Second post over at Alexandria

High Brow and Low Brow Quick Thoughts on the Importance of the Family

The government can make a man pay child support, but the government can not ‘force’ a man to protect his child. I acknowledge we can’t force people to create stable loving homes open to having children (formally understood as marriage). The government doesn’t force people to start businesses either, but encourage such activities with its laws.

My first post over at Alexandria

My first post over at Alexandria

Most of my concerns revolve around father absence. It is assumed; when an intimate relationship between parents no longer exists, it is the mother who has primary custody of the child. When this happens fathers tend to become uninvolved and unengaged in parenting. The majority of the time it is not a willful abandonment by the father, but the complicated logistics of child sharing as both parents move on with their individual lives.

The contributors have varying views on subjects, I must be an alien from outer space, for some of the other contributors.

7QT Alexandria meets Cappadocia

More Quick Takes over at Jen's Conversion Diary

1. I've been invited to share my posts over at Alexandria Crossroads of Civilization

"The guiding principles in Alexandria are that a diverse universe of perspectives is healthier than an inbred ideological one and that ideas and their expressions must contend for themselves without intervention or favoritism from the cybergods. If you prefer a safe place where your point of view will be sheltered, Alexandria is not that place. Alexandria is just the opposite: the center of the arena."

2. A one minute segment on the Lighthouse of Alexandia.

3. My daughter is named after Katherine of Alexandria. There is a movie that was suppose to come out on the Saint, but never released.

4. The Science of Dad: Engaged Fathers Help Kids Flourish via Science Live

Increasingly involved dads are good news for kids, studies suggest. For example, dads who nurture and play with their babies have kids who grow up to have higher IQs, according to a 2006 report by the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect. These benefits extend into the teen years: In 2001, the U.S. Department of Education found that kids with highly involved biological fathers were 43 percent more likely than kids without involved biological dads to earn mostly A's in school.

We no longer can say married mother and fathers, even though that is what they are suggesting. Everyone, for the time being, let's just play along. OK, just don't call it marriage for now. No one likes that word, marriage is icky. People think strange things about you, if you discuss marriage.

5.

The destruction of marriage is set to resume as soon as same-sex marriage becomes the law. We've been pretending that the traditional institution is soooo important that it's terrible to exclude gay people. But you can see the anti-traditionalists itching to move forward — ever forward — with the new! -Professor Altouse

6. I know I should feel validated since I've maintained my stance on marriage over the years here in Massachusetts, but who cares if I'm personally right. This isn't about ego, this is about seeing families cracked in half, then pieces before your eyes. Super Glue, does anyone have any Super Glue?

7. The Lighthouse of Alexandia

NBC America Got Talent's "Gay Magical Elf" Stereotyping

this weird new bullshit: the Gay Suits demanding “gay positive” in the media versus the Gay Dudes who just want “gay reality” in the media no matter how painful and flawed that reality is. -Bret Easton Ellis (Out Magazine)

This post isn't about homosexuals, but the on going criticism that the media manipulates its audience by producing entertainment that is

"The Gay Man as Magical Elf in the culture and often awarded the stereotypes parading around in embarrassing queer movies and degrading retro sitcoms as simply “gay positive” because they were, um, gay." -Bret Easton Ellis (Out Magazine)

Last night watching America's Got Talent, it featured an entertainer, that started out with his back story SOLELY being that he was kicked out of the home at the age of 18, because he was gay. We don't know any other facts, but I saw what was coming as we watched the show with my four children. It was the "gay magical elf" story line, that wants to make the legal adult into little "gay baby panda" by NBC producers. (Note: the quoted terms are Ellis', not mine)Yes, I changed the channel, and kept flipping back to we wouldn't actually miss this young man's performance.

His performance was good, no one is questioning that. So this unemployed young adult, doesn't live with his parents and is no way supported by his parents. Well, I know lots of 18 year olds in this situation and not gay. Parents are not legally bound to support 18 year olds, neither is the Department of Children & Families. Young adults may live with their parents for an extended time, and young adults may sign onto DCF voluntarily (if the young adult were under the custody of the Department the day prior to their birthday). But there is a catch, to stay on DCF you have to be doing something. That something is school and work, in economic hard times, the Department will work with with an adult that is trying or else the support stops.

We have no idea of the details, all we are getting is that this performer is being put on the 'feel sorry for me' pedestal for simply being gay. There is more to the story, its none of our personal business, but it wasn't our business to begin with. The issue was thrust upon us, the parents being bashed have no way to defend themselves from NBC's editing.

7QT Komen Fallout

1. I have no internet, writing on a smart phone.

2. Komen had to scale back their three day race for the cure.

3. The Planned Parenthood funding was the straw that broke the camel's back, not only exposing Komen's failure to fund research and high executive pay, but divided women.

4. Pro-life and pro choice women took our stances and placed money somewhere else. Name calling back and forth, back and forth.

5. I'm not anti woman or anti women's health. I'm pro life. That means mom and baby or woman and fetus. Both deserve the right to be protected from violence and death.

6. It is unclear how to approach a woman who is convinced that abortion is a reproductive right, there is only so much you can do when a person is online calling pro lifers a 'rightwing nutbag'. Even though there were once plenty of pro life Democrats. An unplanned pregnancy is scary and if your social supports abandon you and fear losing you schooling or job, that's real. There are charities that help moms. As pro life women we know this. We do not supprt abortion, but helping moms (and dads) parent.

7. We know that abortion (violence/death) isn't the proper answer to the realities that we face when we are pregnant. We fight against violence at any point whether it be at the charitable level or advocating against vviolence at a legislative level.

High-risk sexual behavior isn't Healthy

Women Reject Sexually Promiscuous Peers When Making Female Friends - Science Daily

I don't use the word 'slut', so I'm have in quotations. I would never use the word positively or negatively to describe a woman, every woman despite her behaviors deserves some dignity.

From my volunteer work at DCF, girls who are promiscuous, engage in such behavior because they don't know what a healthy relationship looks like. They are not engaging in high-risk hooking up, because they want to be empowered sexually or have self-confidence. Initially they may engage in sex for an emotional connection, but over time being abandoned, they become emotionally null and void. They just keep hooking up, over and over again, because they feel they can never be loved.

The authors posit that evolutionary concerns may be leading men and women to disapprove of their bed-hopping peers as friends. They may actually be seeking to guard their mates from a threat to their relationship, Vrangalova said. In the case of promiscuous women rejecting other women with a high number of sexual partners, Vrangalova suggested that they may be seeking to distance themselves from any stigma that is attached to being friends with such women.

Well, yeah.

The authors report that the findings could aid parents, teachers, counselors, doctors and others who work with young people who may face social isolation due to their sexual activity.

Maybe the young woman should understand the social cues, that engaging in high risk sexual behavior that even may bring risk to another woman's relationship is a reasonable. If a young woman wants to have a monogamous healthy relationship based on mutual respect with a man, she doesn't need a girlfriend who is toxic to that goal. Fact is, women who engage in high risk behaviors are 'a mess', when it comes to being a friend. We don't need your drama, even a woman who is sexually promiscuous knows, she has her own set of problems in no way she can be a supportive friend to another sexually promiscuous woman. We have no time for friends who are 'crazy bitches', to put in terms of a young woman back many moons ago.

But I'm not a young woman, who needs to be on the look-out for my own personal interests. I'm an older woman, and the author is correct that it should be parents, teachers, counselors, doctors, and others who need to reach out to these women. It isn't clear, exactly the solution. My solution is stop having sex in non-existent relationships, focus on yourself and raise the bar in the expectations when it comes to sex and relationships.

If she doesn't know what that even looks like, there are people to help expose to the enlightening world of sexual relationships that are committed and monogamous, based on mutual respect and are supportive to one another. (We use to call this marriage, by the way). But that term is sort of null and void, in the context of the situation. The situation starts with a discussion, it starts with the way a woman should be treated by a man. It starts off seeing at least one model of a healthy marriage in that young woman's (or man's) life

What is insulting, is that women shouldn't consider changing her behavior. Objectively sexual promiscuity is not healthy. Even insisting, "future research to determine whom they could befriend -- perhaps straight or gay men who would be accepting of their behaviors." Ever think maybe gay men don't want 'a mess' of a friend either? Why burden them with her toxicity?

Differing policies on children, and the politics of each state.

People “look at a child in need, in poverty or failing in school, and ask, ‘What can we do to help?’ But what we do is ask, ‘Why does that child need help in the first place?’ And the answer is often it’s because [the child lacks] a responsible and involved father,” -Vincent DiCaro

Professor Althouse, on marriage, mentions if anyone was to change their mind on it today, it would be for shallow reasons. Everyone jumping the on the bandwagon. Not out of any particular public policy reason, but for the emotional tactic of 'being on the wrong side of history' or fear of being labeled a bigot for not having the "=" sign logo on my Facebook logo. I'm stuck with an unpopular stance, even though it has merit.

The arguments are never seen, or suppressed out of fear of being unpopular. Rarely spoken, are the merits of marriage public policy, only found in long policy briefs that only a handful of people will read. Maybe only seen in passing in a newspaper, "Fathers disappear from households across America" (Washington Times (2012), which many Americans do not read the news, beyond a salacious headline of some other news story. Will a story on fatherless homes ever go viral?

Recently I posted on Rhode Island ignoring the facts of the children within the state. It clearly stated in a public policy brief, from Kids Count, the mothers on the lower income end, do much better if they married the biological father of her children. Despite just recently changing it's definition of marriage, it did little over the past decade to do anything about the fragmentation of the family.

Vermont, which has civil unions since 2000, and recently changed it over to marriage, addresses public policy differently. While Vermont and Rhode Island, are small, both with declining population, from New England and liberal, being from Massachusetts the two states are very different in political culture. Also different in demographics, differences in ethnic and economic diversities. I would prefer the ocean, over skiing, but I would choose Vermont over Rhode Island to live politically. Massachusetts is a blend of these two states.

In the Washington Times article linked above, it mentioned marriage rates of minorities. "In all states but Rhode Island and Massachusetts, most Hispanic children do" (live with their mom and dad). Vermont and Maine do not have large minority populations, but for whites, the marriage rates are the lowest in the nation. (Lifesite News 2013)

In Vermont, they have created their own Fatherhood Initiative Commission in 2011, and will have a major event on Fatherhood next week.

"“I know how important fathers can be and how hard it is when children don’t have a positive father figure in their lives,” he said in an email interview. “As a legislator on the House Human Services Committee, I am always looking for ways to help families and children thrive. Promoting responsible fathering is one such way.” (Burlington Press 2011)

Vermont also has a fatherhood guide, and at times are not afraid to use the word father and marriage together. Also in my post last Friday, they have no problem addressing the issues 'for homes that have the characteristics of having children', which is a fancy name for a heterosexual couple married with children.

Rhode Island and Vermont are different. One of the major differences is corruption. Rhode Island is corrupt. (Daily Beast 2010)

"Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, Providence's longest-serving mayor, is the most prominent example for outsiders. He returned to the state in May 2007, after serving more than four years in a federal prison for a racketeering-conspiracy conviction (in other words, running a criminal enterprise out of City Hall."

Rhode Island economic gap between rich and poor is wide. Mansions and yachts on the ocean, poor minority immigrants in the the city of Providence. Vermont, at least, is just plain poor. Which is actually a positive for the state, in terms of political culture, very little to corrupt other the ice cream and teddy bears.

“I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” –SIGMUND FREUD