[ SECRET POST #1775 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1775 ⌋


Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



__________________________________________________

02.


__________________________________________________

03. [nf]


__________________________________________________

04. [repeat]


__________________________________________________

05.


__________________________________________________

06.


__________________________________________________

07. [repeat]


__________________________________________________

08.


__________________________________________________

09.


__________________________________________________

10.


__________________________________________________

11.


__________________________________________________

12.


__________________________________________________

13.


__________________________________________________

14.


__________________________________________________

15.


__________________________________________________

16.


__________________________________________________

17.


__________________________________________________

18.


__________________________________________________

19.


__________________________________________________

20.


__________________________________________________

21.


__________________________________________________

22.


__________________________________________________

23.


__________________________________________________

24.


__________________________________________________

25.


__________________________________________________

26.


__________________________________________________

27.


__________________________________________________

28.


__________________________________________________

29.


__________________________________________________

30.


__________________________________________________

31.


__________________________________________________

32.


__________________________________________________

33.


__________________________________________________

34.


__________________________________________________

35.



Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 10 pages, 247 secrets from Secret Submission Post #254.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 0 - hit/ship/spiration ], [ 0 - omgiknowthem ], [ 0 - take it to comments ], [ 0 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[velvet-mace.livejournal.com]

In an ideal world, parents would have free access to parenting classes.

A licence is stupid and simply won't work. I mean what are you going to do, force sterilizations, abortions and adoptions on people who haven't done anything wrong?

Now Parenting classes? Now that is something that's actually helpful and actionable.

[amph87.livejournal.com]

I suspect people who'd bother going to parenting classes would be good parenting material to begin with. Also you don't need a class to learn if you really wanted to, books and internet exist.

No forced abortions/sterilizations, that would be barbaric. If you had a baby without a licence, you'd have to get the licence. If you don't pass, then better luck next time. Baby goes to adoption.

IDK it just makes perfect sense to me. I'm not talking about a super hard test either, just a thorough background/mental check whether you're a responsible person and not some abusive nutcase monster who only keeps kids to reap the child benefits. Those people do exist, mind.

[velvet-mace.livejournal.com]

What exactly would you put on the test?

What makes you think that a child going into adoption would get a better parent? Maybe they'd just get one that does better on the test?

Make the parenting classes manditory if you must, but a test is a terrible indicator of how well you know how to parent. Parenting is far, far, far too complicated for that.

[amph87.livejournal.com]

Severe mental illnesses and extreme poverty should be pretty simple things to measure, at least. Anything that's practically guaranteed to cause a stressful, unpredictable environment for the child would prevent the person from getting a licence.

Any parent that's serious about giving their offspring a good life would sort out their problems BEFORE making babies, really :P

[kaatsu.livejournal.com]

Any parent that's serious about giving their offspring a good life would sort out their problems BEFORE making babies, really :P

This is such a fucking stupid sentiment that I want to reach through the internet and slap you.

[amph87.livejournal.com]

If I was seriously ill or in a terrible life situation, I wouldn't think about starting a family. If I got pregnant nevertheless (by accident) and genuinely cared about the kid's future, I'd choose adoption. This is a stupid reasoning to you?

[kaatsu.livejournal.com]

It's a reasoning (a classist, ablist reasoning). Assuming that your reasoning is the only correct one and that any others should be punished is pretty obviously terrible thinking.

The best way to provide happy, stable families for children is not by making sure that only the "correct" people have children. That has been tried many, many times. Guess what? They were horrific abuses of human rights that caused immense pain to many generations. The best way to make for stable families is to empower people to make good choices-- access to education, support networks, decent welfare, affordable medical care, affordable housing. But that would involve empathy and effort, wouldn't it? It's much easier just to blame the victims of our fucked up system than to try and fix the system itself.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll ask this anon because I'm a wuss, but... why?

It seems to me that making sure you're in a stable life situation (which doesn't mean rich, mind, but if you're relying on public assistance such as food stamps or welfare, you probably aren't in a good position to have kids) is only good sense. Being able to provide for all of your child's basic necessities should be a given, and if you can't do that I'm not sure you have any business bringing a kid into the world.

I mean, I grew up in a household with an income below the national poverty level, but my mother was smart enough with her finances that we were never on public assistance programs. Heck, I didn't even realize we WERE poor until I was well into my teens. So I'm definitely not saying a family needs to be rich before having kids, but stable? Yeah, definitely.

Also, I feel I should point out that this doesn't apply to people who did have children responsibly, and then lost jobs and houses because of all the economic fuckery. That's hardly their fault.

[kaatsu.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right about the stability thing. Stable living situations are best for everyone, not just kids. The key is to not punish those that do not have stable situations, but to help everyone to be able to create a stable life for themselves.

Yowch. Your mother was poor but raised you well, and the message you took from that is not "poor people can raise children well" or "helping people learn good financial planning skills benefits whole families", but "my mum was one of the good ones"? That's more than a bit awful, man.

this doesn't apply to people who did have children responsibly, and then lost jobs and houses because of all the economic fuckery.

Oh man, no no no. If you think that financial instability is such a bad thing for children and that they should be removed from it, then you should believe in removing all children from it regardless of the underlying causes, surely? Not removing certain children from poverty because their parents were the good sort of parent (it wasn't their fault!), but removing others from the bad sort of parent (they were selfish and irresponsible!) is fucked up blatant classism. Please think about what you're saying.

[stella-down.livejournal.com]

you can't tell a single thing about a person's aptitude for parenting by looking at their bank account. those theoretical people you mentioned who lost their jobs and houses because of the economy - do they suddenly become bad parents once they miss their mortgage payments? is their entire personality irrevocably altered by their new financial situation? what if a dirt-poor family living off welfare had a kid and then suddenly found an oil well in their backyard and moved to Beverly Hills? are they better people now?

[velvet-mace.livejournal.com]

You think poor people can't be good parents? Really? If extreme poverty is an issue, don't you think we as a society should be preventing that, rather than worrying about if they are having children.

And I'd like to see the person who can predict everywhere their life will take them for the next 18 years. There is simply no way to predict what problems you'll have before making babies. None. Whatsoever.

[amph87.livejournal.com]

No matter how much I loved my kid I wouldn't raise them in what's practically a survival situation. Would you? Kids don't deserve stress and hunger.

Kids don't deserve miserable childhoods, period. Kids come first, not the parents; I don't care who raises them, biological or not, as long as they're NOT terrible people in terrible situations.

[(Anonymous)]

yeah but I think the question people are raising is: wouldn't it be a better course to try to get those people who are in survival situations out, rather than spending that effort policing their procreation? With as much abundance as industrialized nations have, there is no reason why those people should have to live in poverty.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Which would then turn into something that penalizes people with mental disorders and supports people who are very good at hiding their mental disorders--for example, sociopaths.

[lovegonnadrown.livejournal.com]

wow this is probably the stupidest thing i've seen anyone say in quite a while.

nice classism and ableism there, because obviously those darn poor people and mentally ill people can NEVER be good parents and kids can NEVER have happy and fulfilling lives in those circumstances!

[sweet-children9.livejournal.com]

That would be stupid and ableist at least. My mother suffers from depression for years and years and she is the best mom I could ever ask for.
Mental illness shouldn't be a reason not to have children, only if you think you are not capable of it because of that.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Depressed and awesome mom high five?

[sweet-children9.livejournal.com]

*HI FIVE*
At least she knows how it is to be depressed and is helping me dealing with my depression

[stella-down.livejournal.com]

I realize you're not from the US, but do you really want the government that deeply involved in your life? what you're describing sounds awfully totalitarian to me.

we used to have Jim Crow laws that mandated literacy tests to prevent uneducated people from voting. these are unanimously recognized as a bad, bad thing. separating children from their parents is also a bad, bad thing, especially over something as trivial as aptitude on a test. finally, given how overburdened CPS and DCFS services are in this country, I can only imagine what a freaking nightmare it would be if kids were shuttled around left and right from parent to parent because they failed the test and not because, you know, their abusive parents were putting out cigarettes on their asses - which is just as likely to happen among parents who can pass the test as it is among the unluckier ones.

basically, I can see that you have good intentions with this idea, but the idea is rotten at the core.

[amph87.livejournal.com]

"If kids were shuttled around left and right from parent to parent because they failed the test"? Are you assuming that adoptive parents wouldn't need to qualify for a license in my hypothetical utopia? Because they wouldn't.

People have different views on totalitalianism I guess. Where I live, when you have a baby, the government gives you a "baby box" that has clothes, sheets, blanket, medical/hygiene supplies, useful books, toys & basically everything you need in the first few months. People here think it's great but a few people from abroad have criticized it as a way to "control" parents which I really don't get.

I never thought I'd say this but think of the children! Children first. No kid out there deserves bad parents. If control were the only way to prevent bad parents (and I believe it is), I would gladly use some form of control. You can't even get a dog without a person interviewing you whether you can take care of it properly, yet nobody asks questions in the case of a BABY. Nobody cares unless you strangle your baby to death. Even then, you'd have all the freedom to try and raise another one.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

...dude, where do you live? That's pretty amazing.

On the other hand, your dream world sounds horrific.

[amph87.livejournal.com]

Finland does this. Probably other Nordic countries too, but I'm not sure.

Horrific maybe, but I've yet to hear a counter-argument I agreed with. I really don't think it's a "human right" to be a parent. It's a human right to have a decent childhood.

[amph87.livejournal.com]

*because they would need to qualify. Typo'd there

[stella-down.livejournal.com]

you can't prevent bad parents. even if your system were able to weed out some kids from crappy homes, it would take even more from disadvantaged but perfectly capable parents. take a kid from its parents, put it with a foster family, foster parents lose their jobs and get cancer, take the kid from the foster family, stick it with someone else - is that what you want?

that's rad about Finland. here in the US, we have a volatile government with a political party that's been trying to mandate women's reproductive freedom for decades, as well as nearly all other personal liberties. allowing any government control over one of the most basic human rights is not only an invitation to begin controlling the rest of those rights, it's a slippery slope until the government gets to pick and choose who it wants to be able to procreate and who it doesn't. in other words, totalitarianism. I don't want to live in that world.

[sidewinder.livejournal.com]

Oh, damn you actually trying to apply LOGIC to the situation!