Well I forgot to tell you about we had to think twice due to our lifestyels and me being in transition. But after many years of growing together we felt ready to have a child. 6 years later our daughter seems to be a fairly normal kid filled with an apetite for life and filling our lives with warmth. But this is strictly our situation. Every one of you do have your own specific needs, feelings and situation of life that can't be compared with the situation of any body else.

(Sorry for my poor English....)

ylva (imported) wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2004 11:38 pm Well I forgot to tell you about we had to think twice due to our lifestyels and me being in transition. But after many years of growing together we felt ready to have a child. 6 years later our daughter seems to be a fairly normal kid filled with an apetite for life and filling our lives with warmth. But this is strictly our situation. Every one of you do have your own specific needs, feelings and situation of life that can't be compared with the situation of any body else.

(Sorry for my poor English....)

Hi Ylva,I have two children,grown.they each have 2 each,makes 4 grandchildren.My second wife has 2 from her fist marriage ,they have 3.My stepson married an older woman with 2.1 of them has 1 and one on the way.It makes my transition pretty complicated but to pro-create is a wonderful thing.I love them all and they come first.

It's fabulous to look at them and watch,see parts of yourself moving along.I think if a person questions this,they should not have children.It is a responsibility that some may not handle well.Just thought I'd comment.LOL,Leona

I don't think I will ever have kids of my own but I am not ruling it out. I love them and am fascinated by the way they learn and grow. I just have never felt I was sorted out well enough to raise children of my own. Perhaps one day I could be a big sister or mentor for a young person. Well thats just me

All I can say is if you got em please take care of them or find some one who can. Children shouldn't have to raise them selves.

Love you all

Jema

I'm posting from an evolutionary biologist perspective. You are here, and you may feel strong urges to reproduce simply because you are a product of a lineage of beings that made it due to their urge to survive and reproduce. We are all the result of an incredibly strong biological imperative to reproduce. There is no doubt that this is a "selfish" imperative, but I think it is also foolish to ignore it or fight it head on.

Chibiabos, your strong sexual urges are just as much a part of this biological imperative as the specific urge to have children

Chibiabos, you also tried to make an argument about underprivileged children around the world, but don't you see that they are also a product of the same "selfish" biological imperative. Why does a starving poor person have any more right to reproduce than someone else?

I have personally found in my life that when you have gone through an experience that someone else has not, the latter person really isn't qualified to comment. Each major life step gives experience that cannot be just read or reasoned about. Now that I have kids, I really don't find people without kids fully grown up. This is not being dismissive, it is just that I have been in both situations and some people have not.

In case you can not or will not fulfill your biological imperative to reproduce, you need to be very careful to deflect that strong urge toward something else. For example, Andrew has done it properly -- he has contained his sexual urges with castration and he has his cats to fulfill his nurturing urges.

This has been a very interesting variety of opinions on children. Personally, I dislike the little ankle-biters. I don't believe that children should be abused. On the contrary, I think that if one is going to have children then one should be ready to commit the love and commitment necessary. They should NEVER be abused. Anyone that does abuse a child should have their children seized by the state and forbidden from ever reproducing.

I prefer cats and dogs. They are loyal and are much easier to housebreak.

Taylor (imported) wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2004 7:33 am They should NEVER be abused. Anyone that does abuse a child should have their children seized by the state and forbidden from ever reproducing.

My definition of child abuse - hot, red, sore butts that can't be sat upon for several hours is NOT abuse. Bleeding welts ARE. I was disciplined via spanking - at school, at friends' homes; I was abused at home. Unfortunately, those in charge today cannot make this differentiation.

Making a child eat properly and not giving in to every request for sweets is not abuse. Having a 150 lb. 6-year old is abuse.

Living on a piece of wooded property near a highway with power lines running through it, and having a lake on it is not a dangerous place to live. I survived it. Keeping a child in a sterile suburban environment where he can't hurt himself, that is 'safe', is abuse.

Seeing to a child's medical needs is not abuse. If it worked for my Grandma, and I survived it, AND it cured the ill, then it must be a Divinely inspired cure. WRONG!!! In my humble non-professional medical opinion, curing constipation by oral meds and waiting 3 days for a hard bowel movement is abuse. A couple of enemas that solves the problem in about half an hour - with a soft movement - is NOT. But wait, rectal thermometers and enemas are SEXUAL abuse now! Granny must be spinning in her grave!

Now, as for housebreaking ... I have never found a mess, with a child, anywhere but IN the diaper or in/and/around the stool in the bathroom. The one exception would be a wet bed in later life - easily solved with Goodnights youth diapers. I have yet to have one of the boys take a dump in the middle of the kitchen floor where I can step in it in the morning! My approach to potty-training is leave the dog/cat/whatever outside, and use a hands-on technique for a little boy. Live demonstrations and group pottying are very effective. So is having a target to pee on; great fun and serious male bonding. If done outside, the pet may even join in.

And don't get me going on sterilization. I know SO MANY people who desperately need to have their baby-makers torn out without anesthetic! Male and female.

But our society seems to think that it's OK for a dirty, nasty, smelly woman to take her nearly-naked and thin, equally filthy children into the public to buy cigarettes, beer, lottery tickets. We must give these people all the aid that they can get, and never hunt down the irresponsible fathers. Yet when a mother who is nearly beaten to death by her drug-abusing husband tosses her and her children out in the street in the middle of winter, where is the aid?

And through it all, WHO is labelled the ABUSER?!

I am.

I am a child abuser.

I am an 'allegedly' gay man who likes little boys.

I am gay in the fact that I am 37 and not married. Somewhere in the training guide for nosey-women-social-workers, there is printed this definition. Of coure, my comment to her that I would have to throw a Bible at her and cover her face with a flag and fuck her for God and Country did not go over well.

I spank - with a belt.

My best friend, a mother of 3, uses a wood paddle. We should be put away, according to those who know better. The children are in danger.

I do not buy sweets or every single toy that any boy asks for.

I do not haul filthy, smelly children into public dressed only in their diapers/underwear. I buy quality clothing and $50 sneakers, and I make sure that a boy can do laundry himself by age 10.

And yet I am the bad guy.

Single men who inquire about adoption are automatically gay and child molesters. Did you know this? It's in the books they use. Lesbians seem to be fine, but gay men? Even suspectedly gay men?

I can only blame this on our culture. My nephew at age 10 first saw real live lesbians in a new BMW convertible. He thought they were cool. He was all over that. But two gay men in a 'Vette? Gross! he says. Maybe it was the German car? I think it was.

Yesterday, I signed the "lesbian-liking" boy up for football - a game where the scent of budding testosterone fills the fall air so tangibly that you can SEE it like fog! I took a picture of him in his uniform near the sign up table with his friends. Someone wanted to know just what I thought I was doing. The nerve...

But, now it's off to shop for a jock and a cup so that the boy doesn't get his little jewels smashed by some enthusiastic tackler. This will, of course, involve seeing him in his jock, exposing bare flesh, and making sure the cup fits right by testing it. This is probably considered 'fondling' or something, knowing my luck. I am sure that those who know better would rather see him end up in the ER being castrated for having testicles crushed at the 20 yard line. I am sure this would just be an accident, and no neglect or abuse on my part.

Wrestling is up next in a few months.

Anyone else smell homo-eroticism here?!

Or is it just me?

Edit - and the point of this rant? It's OK for those who have no business doing it to go out and make children that they cannot and will not care for. It's not abuse, and it's not illegal...

It also ties in with the poor children of the world. I have to agree that there must be some instinct to reproduce driving people to do this. But when we stop and think about it, how DO we draw the guidelines? WHO draw the guidelines? Anyone who knows me would laugh at those who label me as an abuser.

And yet I am labelled as a threat.

Of all the children orphaned by war, politics, disease, etc., all over the world, I'll never see one of them. It's better to let a Sudanese child die of starvation/disease than to ship him off to 'some single man' in the USA. He might get molested, you know.

Paulo, although your response is certainly passionate, your point is unclear.

Is it your point that simply because you are gay that society frowns on you or that innocent actions are perceived as sinister because of your sexuality?

Also, you stated that you are labeled as a threat. Are you speaking rhetorically or have you been subject to adjudication?

Taylor

Who are you spanking with a belt, if you don't have kids? Surely to God not someone else's kids?

jane_says (imported) wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:03 pm Who are you spanking with a belt, if you don't have kids? Surely to God not someone else's kids?

Some Times YOU JUST HAVE TO. Spanking with a belt is ok but not beating with a belt. Each Child is different some just a take look, others will need to be spanked. But it always has to be consitant and fare. Children can't run the family the perants have to and the children can't have ANY say in the maters until there older and geting into there teens. Otherwise you have brats.

Those who never have had childern do not know. Rasing childern is like training horses. AND There are to many bad perants (including those that never hit the child).

_g

I do not, and cannot, have any biological children of my own - but I am a part-time parent to 5 boys.

I have to agree with _g, in that a child cannot run the family. Unfortunately, the delusional women who work in Family Services and do NOT have children of their own, think that the child should get his way, every day, with no consequences for his mistakes at all. As I was told, "there is NEVER any reason to hit a child."

I reminded Miss High and Mighty of the parable of Christ where he told of the man about to die for his crimes who blamed his mother - because she did not discipline him. It failed to impress her. Also, according to her - as well as others in her department - if the child wants the $200 shoes and the $100 jacket, they you MUST buy them for them, so they are no traumatized. She then handed me and the boys' mother a paper, to the effect of being a 'DO NOT TOUCH' order.

I promptly informed her that I was about to give her a first-hand demonstration of how I discipline children, and as soon as she walked out the door, someone was going to have a very warm ass. I then, very rudely, escorted HER OUT of the door.

And I did warm up some ass that night - with a belt - and I left red spots. No welts, no blood, no bruises. Bloody welts are abuse. Redness and chaffing are not.

Also, keep in mind that all of this stemmed from the 13 yo. calling the police and telling them that he was abused and in fear of his life. All because he got into his FIFTH fight at school, facing expulsion and criminal charges, and he got spanked and grounded for it. According to the crazy lady, we needed to talk about it.

Like we hadn't tried that already?!

No, those who have this insane attitude that physical punishment is wrong have no clue what Reality is. It's the same thing as unmarried marriage counselors, or "celibate" Catholic priests trying to tell married couples how to have a happy marriage and/or sex life.

But it also ties in to the failed eugenics ideas of the past, and even some that are proposed TODAY. Who do you put in charge of who should have children and who should not?

My experiences so far have shown me that there's simply no realistic way to make sure that only those who can afford and WANT to have kids do just that, while keeping the 'undesireables' from doing so.