Leanne Replies to a Comment

Hullo peoples. Leanne here. I got this comment in my guestbook today:

entry 65
name: a reader
email: iridescent_wire@opendiary.com
message:
I'm a regular reader, and I like your strip lots, but the marriage/kids one with the little girl Carla is bugging me. How is ordering the little girl to be ok with unmarried people making babies any different from ordering a little girl not to be ok with that? Bugs me to see a liberal parent using exactly the same technique as a very conservative one, just with different content. date: 9:47 pm - Friday,November 19, 2004

And I thought I would share my response with you. I should add that I really don't understand how liberal parents are NOT supposed to relay their values to their children either. I could use good dog training methods to train my dog to attack strangers, or I could use good dog training methods to train my dog to accept and be friendly to strangers. Yes it may be the same method. But to ask "what is the difference?" seems to me a bit strange. Anyways, forward and onward to my reply to "a reader":

Hello, replying to your comment. http://lilianekeen.signmyguestbook.com/

Um, "ordering the little girl to be ok with unmarried parents".

First, she is not ordered to be ok or not ok. She is being told that her "people must be married in order to make babies" is not true and given examples. There is no value judgment there. Even someone who thinks that being married is the RIGHT way to have children knows that it is equally true that many unwed women have children. That is a simple fact.

People make babies from sex. They don't make babies from being married. The little girl tells liliane that she cannot have kids cuz she is not married... not because it is her "morals" but because she has her biology mixed up. She thinks getting married leads to babies the same way I thought that sleeping (ie SLEEPING ZZZZZ) beside a man got you pregnant when I was six)

Obviously it is not true that liliane has to be married to have babies anymore than it is necessary to be married to buy a house or move to the States. Many unmarried people buy houses, or immigrate. And many married people buy houses and immigrate. You can even facilitate immigration by marrying. But one does not need to get married to do these things.

It is obvious they are talking about what is biologically possible (ie why she brings up rabbits...as far as I know no religious or cultural group thinks rabbits should be married or unmarried as a moral goal). Note that this was based on an actual incident with a friend, me and her child. The child litterally said to me "you can't have a child cuz you are not married". That is wrong as a fact. I could certainly have a child without being married and here in Quebec about 50% of couples who have children are not married.

If it had been stated as a moral or a choice... ie "You shouldn't have a child cuz you're not married", then it would be discussed as a moral. Because that is a moral statement. If this were a society where we stone people to death if they have children outside marriage (such as Nigeria) or the state removed children from unwed mothers, then the "you can't have a child if you are not married" would be a fact. But in our society that is not true. And just as you can adopt a child without being married, you can bear a child without being married. That is a fact and it does a child no good to not understand that, esp when 50% of her friends do not have married parents.

For your second statement, " How is ordering the little girl to be ok with unmarried people making babies any different from ordering a little girl not to be ok with that?"

Several things. I don't think you can order someone to be ok with something that they're not ok with. That is nonsensical. That would be like ordering someone to be happy. Or ordering someone to be relaxed. If you're not ok with something, I can order you to tolerate it. I can order you to not interfere. Those are actions. Being ok with something is a feeling, an interior state, a moral conviction. You cannot order those things no matter how much one might like to.

Encouraging tolerance (which was NOT what this comic is about... and we are not yet at the end of the story either... btw I could have as easily written the little girl to say something like "You can't make babies cuz you're too old"... that statement would have sufficed just as well... it is about a child's curiousity of the adult world, and not understanding more than it is a story about morals) is something different.

How is being ok with unmarried people making babies any different from not being ok with it, or teaching your children to be ok with it vs teaching them not to be ok with it?

One is teaching them that we must respect the choices of other people, and the variety of possible situations in life since we do not live their lives. It is tolerance and respect for difference, leading to not judging and condemning people. It means that your child will not be prejudiced towards the children at school and their parents who are not married. They will not look down on a woman who is unwed but will treat her as a friend and an alliance. They will not be shamed and afraid themselves if they "have an accident" and get pregnant out of wedlock. They will treat everyone they meet equally, without judging them based on their marital status and their mother's marital status when they are born.

One could not call someone illegitimate if it was ok to have a loved wanted baby no matter what their marital status. Unwed mothers would not have to leave home, or give their children away and hide their pregnancy as a shameful secret so that they might have a chance to get married at a later date (used to happen alot). They would not be shamed and shunned and called slut and their children called bastards. Teenage mothers could finish school. People who have no love or are totally incompatible or unfit as parents aren't forced to marry "cuz I got her pregnant".

Note that teaching that tolerance is good in no way implies that one should do that. One can tolerate childbearing outside marriage and at the same time be very clear that it is very hard to be a single mother or father. That having a baby in your care will preclude going to school, and university, partying and friends on weekends, will cost a huge amount of money and energy that one person may not have. That a baby needs lots of love and support both emotional and financial and that is best given with two loving parents who support and aid each other and the baby. That the thing you most hope for every child is two parents and what you hope for every person is a partner who wants to raise children with them.

Teaching that marriage is the best way to have children in no way is incompatible with accepting that it is not NECESSARY to be married to have children.

Compare this tolerance of difference to what happens when you teach your children then people CANNOT and SHOULD NEVER have children out of wedlock. People who have children out of wedlock will continue to exist. They always have. People have affairs. Youngsters have sex. Men leave and won't marry the woman, or desert their wives. Some people just don't want to marry. Simple as that. I know people who have been together 12 years, 20 years, who have never married. Their couples are as good and stable as the married couples I know. There are many many ways that people have children outside marriage.

If you teach your children this is wrong or unacceptable (vs teaching them that marriage is PREFERABLE) they will be judgmental towards unmarried people with kids, the children themselves. People who think it is unacceptable scorn and socially stigmatise women who are unmarried, thus marginalising them further and making their jobs as single mom's harder, with resulting increase in damage to their children. Often they will be barred from education either by rule or through social scorn. This leads to fewer employment opportunities. Add this further to employers who have the same judgemental attitude. Less education, and employers who think they are a morally failed slut. Mmm. This in turn leads them to even lower earnings which impacts on their children's care and health and in turn THEIR educational and employment possibilities as they grow.

Add this to the social scorning. Neighbors won't help them out cuz they don't want to be friends with a "fallen" "easy" woman. So she has less help than a married woman whereas she needs more. Their children pick up these attitudes and feel free to namecall, to pick on the kids etc. The woman and her children are socially isolated, impacting on their ability to integrate and contribute to the community. Landlords are unlikely to rent to them for the same judgmental attitudes, so they get bad housing often with health risks and dangerous conditions for play etc.

And let's consider before the women are born. If it is unacceptable to be pregnant out of wedlock, the woman (who very easily could have had parents who have said it is wrong and not to be done and only bad girls get in this situation) may hide the pregnancy and not get early healthcare. She may try to abort and not tell anyone, damaging herself and the baby. She may abandon the baby (I was reading up on foundling homes last night... hundreds of thousands of babies used to be left every year on the doorsteps anonymously in France, England and Italy... hundreds of thousand PER country, not together... apparently the deathrate for children in foundling homes was 90%. Yes 90%) She will do everything she can not to let this unwanted baby ruin her life.

If she does have the baby and keep it, she may mistreat, neglect or blame the child for her misfortunes and social fall for the whole of that child's life. And having your mother not want you, and being known to be "illegitimate" (vs your legitimate schoolmates) to everyone is not an auspicious start in life.

Once the woman has a child out of wedlock, if there is a social stigma, or if most people learned as children that such women are bad, easy or socially inferior, she is out of luck for marriage as well. What good man would have her?

In fact some societies such as Ireland who are very Catholic wouldn't bury a baby born out of wedlock in a churchyard, since it couldn't be baptised. Young women were thrown out of families. Any hope of a future were lost. And it did not prevent children conceived out of marriage, it just increased the number of children who were unwanted.

So, what difference does it make, teaching a child tolerance for different people and different situations and life and family arrangements vs teaching a child intolerance for the same things?

Every difference in the world. A warm caring loving accepting inclusive community that will help and support all the members of it without shame and blame. Or a warm loving accepting inclusive community that will help and support only the members who do things the ACCEPTED RIGHT WAY, where everyone else is shamed, blamed, judged, penalized and excluded.

I know which of those communities I would rather live in. And i DO live in a community like that. One where no one cares the marital status of the parents. Or the legitimacy of the children. Where an unwed mother can keep her child and be a full member of society. Where a single woman can take in a child who is homeless and adopt them. Where a single woman who has a child is still considered good marriage material by good men.

That is the difference.

Maybe next you would like to ask me what the difference is between telling a child they cannot be racist to telling a child he should be racist is??

And I can go on about how racism ruins a society, breeds contempt and rage, hopelessness and inequity.

It is exactly the same thing. Tolerance vs intolerance.

Cheers.

Hope you will continue reading. And if you have any more misconceptions about what my topic is, send me another line. You can see I am not adverse to explaining my point of view in great detail.

sincerely
Leanne Franson
http://liliane.keenspace.com
... a new page of bi-dyke comics daily

ps, the other difference is that if she had told her child, yes, NO ONE can have children outside marriage, she would have lost me as a friend. Because I am not married. In fact if they keep banning marriage for gays and lesbians, if I am with a woman partner I will never even be ABLE to marry. But I have always wanted a family, and at the time that conversation happened, I was actively attempting to become pregnant by donor insemination. And I will NOT have "friends" around me who totally disagree with my family. I would not have my child around her kids if her kids thought my child was not ok, and my child's family and mom were not ok. Why would I?

Well that's it folks. So, if you would like to question another issue, I am perfectly happy, as I said to "a reader", to discuss my point of view. Cheers.

Leanne, November 20, 2004, Montreal.

Some references:

BBC History: The Foundling Hospital

"But London was late in providing welfare for these children in comparison with many other European cities. Rome, for example, already had its Conservatorio della Ruota, founded by Pope Innocent III in the thirteenth century, and Venice had La Pietà, a fourteenth-century orphanage for girls. Apathy, puritan morality and disapproval of illegitimacy (the usual reason for deserted children) produced inaction in Britain. The only establishment dealing with foundlings as well as legitimate orphans was Christ's Hospital, founded in 1552, but by 1676 the illegitimate were prohibited.
...in general, the only provision for illegitimate babies was the parish poorhouses or, from 1722, the workhouses where they frequently died of neglect. Mortality rates were extremely high: over 74% of children born in London died before they were five. In workhouses the death rate increased to over 90%"

Unwed Mothers: a history in Quebec, Canada.

"In the summer of 1960 in the city of Montreal, Quebec, a young girl, barely 17, gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby boy. However, this innocent child, so loved by his mother, was another unwelcomed member of a puritan and pharasaic society, for he was born an «illegitimate », a « bastard ». For the rest of his earthly life, he would bear the  mark society branded him with. He would suffer the consequences of the sins of his parents. This child's future would be determined by the church, and the state, because his young mother was a minor . Yet even if she had been 21 (legal age in 1960), there was no help for her, not financially, not even moral support. This young mother also was branded. A life sentence awaited her, one she would have to serve in silence. A sinner, a fallen woman, an unfit mother, a slut, a prostitute,  a good for nothing member of society, that's what they called us in those days."

Unwed Mother, Believing She Was Mentally Ill, Gave up her Baby", (USA 1963)

But Strelow, now 60, is still haunted by the memory of the child who was taken from her against her will and, two years ago, she began searching for him. She has not yet found her son but has not given up hope.

Strelow's mother put her unmarried daughter in the state mental institution in July 1963 after learning that her daughter was pregnant. The affair that had resulted in the pregnancy had been brief. The young woman had turned to her mother for help, but her mother's furious reaction led to ``crying jags'' on Strelow's part, which resulted in her institutionalization.

Nigerian Islamic court sentences unwed mother to death, October 14, 2004

An Islamic court in northern Nigeria has sentenced a 29-year-old divorcee to be stoned to death for falling pregnant outside wedlock, a state government spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Mohammed Abdullahi, a spokesperson for Bauchi State, said that Hajara Ibrahim had been convicted of having had sex outside marriage, a capital offence under Muslim Sharia law, on Friday by Bauchi city's upper Sharia court.

"She confessed to the crime of having had an affair with one Dauda Sani who promised to marry her. But when he was arraigned in court Dauda said he had never seen her, and so he was discharged for want of evidence," he said.

Single Mothers by Choice website.