Oceania IVF babies and single women.

Adolf Hitler had a father. So did Osama bin Laden.

Niether turned out to be much like their fathers. And there are plenty of dads who bring their kids up to believe in a racist and extremist way of life. Have a look at the progression of the Palestinian/Isreali war over the generations.

Anyway, getting back on topic. I'd like to see some form of means test to the whole thing. Not sure exactly what requirements should be met, but that would at least insure that the child will have a safe place to grow up in money and stability wise.

 

Fair enough I guess, but there are still far too many people who are fully capable of conceiving a child but useless at raising one. But if you can save a few souls from that kind of fate than it's better than not saving any.

 

To be totally honest with you I wouldn't be totally opposed with couples being means tested for having children either. I know that it'll never happen, but I'd say it would bring down the level of parental neglect and post-children divorce, if the couples have to think a bit about it before they have their kid.

 

Let's see ...

Kid X had a father, and turned out rotten.

Therefore, it was the father's fault?

By that logic, if he had no father, he would have been a good kid?

Therefore, kids don't need a father?

In conclusion: kids with no fathers will turn out better than kids with fathers, because some kids with fathers turn out bad?

Ever hear of Ed Gein?

He was raised by a single mother. And he became the most notorious serial killer in history.

So did a few others.


So it goes.

 

Adolf Hitler had a father.

Yeah, who died when he was young. He was then raised by a very loving mother by herself.

Look how he turned out

EDIT: I'm not saying that this is what happens to all the children of single mothers. Each person/couple is different. You've got to be case-specific rather than apply one general rule to everyone

 

RE: Hitler

I don't doubt that, but his father was an artist, wasn't he? Not exactly the environment you'd expect for someone like him to evolve into.

I think the main reasons for his problems was to do with his schooling. He struggled with the Austrian/German change in his environment when he was 11 or so.

And wasn't he always away from home? Like at boarding school? Might have to dig up my copy of Mein Kampf and have a look at the introduction.

 

Mein Kampf is sooo biased. He leaves out so much information to get his point across (such as the fact that his mother was his father's 2nd cousin)

Hitler's father was a customs official. Hitler was the budding artist (except for the fact that he wasn't very good at it)

 

I meant the introduction before it. Not the actual writing that he did himself. Let me dig it out now.

He was 13 when his father died (he was 52 when Adolf was born), and his teachers said that he wasn't so much bad in art, just lazy.

 

He was also refused by the University of Art twice.

 

*Watches thread spiral off topic*

 

Imagine being the child, never knowing your father...never knowing what he looked like, what his job was, never knowing your own heritage... .

Funny, that sounds like my life. Except my mother was one of the ones who went out and slept with a male she thought she cared about only to have him run out on her later...

 

That implies that all your heritage comes from your father. Despite the fact that I'm male, I'm going to argue the women's POV here and say that a mother has an equal effect on a child's growth as a father does. Many of my friends live in one-parent homes, and none of them are fascist dictators.



...Yet.

 

I live in a single parent home.

When I leave home, I will be a facsist dictator!

 

I'm probably going to offend some people with a bit of logic here but - isn't two good parents better than one? Sure a single parent can raise a child well, but they'd have a harder time than two parents in a good relationship. Sure not all relationships turn out well but plenty do. At the risk of making generalisations, I think that children raised by a mother and a father would normally be better off than a child being raised by one parent trying to fill two roles. I benefited from having two parents. My own children are benefiting from having two parents.
I don't think anyone would disagree that raising a child alone would be more difficult than raising a child with a partner. Why make it hard right from the start? I think it's bloody arrogant for single women to think they have a right to do alone what nature intended for two people to do. Being a parent is not anyone's right. It's a priveledge and one that is sadly taken far too lighty in our society. Would people be equally happy for a single man to have a child? If not, then that's discrimination. It has very little to do with discrimination against women and everything to do with giving a kid the best chance they can get.
Sure, some women get dumped by men or widowed and and get stuck raising kids on their own. I commend such women (or men in just as many cases). Even parents who are no longer together can still both be better parents by sharing the parenting, than if one of them did it alone. Many single parents do a good job of it out of necessity but to choose such a situation willingly is irresponsible and unfair to the child in my opinion.

 

No one's doubting that it's more difficult. You can't argue that a woman doesn't have the right to raise a child simply because she's single, though. Two parents are, for the most part, better than one, but that doesn't mean a woman is completely incapable of raising a child alone.

 

Shouldn't we be putting the child's interests first? All the focus is on the single parents right... but what about the child's right? Doesn't a child deserve two parents? It all sounds extremely selfish to me; it's all about what the potential parent wants, not what's in the child's best interests.

A single parent would have less time to be with their kid(s). Not only would they have to work to support the family, but they'd also have to combine the roles of two parents into one. Whatever the case, the kid is going to have less time with its parent (a problem which is far less frequent in a 2-parent scenario).

 

You make it sound as if only having one parent is some kind of disability. It's certainly not in the child's best interests if the father is abusive alcoholic...okay, that's not what usually happens, but one good parent is better than two bad ones. Two parents doesn't automatically mean that a child is better off.

 

How do you know the single mother isn't an abusive alcoholic?

There are just as many bad mothers as there are bad fathers, mommy dearest.


And as the resident psychologist (okay, i'm not registered yet, but who needs a license? lol) I'll just say that most studies show that children without fathers are worse off than children with.
Same goes for mothers as well, btw - I'm not bagging single mothers. It's the same with single fathers.
Kids need both. Mother and father.

I could go into details (It's my area of interest) but that would bore most sane people.

 

How bout mother and mother?
Father and father?
Two mothers and a father?



EDIT: Point of interest... soneil, you mention something about "nature intended" two people to bring up a child. What do you mean by this? How does nature intend for there to be two parents? Specifically one mum and one dad? I'm not sure of my natural history here, but I think if we dig deep enough back into it we'd find it was just the mum's bringing up the kiddies communally, while the dads went out hunting woolly mammoths...

 

mother and mother = no father

father and father = no mother

no?

And I'm not talking about morals or right/wrong here, but basic biology.

If you take away the mother or father, or both, there is an actual physical change in the brain of the infant. And not a good one, either.

Check out the orphans in Russia, raised like battery hens. No mothers, no fathers. They end up more or less autistic.


As for the mammoth hunters, well, the fathers didn't hunt 24/7 did they? They may not have been there all the time, but they were there. I don't know a lot about neanderthals (except the ones I run into on Friday nights) but there's a difference between a working father and no father, no?

 

I don't recall ever saying that single mothers were able to fulfill the role of both parents, but I don't see that you can deny a child's right to exist simply because they don't have a male influence around. (Keeping on topic here, we're not talking about single fathers - last I checked, they didn't need IVF. )

 

Denying a child's right to exist? When where how?

Getting a bit philosophical?


I'm a behavioural scientist. I look at it objectively. Children without fathers (or mothers, or both) have a lot more problems than children with both parents - and yes, more problems than children with bad fathers.

Example: boys raised without a father have a worse sense of masculinity, and worse interpersonal relationships.* And that's just one study. And not even close to the worst outcomes.

The world is going to hell in a basket as it is.

Why make it harder for a kid?

Just because a single woman "wants a kid"?

Get a cat. Find something else to give her unconditional love. Don't ruin a kid's future just so she fells better about herself.






* If you want proof, look in Beaty, L. "Effects of paternal absence on male adolescents' peer relations and self-image", Adolescence. Vol 30(120), Win 1995, pp. 873-880.

 

(Sorry about this...) What about the cat? Maybe the woman has to go to work and leaves the cat behind at home. It will get lonely and maybe tear up a few cushions, etc.

 

If a person want's so desperately to have a child then why are they just as determined to not have a partner to help them raise that child? Why the insistance on doing it alone? No-one's stopping any of those women from finding a father for their child. As someone else pointed out, IVF was intended for women who would normally be able to have a baby but can't because of some physical problem. There is no physical reason why your average single woman can't have a baby through natural means. Why would anyone want to do it uness they're making a concious decision to make sure the child has no father? Plain selfishness.

 

And if the woman has tried?

Another hypothetical: a woman has had a series of long-term, reasonably happy relationships, although in the end of most of them, they decided to part amicalbly.

However she's now finding herself at an age where to have the child she so desperately wants later, could possibly result in complications.

So this woman HAS looked...she just hasn't found the right person.

Personally, I would rather have a child raised by one loving parent, than two parents who sort of love the child, but quite obviously not each other, making the lives of everyone involved hell through their constant bickering.