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Permalink Reply by Skeptic Tank on August 1, 2012 at 3:48pm

I've always thought kids were awesome and when I was 21 I knew I wanted a baby.

Now I'm in my 40s and I know that if I waited longer than I did then I'd be too old to enjoy a baby.

Our baby is now 11 years old. Getting big and so is her mouth.  My wife was big about waiting until after we were married.  I had LOTS of sex before marriage. Gender didn't matter. But it was totally different when I actually loved the person. I had no religious concepts there. But even my questioning wife wondered if our daughter needed a "baptism" of some sort, just in case. I said that it would mean nothing because she didn't give consent and any god that condemns a baby for that reason isn't worth dealing with. But I wanted to make sure my daughter knew I loved her. My parents didn't marry until I was almost 6 and I always wondered if they loved me or if I was just an inconvenience. I didn't

"No child of mine will be bearing

The name of shame I've been wearing

Love child

Never quite as good

Ashamed, afraid, misunderstood." -Diana Ross

 

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Permalink Reply by Chris Breman on August 2, 2012 at 1:35am

My parents didn't marry until I was almost 6 and I always wondered if they loved me or if I was just an inconvenience.

Strange that you couple the marriage of your parents to yourself being welcome or not. Believe me: if you weren't welcome they would never have stopped saying so. That is what my parents did, and they were a fundie couple who did everything as their god wanted it. 

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Permalink Reply by David Zgurski on August 1, 2012 at 7:17pm

A short stint working at Wal-Mart scared me straight about marriage and kids.  I saw way too many couples who looked miserable every time I saw them moping through the aisles with the kids.  Poor hygiene, poor parenting skills, and most terrifying, no happiness on their faces.  And don't get me started on how marriage and family seems to make a poor trashy fashion sense even worse.  Lots of crocs, sweatpants, pajamas, and fat people wearing dirty thrift store discount items two sizes too small.  I have a feeling most families I saw are like this: He knocked her up before they could plan and save for a family, and before they could take time out of their lives to "find themselves" and develop unique personalities and interests outside of video games and reality shows.

In the electronics department, I sold $70 video games on a weekly basis to guys who were with the kid dressed only in a diaper and stained shirt and the miserable, overweight mother who couldn't stop him, and it was clear that they couldn't afford it. I'm wondering how many wives and mothers are at the mercy of these 20-something (and sometime 30-something!) children who fathered their children and yet haven't grown up themselves.

Below the surface of women having a right to birth control, planned family size, and a career outside of the home, is a subculture of religious oppression that willfully ignores the facts that prove that smaller family size, access to effective birth control and female career empowerment improves the lives of everyone.  I know some religious couples that have two, one or no children, but they belong to the more progressive churches that are practically secular organizations.

Organized religion knows that female empowerment will inevitably lead to increased secularism, or at the least more progressiveness in existing religion.  Of course, there's the self-interest in adding more bodies to the membership roles.  That they'll take you as soon as you're warm is not just a Monty Python lyric.

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