Gloucester Girls Seem to Find Out Early . . .
Teenage girls in Gloucester have apparently decided to do their part to reverse the widespread population implosion occurring across the developed world.Seventeen girls stayed pregnant, but the interesting thing is that they agreed to become mothers together.Throughout most of human history, teen pregnancy has been the norm. In earlier, more primitive times, pregnancy and childbirth was a rite of passage for young women, just as the first hunt or the first battle was a rite of passage for young men. In more modern, humane times, children are protected from all meaningful responsibility and real contact with hard realities throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Fewer are marrying, and fewer are having children.
Many girls started going to hospitals to take pregnancy tests, and most of them were disappointed when they found out they were not pregnant.
When the doctors suspected something was wrong, they found out that they had agreed to stay pregnant... _Source
The "Global Baby Bust" is a very real phenomenon, and a genuine threat to the developed world--even to western civilisation. Japan, Russia, Italy, Spain, and other developed nations are literally shrinking before our eyes. Social welfare states that are based upon a pyramid-scheme of cradle to grave benefits from wealth redistribution, are finding it more and more difficult to fund their massive social bureaucracies. Even the US is seeing its national debt in an irrevocable upward spiral due to massive entitlements--primarily to senior citizens--without a corresponding rapid growth in young taxpayers to support the system.
The young female body is custom-made by nature to have babies. Its eggs are pristine and viable, and the strength and flexibility of the young body is better able to rebound from the serious physical demands of pregnancy and childbirth.
Ever since Madonna recorded her hit "Papa Don't Preach, I'm Keeping My Baby", the idea that it is okay for teen girls to go ahead and have their babies has been percolating in teen culture--not just among celebrities like Britney Spears' younger sister. It gives the appearance of a primal mini-rebellion of sorts against the anti-natalist pop culture that has descended from our feminist overlords to smother the natural instinct to procreate.
The problem in Worcester is not teen childbirth. The problem is not having a good plan of how to care for the infants once they are born. In the early days of Israel, the kibbutz was a common means of child-raising, and there was no stigma attached to being a kibbutznik. In the face of a popular culture that cannot be bothered with taking care of babies and children, one wonders if the revival of the kibbutz may become necessary.
Many singularitarians assure me that the singularity will occur well before western civilisation is overrun by faster breeding and more barbarian civilisations. Forgive me if I am not reassured. History teaches us that more procreative cultures tend to conquer and either obliterate or absorb less prolific cultures. There are no guarantees of survival to cultures that place more value on human rights and diversity. When it comes to survival, you had best look out for your own.
Teenage girls have not had the time and do not generally have the depth to consider the historical or demographic aspects to their decisions or impulses. They possess minds that can achieve incredible things, if put to the task. They also have bodies that were made to bear children.
Perhaps teenage girls should bear the children, and older, wiser people should raise them--their grandparents perhaps? If girls have children young, then go on to achieve success in academics and professions, by the time they start thinking about raising children, either their own children or grandchildren should be having kids for them to raise. And they will still be quite young, compared to grandparents and great-grandparents, historically.
Things change.
Labels: depopulation
posted by al fin at 5:19 am
15 Comments:
Robert A. Heinlein mentioned a mechanism to achieve what you suggest in his novel Podkayne of Mars.
Perhaps memory of this idea is what inspires singularitarians to their hopeful outlook. Certainly, most of them (us?) seem to have been fanatical readers of his work.
That something like that happens in Iceland. The TFR of Iceland is very high for a white Western nation.
If the agreement to stay pregnant was combined with some form of mutual support like a kibbutz it might be helpful but just an agreement to all become single teen moms might not be all that wise.
Now given that teen boys are not all that responsible and have little earning potential, the smart thing to do, if they were going to do this sensibly, would be to find slightly more mature males who are single (or have very understanding wives) and who can see the benefit to their blood line and society to actually contributing financially to their kids.
I didn't realize that none of these kids is over 16. Even with financial support and mutual resource sharing that is going to lead to problems. Sure it was done in simpler times but parenting is somewhat less complicated when you have a clan to rely on, no taxes to pay and you can make a living off the land.
I wonder if there might end up being a professional parenting class. Not that most women would not still have one or two but to keep the population up when the supply of cheap labour has been used up, there might be some women who are willing to have several more for proper compensation and profit. They could run cooperatives to manage funds, hire collection agents to enforce child support contracts use economies of scale to purchase medical, educational and other services. Individual companies could screen out mentally unstable moms and provide free parenting courses to its members so that it could brag about how few of the children who are supported by their system end up in jail or dropping out.
Some people feel that parenting should not be done for profit but with it's importance to society and the challenges and burdens it presents, there is no justification for preventing people from being rewarded for it and the kids will still be loved.
Interesting ideas. What is really fun is going to different websites commenting on the Gloucester girls, watching people blame each other's political ideologies for the "scandal." What do they think these girls are, fragile dolls? Society may try to make them into helpless psychological neotenates, but teens will often rebel against the smothering effect any way they can.
Some would run away from home or get involved with drugs, shoplifting, or other petty crime or gangs. These girls decided to have babies. So what?
Teenaged girls are fully capable of healthy procreation after physical maturity, around 15 or so--sometimes younger. Society has a stick up its ass over protecting "the children" from any semblance of reality.
But aren't there already too many little "Cinderellas" and "Peter Pans" walking around as it is?
The main concern in this particular situation is the new infants coming into the world, and how they will be cared for. Much better when an entire society can face a harsh reality together, as the Baron suggests.
I agree with Al Fin, and I thought I was the only one. Yeah, the girls will probably regret having babies so early, but it means that they won't have to be octogenarian grandparents, for example.
Raising children at that young age depends on either having parents of means to support the child(ren), having public support, or having a spouse to provide for the children.
Regardless, those young women were mostly below the age of consent and the fathers, if identified, will be on a sex offenders list.
it is very difficult to raise
simple credit repairs
Swamp Woman, you rightly point out the problem with current family institutions. They refuse to produce enough children for the society, yet they complain when their young decide to produce the children sooner than they would wish.
North America and much of the west needs to decide which is more important--preserving its bloated sensibilities and comforts, or surviving as an enlightened western democracy.
I think the best idea so far is the heavy involvement of grandparents in helping young couples aged 15-25 raise their children.
I see no reason to institute polygamy. With polygamy come many social pathologies.
Al fin, the southern U.S. has never had any trouble with producing children early and often.
All in all, I would prefer people to forego having children until they can provide for them. Lord knows we do not need any more enclaves of drugs, gang violence, and poverty in public housing.
Markku, those of us that have worked in the school system have seen a lot of households in which the grandmother or great grandmother or great grandaunt is raising multiple kids whose parents are drug addicts, in prison, or both. It isn't exactly an ideal situation for the children or the senior citizen.
Markku, those of us that have worked in the school system have seen a lot of households in which the grandmother or great grandmother or great grandaunt is raising multiple kids whose parents are drug addicts, in prison, or both. It isn't exactly an ideal situation for the children or the senior citizen.
Do you think having children early requires drug addiction or a prison sentence?
We're talking about ordinary people, too, and not just the underclass, starting to have children at a biologically optimal age (late teens to early twenties) and raising them with the help of their middle-aged parents.
Do you think it's an ideal situation for our civilization that only the dregs of society reproduce at or above replacement level?
Markku, whatever makes you think that I have something against reproduction? I was married when I was still a teen (but legally an adult) and had my first child a year later. Husband was all of 22.
Our son and daughter were both married at 21 and are the parents of lovely children, although son was subsequently divorced. Our grandparents were married in their teens; at age 14 for two of our grandmothers.
My husband and I put ourselves through college while raising a young family and working full-time during the day and the occasional part-time job(s) at night as well. It took us awhile longer because we took out no loans and paid as we went (and could afford to). We also built our first house in our spare time with the help of our relatives. It wasn't easy, but it can be done in a partnership.
I wouldn't want to have had to do it alone and indeed, I would discourage any young person from deciding to have a baby without any more thought as to how to care for it than picking up a stray puppy.
I note that for every happy outcome (like ours), there are multiple unhappy outcomes with physically and sexually abused children (I'm not talking about the perceived "dregs" of society here), and children who are kicked out when they don't get along with the new daddy or new momma (again, I'm talking middle class families).
It isn't always the "dregs" of society that have drug addiction problems, gambling problems, alcohol problems, relationship problems or abuse problems. It can be the next door neighbor in the nice house driving the expensive car.
Underage children can have children and raise them to be responsible adults with the help of their parents or partner, assuming that their parent(s) or partner is/are responsible adults. That is the problematical part. Responsible adults are in shorter supply than you might think.
Having children early doesn't require drug addiction or a prison sentence. It is often a result of not having enough caring or concern in their life. I never allowed my 12 or 13 or 14 or 15-year-old child to get in a situation where they could be sexually active. Where is the parental oversight? If parents cannot be bothered to supervise their children, why would they be any better at supervising grandchildren?
If responsible women want to have children in their late teens and early 20s, go for it. Girls in their early teens, however, do not make the best mothers.
Swampwoman, you have been talking past what I have been saying. Don't think for a second that I'm advocating having children in situations in which there are no resources to care for them properly. What you say is all very interesting but irrelevant from the POV what I was saying.
Middle class Westerners are postponing childbirth until they're almost over 30 half the time. That spells disaster for our civilization in the long term. A way has to be found for middle class people in our technologically advanced societies requiring high levels of education to start families before they are fully established socially. The extended family - particularly grandparents - currently rendered irrelevant for various reasons including distance and lack of customary obligation, is one potential resource to use for solving this dilemma.
Organized religion is another. Jehova's Witnesses, Mormons, and a few other sects are practically the only ones cranking out white kids at a rate approaching anything like that of Third World immigrants in the West do (Muslims and Black Africans in Europe, Latinos in America).
I prefer artificial wombs combined with "next level" creches or kibbutzes. Both are entirely new phenomena that need some work to be viable.
Until they become available, something like what markku describes may help, with an extended family support structure. Devoutly religious Catholics and Mormons, among others, both have many children AND take good care of them as a rule.
Middle class polygamous households as you find in suburban Salt Lake City and other parts of the US Southwest also contribute to solving the growing shortage of high-tech-society capable children.
Most of the North American middle classes are understandably stuck in conventional modes of thinking--and reacting against the clearly dysfunctional processes that they are in front row seats to observe.
They are worried about what they are seeing closeup every day, and not thinking in a wider scope about what is going to be rolling over them tomorrow.
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