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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   45543 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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As it happened, he had just left his latest girlfriend—one week after she had given birth to their child. They weren't getting along, he said; he needed his space. Of the child, he thought not for an instant.

I asked him whether he had any other children.

"Four," he replied.

"How many mothers?"

"Three."

"Do you see any of your children?"

He shook his head. It is supposedly the duty of the doctor not to pass judgment on how his patients have elected to live, but I think I may have raised my eyebrows slightly. At any rate, the patient caught a whiff of my disapproval.

"I know," he said. "I know. Don't tell me."

Tl;dr this asshole isn't prepared to have kids. Having kids and raising them right requires maturity enough to put yourself second to them and maturity and devotion enough from mom and dad to sustain a healthy relationship through its hardest trial. Its not about money. Aside from the potential loss of Mom's income, kids are basically free and the state's various benefits nearly offset their costs.

We have another thread about extremely extended adolescence. 17-year-olds used to be mature enough by necessity to raise a family, go to war, sit on a factory job for 8 hours, work a field for 14 hours.

Overall it is probably good that our 17-year-olds do not need to do that any more. But they can still crank out babies like 17-year-olds did 300 years ago.

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