This article is pretty disturbing. But here's a quote I find amusing: "feminism made wage slaves out of women who had once been slaves to God; it made "unpaid prostitutes" out of women who should have been godly mothers and wives." It's the "unpaid prostitutes" part that I don't really get. I mean, I get it, unmarried sex = dirty, dirty whore and all, but when I read this I just immediately made the connection back to being a "paid" prostitute, i.e., married, so I thought the speaker was basically saying single women were dumb because they should be demanding adequate compensation for their services. Seriously, I live in my own little discursive framework, so it really took me a minute. (No offense to any married folks, I just have judgments about the "purity" of the institution and its supposed opposition to the institution of prostitution -- but it certainly has legal benefits. Partial props to South Africa for the civil unions today.)
I also find the tale of thirteen children broods extra-disturbing in relation to one of the countless sociological studies I've been reviewing, this one about intelligence levels in children (I know, I know, sociology -- pah!). Apparently if you have more than three siblings your intelligence is lower, though the oldest and youngest are still at the expected level, due to more attention, presumably. So we're just generating armies of patriarchal, fundamentalist, war-happy kids with sub-par intelligence. Great!
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3 comments:
I must say I agree with the first commenter on the article. Many feminists who criticize these women's choices come off sounding like snobby elitists. Many of the women I know who chose to home-school or have many children are also some of the nicest, kindest people you'll ever meet. Criticizing their choices - which this article does with nearly every other line and nuance - smacks heavily of liberal prejudice.
Children from large families have lower intelligence? Based on what? Perhaps there's more of a connection between poverty/intelligence tests than family size/intelligence tests. A lot of these families are poor, but some of the gi-normous Mormon families in my hometown had quite a few of the highest performing students in school.
However, the thought of having a "quiverfull" of children gives me the hives, makes me want to throw up, and gives me a headache all at the same time. I'm pretty much certain I couldn't manage that many kids. Some of my classes are that size. geez.
But if we didn't criticize people's choices, politics would cease to exist and we would all be sucked into our TV sets! :) I think it's an elitist criticism rooted in fear. I mean, I find the idea that anyone is trying to breed an army for God pretty terrifying, much like I generally find the way our military behaves to be terrifying. Maybe it's having read "The Handmaid's Tale" at an impressionable young age.
As for the sociology (caveat, caveat -- there are always exceptions), there are also many studies that show a strong correlation between poverty and IQ tests. I think the family size study is possibly related to that, but I also think it is connected to the actual amount of time most parents of large families have to devote to children's learning.
This is all part of the nature/nurture debate wherein nature seems to set the genetic limits IQ can reach but environmental factors determine whether those limits will in fact be reached/remotely approached, or at least that's the side of the debate I fall on. As opposed to the heavily nature-oriented theories of the past few decades that attribute everything to genetics and say parenting/environment is irrelevant. I think we all know where that leads ("Bell Curve" anyone?) -- and I am willing to embrace these studies for the purely instrumentalist reason that I like Head Start and free school breakfast programs and want to keep them. If I hadn't had that goverment cheese growing up, I doubt I'd be breezing through standardized tests, whatever the geneticists might say.
criticism = good. :) I just think I would criticize choices like that with a different yardstick than the author did, and probably with a much different tone. But I would definitely still come down on the "against having a full-size vanful of children" side.
I think poverty has much more to do with "intelligence" than family size does. If parents are willing and able to devote their free time to their children (as many Mormon families do, and I've seen it in some Catholic families - interesting that fundamentalist Protestants are taking it to a whole new dimension, though), I don't think the children will suffer unduly.
I definitely agree with the government cheese comment - if I hadn't had the McNair program and Running Start, I know I wouldn't be where I am right now - I'd probably be teaching English and social studies in a public school. Not to say that's bad - but this is MUCH better.
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