other film released all year. At 152 minutes, it was far too long for most 12-year-olds to sit through. And, as was amply proven at cinemas across the land, it was far too scary. I know hardly anyone who went to see it at the cinema without the accompanying wail of a traumatised eight-year-old, whose man-child father, viewing the cinema as a de facto babysitter, then had to leave when his kid flipped out as Heath Ledger murdered a mobster with a pencil. It was an excellent film, it just wasn’t for kids.

And this is something we seem nervous of admitting. But why? We don’t expect our other arts to be entirely child-accessible. We’re happy to watch Wallace & Gromit at Christmas, but we also want to be able to settle down in front of CSI. We’ll read Harry Potter, but we also might give The Blind Side of the Heart a go. So why should cinema be different?

Largely, of course, it’s dictated by America. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings system is theoretically voluntary, but without a certificate, a movie won’t be shown at most cinemas. And if it gets an NC-17 certificate (meaning not for children under 17), it won’t be shown either: it’s viewed as, essentially, porn. In other words, there’s no option of producing a movie for widespread release unless it’s the kind of thing you would happily show to someone who isn’t old enough to drive, drink or have sex in many states.

And this may seem fair enough to some — the American R-rating, for under-17s with an accompanying parent or guardian, allows “adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements”. Speaking for myself, I can’t imagine taking my mother to see anything else.

So why worry about the NC-17s if the R-rating covers so much? Well, take Ang Lee’s beautiful, tragic, haunting Lust, Caution, which was given an NC-17 rating. It isn’t porn at all, it’s the story of a female student who must seduce a collaborator in Second World War Shanghai to get close enough to assassinate him.

The sex scenes are explicit, but so utterly part of the story of two characters that unless you’re determined to be smutty, it never occurs to you that anything risqué is going on. It was, however, commercial suicide, and Lee has followed it up with the almost unwatchably whimsical Taking Woodstock, which will offend virtually no one, and entertain even fewer.

And that is why we should be delighted that the BBFC has allowed Antichrist an 18 certificate without demanding cuts, that our cinemas will show it, our newspapers will carry adverts for it, and no one will stand outside anywhere with a placard demanding that it be taken off. I say this in spite of the silliness of Antichrist — a misogynistic melodrama starring Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg and a talking fox. It provoked gasps and walkouts in Cannes, mostly during a scene of genital self-mutilation by Gainsbourg’s character. And it will doubtless provoke a flurry of complaints to the BBFC, but it has sensibly judged us adult enough to see it, even if we might be traumatised by Basil Brush’s evil cousin. And because of that, in spite of the ubiquity of the sub-juvenile Year One, some of our films will remain uninfantilised for a little while longer.

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The author makes a convincing argument for adults-only themed films which do not have to be child friendly. Some parents think they have the authority to dictate how the world should be for their child, exceptiong their own triple-X rated behavior they engaged in in order to make that snowflake from seventh heaven. Children do not have the money to support the film industry but their parents do. It is not as if there is a major shortage of child-friendly films made nowadays. “Scooby Doo” and “Home Alone” are just two out of many movies marketed towards kids. Maybe the problem lies in the fact that some parents refuse to get a babysitter for their child when Mommy and Daddy go out to see a movie. Dragging a child with you everywhere is unnecessary. These parents have no lives of their own and want the entire world to revolve around their child. So much for child worship. These people have no interests outside of what they brought into the world. Then they wonder why their child acts like a spoiled-ass brat, running the household. Maybe these parents should stop trying to be big buddies to their grommets and act like real parents for a change.

http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2009/06/23/news/breaking_news/doc4a40c6c2cede9134559418.txt

UNI police rescue baby locked in car

CEDAR FALLS — A 2-month-old baby was rescued from a locked car near the University of Northern Iowa campus Monday night.

According to Jim O’Connor, spokesman for UNI, campus police were alerted to a baby locked in a hot car about 8:20 p.m., with its windows up. The car was found near the UNI soccer fields, and there were no parents around, he said.

With concern for the child’s life, officers broke out the windows to the car. The baby was taken to Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo. O’Connor said this morning the last he heard the baby was “doing OK.”

He did not know how long the child was in the enclosed vehicle.

According to the National Weather Service, it was 88 degrees with a heat index of 93 degrees in the area at 8 p.m. on Monday.

O’Connor said the car wasn’t parked at a place where they could make a general announcement to find the parents. He did not have information on the parents this morning.

He said the matter is still under investigation.
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This isn’t the first time some dumbwit locked their child in the car on a hot day. There is no mention as to whether the person who did it was a student though that is a possibility. Thankfully the baby was found alive and cared for. Hopefully the parent(s) will be found and arrested for the senseless stupidity of leaving a baby locked in a hot car during the summer.

I know this story comes from Chicago which has one of the worst public school systems in the nation, but this one takes the cake:

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/bradwell.elementary.8th.2.1047246.html

June 16, 2009

Nearly 60% Won’t Graduate At South Side School
44 Of 77 Students At Bradwell Elementary Did Not Pass Eighth Grade
by

Jim Williams
CHICAGO (CBS) ―

A startling number of children are falling through the cracks at one Chicago Public School. More than half of the kids didn’t even pass the eighth grade. As CBS 2’s Jim Williams reports there is fierce debate about who’s to blame.

It is a debate that has gone on for years in poor communities: do you blame the schools for the students’ poor performance or do you blame their parents?

The mother of a one student who failed eighth grade says she got no warning her son was struggling. The school says she was notified, and other parents insist she did not do enough.

Tatianna Dennis’ son, Tarrell, took his eighth grade photo complete with cap and gown, but the day before his grammar school’s graduation, Tarrell learned he would not be marching down the aisle.

“I asked him why but he was so heartbroken, he couldn’t really talk,” said Tatianna Dennis.

Dennis says she had no idea her son was about to fail English; no written notices from Bradwell Elementary, she says, and no warning from his teacher.

Tarrell had failed English two times before, but Dennis thought he was doing better.

“They told me that he was fine. He was starting to come around and his grades were picking up,” Dennis said. “They never gave me any indication that he was going downhill.”

It was a disastrous year for the eighth grade at the south side Bradwell Elementary school in a tough neighborhood with high poverty. More than half the class, 44 of 77 students, did not graduate.

Loetisis Billingsley’s nephew is one of those failing students.

“It’s horrible because these kids were under the impression they were graduating, and they let them know at the last minute that they wasn’t,” Billingsley said.

The Board of Education insists the Bradwell school did everything possible to keep the students’ grades up, offering extra credit and school on Saturday. And the Board says written notices did go out.

Some parents came to the defense of the school.

“You have to be in your kid’s life, you have to know what’s going on in their world,” said parent Vanessa Ewing. “I’m up at the school. The teachers know me. I stay on them. I stay on my kids.”

“It was something that child must not have been doing right in order for him to stay behind,” said parent Sharon Shavers.

Tatianna Dennis’ son is now in summer school. She works nights as a security guard, leaving her little time with Tarrell to supervise his homework.

“Especially now, when I need the help the most, with situations like this,” Dennis said. “And there’s nobody but me. But I get through it.”

On an encouraging note, Dennis says her son is so upset he failed eighth grade, he is now determined to be a better student, pass his classes this summer and go on to high school.

In that south side neighborhood, another mother said she has all the cell phone numbers of her kids’ teachers and she calls them all the time, and her kids are doing well in school.
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Lack of parental involvement is one of the biggest questions to arise when a child fails in school. Of course, the parents accused of not being involved in their student’s education then like to point the finger at the teachers. Are teachers to blame? While I am sure there are many good teachers out there who actively do their part in helping the students learn, the students also have to do their part in order to learn, too. But how does a teacher keep the attention span of a class of thirty plus students who are too busy socializing in class? That in itself is a challenge. But you know what the argument is nowadays for those who advocate public education - socializing is far more important than academics (then they wonder why their kids wind up living on street corners smoking dope all the time and can never hold down a job of any kind). So that must be the answer to the student’s failure in school - they were too busy socializing and not learning anything. What a great way to waste tax dollars, isn’t it. The more serious students - the miniscule handful that did manage to graduate from Bradwell Elementary - will be those who will hopefully graduate from high school then go on to college. I’m pretty sure those kids are not wasting their times socializing constantly during class time. Instead, they actually learned something, even though the school they attend is in a place of heavy poverty. Poor people are notorious for holding each other down in an attempt to disallow their own from trying to become “better” than them. The few that escape get places in life, and by that I do not mean the local prison.

In the end, maybe the one to have the finger pointed at is Bush for his “No Child Left Behind” act. All that was about, was testing students. The program had nothing to do with learning academics, and proved to be a complete failure for kids across America.

http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/4973/?id=4973&slide=0&showID=1221&preview=&versionID=

So this couple says while appearing on the Tuesday, June 16 episode of Dr. Phil:

“I feel I’m at my wit’s end with the whole household because the boys are out of control. It’s constant battling, fighting,” says Melissa. “Rob has a whole different set of rules for Brandon than he does for his own boys.”

“There’s no consistency with having rules for all three of them,” says Robert. “Brandon does not have any rules, and Melissa does not follow through on giving him any rules.”

“Every time I try to make rules, it just seems to fall apart,” Melissa explains. “I’m powerless because I’m the step-mom. Rob overrides everything that I say.”

Melissa thinks she knows the reason her household has reeled out of control. “This whole house is on marijuana,” she says. “My son, Brandon, uses marijuana every single day.”
“I won’t ever stop smoking weed,” says 20-year-old Brandon. “It’s just natural. It grows out of he ground.”

Fifteen-year-old Jacob says, “Brandon smokes marijuana, and my dad just let’s it go.”

“I do feel hypocritical,” says Robert. “I smoked pot at their age, and that could be part of the problem.”

Are Melissa and Robert’s sons the only ones picking up the pipe? Melissa thinks not. “I suspect Rob is using marijuana. I was putting groceries in Rob’s vehicle, and I found marijuana seeds, marijuana flakes,” she says. “It was marijuana.”

Melissa and Robert say they have so many issues they’re afraid they might be headed for divorce. Robert says their problems stem from their kids. The couple shares their list of grievances.

“Everything seems impossible to me right now. It’s pure chaotic hell in this house,” says Melissa. “A few months ago, Ben and Jacob did steal the company car and went joy riding.”

“Jacob has a 13-year-old girlfriend. He sleeps over at his girlfriend’s house,” says Rob.

“Brandon and Rob’s relationship’s horrible,” says Melissa. “You never know when somebody’s going to break into a fistfight.”

But the kids are not the only source of conflict in this blended family. Robert says, “Melissa is extremely jealous and insecure.”

“Rob spends way too much money,” says Melissa. “I feel I’m not woman enough for Rob any longer.”

Dr. Phil asks Robert, “Why do you want to be here today? What’s your objective, what’s your goal?”

“My number one goal is to get help for my family, and to repair my marriage,” he says.

“If it’s just you and the two boys, would everything be OK?” asks Dr. Phil. “Is this the toxic part of this situation?”

“No, I think I’m as much to blame as she is,” says Robert. “I really do.”

Dr. Phil asks for Melissa’s opinion. “Is it just we’ve got a bad mix here?”

“No, I don’t feel we have a bad mix,” she says. “I came into this household trying to straighten it out and make rules, and if I would leave him, I think the boys would be in more trouble than they are now, because I try to put a little bit of ground rules down.”
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There are very few families nowadays that are not mixed - stepchildren, stepparents, “everyone is an uncle”, and so on. But this is not to say that a mixed family cannot work out because many times, they can. The problem here is these two big people - Melissa and Robert - have completely forfeited their responsibilities as parents. I love how the father makes excuses for Brandon smoking the wacky weed. Brandon is 20 years old, sits around the house the whole day doing nothing but smoking weed. He doesn’t work and can’t get a job since most companies will not hire someone with an illegal drug addiction. As Dr. Phil says, the three sons are in charge of the household, not the father or mother. This is the prime example of what is going on in America today - people who think their children are snowflakes from seventh heaven then turn a blind eye when their child does something wrong. Then we have Jacob, the 13 year old who is sexually active with a girl. Well, there really isn’t too much that can be said for that, since America’s children are becoming sexually active at younger and younger ages. But, this is what happens when the parents are too busy trying to be best buddies with their offspring. Interestingly enough, neither Melissa nor Robert claim to be each other’s best friends. No wonder they look to their kids for that sort of relationship, even though it damages both parties involved.

One last excerpt from the interview:

“Melissa says she and Robert need to be better communicators. “We need to stick together for the boys. Like, my son, the 20-year-old, he pretty much controls me. Like, if I say no to him, then he’s violent. He hasn’t hit me or anything, but he gets angry.” She reiterates what Brandon said, that he’s never going to stop smoking marijuana. “So, how do we straighten out this family? I mean, I bought him three cars, I give him everything, and I just stopped paying his bills about eight months ago. He hasn’t paid one.”

Once again, the “I give my kids everything and they are still lazy slobs” syndrome rears its ugly head. I wonder if Melissa and Robert realize they deliberately set themselves and their sons up to fail? Luckily Dr. Phil gives both the parents straight F’s on their report cards. neither Melissa nor Robert have realized quite yet that merely talking to their spawn does no good at all. Of course, if they really cared, the first thing they would do is call the cops. But no, they can’t, since their snowflakes would then have felon records for the rest of their lives. Before the kids can be straightened out, the parents need to be straightened out. If they can’t, their marriage will wind up in divorce, with their kids winding up in jail

This is no big surprise. I think some parents should check to see how much sugar their kids are consuming.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6489028.ece

June 13, 2009

Thousands of violent children excluded from primary school

Nicola Woolcock and Alice Fishburn

Thousands of very young children are being excluded from primary schools for physically attacking pupils and teachers, research by The Times shows.

It exposes the extent to which children of infant-school age are being expelled or suspended, even though the tactic is more commonly associated with uncontrollable teenagers.

The Times survey of 25 local authorities found that almost 4,000 primary school children had been excluded for fixed periods in 2007-08.

This is the national equivalent to 25,128, a 6 per cent increase on last year, if extrapolated to cover the whole of England. Over the same period the primary school population fell by almost 20,000, so the real rise is 6.7 per cent.

More than three quarters of those who gave reasons said that one of the biggest causes of exclusion was the child physically assaulting another pupil. Another main reason was attacking a teacher.

Our findings underline national figures, which show temporary exclusions in primary schools have risen by 10 per cent in three years, from 41,300 in 2004 to 45,730 in 2007, because staff could not cope with their threatening and disruptive behaviour.

More than 1,200 of the fixed-term exclusions in 2007 involved children aged 4 and under. Another 12,000 were under the age of 8.

Our survey paints a picture of teachers struggling to deal with violence from ever-younger children, some of whom in effect drop out of the education system before reaching secondary school.

John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said: “There’s a small and growing group of very young children creating very real problems, over whom parents seem to have no control. It’s a relatively new phenomenon for primary schools. They are reporting that groups of parents have real problems with their young children.”

Professor Carl Parsons, who has researched primary school exclusions for 16 years, said that children may be picking up bad behaviour younger. “The rise in fixed-term exclusions could be because there are more socially troubled families who are more isolated and less able to provide guidance and support for children.”

Many primary schools do not have the resources to deal with aggressive children in any other way, as they lack staff to offer one-to-one teaching and do not have on-call child psychiatrists.

One teacher from a primary school in Norfolk told The Times: “I have worked at several schools and there has been a marked deterioration in behaviour in the last five years. Behaviour strategies don’t seem to work because schools have no power. Teachers are left to get on with it.”

Our survey showed that schools in Kingston-upon-Thames, southwest London, suspended 87 young children last year, including three from reception class and another seven aged 7 and under.
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These disruptive kids do not belong in schools. schools exist for those children who want to learn and get ahead. The bad ones will wind up on street corners. Today’s children are completely undisciplined and way too many of their parents do not seem to know how to handle them. But they have no problem squeezing them out from between their thighs. Yes, it is frightening that many of these kids are not even teenagers yet - they are grammar school children, even nursery school children. So, are the people in the UK feeding their kids diets of pure sugar with no healthy home cooked meals? Studies have shown that the more sugary foods children eat, the more out of control they become. Then the APA slaps all kids of fake labels on them such as ADD, ADHD, and so on. Those so-called disorders have been proven to be cured with a simple change in diet. All of that sugar, artificial flavors and colors, should be eliminated pronto from stores, then the children cannot have access to the foods through their parents and act like tiny out of control monsters. I bet that if these kids had their diets cleaned up big time, they will act more docile without the need of drugs like Ritalin, and they will sit still and be quiet in the classroom so that they can finally learn.

So much for the psychology that new fathers feel more playful and loving around their newborn kids. Read on:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1191367/The-fatherhood-taboo-Men
-finally-break-silence-potential-misery-dad.html

The fatherhood taboo: Men finally break their silence on the ‘potential misery’ of becoming a dad

By Emily Andrews

June 8, 2009

Revealed: Many men feel demoralised, depressed or just plain bored when their partner has a baby

Revealed: Many men feel demoralised, depressed or just plain bored when their partner has a baby

Becoming a father is supposed to be one of the happiest times of a man’s life.

And until now, they haven’t dared say otherwise.

A new genre of confessional literature is breaking the taboo, revealing that many men feel demoralised, depressed or just plain bored when their partner has a baby.

Such work is raising awareness that post-natal depression can hit men as well as women.

One author, Michael Lewis, said: ‘I wrote my book because of this persistent and disturbing gap between what I was meant to feel and what I actually felt.

‘I expected to feel overcome with joy, while instead I often felt only puzzled. I was expected to feel worried when I often felt indifferent.

‘I was expected to feel fascinated when I actually felt bored.

‘For a while I went around feeling guilty all the time, but then I realised that all around me fathers were pretending to do one thing and feel one way, when in fact they were doing and feeling all sorts of other things, and then engaging afterwards in what amounted to an extended cover-up.’

‘Fatherhood can be demoralising. I usually wind up the day curled in a little ball of fatigue, drowning in self-pity.’

Mr Lewis is just one of those who have broken ranks to overturn what he says is ‘a great conspiracy of silence’.

He admitted that, for the first six weeks of his daughter Quinn’s life, he felt nothing more than ‘detached amusement’.

‘The worst feeling was hatred,’ he said. ‘I distinctly remember standing on a balcony with her squawking in my arms and wondering what I would do if it wasn’t against the law to hurl her off it.

‘The reason we must be so appalled by parents who murder their infants is that it is so easy and even natural to do. Maternal love may be instinctive, but paternal love is learned behaviour.

‘A month after Quinn was born, I would have felt only an obligatory sadness if she had been rolled over by a truck.

‘Six months or so later I’d have thrown myself in front of the truck to save her from harm. What happened? What transformed me from a monster into a father?’

Mr Lewis’s book, Home Game, An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood, is published this week.

Ben George, editor of the literary journal Ecotone, agreed that it is time for fathers to find the courage to stand up and talk honestly about ‘the dark moments of fatherhood’.

‘Gone are the days when it was acceptable, maybe even desirable, for a dad to be remote, enigmatic, impenetrable, emotionally inaccessible, unknowable,’ he said.

‘The job requirements for today’s father seem to have proliferated. They are unique to this age, achieving a precarious balance between manliness and sensitivity.

‘We need to admit that dads frequently experience the desire, at times, to be anything other than a father.’

Another author, Darin Strauss, said: ‘It’s different for women. When my son was a minute old, my wife held him up and asked, “Don’t you love him so much?”

‘I didn’t really understand how she could ask such a thing. That purple squirming howler? Men, I think, need to be won over.’

American Steve Doocy, the Emmy award-winning broadcaster and author of the forthcoming book Tales From The Dad Side: Misadventures in Fatherhood, believes he knows why fathers are so different from mothers.

‘New mums are better at parenting than new dads, but there’s a reason why: they are programmed to mother,’ he said.

‘There is a mega-mother industrial complex made up of thousands of magazines, books, classes and TV shows that instruct women on how to raise the perfect child.

‘Across the gender aisle, fathers are usually clueless about what to do. There are no special father TV shows, zero Maxim articles on ‘9 simple cures for nappy rash’, and certainly no practice-dad toys like dolls.

‘A man doesn’t have much of a foundation in fathering. It’s more on-the-job training - and it starts the day he becomes a father.’

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Men tend to be more realistic about raising children - they are aware that babies are not gifts from God (they aren’t) but rather, something that consumes valuable time and resources with zero compensation in the final end. I guess it doesn’t take a genius after all to make a baby - that is something that microbes can do. Reality aside, the “desire to be a parent” is another sign of human socialization and not the end result of an “instinct to breed.” Becoming a parent requires socialization into the process, much the same way education and job training does. I disagree that maternal love is instinctual - maternal love is also a socialized behavior. What with all of the scientific studies and articles coming out in the past year or so about parents being less happy people than those who do not have children, this should not be a surprise. Real happiness is not something that one blindly buys into, thinking: “Hey, my neighbor just had a baby and they look so happy! Maybe if I have a baby I’ll be just as happy, too!” In a nation where very few people engage in original thinking on any level, this sort of thing, when it happens, is inevitable.

I am at a loss for words. The grisly details are ahead:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090609/ap_on_re_us/us_pregnant_woman_killed

By RYAN KOST, Associated Press Writer Ryan Kost

June 9, 2009

HILLSBORO, Ore. – A once-pregnant 21-year-old newcomer to Oregon who was found dead in a crawl space of a home had been cut open and her baby taken from her womb, investigators said Monday.

It couldn’t be determined if the infant son of Heather Snively died before or after he was removed, the Washington County sheriff’s department said in a statement.

A 27-year-old woman, Korena Roberts, has been charged with murder in Snively’s death. She appeared in court Monday but did not enter a plea.

A 911 call on Friday brought emergency workers to Roberts’ house in the Portland suburb of Beaverton. Workers found blood on the floor and Roberts’ boyfriend trying to revive the infant.

Investigators said Roberts claimed the baby was hers. At the emergency room, doctors, who were unable to revive the baby, determined that Roberts had not given birth.

Police said they returned to Roberts’ home and found the hidden body. Roberts’ boyfriend is cooperating and doesn’t face charges, the sheriff’s office said.

A medical examiner said Monday that Snively died of blunt and sharp force injuries.

“At this time, it has not been determined if she died because of head wounds she received or as a result of cutting injuries she received to her abdomen,” the sheriff’s office said.

A grand jury will hear the case, the prosecutor said, and Roberts might also face charges in the infant’s death — if lab tests determine he ever took a breath.

“The issue is was the child alive at all at any point in time,” said Washington Count District Attorney Bob Herman. “This is certainly unusual for its circumstances and nature.”

Investigators said Monday that Roberts, who has two children younger than 10, had been telling friends and relatives for months that she was pregnant, and told many people she would have twins.

Snively had recently moved to Oregon from Maryland because her boyfriend and father of the child had found a better job.

Snively’s mother, Heidi Kidd of St. Albans, W.Va., said Snively met Roberts a few weeks ago through Craigslist, the online classified service. Police said Monday they are still trying to confirm that.

Roberts told Snively she was pregnant and wanted baby clothes, Kidd said. They befriended one another and kept talking online.

Kidd told The Associated Press on Sunday that her first grandson was to be named John Steven.

“I’m still in shock; it hasn’t hit me,” she said. “I mean, that initial phone call; I just couldn’t believe it. I just could not believe I was talking about my own child.”

Neighbors on Monday said Roberts bought a stroller at a garage sale and set up a crib on the front lawn of her rental home. They said Snively was seen at Roberts’ house more than once.

On Monday outside the house, there was a blue plastic play pool, a broken yellow play tractor, offerings of flowers and a handwritten note, saying, “May God be with you.”
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This is screwed up beyond all mortal comprehension. Maybe it is also time to send a very strong message to women: Ladies, if you are pregnant and do not show it yet, do try not to blab about it to the entire planet. Please learn to keep your bedroom behaviour private. I used to think it was bad when new mothers would plaster photos of their kids everywhere including the Internet, then wonder why they would receive alarming emails along the lines of child pornography.

Second, when a mother to be is expecting, not to befriend a total stranger on the Internet for baby clothes, like Snively did. There is so much wrong to this case. Our society has failed women and relegated them to baby making machines to the point where young women absolutely burn with lust for a child of their own. I guess the days of stealing pink babies from unattended shopping carts are over with. Now it’s upgraded to murdering a pregnant woman for her baby. Sick, sick, sick.

Now why am I not surprised at this? Once a woman admits she has burned in the flesh for babies, her life disappears. Read on:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5448827/Octuplets-mother-Nadya-Suleman-believes-she-screwed-up-kids-lives.html

In a video posted on radaronline she said she had made mistakes and bad decisions.

“I screwed myself. I screwed up my life, I screwed up my kids’ lives,” she said. “I have to put on this strong facade and I have to pretend like I don’t regret it.”

Miss Suleman also said she didn’t tell her sperm donor she was having more children after the first six, and fears his resentment for the betrayal.

In the video shot in a fondue restaurant, Miss Suleman says she used frozen fertilised embryos left over from her first conceptions to become pregnant with eight additional children. The donor didn’t know she had the leftover embryos, she said.

“I went behind his back and used them all,” she says. “He didn’t want me to. I feel so much guilt for that.”

The camerawoman, identified by the site as Miss Suleman’s best friend, says at one point that the sperm donor has a wife and family.

But Miss Suleman warns her away from giving away too much about the man, adding that “he’d lose everything he’s created in his own life” if his identity was revealed.

Miss Suleman says her older children are increasingly curious about who their biological father is. She refuses to identify him, saying she wants to protect his privacy, but also wants him “to somehow, privately, secretly know (the children) in a controlled manner.”

Miss Suleman gave birth to the world’s longest-surviving set of octuplets on Jan. 26.
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Suleman is much too young to be screwing her life up so badly. Who in their right mind lusts for so many babies? It is not normal by any stretch. Nadya has next to no chance in getting her life back on track. She has proven to the world that she is a bad parent by having children. I doubt this will prevent other women from lusting for babies, though, especially with our baby-centered society. There is no word that the state of California will confiscate her 14 kids from her and put them in foster care, either. Nadya the Welfare Queen will have to rely upon that new show of hers produced by Eyesore, I mean, Eyeworks, for cash to support herself with.