Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Diana Duncan <dianaduncan AT contentdb.net>]

On Thursday, Feb 12, 2004, at 15:28 US/Eastern, Thomas Beckett wrote:

> Diana Duncan wrote:
>
>
> > As a personal choice, I prefer to limit my offspring.
>
> Caelan:  "Mo-oooom, you never let me do /anything/!"

Hee hee!

> >  However, what worries me is that it seems that only stupid people 
> > have lots of children nowadays.
>
> Diane, you're veering into elitist Social Darwinism here.  It's an 
> easy conclusion to make, but only from a pretty narrow perspective.

Yeah, it's actually bullshit.  I often have these Social Darwinist 
thoughts, then slap myself around and remind myself of the following: 
who makes the determinations?  Hence the WARNING at the top of my post. 
 Who's going to decide who the stupid people are?  I'd like to retract 
any mention I made of "educated" vs. "uneducated" as I've met plenty of 
stupid educated people and damn smart uneducated people.  I meant to 
keep the terms purely smart vs. idiots.  :)
> > Most educated people are concerned with careers and with providing 
> > safe, happy upbringings for their children, and rightly conclude that 
> > smaller families make this more likely.  Uneducated or extremely 
> > religious folks make the opposite choice.
>
> Umm, like the offspring of Prescott Bush?

Yes.
> IMO, every baby born is a roll of the dice.  A child's social 
> environment does not determine his or her cultural or political 
> destiny as an adult.  Some of the brightest, most politically 
> progressive people I know come from lower-income families.  And 
> frankly, there are lots of extremely intelligent and wealthy 
> neoconservatives getting educated at Duke and UNC both.  I met them in 
> large numbers when I studied at both places.

OK, I completely agree with the roll of the dice.  Given the tendency 
for offspring to rebel, Caelan may turn out to be his generation's Pat 
Robertson or John Ashcroft.  But where did I mention income?  Not that 
you are imputing that I did, but I'd like to make it clear that income 
was not one of my parameters.

Anyway, I guess I really am in a weird mood today.  Fun!  I still worry 
about overpopulation as a serious problem.  On the other hand, I'm 
delighted at all the people I know having babies.  Maybe because I 
don't know stupid people.  :P

Diana