Comments on: Clarification: I Have Not Become A Natalist

By: adina

adina — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:15:33 +0000

Amanda didn’t seem to understand that you cited Tsing Loh’s thriving children as only one example of how a marriage can produce some “successes,” even if the union doesn’t last forever.You were not saying that happy children are the only, or even the most important measure of a successful marriage. It was just an example, and there are plenty of successes that can be attributed to childless marriages that culminated in divorce or premature death.
However, I do wonder how many divorcees look back on the whole endeavor with unqualified regret- similar to a teen parent who says, “If I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have my beloved child…but it was still an altogether terrible idea.”

By: schadenfreude

schadenfreude — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:00:03 +0000

She’s had it in for you ever since you schooled her in that LA Times debate.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:22:17 +0000

Surely the people who play the part of professional “ideological policewoman” are also most likely “to mischaracterize someone’s opinions and then declare said person out of bounds”? That would seem to go with the territory. Also with the type of thinking that demands all folk think as I do and discounts the possibility that there are several, nay myriad, paths to happiness and fulfillment.

I dunno. Being unmarried and childless myself I guess the standard criticism is that I Have No Idea About Anything. But what works for some people doesn’t work for others. We are not all of a piece. I confess that this seems elementary to me, but it seems to escape the kind of feminists (?) who write for The Atlantic and other Serious Magazines.

Of course, I may be wrong. But if I were writing for the Atlantic I’d like to think I’d be wary of extrapolating so wildly from my own experiences.

Your Atlantic piece, is a different matter entirely. For one thing, it’s good.