Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

[Maul the Koala]

Calling people idiots isn't really going to endear anyone to your position.

[formergothardite]

And this is why I usually don't bother arguing with you idiots who think that the resources available to you are available to all people.

Banana, quit being a fucking bitch and insisting I'm a lazy parent. I spend more time with my child than you do with yours, guaranteed. I'm with her 24/7, including when we sleep, and it's been this way every day and night of her entire life. It's rare I'm further from her than 20 feet. Her care is never passed onto anyone else, and she's spent a grand total of less than 24 hours total away from me, including when I spent 4 days and 3 nights in the hospital - she was there from 6am until midnight every day because I didn't want her away from me. So about 18 hours there. She's been babysat twice each for 90 minutes or less, and the rest have been a few trips to the grocery store with her home with her daddy. Even with her daddy home, I'm still with her. My guard never gets to be completely down. Spend a day in my shoes and see how much time you spend doing nothing at all with her. Even my time online isn't without my daughter. Usually, like now, she's asleep having just finished nursing, but she's on me. Lazy parents are people like the Duggars who do whatever they can to spend the least amount of time directly taking care of their kids as they can get away with, or people like the Pearls whose ultimate goal is to be able to ignore their kids and have then too afraid to breathe.

It would be better to spend less time with your child and not hit them than to with them all the time and still hit them. You don't win any awards for never leaving your child with another person. Hitting your child doesn't guarantee that she won't get into trouble when you are using the bathroom. I was hit as a child and still did things I wasn's supposed to when I knew my mom wasn't watching. It isn't that you have to hit your child, it is that you want to hit your child and you don't want to work to figure out anothe way.

[tankgirl]

And this is why I usually don't bother arguing with you idiots who think that the resources available to you are available to all people.

Banana, quit being a fucking bitch and insisting I'm a lazy parent. I spend more time with my child than you do with yours, guaranteed. I'm with her 24/7, including when we sleep, and it's been this way every day and night of her entire life. It's rare I'm further from her than 20 feet. Her care is never passed onto anyone else, and she's spent a grand total of less than 24 hours total away from me, including when I spent 4 days and 3 nights in the hospital - she was there from 6am until midnight every day because I didn't want her away from me. So about 18 hours there. She's been babysat twice each for 90 minutes or less, and the rest have been a few trips to the grocery store with her home with her daddy. Even with her daddy home, I'm still with her. My guard never gets to be completely down. Spend a day in my shoes and see how much time you spend doing nothing at all with her. Even my time online isn't without my daughter. Usually, like now, she's asleep having just finished nursing, but she's on me. Lazy parents are people like the Duggars who do whatever they can to spend the least amount of time directly taking care of their kids as they can get away with, or people like the Pearls whose ultimate goal is to be able to ignore their kids and have then too afraid to breathe.

Woopty Fucking Do!!! Besides the hospital seperation, and letting my husband watch my kid a few times (not that I don't trust him, he just prefers to hang out with us), and less time with outside babysitters, I can claim the same thing, about tons of time with my kid. Guess what? He has never been hit, ever! We don't live in a huge house, and even in a camping tent, I found a way to discipline my kid without resorting to hitting. A time out doesn't need a special spot, hell use one of those captians chairs you mentioned or some wall. You don't need a whole room for discipline to work, it can be done anywhere if you are consistant. When it comes down to it spanking is lazy parenting. You don't use it because you studied parenting, you use it because it is the easiest thing to do.

My kid is a toddler, he has his moments. He gets obsessive about toys too, it is a normal age thing. He can be so good and so rotten, but he is a kid. But overall, my kid is pretty damn good and has never been hit. You can make all the excuses you want, but hitting a kid is not the best discipline out there, and you only choose to use it because you really do enjoy using it, and have too many excuses to ever see there are more effective tools out there.

[treemom]

Whoa whoa whoa.

Sorry, it seems I need to explain to my stance a little better. In the case of a medical emergency I think a woman can have an abortion past 24 weeks. I didn't think that needed clarified, as if pregnancy is keeping her from living it surely aught to be ended. There is nothing pro-life about killing a woman to save an infant that may not live anyway. Or at least not in my opinion. Rape is included in this scenario, as many women who are raped are impeded from receiving proper health care by their rapists or families. Which means there is a good chance that a woman from is impregnated against her will may find it difficult to get a pregnancy terminated in a timely fashion, which is surely not her fault and she should not be punished for.

I prefer that abortion for reasons of birth control be performed prior to 24 weeks only because from everything I've read, that is approximately the age in which a fetus feels pain. It has been a while since I have looked that information up, so it could be outdated.

I have personally vowed against violence of all kind, so the thought to physically harming something bothers me on a personal level. But forcing a woman to remain pregnant against her will is violent in my opinion. So my 24 week stance is merely a personal ideal, but certainly not all situations fall into that category. Nor will I bash or vilify a woman who had one after that.

Does any of that make sense? Sorry, I'm not the best at explaining my thoughts via the Internet.

Well damn, I didn't fit into your neat little, what is acceptable criteria. You do know it is very difficult to get abortions past 24 weeks right? And that I am not sure there is a place that would do them for "birth control"

[treemom]

And this is why I usually don't bother arguing with you idiots who think that the resources available to you are available to all people.

Banana, quit being a fucking bitch and insisting I'm a lazy parent. I spend more time with my child than you do with yours, guaranteed. I'm with her 24/7, including when we sleep, and it's been this way every day and night of her entire life. It's rare I'm further from her than 20 feet. Her care is never passed onto anyone else, and she's spent a grand total of less than 24 hours total away from me, including when I spent 4 days and 3 nights in the hospital - she was there from 6am until midnight every day because I didn't want her away from me. So about 18 hours there. She's been babysat twice each for 90 minutes or less, and the rest have been a few trips to the grocery store with her home with her daddy. Even with her daddy home, I'm still with her. My guard never gets to be completely down. Spend a day in my shoes and see how much time you spend doing nothing at all with her. Even my time online isn't without my daughter. Usually, like now, she's asleep having just finished nursing, but she's on me. Lazy parents are people like the Duggars who do whatever they can to spend the least amount of time directly taking care of their kids as they can get away with, or people like the Pearls whose ultimate goal is to be able to ignore their kids and have then too afraid to breathe.

Perhaps you should get a job.

[treemom]

Is it a problem to not have your kid with you 24 hours a day? Because seriously, that doesn't sound super healthy either.

[formergothardite]

I'm such a mommy martyr that I can't write or read really long posts. I had to stop and interact with my kids twice while writing that sentence.

[Boltingmadonna]

I'm not addressing this specifically to you, Elle, because it seems clear that nothing is going to change your mind. You live in difficult circumstances. In general, though, I think the idea that spanking is an effective way to change toddler behavior is a fallacy. Getting into cupboards, for instance. If spanking worked, then a child would open the cupboard and get spanked a few times, then never open the cupboard again, even if the parent wasn't looking. This is not my experience with toddlers. They don't actually have the kind of reasoning and impulse control that would allow them to sit down and think, "The last time I did this, I got spanked. Therefore, I will not open the cupboard even though I very much want to, and Mommy is in the bathroom." That just isn't going to happen. The shiny knife is in the cupboard, Mommy is on the pot, the kid thinks, "Whee, I can haz shiny toy!" And off to the cupboard she goes. Spankers believe their child has the same mental process as an adult. But they don't.

What really happens is that the spanking parent keeps punishing the kid, and the kid keeps doing the same thing! Over and over again. Because they don't know how to change. Eventually, the child matures to the point where they lose interest in the forbidden activity, or to the point where they are capable of predicting the future and controlling their own impulses. Then the parent goes, "Yay me! Spanking works!" Actually, it's brain development that works. I can believe that the kind of abuse the Pearls give out might stop a child's curiosity, but it would do so by short-circuiting their normal development, which is not an outcome most caring parents would desire.

Of course there's a difference between life-threatening abuse and spanking, duh. But constant spanking for things the child doesn't really understand how to change is still suboptimal. When I collected my mother's journals and papers from their old house, I found a rather sad account from when I was five. I complained about the clothes I was given to wear one morning. (And to understand that I wasn't just being a brat, one should know that I had very few clothes, many of which were hand sewn from old dresses or blankets, and they were often scratchy and too small.) My mother didn't like my attitude and complained to my father, who then hauled off and hit me across the face for "talking back." My mother reports that I cried for a long time, wailing "But I CAN'T be good, I can't!" Throughout my childhood, I was hit and smacked for speaking out of turn. So, you'd think that if spanking "worked," I would have learned to shut up. Yet I never did. When I saw things that seemed wrong and unjust, it seemed as if I just HAD to say something. I knew I should be quiet, but I couldn't. Until I got old enough to realize there was no point in telling people what was wrong, because they didn't care. Then I stopped.

The idea that spanking changes the behavior of small children becomes actually dangerous when parents use spanking instead of removing the danger. You can never spank a small child enough to make sure they won't impulsively fall into a swimming pool or run into a busy road. It's your job as an adult to protect them from those things until they are old enough to use good judgment and have some impulse control. Spanking is no substitute.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Is it a problem to not have your kid with you 24 hours a day? Because seriously, that doesn't sound super healthy either.

I also think it doesn't sound healthy to have your child with you 24/7. Why can't she be left with her father for a few hours while you have a few hours of alone time?

[tankgirl]

Is it a problem to not have your kid with you 24 hours a day? Because seriously, that doesn't sound super healthy either.

I would like to add for me, I do trust my husband, and am trying to get an outside life but a mix of moving away from all of our family and friends, and some rules against me working, have held me up. I do have outside interests and have started to get back into them, but often times, my husband comes to the events because he finds them fun too, which brings Tank Toddler too. But if she is going to say she is the only one who spends that kind of time with her kid, I just wanted to say others do too and survive just fine with out spanking.

[treemom]

I would like to add for me, I do trust my husband, and am trying to get an outside life but a mix of moving away from all of our family and friends, and some rules against me working, have held me up. I do have outside interests and have started to get back into them, but often times, my husband comes to the events because he finds them fun too, which brings Tank Toddler too. But if she is going to say she is the only one who spends that kind of time with her kid, I just wanted to say others do too and survive just fine with out spanking.

Oh that wasn't about you. You didn't poor mouth in a wall of text and then basically say you are. Kickass mother because you spend 24 hours a day with your kid.

[treemom]

I also think it doesn't sound healthy to have your child with you 24/7. Why can't she be left with her father for a few hours while you have a few hours of alone time?

Or a job, so you don't have to live in an rv.

[bananacat]

I can hardly stand the delicious irony of being called a bitch by the Queen Bitch herself. Too funny!

But Elle, you're not a good mother. You're a bad mother and you hit children. Isolating them at home with you doesn't make you better; it makes you worse. You don't get bonus points or cookies for perpetuating the Mommy Wars. I know it's completely taboo to call someone a bad parent, but sometimes it just has to be said. I'm not gonna lie.

Like I said before, Elle is most likely a fundie lurker. I wonder which blog she comes from.

[tankgirl]

Oh that wasn't about you. You didn't poor mouth in a wall of text and then basically say you are. Kickass mother because you spend 24 hours a day with your kid.

I didn't think it was, but still figured, I would elaborate so I didn't sound like a huge loser/bragger/martyr mum. I am getting back out, and getting a outside my kid life, as we settle into our new enviroment.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Or a job, so you don't have to live in an rv.

I was going to suggest a job too, because anyone in their right mind would be doing anything possible to not live in an RV, but I’m sure she’d have a giant wall of text for why that’s bad that I’d rather not read. But there really is no argument, however ridiculous, for not leaving your child alone for a few hours with her father. No reason why that can’t happen. And eventually the kid is going to go to school (I hope), and it’s not good to have her never away from mommy until that point.

[treemom]

I was going to suggest a job too, because anyone in their right mind would be doing anything possible to not live in an RV, but I’m sure she’d have a giant wall of text for why that’s bad that I’d rather not read. But there really is no argument, however ridiculous, for not leaving your child alone for a few hours with her father. No reason why that can’t happen. And eventually the kid is going to go to school (I hope), and it’s not good to have her never away from mommy until that point.

And I know there are many valid reasons for having difficulty finding a job. But methinks none of those are what Elle's really problem is. Maybe it is just me, but as I live in the us a functioning shower and bath in the place I actually live is pretty high up on things I would work at Walmart to have.

[ElphabaGalinda]

And I know there are many valid reasons for having difficulty finding a job. But methinks none of those are what Elle's really problem is. Maybe it is just me, but as I live in the us a functioning shower and bath in the place I actually live is pretty high up on things I would work at Walmart to have.

I would work at Walmart to make sure I had those things. I'd work anywhere that gave me a job. If I had a kid i'd even work opposite shifts to their other parent if daycare was a concern. Also places with affordable child care do exist. Living in an RV is not a good situation, but you're supposed to try everything possible to get out of that situation. Also there's no valid reason anyone HAS to be withtheir child 24/7.

[thoughtful]

I'm not addressing this specifically to you, Elle, because it seems clear that nothing is going to change your mind. You live in difficult circumstances. In general, though, I think the idea that spanking is an effective way to change toddler behavior is a fallacy. Getting into cupboards, for instance. If spanking worked, then a child would open the cupboard and get spanked a few times, then never open the cupboard again, even if the parent wasn't looking. This is not my experience with toddlers. They don't actually have the kind of reasoning and impulse control that would allow them to sit down and think, "The last time I did this, I got spanked. Therefore, I will not open the cupboard even though I very much want to, and Mommy is in the bathroom." That just isn't going to happen. The shiny knife is in the cupboard, Mommy is on the pot, the kid thinks, "Whee, I can haz shiny toy!" And off to the cupboard she goes. Spankers believe their child has the same mental process as an adult. But they don't.

What really happens is that the spanking parent keeps punishing the kid, and the kid keeps doing the same thing! Over and over again. Because they don't know how to change. Eventually, the child matures to the point where they lose interest in the forbidden activity, or to the point where they are capable of predicting the future and controlling their own impulses. Then the parent goes, "Yay me! Spanking works!" Actually, it's brain development that works. I can believe that the kind of abuse the Pearls give out might stop a child's curiosity, but it would do so by short-circuiting their normal development, which is not an outcome most caring parents would desire.

Of course there's a difference between life-threatening abuse and spanking, duh. But constant spanking for things the child doesn't really understand how to change is still suboptimal. When I collected my mother's journals and papers from their old house, I found a rather sad account from when I was five. I complained about the clothes I was given to wear one morning. (And to understand that I wasn't just being a brat, one should know that I had very few clothes, many of which were hand sewn from old dresses or blankets, and they were often scratchy and too small.) My mother didn't like my attitude and complained to my father, who then hauled off and hit me across the face for "talking back." My mother reports that I cried for a long time, wailing "But I CAN'T be good, I can't!" Throughout my childhood, I was hit and smacked for speaking out of turn. So, you'd think that if spanking "worked," I would have learned to shut up. Yet I never did. When I saw things that seemed wrong and unjust, it seemed as if I just HAD to say something. I knew I should be quiet, but I couldn't. Until I got old enough to realize there was no point in telling people what was wrong, because they didn't care. Then I stopped.

The idea that spanking changes the behavior of small children becomes actually dangerous when parents use spanking instead of removing the danger. You can never spank a small child enough to make sure they won't impulsively fall into a swimming pool or run into a busy road. It's your job as an adult to protect them from those things until they are old enough to use good judgment and have some impulse control. Spanking is no substitute.

This.

There is no reason to spank, and many better ways to control, teach and help children.

[luckylibrarian]

After reading Elle's wall of text, I think her situation sounds like a powder keg waiting to explode. She needs to get a babysitter or a playgroup and give both her and her daughter a break. Her child should be socializing with other kids. If she gets upset when she sees a group of kids, then that's a sign that she needs more social interaction outside of the family.

[Rosa]

It can be really, really, really hard to find a job right now, though. Is the unemployment rate still up over 8%? That is a lot of competition. Half the teenagers in my neighborhood are looking for jobs and can't find them, and they don't have the problems of kids at home or anything to worry about. Our neighbors are living in a condemned house because even with most of the adults working, they can't afford to fix the place up and can't afford to sell it either. Eventually the city or the bank will kick them out and they'll double up with relatives in a place that will have way too many people - even if the economy picks up and the unemployed folks (there are 6 adults over there and 3 have jobs; when they were doing OK everyone had at least one job but some were of the "make stuff at home while watching the kids, and sell it" type) get jobs, they will be so far behind they won't be able to catch up.

I follow a blogger mom of 4 kids who lost her home and middle-management job and lived in a tent and then a trailer and now is moving to another state to be near family. She's broke as hell, traveling cross country with 4 kids on her last dollar (and let me tell you - I think she's a good mom and doing the best she can, but her kids were internationally adopted and I wonder if the international adoption agencies realize how easy it can be for Americans to go from middle class to homeless, when they approve these adoptions.)

[Anise]

Like I said before, Elle is most likely a fundie lurker. I wonder which blog she comes from.

I've a feeling that she is an emerging ex-fundie still holding onto particular ideas. In other threads, she has mentioned previous admiration for Jennie Chancey.

[Lainey]

Elle, where do you live (in general, not specific)? Like, what state, if you're okay with sharing that? What are you doing to get out of your situation? I'm genuinely curious.

[ElphabaGalinda]

It can be really, really, really hard to find a job right now, though. Is the unemployment rate still up over 8%? That is a lot of competition. Half the teenagers in my neighborhood are looking for jobs and can't find them, and they don't have the problems of kids at home or anything to worry about. Our neighbors are living in a condemned house because even with most of the adults working, they can't afford to fix the place up and can't afford to sell it either. Eventually the city or the bank will kick them out and they'll double up with relatives in a place that will have way too many people - even if the economy picks up and the unemployed folks (there are 6 adults over there and 3 have jobs; when they were doing OK everyone had at least one job but some were of the "make stuff at home while watching the kids, and sell it" type) get jobs, they will be so far behind they won't be able to catch up.

I follow a blogger mom of 4 kids who lost her home and middle-management job and lived in a tent and then a trailer and now is moving to another state to be near family. She's broke as hell, traveling cross country with 4 kids on her last dollar (and let me tell you - I think she's a good mom and doing the best she can, but her kids were internationally adopted and I wonder if the international adoption agencies realize how easy it can be for Americans to go from middle class to homeless, when they approve these adoptions.)

I know it's really really hard to find a job right now. I'm struggling to find one, and so are lots of people I know. But I differentiate between trying to find a job and not trying. I don't fault anyone whose trying very hard to find a job and it's just not working. But it's important to be looking for a job.

[BelieveinScience]

I know it's really really hard to find a job right now. I'm struggling to find one, and so are lots of people I know. But I differentiate between trying to find a job and not trying. I don't fault anyone whose trying very hard to find a job and it's just not working. But it's important to be looking for a job.

Exactly theres a huge difference between not trying, half assed trying and truly trying but failing to find a job. And when you truly need a job because you have kids to support you can't be picky, you apply anywhere and everywhere you can. I know someone who has kids to support and cant find a job but shes only applying to jobs that seem "worthy" to her instead of applying EVERYWHERE including food services, placeslike walmart etc... That's not truly trying to find a job, in my opinion.

[CanadianHippie]

I was going to suggest a job too, because anyone in their right mind would be doing anything possible to not live in an RV, but I’m sure she’d have a giant wall of text for why that’s bad that I’d rather not read. But there really is no argument, however ridiculous, for not leaving your child alone for a few hours with her father. No reason why that can’t happen. And eventually the kid is going to go to school (I hope), and it’s not good to have her never away from mommy until that point.

Allow me to save Elle the trouble.

"Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times.

Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times. Evil independent thoughts, outsiders and men will hurt my baby and she needs to be with me at all times.

So my baby will never leave my side until her daddy finds a man to protect her."