Stop "Glorifying" Single Mothers

[Nekojin]

raging "See You Next Tuesday."

It took me three passes before I figured that euphemism out.

[guywithashovel]

Typical right wing bullshit. He makes *some* good points, but his problem lies with his "solution".

To some extent he did. We really shouldn't glorify it by encouraging people to be single parents, but I really don't think there are too many people who do that.

Also, if I understand "slut shaming," it's referring to merely shaming women for being sexually active.

It's just that people like this guy want to look down their noses at anyone who isn't part of a family that consists of a husband, wife, two kids, and a dog.

[Rageaholic]

To some extent he did. We really shouldn't glorify it by encouraging people to be single parents, but I really don't think there are too many people who do that.

Which is another problem with right wing pundits, they see acceptance of something as glorifying it. Because in their "good ol days" (that probably never existed), anyone that deviated from your stereotypical leave it to beaver family was shunned as an outcast.

Not that there's anything wrong with the traditional family (I came from one), it's just not the end all or be all.

[RedRoseSpiral]

Which is another problem with right wing pundits, they see acceptance of something as glorifying it. Because in their "good ol days" (that probably never existed), anyone that deviated from your stereotypical leave it to beaver family was shunned as an outcast.

Not that there's anything wrong with the traditional family (I came from one), it's just not the end all or be all.

Their good old days consisted of women who got pregnant out of wedlock either getting a back ally abortion, being sent to homes and forced to give up their baby for adoption, or being told their baby died or was stillborn and the kid being put up for adoption.

[macphile]

Yeah, my great-grandmother was just a horrible person, raising my grandfather alone, during the Depression...

I hope no one's truly glorifying it, and I've heard tell that Sixteen and Pregnant (I've not seen it) can sometimes gloss over the realities. Plus, they provide for the girl to some degree. I mean, being on TV is not reality. But shaming women isn't really the answer, either, sending them off to nunneries and leaving them spinsters. Very simply, raising children with another person is always the ideal (assuming the other person's a good person, obviously) because of the work involved, but we also have to deal with the hand life deals us, and making women feel bad about what might be an unfortunate circumstance doesn't really help them any.

[Anthony K. S.]

TEACH KIDS ABOUT CONTRACEPTIVES. They're going to have sex anyway, at least prepare them for it so they know how to protect themselves.

I still remember the very first time I saw the phrase, "abstinence-only sex education."

My immediate and unequivocal reaction was, "That's a stupid idea."

And my second thought was that it was an idea that a lot of hard-core conservatives would love, despite the fact that it would never work.


Case in point : Governor Rick Perry of Texas once insisted that his state's policy of abstinence-only sex education programs was working.

When it was pointed out to him that Texas has the third-highest teen pregnancy rate in the country, the man seemed utterly baffled as to how that could possibly be.

(Personally, what I found baffling was that a grown man seriously thinks that merely telling teenagers not to have sex is actually going to stop them from doing it.)

Perry lamely repeated, "Abstinence works," as the audience laughed at him. He then rambled on incoherently for a while, offering no real counter-arguments, and at one point ... I swear, I think he said, "I'm trying to make a comparable here."

(By the way, Rick Perry was George W. Bush's lieutenant governor ... Yeah, I wasn't surprised, either.)


As Al Franken once very wisely noted :

"Abstinence does, indeed, prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. Abstinence education, however, does not."

Of course, we should teach teenagers that abstinence is the best way to prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. But pinning ALL of your hopes on that is foolish, especially in the face of clear evidence that it doesn't work.

I definitely agree that we should teach teenagers about contraceptives. If it's going to happen no matter what, then we should at least prepare them for it.