Which I have been resisting giving for a while now, but really, at this point, I figure I may as well express myself to the limits of my interest, which I admit are pretty narrow. I’m sure you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for this.
Equivalent in interest generation, inducement of feelings of eeuuugh, and a strenuous and powerful wish that any minors involved in the situation do not end up messed up in the head as a result for life, but conscious that unless actual minor neglect or abuse occurs, it’s really none of my fucking business in either a moral or a legal sense:
Nadya Suleman, eight days before giving birth to the last eight of her fourteen kids. (hat tip)
Michelle Duggar, just after giving birth to her eighteenth child.
The Enigma, born Paul Lawrence, a sideshow performer who has undergone extensive body modification including horn implants, ear reshaping, multiple body piercings, and a full-body jigsaw-puzzle tattoo.
I doubt the mental health status and pecuniary and attention-seeking motives of the principals are much different, either. There. Now I never have to think about it again.
“but conscious that unless actual minor neglect or abuse occurs, it’s really none of my fucking business in either a moral or a legal sense”
I just have difficulty believing that children in a home with 17 other children aren’t going to be the victims of neglect to some degree or another. It just doesn’t seem possible to me unless the family is wealthy and able to hire LOTS of help.
Faith, children can be victims of neglect no matter what their family size is. I think our societies do need to talk about neglected children, but that conversation is not about the Duggars or the Sulemans. It’s about all of us. (Me more than most – I had to raise my own younger brother while I was still a child myself).
I think that womens bodies have always been considered public property in that everyone feels justified in giving there opinion (you’re too fat. too skinny, are selfish for not having chindren, you have too many children, you should dress this way, etc…). And even worse that women have an obligation to conform to those opinions or they are bad, disobediant women. I am not saying that people can’t have an opinion about others as they apply to themselves ( I wouldn’t want 14 kids or to look like Enigma for that matter), but judging and expecting your opinion to matter is something else all together.
“Faith, children can be victims of neglect no matter what their family size is. I think our societies do need to talk about neglected children, but that conversation is not about the Duggars or the Sulemans. It’s about all of us. (Me more than most – I had to raise my own younger brother while I was still a child myself).”
Well, of course they can…never said they didn’t. But I just can’t see how children in such a large family could -not- end up neglected.
I’m not attempting to be mean or misogynistic. I’m stating a simple fact that raising 18 kids sounds really fucking extreme. I am a low-income single mother with 2 kids and it’s all I can do to take care of my two. Frankly, I don’t even know how I’d manage with one more, much less 16 more.
Raising children is hard goddamn work and not something to be taken on lightly or without the resources necessary.