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I too take umbrage at what passes for entertainment anymore (but then again, what generation hasn't said that?). The most telling feature of the article was, in my view, the mother's declaration that she wasn't interested in having a father for her child, just an extra source of income. Something tells me the first thing she might do is to expand her shoe collection, but I could be wrong about that.
It occurs to me that fatherhood, as we define it, is not much more than a civil legal liability. No particular rights or privleges are attached to it, in the context of an unmarried couple. Whatever involvement an unmarried father has in his child's life, including an afternoon stroll in the park, must be earned, and more importantly must pass the muster of the close scrutiny of both mom and the courts. The prevailing wisdom among judges is that child support is not a "price of admission" that necessarily amounts to access, and in fact the two are wholly seperate matters. In some respects this makes sense. After all, a guy who is in no way interested in his family might still be said to have a responsibility to them, though the finer points on this are more ambiguous than a feminized family court system might allow for.
N.O.W.'s statements (too numerous to bother citing) to the effect that fathers are, by their nature, a counterproductive influence on children and their mothers is of course not bourne out by what we know to be true of children who grow up without them. The patterns are impossible to refute and there is only the weakest of arguments that these connections are purely ad hoc. By citing a minority statistic, such as some fractional percentage of men who beat their children or wives or girlfriends, they leap to the impossible conclusion that this small minority amounts to evidence that families without involved fathers are healthier for it as a matter of course. This breathtakingly ignorant and sexist presumption is accepted as a self-evident truth in most feminist theory and publications that I have read. And it ignores the mountain of evidence that suggests that mothers are more likely to engage in abuse and neglect of the children in their care. True, this is a mere matter of prevelance explainable by the fact that many more women are primary caretakers. Even adjusted for this fact, though, mothers are more likely to engage in abusive conduct when they are single--a devastating inconvenience that feminists would rather dismiss as further proof (as if we need more) that rational thought and attention to empirical evidence is an evil white male device hostile to women. (Worse still, single mothers are more likely to neglect their children than single fathers...but never mind.)
Until joint custody is presumed in all cases, and until mothers are handed a legal obligation to keep the men in their lives (and beds) informed, fatherhood will remain the most reviled instituion (condition? pathology?) the world has ever so desperately needed.
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by wiccid stepparent on Wednesday February 27, @01:13PM EST (#2)
(User #490 Info)
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Is your contention that single mothers more likely to neglect their children because they are naturally more neglectful, or because single mothers are more likely to have custody? Because after my divorce I was a single mother for several years and if anything, I was too attentive. I don't know very many custodial single fathers, though I understand the number is going up.
Before anyone gets their dander up and accuses me of shoving my ex out of my daughter's life, consider that he is bipolar and has a meth addiction. He is neither violent nor abusive, but he is very unpredictable and will not take his meds. He refuses my help and his family's for his illnesses, but will allow me to buy him the occasional bag of groceries or items of clothing. He doesn't work. He lives on the streets or sleeps on a friend's couch. Obviously custody and/or child support is a non-issue in this situation. We are kind to him as we know how, and he is welcome to visit his daughter any time, but I do not think he is up for joint custody or even unsupervised visitation. We all saw how well parenthood worked out for Andrea Yates after all.
I admire men like my husband, who can care for my daughter, another man's child, with the same love and attention he gives his own sons, and yet still be sensitive to my ex's position as her true father, despite his mental illness.
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"Is your contention that single mothers more likely to neglect their children because they are naturally more neglectful, or because single mothers are more likely to have custody?"
Actually, Wiccid, neither is my contention. It is my contention that this fact flies in the face of the assertion by N.O.W. and others that fatherhood is a pathology and a plague, or that such behavior is intrinsically masculine. Just as your situation has shown that these patterns do not go very far toward demonizing motherhood as a social ill, neither do patterns of abuse or abandonment among men go very far toward justifying such an ideoligical bias against them.
No one should crucify you for taking appropriate steps for the welfare of your child. But your individual circumstance does not define the experience of the whole. Men do not share a collective burden of guilt for your ex's problems, just as women share no collective guilt for the behavior of an Andrea Yates.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday February 27, @02:06PM EST (#9)
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>> Is your contention that single mothers more likely to neglect their children because they are naturally more neglectful, or because single mothers are more likely to have custody? >Because after my divorce I was a single mother for several years and if anything, I was too attentive. >I don't know very many custodial single fathers, though I understand the number is going up. >Before anyone gets their dander up and accuses me of shoving my ex out of my daughter's life, consider that he is bipolar and has a meth addiction. He is neither violent nor abusive, but he is very unpredictable and will not take his meds. He refuses my help and his family's for his illnesses, but will allow me to buy him the occasional bag of groceries or items of clothing. He doesn't work. He lives on the streets or sleeps on a friend's couch. Obviously custody and/or child support is a non-issue in this situation. We are kind to him as we know how, and he is welcome to visit his daughter any time, but I do not think he is up for joint custody or even unsupervised visitation. We all saw how well parenthood worked out for Andrea Yates after all. >I admire men like my husband, who can care for my daughter, another man's child, with the same love and attention he gives his own sons, and yet still be sensitive to my ex's position as her true father, despite his mental illness.
And you should pray to your Gods every night in gratitude for this man, because that is above and beyond the call of duty. There are entirely too many women in the world that sleep with studmuffin losers, have their kids, and then seek someone to be a father to them and deny them children of their own; in the form of "I don't want any more children, but I want you to be a father to mine. Don't you feel privileged?"
And we are expected to feel honored, men who pass on these conditions are labelled as callous, shallow, and insensitive.
I wouldn't do it. I want children of my own flesh and blood, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. While many women may need fathers for their children, and good that they recognize this, it is not their due in life. And many men are very tired of accepting that it is their lot in their own lives to be a money machine.
We want to be parents.
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My husband has two of his own. He doesn't want any more, and though I'd like another, I'm accepting of his desires.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday February 27, @06:50PM EST (#12)
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My fiance and I do not want any biological children, but we are open to the possibility of adopting in the future. If we ever do adopt, we will consider those children to be children of our own, even though they didn't spring from our DNA.
If you do not wish to adopt, or to date women who already have children, that is your right. I did not want to date men who already had kids. However I do not agree with the assertion that if the kid is not of your genes, it is not yours. That is purely a matter of perception. In fact the reason why I did not want to date single fathers was due to my ambivalence about taking on the role of parent.
I realize I'm in the minority in feeling that way. Most people look at my fiance and I with shock and horror when we mention adoption. Some of them flat-out ask us how we could stand to raise a kid that's not "ours." It's one reason why I don't understand the do-gooders who claim that poor children should be seized from their parents and put in "good homes." Being as so many people would rather die than parent a kid that is not of their DNA, I'd like to know where all those "good homes" are supposed to come from.
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And you should pray to your Gods every night in gratitude for this man, because that is above and beyond the call of duty.
Amen. ;-)
There are entirely too many women in the world that sleep with studmuffin losers, have their kids, and then seek someone to be a father to them and deny them children of their own; in the form of "I don't want any more children, but I want you to be a father to mine. Don't you feel privileged?"
Heh... I've met women who had several kids by a bunch of different dads, and who *still* expected every man they met to feel privileged to help raise all those kids who weren't their own.
In fact, I've talked to a couple of young women who have two, three, or more kids out of wedlock, and only *then* think about finding someone to marry. They are, of course, hurt and bewildered that suddenly they have fewer potential suitors than they did before they had a brood of kids.
And we are expected to feel honored, men who pass on these conditions are labelled as callous, shallow, and insensitive.
I don't see it that way... I agree that you should not be automatically willing to raise other men's kids.
I once had a boyfriend who was raising a kid that wasn't even his. On the one hand, I admired the fact that he openly loved the kid and wanted to be a parent. On the other hand, the kid's mother put him through hell; and when he finally married another woman, they were infertile together. So although he now has two adopted daughters and is a good dad to them, he has not been able to have any children of his own flesh.
I wouldn't do it. I want children of my own flesh and blood, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. While many women may need fathers for their children, and good that they recognize this, it is not their due in life. And many men are very tired of accepting that it is their lot in their own lives to be a money machine. We want to be parents.
I agree that no man owes it to any woman to parent some other guy's kids, nor to be a money machine for them. And I hope you enjoy your fatherhood whenever it occurs for you.
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Actually no one comes out looking good in these kinds of shows. And a LOT of people get their entire view of womenkind from watching this trash. Showcasing irresponsible people as representative of only one socio-economic class is also bigotted.
This is nothing more than trumped up gender and class warfare so that people with only moderately more sane lives than those on the show can feel superior and smug .... and can continue to espouse bigotted view against them.
And I disagree that them men come off looking worse. It is the women who they are really dragging through the mud. The mens' sexual history is not showcased in such a disgusting, undignified manner. Do they say how many women the men have slept with or how many other children he has fathered?
And .... I wouldn't be at all surprised if the "stories" weren't faked or embellished just for increased ratings. The real tragedy is that the people who agree to appear on these shows have so little dignity and self respect to begin with it is not hard to envision how they get in such circumstances. It all seems a sick form of sado-masochism to me.
Sadly, when you watch one of these programs, you start to wonder whether Islamist fundementalist aren't correct about their culture being superior. I'm only half serious,but it makes you think about how our culture is viewed by others when this type of trash about us is beamed to TV's around the world.
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by wiccid stepparent on Wednesday February 27, @01:26PM EST (#4)
(User #490 Info)
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I'd say that it's about even. Who looks worse, the man who is juggling two women or the woman who puts up with being juggled? I'd say they both look pretty smarmy.
While I detest exploitation, there is a certain grain of salt to the notion that the people who go on these shows do so at their own free will. I feel this way about Playboy and Penthouse too. Do they exploit women? Certainly. Are many (most?) of those women eager to be exploited? Probably. It takes a special kind of lack of dignity to degrade yourself on national tv. And sadly, as long as people want to buy those types of magazines or watch those TV shows, and as long as other people want to be in those magazines or on those shows, they will probably continue to be around. I myself choose not to look.
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by wiccid stepparent on Wednesday February 27, @01:29PM EST (#5)
(User #490 Info)
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Note: Child exploitation is something entirely different however. Bad, bad bad business that.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday February 27, @01:56PM EST (#8)
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The women on these programs are hardly portrayed as heroines. The audience sees them as trailer trash 'hos (which they are). At the same time I do not have sympathy for the men who chose to have sex with these 'hos. They are pieces of work too, and I refuse to defend them. The 'hos have five different kids by five different men, but often these guys have five different kids by five different women. They were "tricked into parenthood" five times? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three, four, five times...I deserve no sympathy.
The adults do go on these shows of their own free will, as we discussed in the "Maximum Exposure" thread. Many people are willing to do almost anything for money and/or their 15 minutes of fame. In fact, the author of this article talks about this. He mentions that the guys could refuse the testing, but that if they did it meant they wouldn't get to go on TV. Like the old women prancing around in bikinis on the $1.98 Beauty Show, these guys are willing to make total jackasses of themselves so they can get their mugs on television.
The only party I feel sorry for is the kid. With parents like these people, these kids have long, hard roads ahead. These types of "parents" are hopeless. They will never give these kids the love they deserve. We should forget about ever salvaging the parents and talk about how we can help the kids instead. They desperately need positive mother and father figures in their lives.
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"The mens' sexual history is not showcased in such a disgusting, undignified manner. Do they say how many women the men have slept with or how many other children he has fathered?"
I can only respond that it is she, no one else, who has placed her life on display with her shameless showboating and willingly public quest for the biologically correct bank account to plunder. No one talked about his sexual history because it was not relevant to his connection to that particular child. Why, in the context of her efforts to pin some civil liability on him, would it be at all necessary to discuss his affair with some other woman? It wouldn't advance the issue of his paternity at all. If she didn't want her history to be paraded in front of the audience she should have engaged the matter differently. It's a pretty obvious answer. She is dragging herself through the mud, for a profit, so the question of his behavior outside his relationship with her is tangential to the point of total irrelevance.
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Nasgul___ Both of them appear on the show. Neither one is forced to be there. So your point goes both ways. Once they are there however, I believe the women are being portrayed in a nastier light than the men and one more likely to provoke negative stereotyping of all women by people who watch the show. The men are portrayed as innocent bystanders or cads at worst.
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Gotta add this to my other remarks:
Be my guest to take those Islamic fundamentalist up on their claims of superiority. See you in Saudi Arabia!! Wait...no, I won't see you and neither will anyone else, because you'll be covered from head to toe. Well, watch out for those rapists too. You can get jailed for promiscuity if one of them gets his hands on you.
I know you said you were only half serious, but my wife spent time in an Islamic country with the Peace Corps. Trust me, she doesn't share your sentiment.
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