Friday, February 20, 2009
13 YEAR OLD FATHERS
The British media have not covered themselves in glory in their treatment of Alfie Patten, his girlfriend & her (& possibly his) baby. We have seen hypocrisy from them in saying how dreadful it is & in giving the young lovers so much money which is bound to encourage others, not realising that the next 13 year old father is not going to be so newsworthy.
Indeed it may very well be that Chantelle, who doesn't have quite as much visual appeal as Alfie, has chosen the official father with a bigger eye for the main chance than accuracy. If so she would not be the first but that does give concern.
Where the hypocrisy really shows is in the astonishment that such "children" are able to give birth. Throughout most of human history a 15 year old girl was a woman fully capable of being a mother. The Jewish Bar Mitzvah celebrates a boy becoming a man on his 13th birthday. This is because, back in ancient Israel, he was. Sometime ago I did an article on the benefits of teenage pregnancy & why it was so preferable to the tragedy of so many western women put off having children until it is too late, or at least until the chances of a Down's syndrome baby is greatly increased. I have somewhat changed from that, not on the fact that the teenage years are biologically the best for childbearing, which is a simple medical fact, but that it is less likely to produce a stable family & that family stability & in particular the presence of a father is vital to have a good chance of producing a child who grows into a competent adult.
Alfie, if he actually said, uncoached, what the papers say he did (always an open question) seems to be acting far more responsibly than our society as a whole. He says he wants to be a real father living with the mother. I'm not sure whether this will be "allowed" since they are both under the age of consent & it may thus be illegal but it would be obscene if the state were to thus prevent them having a chance at family life.
The social purpose of marriage is to care for children. As such it is not only a good but a vital institution. - all else is convention & history shows that the overwhelming majority of people who ever lived did so under patterns of successful marriage customs which differ enormously from the pattern of our tribe at this moment. I am ripping off a fair bit of this from Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress & Friday in which he predicted the evolution of all sorts of different family structures. Though we have seen the breakup of traditional family structures we have seen them replaced by nothing - a girl alone dependent on benefits is not a family. The fault for this is, I think, the growth of government, social work, a benefits system that actively prevents the birth of stable relationships with children, particularly non-traditional ones & a general prurience about telling other people how to live their lives (particularly by journalist & politicians who have no great record in such matters themselves).
I must admit I don't know exactly where to go from here but would incline to the state having a specific policy towards supporting children having loving parents & to benefits being paid not according to social circumstances but purely in the name of the child, but not much else. Adoption is being actively prevented by social workers.
One very traditional solution, never discussed, is of a child of very young mother becoming a "late baby" of her grandmother & sister of her natural mother. Among the numerous improbable accusations made against Sarah Palin was that her last baby was of that type. I doubt very much that it is true in her case (it would have meant she spent months as governor with a cushion up her jumper & nobody twigging) but it is clearly workable. It is also something which would send any social work dept into conniptions & quite conceivably get the grandparents arrested - certainly they would get far less money than a mother with no male parent in sight gets. Though technology gives us opportunities nobody in history has had before we are socially less free than the Victorians & many other eras.
Indeed it may very well be that Chantelle, who doesn't have quite as much visual appeal as Alfie, has chosen the official father with a bigger eye for the main chance than accuracy. If so she would not be the first but that does give concern.
Where the hypocrisy really shows is in the astonishment that such "children" are able to give birth. Throughout most of human history a 15 year old girl was a woman fully capable of being a mother. The Jewish Bar Mitzvah celebrates a boy becoming a man on his 13th birthday. This is because, back in ancient Israel, he was. Sometime ago I did an article on the benefits of teenage pregnancy & why it was so preferable to the tragedy of so many western women put off having children until it is too late, or at least until the chances of a Down's syndrome baby is greatly increased. I have somewhat changed from that, not on the fact that the teenage years are biologically the best for childbearing, which is a simple medical fact, but that it is less likely to produce a stable family & that family stability & in particular the presence of a father is vital to have a good chance of producing a child who grows into a competent adult.
Alfie, if he actually said, uncoached, what the papers say he did (always an open question) seems to be acting far more responsibly than our society as a whole. He says he wants to be a real father living with the mother. I'm not sure whether this will be "allowed" since they are both under the age of consent & it may thus be illegal but it would be obscene if the state were to thus prevent them having a chance at family life.
The social purpose of marriage is to care for children. As such it is not only a good but a vital institution. - all else is convention & history shows that the overwhelming majority of people who ever lived did so under patterns of successful marriage customs which differ enormously from the pattern of our tribe at this moment. I am ripping off a fair bit of this from Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress & Friday in which he predicted the evolution of all sorts of different family structures. Though we have seen the breakup of traditional family structures we have seen them replaced by nothing - a girl alone dependent on benefits is not a family. The fault for this is, I think, the growth of government, social work, a benefits system that actively prevents the birth of stable relationships with children, particularly non-traditional ones & a general prurience about telling other people how to live their lives (particularly by journalist & politicians who have no great record in such matters themselves).
I must admit I don't know exactly where to go from here but would incline to the state having a specific policy towards supporting children having loving parents & to benefits being paid not according to social circumstances but purely in the name of the child, but not much else. Adoption is being actively prevented by social workers.
One very traditional solution, never discussed, is of a child of very young mother becoming a "late baby" of her grandmother & sister of her natural mother. Among the numerous improbable accusations made against Sarah Palin was that her last baby was of that type. I doubt very much that it is true in her case (it would have meant she spent months as governor with a cushion up her jumper & nobody twigging) but it is clearly workable. It is also something which would send any social work dept into conniptions & quite conceivably get the grandparents arrested - certainly they would get far less money than a mother with no male parent in sight gets. Though technology gives us opportunities nobody in history has had before we are socially less free than the Victorians & many other eras.
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...in particular the presence of a father is vital to have a good chance of producing a child who grows into a competent adult.
Urban wastelands like Detroit sprouted after the government began paying welfare. Google "the ruins of Detroit" if you haven't seen the pictures. One out of every two buildings has been torn down, many of the remainder have been set on fire during arson sprees and major sections have become prairie, complete with wild deer running about. Detroit also has had a homicide rate of 60 per 100k as recently as 1992 compared with its northern suburbs that have homicide rates of 3 per 100k. Ireland and Japan both have rates of about 0.5 per 100k. I have a spreadsheet on my computer showing that one city sharing a border with Detroit had a homicide rate of over 120 per 100k one year.
Also, I myself am a bastard child and know what not having a dad can do.
Alfie, if he actually said, uncoached, what the papers say he did (always an open question) seems to be acting far more responsibly than our society as a whole. He says he wants to be a real father living with the mother. I'm not sure whether this will be "allowed" since they are both under the age of consent & it may thus be illegal but it would be obscene if the state were to thus prevent them having a chance at family life.
I must admit I don't know exactly where to go from here...
Abolish all welfare, except food aid during very bad depressions. Let deadbeats starve.
One very traditional solution, never discussed, is of a child of very young mother becoming a "late baby" of her grandmother & sister of her natural mother.
I hadn't thought of this. Jack Nicholson was raised by his grandparents who he believed were his parents. The woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother.
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Urban wastelands like Detroit sprouted after the government began paying welfare. Google "the ruins of Detroit" if you haven't seen the pictures. One out of every two buildings has been torn down, many of the remainder have been set on fire during arson sprees and major sections have become prairie, complete with wild deer running about. Detroit also has had a homicide rate of 60 per 100k as recently as 1992 compared with its northern suburbs that have homicide rates of 3 per 100k. Ireland and Japan both have rates of about 0.5 per 100k. I have a spreadsheet on my computer showing that one city sharing a border with Detroit had a homicide rate of over 120 per 100k one year.
Also, I myself am a bastard child and know what not having a dad can do.
Alfie, if he actually said, uncoached, what the papers say he did (always an open question) seems to be acting far more responsibly than our society as a whole. He says he wants to be a real father living with the mother. I'm not sure whether this will be "allowed" since they are both under the age of consent & it may thus be illegal but it would be obscene if the state were to thus prevent them having a chance at family life.
I must admit I don't know exactly where to go from here...
Abolish all welfare, except food aid during very bad depressions. Let deadbeats starve.
One very traditional solution, never discussed, is of a child of very young mother becoming a "late baby" of her grandmother & sister of her natural mother.
I hadn't thought of this. Jack Nicholson was raised by his grandparents who he believed were his parents. The woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother.
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: February 26, 2009
: February 26, 2009 
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