Liberals go Darwin

The good news is they refuse to procreate

My second-eldest sister often says about children, have them when you are young and dumb. I am not saying how old she is, but even though she was married her doctor would not prescribe her The Pill because she was not 21.

We call the result of that decision Jackie and she turns 58 this month. Jackie’s sister, barely a year older, was 53 when my mom died at 93. Lisa asked for the day off to attend the funeral. Her boss said he didn’t know she still had a grandmother.

Indeed Lisa did and she was one of 15 grandchildren who ranged in age from, let’s see, 31 to 54 when my mom died.

Mom was young and dumb when she had her first kid at 18 and her fifth and last one (me) at 29. She worked long and hard in a factory, retiring at 62. She left behind a wealth of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even great-greats. More greats came later in the form of my two grandchildren. The flow of greats and great-greats continues as her memory and her genes will continue until at least the next century.

We all loved her and carry on her legacy even though there are dozens of surnames in the mix. Only seven (including my daughter-in-law) are Surbers.

Not every person can have children. People who have certain medical conditions cannot have children. My Aunt Betty was among them, as is my Uncle Buddy, 98. Thank goodness they had nieces. My sister handled Betty’s funeral and my cousin will handle my uncle’s.

And then there are those liberals who can and should have babies who are just saying no to having babies.

I thank them because we don’t need their kind coming ’round here. Let their breed die out.

The New York Times ran a piece, “The Success Narratives of Liberal Life Leave Little Room for Having Children.” NYT labeled it opinion, but since its reporters now censor any opinion they dislike, NYT owns this opinion.

NYT said:

For young, secular, politically progressive men and women, having children has become something of an afterthought. Liberal conventional wisdom encourages people to spend their 20s on journeys of personal and professional self-discovery and self-fulfillment. Children are treated as a bonus round, something to get to only after completing a long list of achievements: getting a degree, forging a satisfying and well-established career, buying a house, cultivating the ideal romantic partnership.

The standards of readiness for family are at once so high and so vague that it’s hardly a surprise when people fail to reach them. Indeed, the data suggest that people are having children later than they used to and are having fewer than they’d like.

For progressives, waiting to have children has also become a kind of ethical imperative. Gender equality and female empowerment demand that women’s self-advancement not be sacrificed on the altar of motherhood. Securing female autonomy means that under no circumstances should a woman be rushed into a reproductive decision — whether by an eager partner or tone-deaf chatter about ticking biological clocks. Unreserved enthusiasm for having children can come across as essentially reactionary.

The standards are high? None of my sisters had a house or a job when they had their first kids. All were married. Three of my sisters were in their teens when they became mommies. I am laughing as I type this because the Lord sets the standard, not mortals.

I also laugh as I think of what those liberal standards might be. Enough success professionally to afford a private school likely tops the list, even as they attack school vouchers and homeschooling as backward and racist.

Being liberals, of course they take the high moral ground, which has become the final refuge of the scoundrel in the 21st century. The Dobbs decision that enabled states to ban abortion now is used to justify their choice to not have kids.

Andrea González-Ramírez, whom NYT called a reproductive-rights journalist, wrote, “I have never been sure that I desire to be a mom, let alone that I desire it enough to assume the risks. These days, however, that door is shut. I choose myself.”

I applaud her for volunteering to leave the gene pool, which many good people would love to be able to join. But her reasoning is shoddy. Why would banning abortion make her not want to be a mother?

NYT admitted her rationale is bananas:

That choice is not uncommon. In a recent study, 34% of women ages 18 to 39 reported that they or someone they know had “decided not to get pregnant due to concerns about managing pregnancy-related medical emergencies.” That might sound like a worry about abortion access, but the study suggested that Dobbs intensified ambivalence about having children more generally. Indeed, of the women who said they were forgoing having children because of the Dobbs ruling, about half lived in states where abortion rights were still protected.

All this leads me to Chelsea Handler, the TV personality who keeps insisting that a childless life is the best. She put out a video, “Day in the Life of a Childless Woman.”

She bragged that she gets to do whatever she feels like doing.

She’s 49. Her life is pretty much the life my sisters and my wife had when they were 49 because their kids had grown up and left the nest. OK, our youngest son was a senior at Poca High, home of the Dots, at the time. But my sister’s point of having kids when you are young and dumb is valid because once they leave the nest you are still young enough to enjoy the ability to do what you want when you want.

Handler was 16 when she had two abortions. Had she not had those both abortions, she would have given birth at 17. That child would be 32 today.

Her body, her choice but the more she promotes her lifestyle, the more I believe she has her doubts about her choices. She has no one to pass on her weird beliefs.

I illustrated today’s newsletter with a picture of Ann Turner Cook, who died two years ago at 95. She was the original Gerber Baby. She went on to become an accomplished educator (with a master’s degree), author of mystery novels, and the mother of 4. A fifth child died in infancy. Her survivors in 2022 included 8 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.

I don’t know what her politics were, but NYT realizes the future belongs to mothers and fathers, not self-centered comediennes. NYT wrote:

One can’t help noting the irony: In permitting the conservative movement to alienate them from the question of whether they want to have and raise children, these liberals and progressives are allowing the right to shape their reproductive agendas in yet another way.

James Taranto identified this nearly 20 years ago.

The NYT piece ended:

Surely, progressives and conservatives will give as vastly different answers to the question of what raising children ought to look like as they will to the question of how American society ought to be governed. But progressives must not let partisan loyalties stop them from thinking about the ways in which having children does or does not express their values, and what shape they really want their lives to take. Children are too important to allow them to fall victim to the culture wars.

I agree with that last sentence — because we must protect kids from liberalism which gave us school libraries stocking the child porn book Gender Queer and its drawings of children having sex.

Today’s polls features recordings by Paul Anka, Madonna, Axl Rose, Stevie Wonder and Loretta Lynn.