Fundie babies, a cause for celebration or sadness?

[rock_girl]

So coming from another topic in which I mentioned how awful it was to think of the most closeted man in the world adding to the lord's army with the stupidest woman in the world, how does everyone feel about fundie babies?

I have to say that they make me very sad. I hate to think of children being beaten, and while it's bad enough that a five year old might get the wooden spoon, slapping a baby makes me want to vomit. They grow up without education, without life skills, without empathy and compassion for unbelievers. The best they can hope for is to claw their way to the top of some fundie scam and swindle fellow believers with ebooks or manly trips to family-friendly resorts.

For me, seeing a fundie with a newborn is like seeing an animal abuser with a puppy. It's just wrong. I can't every imagine getting excited over a fundie birth or wishing the parents/abusers well.

[Koala]

I think it's horrid, and it would suit me fine if the whole lot of them were infertile.

To further that thought, it always troubles me when I see people wishing for the sahd's to be married. In that culture marriage=babies and we all know how they treat their babies. No thank you.

[luckystone]

I don't think it's worth celebrating either. I feel very sad every time they breed, both because they're increasing the ignorance in the world, and also for the poor child who will probably have a very poor quality childhood (if not life).

But I guess someone makes a good point, the best we can hope for is that they will grow up well and be able to leave, better than wishing ill will as if anything actually did go wrong and they had a somehow disabled child it would probably be worse for everyone with the way they treat people.

I do secretly wish they'd all be infertile or have early miscarriages though. Is that wrong?

[Deleted03]

I think there is a huge step between celebrating a baby being born in a fundie family and wishing for miscarriage (as the best thing that can happen to them).

[NjoyingNsanity]

Well I don't like the fact that the have kids then abuse them, but I kind of feel like it's wrong to wish misfortune on anyone either. I guess I just hope for a healthy baby, and that the parents will get hit by a clue by four and realize the Pearls are child-hating monsters who advocate torturous child abuse, and if their is a God they will spend thier time in Hell being hit with plumbing line of the large metal pipe variety.

[valsa]

Definite sadness.

I wouldn't wish a miscarriage on anyone but I wouldn't be sad if a miscarriage saved yet another potential fundie child from being abused.

[rock_girl]

I wouldn't wish a miscarriage on Priscilla, but only because she's so far along that a miscarriage is probably not going to be kind on her body. Given that she'll be breeding them for Jesus, she needs to treat that thing like a temple. Well, a temple built from processed potato products.

If it happened? Well, I'd be relieved that for the moment at least they weren't getting their hands on a child to abuse.

Now wishing singleness on sahds is absolutely my thing. The Duggar girls can't cook nutritious food, they've had a woeful education and even grandma has to do the laundry. What can they offer a Quiverful child except beatings, cream of slop, ignorance, and the occasional spot on a 'where are they now?' show? May their season at home be long and unending.

[ElphabaGalinda]

New fundie babies definitely makes me sad, because of the lack of opportunity, and the abuse they will surely endure. They could become so much more if born into a different family. I always hope for them to escape someday and live a normal life, but it's really sad that a child's best option will be to have nothing to do with their parents ever again someday. I'm particularly sad for those born into the lifestyle much more than those who make a choice.

Now I can't wish a miscarriage on anyone, so I much prefer SAHDs stay single forever and ever so they don't breed, or at least marry later so they don't breed quite as much. That's my best case scenario.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I too don't think fundie babies (or marriages) are really a cause for celebration.

On the other hand, separately from that though, I can acknowledge the special pain that is done to girls (the fundie children of the earlier generation who are now the ones we're talking about not managing to marry or have any kids) when parents (their fundie parents, who are not managing to become grandparents) raise a daughter with the expectation from day one that she has ONE role and ONE role only, and then prevent her from ever being able to finally BE the thing she was supposedly training for all her life. That has to be horribly painful, and while I don't think "I wish she would marry and have a kid" I do recognize the horror done by HER parents.

Main thing I wish is for them to wake up, realize it's all nonsense, and leave these destructive lifestyles. Sometimes I think some of them might actually have a chance to move out slow if they were to mix enough to get married and manage to marry someone not quite as fundie, I guess. Usually while not hoping for marriage (hoping for leaving) I'm wishing they'd be permitted to mix with the outside world more, even if their PARENTS only allow it under the guise that hey they're looking for Mr. Right.

[Arete]

Sadness. Nothing but sadness.

[Vex]

I would never wish infertility on them, but something inside me dies a little whenever they announce another soldier is entering the fray. Not because I think that their numbers will overwhelm the US, but because I mourn kids who will never be allowed to be creative, who will have the joy beaten or drained out of them with chores, whose education will be patchy at best and non-existent at worst, who will be taught their value is assessed in which body parts they have and how well they work, and who will never be told they can be so much more than husbands and wives.

[Deleted05]

Yes and no. It's a very torn feeling.

I usually have a momentary flash of "yay!" for the mother because all. my. friends. are having kids right now, so I'm pretty sure it's an autopilot response. Also (especially for first babies) because these women have finally achieved the number one only thing God wants from them, and I can't believe that life (or a husband) is kind to an infertile QF woman.

Then I start thinking about how that little girl will grow up to be an undereducated teenage sister-mommy who knows no other life than marrying young and having kids. Or how the little boy will never learn to see women and children as humans, and will spend his life trying to live up to some other man's expectations, be they his patriarch's, his future-father-in-law, or some Gothard-esque figure.

It's all very bittersweet, but the bitter far outweighs the sweet.

[crazyforkate]

I can't get sad over a person's existence in itself. But I sure as hell feel terrible that they will undoubtedly be oppressed and brainwashed. I only hope with each one that it will be an escape.

[FloraDoraDolly]

Do you all feel that way about other babies born under unfortunate circumstances? What about a baby born in Detroit or the South Bronx to some poor crack-addicted single mother who already has four or five kids? Or what about a baby-- particularly a female baby-- born into an extremist Muslim family where the women wear burqas? Or babies born in countries like North Korea where NOBODY has any freedom? Or babies born in places where there is war, poverty, and disease and where many children do not live to see their fifth birthday?

[Koala]

I have a question for those who say they would never wish infertility on them: Why not? Honestly, if you know they are going to beat and oppress their children, why do you not wish for them to be infertile? The alternative is a child suffering for 18+ years. I would much rather an adult cry over not having a child to abuse (both physically and mentally), than a child cry over being abused physically and mentally.

It's almost like having a man you know will beat his wife, but not wishing for him to remain single because that would make him unhappy. Doesn't make any sense to me.

[Deleted05]

Do you all feel that way about other babies born under unfortunate circumstances? What about a baby born in Detroit or the South Bronx to some poor crack-addicted single mother who already has four or five kids? Or what about a baby-- particularly a female baby-- born into an extremist Muslim family where the women wear burqas? Or babies born in countries like North Korea where NOBODY has any freedom? Or babies born in places where there is war, poverty, and disease and where many children do not live to see their fifth birthday?

That makes me unspeakably sad.

[luckystone]

Do you all feel that way about other babies born under unfortunate circumstances? What about a baby born in Detroit or the South Bronx to some poor crack-addicted single mother who already has four or five kids? Or what about a baby-- particularly a female baby-- born into an extremist Muslim family where the women wear burqas? Or babies born in countries like North Korea where NOBODY has any freedom? Or babies born in places where there is war, poverty, and disease and where many children do not live to see their fifth birthday?

I'm sad about all those things and I wish people were more responsible about breeding and/or educating their kids

I have a question for those who say they would never wish infertility on them: Why not? Honestly, if you know they are going to beat and oppress their children, why do you not wish for them to be infertile? The alternative is a child suffering for 18+ years. I would much rather an adult cry over not having a child to abuse (both physically and mentally), than a child cry over being abused physically and mentally.

It's almost like having a man you know will beat his wife, but not wishing for him to remain single because that would make him unhappy. Doesn't make any sense to me.

Agree

[Koala]

Do you all feel that way about other babies born under unfortunate circumstances? What about a baby born in Detroit or the South Bronx to some poor crack-addicted single mother who already has four or five kids? Or what about a baby-- particularly a female baby-- born into an extremist Muslim family where the women wear burqas? Or babies born in countries like North Korea where NOBODY has any freedom? Or babies born in places where there is war, poverty, and disease and where many children do not live to see their fifth birthday?

Yeah, pretty much. I'm kinda big on quality of life. I don't care if you're a crack addict or a religious extremist, I don't wish you on some poor unsuspecting baby.

[Arete]

Speaking only for myself, I definitely feel sadness for a baby born to a crack addicted mother who will not be able to care for them. I feel sadness when children are born into wars, poverty, and repressive hellholes. Feeling sadness is not the same thing as wishing death.

Fundementalist babies of any religious persuasion have the added dimension that they are specifically trained up to be passive victims to some kind of authority, to undermine free societies, to hate and to kill. They don't stay babies forever.

[rock_girl]

Do you all feel that way about other babies born under unfortunate circumstances? What about a baby born in Detroit or the South Bronx to some poor crack-addicted single mother who already has four or five kids? Or what about a baby-- particularly a female baby-- born into an extremist Muslim family where the women wear burqas? Or babies born in countries like North Korea where NOBODY has any freedom? Or babies born in places where there is war, poverty, and disease and where many children do not live to see their fifth birthday?

Muslim fundies are no different from Christian fundies, I figure they all fall under the fundie umbrella.

Crack babies are hardly going to be birthed at home and taught to worship the great crackpipe in the sky. They at least have a chance of escape. Ideally, though, their mothers would opt for terminations and work on staying away from drugs.

War babies, famine babies? They'll be lucky not to die in agony before they become toddlers. The ones that survive aren't going to have much to look forward to, and the mothers who birth them will probably end up with broken bodies thanks to malnutrition and lack of medical care.

I just don't see the point of condemning children to misery and the women who birth them to death and disability.

[luckystone]

Also, most children born into poverty and disease are accidents. If you (or you entire country) can't afford food, you probably can't afford birth control.

The fundies plan their children and to bring them up in less than ideal circumstances.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Do you all feel that way about other babies born under unfortunate circumstances? What about a baby born in Detroit or the South Bronx to some poor crack-addicted single mother who already has four or five kids? Or what about a baby-- particularly a female baby-- born into an extremist Muslim family where the women wear burqas? Or babies born in countries like North Korea where NOBODY has any freedom? Or babies born in places where there is war, poverty, and disease and where many children do not live to see their fifth birthday?

The difference between many of those circumstances and the babies born to fundie parents in the US or other places where fundieism is not mandated and is in fact a family choice is that in the fundie case, the parent is the one who is going to impose the circumstance.

People can't help it (their whole family can't help it) if they're born in a totalitarian country or on the bottom of a country that can't feed its citizens to the point of them starving. No matter what the parent does, the outcome maybe doesn't change much for the kid. But people definitely can leave fundamentalist religions when those religions are not enforced by any arm of the state or even the majority culture of the places they live.

I'm more than thrilled if a fundamentalist person snarked on this board had a kid and LEFT the religion.

It sucks to be born into a bad luck situation. But just IMHO it's extra bad luck when your parents have the ability to change it by walking away but they won't.

[Vex]

I have a question for those who say they would never wish infertility on them: Why not? Honestly, if you know they are going to beat and oppress their children, why do you not wish for them to be infertile? The alternative is a child suffering for 18+ years. I would much rather an adult cry over not having a child to abuse (both physically and mentally), than a child cry over being abused physically and mentally.

It's almost like having a man you know will beat his wife, but not wishing for him to remain single because that would make him unhappy. Doesn't make any sense to me.

My feelings are very complicated. I freely admit my thoughts and feelings on the matter are not logical.

Basically, when it comes to parents who beat their children and fill them with hate (ZsuZsu, Kelly, Lady Lydia, the Pearls), I can say without guilt that I wish they had never had children. I wish they were unable to have more. I do not believe they should be parents. I do not believe they would have been utterly devastated if they couldn't have children.

When it comes to more fundie-lite people, who are parroting the fundie beliefs but don't seem to actively hate (even if what they're saying is essentially hateful), who seem to genuinely love their kids, who do NOT beat their children or break their spirits, I just can't bring myself to do it. I ALWAYS hope that fundies can't have more than one or two kids, but knowing what my parents suffered through due to infertility, I don't have it in me, even if those people hate people like me and seek to suppress my rights. To me, there is little worse, for people who dream of having children and want to be parents with a burning passion, than to have that dream crushed.

I feel it strongly because I am facing possible fertility issues and am not eligible to adopt. I know how I feel about the possibility of never being a mother, and again, I just can't wish that feeling on someone unless they are going to beat their children and feed them active, passionate hate.

It doesn't have to be logical, it's just my personal feelings. I feel desperately sad for the kids of those misguided fundies who don't beat/break their kids, I mourn the education they will miss and the gender roles that will be forced upon them, but I take heart in the fact it's possible to break free. I know most don't, but there is still some hope.

[nokoanna]

I'm horrified both by the abuse, and by their lack of education. As a teacher I think about how the latter wil make it so difficult for them should they ever decide to leave. Think of how little they know of history, or science. And not just that. I imagine their maths and English education is halfhearted as well. I've met children where the parents have accidentaly made a bad choice about the childs education, and they feel horrible about it. These fundie parents are deliberately doing it though, I don't imagine they feel bad at all.

[mrs]

I feel sad about this whole thread. :(

I do feel sad for (potential) mothers who have to deal with the stigma of infertility in the QF movement. (As well as in mainstream society). Hopefully, that may be a trigger to questioning their beliefs and leaving the movement.