It’s not about overpopulating the planet, my point is that women need to have some sort of drive to be mothers to actually, you know, become mothers. Some of this drive will be biological and hormonal and some of it will be societal. It’s important that the majority of women feel that motherhood is something expected of them, because that’s how our species propagates.
My point was that we don't need a concerted effort to encourage this for precisely those reasons. The "family values" folks on both sides of the Atlantic (but mostly the other side) seem to be concerned that the tiny minority who deviate from the norms are a fundamental threat to humanity... which is ironic considering their position on Climate Change!
I am not trying to subtly suggest trans or gay people are “not contributing” - it’s actually a help that some people don’t become parents for the reasons you outline. But please do recognise the necessity of societal norms in this area - young girls are conditioned to be mothers not because of some perverse man-controlled scheme, but because we need the majority of women to actually *be* mothers to survive as a species. All I’m trying to do is illustrate that gender roles, stereotypes and expectations are not something awful to be ripped up for the convenience of a few.
I wasn't advocating the destruction of those established norms, just that (a) a bit more flexibility with those norms would be A Good Thing and would not cause society to collapse... and (b) might even slightly reduce the (already tiny) numbers of people seeking the gender reassignment that seems to alarm conservatives so much.
I hope you aren’t suggesting I’m criticising your choice. I wasn’t. See above.
I wasn't, and the above confirms that I was right not to, rather than listening to the little voice in my head that wondered if you might be. Though many people do so (and as I said, the pressure on women to become mothers is far greater than the pressure on men to become fathers) as if my personal decision not to is going to herald the downfall of the human race. Some even take my decision to not breed as if I'm judging their decision to have a family in a harsh manner. Some people take any difference of opinion as a criticism of their own position. Whilst in some cases (political affiliations for example) this is inherent, in most cases it isn't.
Do you think absentee fathers are an acceptable problem? Aye sure it just doesn’t matter, eh?
It’s a complete scandal than feckless men father children and either avoid contributing financially or being present in the child’s life.
This isn’t a post to scandalise single mothers. Quite the opposite. Studies show that children from single parent families generally have lower outcomes in life than those from “traditional” families.
I feel that there isn't a "one size fits all" solution to family make-up. A friend of mine had their home life improved immeasurably once their father finally left, whereas another friend's childhood was severely disrupted when their mother left.
If children from single-parent households have their opportunities limited, the important question is "why is this the case?" Economics/poverty will be part of the answer, and that's relatively simple to fix. The role-model factor will also be part of the equation, but short of banning divorce (a terrible idea) it's not such an easy problem to solve.
That isn’t true. The nuclear family and the presence of two parents, despite its proven success in overall raising children with better life prospects than non-nuclear families, is a declining trend.
If this was any other factor, like income equality or access to education, we’d all be agreed in addressing it. I don’t see that just because the subject matter is gender roles we should be any less determined in thinking how to resolve it. The tacit acceptance of this decline is sad and reflects badly on liberal society, which simply doesn’t want to address the issue.
Again, there are solutions to these issues that don't require a reversion to Victorian values, but it won't be one-size-fits-all. The biggest single factor that affects a child's prospects is poverty. There's a fair overlap between poverty and family make-up, but solving the poverty aspect doesn't necessarily need to "solve" the single-parent aspect.
Of course this has little to do with transgender issues, and I think I've said my piece on that topic already.
