From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:ucbesvax!turner Newsgroups: net.women Title: Re: Fed-up and healthy - (nf) Article-I.D.: ucbcad.469 Posted: Mon Feb 7 14:35:57 1983 Received: Wed Feb 9 02:19:53 1983 #R:utzoo:-278900:ucbesvax:10300001:000:5275 ucbesvax!turner Feb 6 16:30:00 1983 Dear Andy, First of all, I have NEVER in my life encountered the word "sacrifice" with such revolting frequency! Let's just isolate a few of of your comments (yes, "out of context", I know, I know) to get a clearer view of what passes for thinking in the forgoing diatribe. "...exceptions, the single parent who needs to work, the rape victim whose child would be an unwanted further trauma....[Why] ...generalize and rationalize on the basis of a comparatively small number of cases".[?] By and large, that "single parent who needs to work" is a WOMAN, and a poor one at that. She's not out for "ME" - she needs to support her children too, the one's she ALREADY has to feed. Why should her right to abortion be denied? It is precisely this group of women who are most hurt by recent social policy...and it is one of the largest and fastest-growing section of poverty in the country. "You may feel guilty about it but you do it anyway because it's your life and you come first." And you're not going to let any right-wing $25K+/year MALE techo-wizard tell you that you can't, even if he DOES have much more disposable income that he can divert from his daughter's gymnastics lesson to some right-to-life organization which, in turn, is run by some even MORE benighted man. "Do you really think that after a day of full-time work you can give your child the attention and love it desperately needs?" How very much many of these women would like to! And what are YOU doing about it? Looking out for "MY FAMILY", instead of "ME"? One idol in place of another? "Sure, there are children that are indeed better off with both parents at work, but again, let's not get bogged-down with comparatively small percentages." Listen: you talk a lot about "sacrifice" -- but there are LOTS of people in this country who are in income brackets such that their combined income will never equal your individual income. To be both working really IS the best that they can do for their children. "(don't forget the working parent needs a pat on the back too)" And you're actually talking about YOURSELF, here, aren't you? Hey, I say: "Let's not get bogged down in small percentages!" "Being a parent is a sacrifice, don't ever doubt it, but if you think your children aren't worth that sacrifice and that you are number one on the priority list, don't have children." Point of definition here: you are asking us whether our children are worth the sacrifice of being a parent. Put another way: "is being a parent worth the sacrifice of being a parent." Yet another: "is having children worth the sacrifice of having children?" PLEASE TRY TO MAKE SENSE! "Fathers are the ones who are forced to make enough money to pay the bills (that's a fact of life; men make more money than women.) and spend what little free time they have with their children in the hope they can in some way make up for time lost at the workplace..." A-a-and!: "The decision who would stay at home was made for us. In our case, we were lucky because it was mutually agreeable (i.e. my wife wanted to stay at home and my salary was twice hers)." "Forced"? I know families where MEN are "forced" to stay at home because there is no work. "...fact of life; men make more money than women". You don't seem to be too broken up about your advantage, buster. And is this "fact of life" as unchangeable as sex? It's like we learned in school: Mommies take care of the house, Daddies go to work, where they suffer "...time lost in the workplace..." -- well NOW it comes out: you actually begrudge the labor you sell (at so high a price!); is this the "sacrifice" which you so evasively refer to? Don't you ever wish you could break out of these constraining roles? But these roles are part of a system that you don't really want to change. "I guess what I am saying is that the sacrifice is just something to think about before having children." Hey: we've heard enough of this. It just so happens that they are very many people in the world, and even in this country, who have little or nothing to sacrifice in the first place. These people are called "poor". They often have lots of children. They often love these children, even when they go real bad, which is frequently. They don't have your advantages, Andy, they probably never will, and they know that their children probably never will. But they can, at least, have children -- nobody has been able to take that away from them. Poor people might escape this cycle if people like you and me can stand up for their right to do it themselves. THIS is, to me, what reproductive rights and sexual equality is all about. Not "Me-Decadence"! It has EVERYTHING to do with joyful family life, and love of children. If you think that I'm "pro-abortion" (yuck!) because I'm young and affluent, and don't care about anybody but ME, that's just a little out of line. If you think that makes me "anti-family", or even, "anti-life", it could really just be because I am ALSO "...an overly-sensitive, emotional jerk." An obstinate but but-not-so-proud non-parent Michael Turner