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March 05, 2006

'Men are great, but they do not always fit into your timescale'

There's a classic bit in My Cousin Vinny where the long-suffering fiance, Mona, played by Marisa Tomei, is arguing with Vinny about their delayed family plans

Meanwhile, TEN YEARS LATER, my niece, the daughter of my sister is getting married. My biological clock is [stomps her foot]TICKING LIKE THIS and the way this case is going, I ain't never getting married.
Most women recognize the relatively short timeframe we have for getting pregnant and the many men that just don't 'get it'. So we find the conflict between Vinny and Mona (or Nathan and Adelaide) a goldmine of humorous moments.

However, the chuckles start getting thin when our culture rejects the notion that a child deserves both a mother and a father.

Motherhood as a "right", regardless of marital status or best interests of the future child, now has England's National Health Service willing to pay for "free" fertility treatments for single women.

This development comes as legal experts warned that hospitals face potential court cases under rights laws if they deny single women their right to motherhood.
Women suing hospitals over finite fertility treatments because, damn them, they are discriminating when they give first priority to couples.
Free treatment for single women will also reignite the debate about whether or not children need a father ... The Commons Science and Technology Committee has already highlighted the inequalities that exist in the laws governing fertility treatment such as the need for a father.
Ok. Color me old-fashioned, but is that really debatable?
"It is hard to see how a blanket refusal to treat people on the basis of their sexual orientation or single status would survive a challenge under the Human Rights Act," said the Liberal Democrat MP, who is also a member of Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights.

"Given that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that children do no worse in such households, it is unethical medically to refuse to treat people."

We now live in a culture ruled by "studies" and "polls" that replace ethics and common sense. Alledgedly, children do no worse in single-mom households so to limit single females access to free fertility treatments is a violation of Human Rights.

We have moved from understanding that because of death, divorce or other circumstances that many children will be raised in a single-parent home, to now declaring any hint of holding up a two-parent household as optimal for children is bigotry punishable by law.

Someone please explain to me how we can expect males to rise to the responsibility of being men and fathers when we tell females they can eschew their responsibility as women in securing the best for their children?

Posted by Darleen at March 5, 2006 09:08 AM

Comments

Seems a little far out to me, but if there is free fertility treatments available, single women should not be denied the treatments if they want them.

It is a question of human rihgts.

Posted by: Carl W. Goss at March 5, 2006 08:53 PM

If these women can't handle a man what happens when they end up having a son? Do they force him to be gay or effeminate because they're "man haters"?

Posted by: Digger at March 6, 2006 06:04 AM

Having raised two straight, responsible, ethical, strong, masculine sons by myself - since their father, like so many men through time, preferred partying and drinking to fathering and family - I can not see any reason to deny a single parent the joy of parenting. In many two parent families, in reality, only one of them - mom or dad - is the parent who cares, gives, sacrifices and does the hard work. The fact is some people have a talent and joy for parenting and some don't.

I have seen far too many boys raised by two parent families who learned at their daddy's knees all they needed to know about drinking, drugging and abusing women. My own two boys, with lots of help from loving family, friends and community, grew up to be good students, healthy athletes and strong, ethical gentlemen.

Are we to be chained to this "truth" that two parents are always, incontrovertibly better? So many of these studies are biased, and conveniently eliminate the many ways bad parents in two parent families - whether mom or dad - manage to inflict great harm on their kids. Why deny those born for parenting their opportunity to contribute to society in this incomparable way?

Posted by: Mary Ellen at March 6, 2006 01:11 PM

- Liberals continue to demean the family unit, and at the same time the parental responsibilities inherent in the act of raising a child, by trying to shift it to simply a case of human rights. But that strawman falls when you ask the question, "Who's human rights". Single woman certainly have the right to raise a child in any sort of non-abusive atmosphere they choose too. The question isn't really a rights issue as mush as a "humanity" issue.

- And don't tell me a fucking thing about what children "feel" in a short family. They will carry the void of the missing parent all their lives, and anyone who doesn't know that has neither compassion nor common sense. But once again we find "Progressives" finding yet another way to rationalize whatever they want to do.

- I predict in the future, when the pendulum of rationality swings back, most people are going to look back on this period, and refer to it as the "time of deep personal evasions, and human insensitivity".

Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at March 6, 2006 07:55 PM

Mary Ellen

You are comparing a good single parent to a bad-parenting couple. Well, DOAH, you know..that apple v orange thing?

OPTIMAL for a child is a loving mom and dad, married in the home.

If dad is abusive, he is a dysfunctional/absent dad. Kinda like a dad not there.

Take a gander at state prison stats ... majority of young men come from father-absent homes.

Many women may, indeed, find themselves as single parents..and I have a lot of admiration for those that buckle down and do their best for their kids in a less than ideal situation.

But to deliberately create a child when you know they will never know their father and may never even have a stepdad? What is that, children as golden retrievers? Children as trophies?

No. Not good.

Fertility treatments, especially those as involved as IVF, are FINITE. Functional couples should always be given first priority.

Posted by: Darleen at March 6, 2006 08:47 PM

People DELIBERATELY create children in two parent units all the time when they KNOW they are selfish bastards, addicts, career obsessives, psychological wrecks, criminals, perverts and every other kind of dysfunction under the sun. Most people, and I can vouch for this, are TERRIBLE parents. Most kids in America today are raised by their television sets, and the evidence is right there. Pick up your average illiterate, potsmoking, sexually promiscuous American kid and nine times out of ten, there's a daddy at home, or a step dad. Speaking of which, most kids would far prefer NO dad to the average American "Mom's new husband".

I don't exactly think it's a great idea to go out and make a baby in a laboratory, but to pretend that the average two parent family is a wholesome kettle of love and support is typical blind blather. Let's not bother with the facts, let's just look for a big moral cudgel to beat the imaginary lefties with. After all, the political thing is imploding in our faces. Let's get back to basics - pompous moral superiority and posturing.

Posted by: A Friend at March 7, 2006 02:37 AM

So much anger, friend.

My own feeling is that nine/ten times most parents are doing a pretty good job of raising their kids.

Think positive I always say....

Posted by: Carl W. Goss at March 7, 2006 09:26 AM

I think it's sad that we've gotten to the point where so many men neither care about women's biological clocks, nor their desire to have kids, because "you have to live a little first."

I live in a part of the country where spending your 20's and 30's drinking, hitting up the clubs on Friday nights, and travelling until you drop are considered far more valuable than family--by women to a point, but to a large degree, by guys. Talk marriage with any 25-year-old NYC guy and you're likely to hear, "I'm not even thinking that way for at least 10-15 years. Babies are a pain in the ass"

The problem is, the guy's 25-year-old girlfriend can't healthfully wait 10-15 years to "start" thinking about it--by then, she'll be almost 40 before they even think of conceiving. But if she wants to be with him, she'll end up waiting.

And the sad thing is, too many guys don't care. "Look at Jennifer Aniston--she's 36 and just thinking about it. Madonna had one at 44." They forget that many of those celebrities didn't do it without help (expensive fertility clinic, etc.).

I was lucky to find a modern man who wants kids young, but many of my past exes were completely unbending, hence my not even marrying until 25 (I was ready at 21, but the guys weren't).

Posted by: Marian at March 8, 2006 08:53 AM