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Study: Richest Countries Have Higher Birth Rates
Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
The Fruits Of Abstinence-Only: Fewer Condoms, More Teen Pregnancy



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morninggloria
10/12/09

In reply to Study: Richest Countries Have Higher Birth Rates
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.
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ahpooks
10/12/09

@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.
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morninggloria
10/12/09

@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.
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likepenguins
10/12/09

@morninggloria: AAH! no! kids with british accents are creeeeeepy!
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LaComtesse
10/12/09

@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!
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morninggloria
10/12/09

@likepenguins: I should fine you ten British babies for that kind of blasphemy.
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Lymed
10/12/09

@LaComtesse: And in their teen years, between poltergeisting and evil-doing, if they happen to need glasses, you are doomed to a know-it-all.
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LaComtesse
10/12/09

@Lymed: Or be put straight in the path of Lord Voldemort. Oh morninggloria, you've doomed us all!
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likepenguins
10/12/09

@morninggloria: It's like they should all be in the Shining!! Creepy, hyper-mature British kids, eeep!

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
10/12/09

@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.
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LaComtesse
10/12/09

@Lymed: DIBS!
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ihateyourescalade
10/12/09

In reply to Study: Richest Countries Have Higher Birth Rates
Cue the frothing-at-the-mouth child haters in 3...2...1...
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Edited by ihateyourescalade at 10/12/09 10:40 AM ihateyourescalade was starred

curiousgeorgiana
10/12/09

@ihateyourescalade: You do get a frothy mouth when eating newborns. Every pleasure has a consequence.
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LaComtesse
10/12/09

@curiousgeorgiana: I think that's an allergic reaction. You might want to see a doctor about that: you may need an EpiPen.
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sympathyforthebasementcat
10/12/09

@curiousgeorgiana: Hee. I wish I could heart you again. Wait, you're not a child, are you?
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curiousgeorgiana
10/12/09

@sympathyforthebasementcat: Put your fork and knife down. I'm an adult. I'll keep my eye out for a juicy teacup human to share.
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ihateyourescalade
10/12/09

@curiousgeorgiana: Baby-haters, silly. Not baby-eaters. Clearly, baby-eaters LOVE babies. Especially with a nice chianti.
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curiousgeorgiana
10/12/09

@ihateyourescalade: Sorry-- I'm hungry.
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schweppes
10/12/09

In reply to Study: Richest Countries Have Higher Birth Rates
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.
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LaComtesse
10/12/09

In reply to Study: Richest Countries Have Higher Birth Rates
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.
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CurtCole
10/12/09

@LaComtesse: I assumed the excess babies were going to be used as something to jump.
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Edited by CurtCole at 10/12/09 10:34 AM CurtCole was starred CurtCole was unstarred

Zombie Ms. Skittles
10/12/09

@LaComtesse: It's like they think the Soylent Green makes itself.
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curiousgeorgiana
10/12/09

@LaComtesse: In our defense, though, the bins are never labeled properly and I have to drive like 15 minutes to my nearest location.
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LaComtesse
10/12/09

@CurtCole: She's ready to rock!
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LaComtesse
10/12/09

@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.
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ihateyourescalade
10/12/09

@LaComtesse: Then they get all feral and run loose in the streets.
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curiousgeorgiana
10/12/09

@LaComtesse: I can't even separate my plastic and my paper correctly. Ugh. Recycling is so hard.
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LaComtesse
10/12/09

@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.
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likepenguins
10/12/09

@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?)
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Lymed
10/12/09

@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.
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Lymed
10/12/09

@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.
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Snooties McSnooties
10/12/09

@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.
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LaComtesse
10/12/09

@Snooties McSnooties: "tiny little claws" just made me pee my pants laughing. You owe me new pants.

@Lymed: What a dream! My Babymen don't even take the separated babies if one of them is broken!
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Jenloveshercurves
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
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.
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Remedios Varo can't see no huevos.
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
Does anyone know what the Duggar's stance on home vs. hospital birth?

I'm really quite impressed that Mrs. Duggar has only had 3 C-sections.
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Erda
09/10/09

@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!)
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Remedios Varo can't see no huevos. promoted this comment Erda was starred Erda was unstarred

Remedios Varo can't see no huevos.
09/10/09

@Erda: Thanks for the info! Also, if a baby was to be stillborn, I'm sure some of these people would just view it as an act of God.
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funnyface
09/10/09

@Remedios Varo can't see no huevos.: I believe all her kids have been delivered in the hospital.
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JennaW
09/10/09

@Erda: But if necessary, you can defeat MacBeth and save Scotland.
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Bgirl_Hamster
09/10/09

@JennaW: Love it.
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Erda
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
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.
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funnyface promoted this comment Edited by Erda at 09/10/09 3:17 PM Erda was starred Erda was unstarred

funnyface
09/10/09

@Erda: I think it's really her choice. She came to the Quiverfull movement as an adult, after experiencing a miscarriage.
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LolaQuinn is full of beans
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
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."
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Habibiti
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
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.
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funnyface
09/10/09

@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.
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KATE!
09/10/09

@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.
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funnyface
09/10/09

@KATE!: You'd think it would, but I really think they have to be working at it to have 19 kids by now, despite the fact that she nurses.
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SarahMC
09/10/09

@KATE!: Funny how god doesn't choose to give people babies unless they've chosen to have sex.
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Habibiti
09/13/09

@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.
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CherriSpryte
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
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.)
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lisas
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
What I think is hilarious about this is that it's in "Body Odd". I'm pretty sure that a uterus isn't odd.

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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TemplaFlop
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
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!
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Maritsa
09/10/09

@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.
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LaFemme
09/10/09

@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.
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twinkette
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
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?
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linnyt is a walking cliché
09/10/09

@twinkette: the only way "God's will" will make me a mother is immaculate conception. otherwise, it's contraception all the way.
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funnyface
09/10/09

@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.
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WashingMyHair
09/10/09

@funnyface: I believe that it was God's will to have me to read Jezebel rather than work today.
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lovecake
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
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.
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ShanaElmsford
09/10/09

@lovecake: That's a really stupid thing for an OBGYN to say.
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Pandorasvoicebox
09/10/09

@lovecake: She said what?
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Pandorasvoicebox
09/10/09

@lovecake: Pregnancy isn't something you do "to" your body...it's something you do with it.
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lovecake
09/10/09

@ShanaElmsford: I don't think it was stupid to say at all. In fact, in context it was very reassuring. And in all honesty- it's true.
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slowpoke.r
09/10/09

@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?
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lovecake
09/10/09

@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.
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slowpoke.r
09/10/09

@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? :)
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khinky
09/10/09

In reply to Is A Woman's Body Made For 19 Kids?
(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.
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Ipomoea
09/10/09

@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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