HUZZAH! Banned from Rentech.com!
ZephyrZodiac:
I'm. sorry, Inge, but I too have my mouth hanging open! First, this older woman (why a woman, I ask!) who is going to take responsibility for the child - what if the older woman already has a life, feels she's already done her share of raising kids, etc. Are you going to legislate to FORCE her to do it? come on, move into the 21st century - I'm a lot older than I think you are, and I've managed to do it! Stop living somewhere in the dark ages when all women were considered good for was having babies and minding the home! My generation fought a long and uphill battle to change these kinds of views, you are trying to undo everything we worked for just to satisfy some crazy geneticist idea, and remember which political system was for creating the "genetically perfect race"?
Renatus:
I partially agree with you on the family thing, Inge, but not totally. The 'traditional' nuclear family is a fairly recent invention, and it does both parents and children good to have the extended family involved. The parents have someone readily around to ask for advice or fall back on if everything goes pancake shaped; the children know that they have lots of people who very directly care for them which helps to give them a strong feeling of being connected. This is very important.
However, I do object to the idea that the grandparents are obligated to contribute a large amount towards the parenting of a child that their kid has while teenaged. If the teenager is old enough to make that sort of decision, they certainly should be old enough to take responsibility for the consequences. I do not think it is right for the grandparents to throw the teenager out or refuse to help period - that helps no one and makes it far less likely that the teenager will be able to take proper care of the child, and it is especially brutal when adults cut their pregnant teens loose when the teen is still a minor herself, as they ARE still obligated to care for the teen until she reaches age of majority. But it doesn't follow that in continuing to take care of their child that they are then obligated to take up large amounts of responsibility for their child's child. It is the right thing to do to support her in this responsibility, but expecting them to pick enough of it up so that the teen can resume being a teen - no. If a teen gets to make adult decisions, s/he gets to take on the adult responsibility that goes with it.
KellyQ:
Inge, I have read every word of your posts on this topic and to imply that I and others haven't read your posts simply because we don't agree with you, is insulting.
I think the situation you are speaking of sounds very idealistic and unrealistic in today's world. It sounds an awful lot like the Legacy Challenge, actually ;D!
I know that the family you described is traditional in some parts of the world but in most countries that kind of culture no longer exists. I have had friends who had children while still in their teens while I had my children while I was in my 20s and I see absolutely no difference for better or worse, genetically, (which is what this debate started over) because they had their children earlier and I had mine later. The only difference I see is that it made my friends miss out on fun things that teenagers should be enjoying because they were responsible for another human being. Most of them dropped out of school, struggled financially and didn't get to go out for a night of "clubbing" because their parents felt that the baby was their responsbility, not the grandparents. That is a view a lot of parents have in regards to their teenagers becoming pregnant, don't expect them to raise your child because you are still a kid and want to have kid type of fun. You negated that when you became pregnant, especially if it was a choice made on purpose.
ZephyrZodiac:
To look more closely at the genetic argument - let's consider what happens in a family which hasppens to carry the gene for some severely disabling illness. An adult considering having children would no doubt seek genetic counseling and medical assessment of the risks first, would a teenager be that responsible? I doubt it. And the young man fathering this child, probably purely because he "doesn't like condoms", how likely is he to consider the risk of passing on this inherited condition?
Hook:
Quote from: Inge on 2005 August 25, 07:38:26
I am saying that I don't agree that the person who runs the home and makes decisions for the child should necessarily be only the biological or legal parents. I am saying that yes, the parents should be around while the child is growing up, but no they don't need to be the people paying the bills, doing the cooking, driving the child to football club, or having the final say on house rules. The people doing those things could be older family members who share the house. Lots of cultures do it that way. If the eldest woman continues to set the rules, then it doesn't matter if a teenager has a baby she was too mentally immature to parent - she will be taught how to do it and someone will be there to step in if she isn't getting it right, or if she deserves a night out clubbing.
There are quite a lot of mouths hanging open at this point, including mine.
We are saying that we don't agree that the PEOPLE who run the home and make the decisions for the child should necessarily be the grandparents. We are saying that yes, the grandparents should be round while the child is growing up, but no they don't need to be the people paying the bills, doing the cooking, or driving the child to football club. The grandparents should have the final say on house rules; after all, they do not simply *share* the house, it's *their* house, bought paid for by by their toil and sweat, and many many missed nights of clubbing, among many other things they had to give up when they had kids.
And where's the mention of the baby's father in all this? Or his parents? Are her parents going to support him too? It sounds like the night out clubbing that she "deserves" was what led to her getting pregnant in the first place. I emphasized the word PEOPLE in the above paragraph because the grandparents usually include a grandmother *and* a grandfather, unless unwed pregnancy runs in the family.
The position Inge is putting forward is that of the teenage mother. I mean, who wouldn't like to have all the fun and none of the responsibility? But there's also a certain pathology involved: if the young mommy didn't get to raise her own child, will she try to take over raising her grandchildren, even over the objections of her children?
I'm all in favor of extended families. But I'm not in favor of the grandparents shouldering all of the responsibility while the young mommy goes out clubbing. The grandparents are there to *help*, not just there to do all the work while young mommy has all the fun... paid for by the grandparents.
My sister-in-law got pregnant at age 13. On purpose. She wanted a baby. Her parents would have taken responsibililty; after all, they had 8 kids of their own, what's one more mouth to feed? But she was intelligent, headstrong and irresponsible. There would have been fights if she hadn't lost the baby. And with that many people in the family, there wouldn't have been any money for clubbing. Since she was number 7 of 8 kids, she didn't have her mom's babies to cuddle.
As for the genetic argument, it makes no sense. Women at age 16 do not have healthier babies than women at age 30. But someone who is 16 (or younger) might try to make that argument.
Hook
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