Great Britain, in the face of the plummeting value of the Pound, has considered switching to "babies" as its new form of currency, as babies are plentiful and worth essentially the same as the British Pound, but have a more stable value internationally.
@morninggloria: What's the conversion rate for babies? Is my one American baby worth 2 British babies? Because I might invest in some British babies. Perhaps Gerard Butler or Daniel Craig would like to help me.
@ahpooks: British babies are worth about three American babies, provided that they pledge to remain in England long enough to learn to speak with that adorable baby British accent.
@morninggloria: British accents on children are all adorable until one of them starts seeing ghosts or getting murderous telekenesis. People never think of that; they only want to hear the cute stuff. Let me tell you something, missy, it's damn hard to get rid of poltergeists once your "adorable" British child summons them. And let's not forget that British children grow up to play all the villains in American movies!
@LaComtesse: Perhaps we should consider the even one American baby for one Canadian baby exchange. It will take a generation, but we will have universal health care.
It seems to me that quieting the fertility uptick at the high end of prosperity wouldn't have nearly as great of an effect than making the people who are already on this earth (however many there are) more environmentally sustainable. It seems like we're worried about the wrong thing here.
Of course it's bad for the environment: when you have too many babies, people just toss them anywhere instead of in the appropriate bins, as seen above.
@curiousgeorgiana: It couldn't be simpler. Cranky babies go in the green bin, giggly babies go in the blue bin with the burpy babies and the chatty babies, and all other babies can go out with the regular trash.
@Zombie Ms. Skittles: RIGHT? It's a waste of your most tender meat right there.
@ihateyourescalade: Though I will say, there's nothing cuter than a marauding band of infants.. except of course for that gang of biker kittens, the Hell Katz.
@curiousgeorgiana: I have to PAY for them to pick up my bin of babies!!
(Okay, but seriously. How is recycling supposed to catch on if you either have everyone driving to the center, which is counterproductive, or they have to pay to do it?)
@LaComtesse: Maybe where you live. I used to live an apartment that just had a bin labelled "baby" but it turned out they didn't recycle babies who started to get their teeth. Who knew? It wasn't listed anywhere. My current place, you can put all the recyclable babies in one bin. So much easier.
@likepenguins: That isn't everywhere. Every place I've lived, except the town I grew up in, gives you recycling bins and picks it up at the curb. My dad's town does the same. It's covered in your taxes.
@curiousgeorgiana: Ugh, and they leak all over your car on the way, and you've got to Febreeze that shit for months. I mean, can't someone just invent a bag that can handle those tiny little claws? Force Flex my ass.
Great-Granny had 20 children. Only 15 lived into adulthood. One set of twins, one set of triplets. She also lived into her late seventies. Though, her family with fewer children, if they didn't smoke, lived into their 90's.
@Remedios Varo can't see no huevos.: They seem to be ok with hospital birth, but I know some Quiverfulls are not. (According to the more radical ones, I'm a child of the devil for having been delivered into the world via C-section - never mind that I was breach and would likely have been stillborn otherwise!)
I know that we're supposed to say this is Michelle Duggar's personal choice, blah blah blah, but when I think you analyze the reasons behind her choice - that the Quiverfull mentality is to overrun us "godless secular liberals" by having more babies, so as to impose their ultra-extreme, Handmaid's-Tale-esque brand of evangelical Christianity on the rest us, I think it becomes more than just her issue. I think it becomes our issue, too.
We're also being ignorant if we assume that she's going on with this happily, that she isn't under enormous pressure from the doctrine of her church and her husband to do this. We have no way of knowing if it's really her choice, now, do we? She may seem chirpy and happy on her TV show and her blog, but there's also a good likelihood she's hiding the problems so as not to give Quiverfull bad PR.
I just think it's rather short-sighted to dismiss this as just a typical case of a woman wanting lotsa babies. There's a big difference between the motivation behind the Duggars' big brood and, say, Octomom or Kate Plus 8. I think we have a reason to take the Duggars a bit more seriously than the rest of the famous big families.
Next up: How many bowel movements can one person produce in a day? Says Septictank-full Movement Member Rusty Ringdorgfer, "I just want to take as many shits as God sees fit to give me, so I eat all of the eggs and prunes I can. To encourage the Lord's work, you know? When God doesn't want me to blast dookies anymore, that's fine. But until then, I'm gonna poop as many times as my body can handle, and then some. Every bowel movement is sacred."
Even though they clearly love having children, their choice to stop planning Michelle's pregnancies was after a miscarriage, which they were told was the result of using a birth control pill. They say that to them, use of the pill then became almost the equivalent of abortion, and so decided to stop using any contraception at all, ever. This breaks my heart.
@Habibiti: I'm not sure I buy that they're "not planning" Michelle's pregnancies, and would in fact bet that they are using NFP to time sex in order to GET pregnant. Even in the no BC days, before it even existed, 19 children would have been a rare and high number.
@funnyface: Wouldn't that go against the Quiverfull movement's ideology though? They believe that humans shouldn't chose when to have children, that they should allow God to choose for them.
@funnyface: That's very possible. I'm just going with what they wrote on their website to explain their philosophy of having children. It just struck me as sad that they seemed so guilty for "causing the death" of their second child, that they didn't feel like they could choose any longer NOT to have children. It put their view on child-rearing in a different light, though they also say it makes them appreciate their children more.
I think some of the points here in regards to "in modern times" don't quite apply to the Duggars. From what I've read, the older kids take care of the younger ones, she started pretty young, and in terms of attention per child, don't the kids have to sign up for one-on-one time? She seems to be taking the old-school approach in terms of parenting methods.
Also, I'm VERY wary of judging people's choices based on what their bodies are able to do. Judging them because they're whackadoo Christians, I'm totally down with that.
(note: Not saying that all Christians are whackadoos. Most aren't. The quiverfull folks? Whackadoo city.)
In response to the idea that only religious famlies have that many kids... My dad had 11 brothers and sisters, and then they took in 5 orphaned neices and nephews, they were athiests, I also have a good friend who is an athiest who has 7 kids and is still young and working on having more. I had a proffesor in college who was agnostic and had 7 kids. I have two and want to have 4 more, I was raised as an athiest/freethinker, It's not a religious thing some people are just comfortable having a large family. In fact my husband is Catholic and he just recently started thinking that two is enough!
@TemplaFlop: I said I was sure there were exceptions. You happen to know many. I happen to know many religious people with lots of kids. I didn't say my anecdotal experience was data.
To say it "isn't a religious thing" may be true with respect to the people you know, but my guess is that if you studied families with many children you would find a higher-than-average percentage of conservative religious people. Some, like the LDS Church and the Quiverfull movement, counsel you to have as many children as you can handle. Some, like the Catholic Church, frown on - that's putting it lightly w/r/t official doctrine - birth control.
@Maritsa: Yeah, I thought that was kind of a give-in. Of course there are exceptions, but generally speaking most people who have very large families do so in part because their religion believes that you should not use birth control.
I don't understand the "it's God's will" theory. Yes, each child is a blessing. But would they feel the same way if God chose to take a child from them? Would they accept that as God's will too?
@twinkette: It makes NO sense. Farmers don't just throw their seed out willy nilly, trusting that God's will will take care of things. You don't just refuse to buy food because God's Will will provide. The idea that God wants to take away your free will and your mind is insane. And yet so many Christians I know (and I am myself a Christian) act like God wants them to give up all control of their body and life. My perspective is, if God really is a loving parent, what would a loving parent do if you called him/her up and said, "so, what job should I do for the rest of my life? just tell me!" The parent would say, "what do you enjoy? what are you good at? let's talk about this." But no good parent wants to have to dictate to their child. That takes all spiritual maturity out of the question. God wants us to be the kind of people who can make wise choices on our own, not abdicate all responsibility for our choices.
My OBGYN told me that having a baby is the stupidest thing a woman could do to her body.
That being said, I don't care what this lady does with her uterus but mine is closed for business.
@lovecake: Erm, really? Having a baby is stupider than doing tons of heroin, or driving drunk, or chopping off one's own limbs, or swallowing lit cherry bombs, or eating rat poison, or laying still for so long that your muscles completely atrophy, or starving yourself, or throwing yourself off a high building?
I've got more, but you get the point. I feel that perhaps you may have misunderstood or are misrepresenting what your OBGYN actually said. Hyperbole is fun and all, but that would be a truly bizarre statement for any doctor to utter under any circumstances. Are you sure she didn't say that it was the stupidest thing YOU could do, personally, for specific reasons?
@slowpoke.r: I can assure you that when it was said organically in our conversation it made the utmost sense. I am realizing now that without background it may not make sense here, but it was far from bizarre.
@lovecake: Well, all the other stuff you said she said is perfectly reasonable so I guess one had to be there.
You have to admit that saying "having a baby is the stupidest thing a woman can do to her body" is pretty shocking when presented totally without context. And really, I still can't imagine an appropriate context for it. It's just such a weird statement, akin to your doctor saying "your liver is the dumbest organ" or "eyeballs are weirdos." There's a hint of truth, maybe, but overall it just doesn't seem to make any sense, you know?
Next time, please tape record your session so that you can share it with the internet and I can understand, okay? :)
(le sigh) My ovaries have been buzzing a lot lately and sometimes my brain goes all fuzzy at the thought of dozens of little mini-SO's running around. I have trouble shaking myself out of it but meditating on things like incontinence, exhaustion, haemorroids and money debt really helps.
@khinky: if it helps, my husband's boss' wife pooped on the table during labor in front of half-a-dozen people. This ranks way up there on the THINGS I AM AFRAID OF scale.
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Ha, my Gentleman Caller is British. If I went off the BC, I bet you I could pay off the ten British babies fine in no time.
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@Lymed: DIBS!
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@LaComtesse: I assumed the excess babies were going to be used as something to jump.
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@CurtCole: She's ready to rock!
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@Zombie Ms. Skittles: RIGHT? It's a waste of your most tender meat right there.
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(Okay, but seriously. How is recycling supposed to catch on if you either have everyone driving to the center, which is counterproductive, or they have to pay to do it?)
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@Lymed: What a dream! My Babymen don't even take the separated babies if one of them is broken!
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I'm really quite impressed that Mrs. Duggar has only had 3 C-sections.
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We're also being ignorant if we assume that she's going on with this happily, that she isn't under enormous pressure from the doctrine of her church and her husband to do this. We have no way of knowing if it's really her choice, now, do we? She may seem chirpy and happy on her TV show and her blog, but there's also a good likelihood she's hiding the problems so as not to give Quiverfull bad PR.
I just think it's rather short-sighted to dismiss this as just a typical case of a woman wanting lotsa babies. There's a big difference between the motivation behind the Duggars' big brood and, say, Octomom or Kate Plus 8. I think we have a reason to take the Duggars a bit more seriously than the rest of the famous big families.
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Also, I'm VERY wary of judging people's choices based on what their bodies are able to do. Judging them because they're whackadoo Christians, I'm totally down with that.
(note: Not saying that all Christians are whackadoos. Most aren't. The quiverfull folks? Whackadoo city.)
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And I'm not sure why people are so convinced that a uterus can't grow and shrink but don't have any problems with the notion that the stomach does.
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To say it "isn't a religious thing" may be true with respect to the people you know, but my guess is that if you studied families with many children you would find a higher-than-average percentage of conservative religious people. Some, like the LDS Church and the Quiverfull movement, counsel you to have as many children as you can handle. Some, like the Catholic Church, frown on - that's putting it lightly w/r/t official doctrine - birth control.
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That being said, I don't care what this lady does with her uterus but mine is closed for business.
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I've got more, but you get the point. I feel that perhaps you may have misunderstood or are misrepresenting what your OBGYN actually said. Hyperbole is fun and all, but that would be a truly bizarre statement for any doctor to utter under any circumstances. Are you sure she didn't say that it was the stupidest thing YOU could do, personally, for specific reasons?
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You have to admit that saying "having a baby is the stupidest thing a woman can do to her body" is pretty shocking when presented totally without context. And really, I still can't imagine an appropriate context for it. It's just such a weird statement, akin to your doctor saying "your liver is the dumbest organ" or "eyeballs are weirdos." There's a hint of truth, maybe, but overall it just doesn't seem to make any sense, you know?
Next time, please tape record your session so that you can share it with the internet and I can understand, okay? :)
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