Wonkette
Citizens are taking extreme measures to ensure that they do not bring children into the stinking heap of decaying credit default swaps and sudden mortgage death that used to be called “America.” They are getting abortions and vasectomies all over the place, constantly, and tying tubes of every sort, even useless ones, like the ones in your ears. What does this mean for our next generation of leaders? They will grow up in uncrowded schools, with plenty to eat, provided they survive the current apocalypse. [Reuters]
*NOW* here comes the Pope with his denunciation of recessions.
Good. Too many people are perpetuating their genes who shouldn’t be.
And for those who already have kids, Apple iPhones provide useful tips on how to rid yourself of the little tykes.
Thankfully, there are many, many Levi Johnstons and assorted reckless, fertile motherfuckers out there to help balance things out.
Unfortunately it’s always the smart, forward-thinking ones who are deciding not to have babies. The ones that remain will be cultivated in uncrowded schools will be Gods Own Christian Soldiers, and Mormons also.
BREED WONKETTEERS BREED!
This is obviously the first step in Stalinist forced abortions for everyone. Except the mouthbreathers probably aren’t partaking, which means another generation of ….
thank god for less ear babies
Another missed bandwagon. Why couldn’t I have caught on to this trend a while ago? If I had I’d be getting a full night’s sleep, wouldn’t have toys and vomit all over my rugs, and maybe even have enough money at the end of the month to pay my mortgage. I have got to start being more trendy.
It’s not the recession. It’s because Nobamas out marrying teh gheys and forcing abortions. Who wants to have children in such an oppressive/ socialist/ communist/ fascist world? Wake up sheeple!!!
I’m doing “homemade” sterilization. It consists mostly
of wearing really tight underpants, drinking lots of
Steel Reserve and sitting on my microwave for 15 minutes
every morning. Been working great so far. That and the
pulling out. Also.
whiskey tango foxtrot: Dibs on Newell’s baby. We’ll have Ginger Jihadis.
A Harlequin Bromance: whoops, you idiot. another generation of… (shudders)
This is so selfish and short-sighted. In a year or so, when food supplies run low and meat will be impossible to find, these people will regret it.
FYI: Teabagging does not result in more babies.
Bill_TX:
Jeez dude, you don’t need to try that hard. I’ve found that just being myself is even better. Repels ladies faster than you can push the START button on your microwave.
2010 will be a great year to be born then! Having an unusually unpopulated year category means a high incidence of of success - just like it’s fifty times easier to become governor in Alaska than it is in California. Seriously, I think there’s a book that goes into detail about just this one thing - I saw it on Jon Stewart.
S. Palin is asking herself why this recession couldn’t have happened a few years ago. Bristol, also.
Country Club Jihadi: Ginger Jihadis is my next band name.
The reach of the recession may stretch beyond women’s reproductive decisions to those of men.
Holy crap — you know the recession has reached crisis proportions when men start practicing safe sex. What’s next — less drunk driving? (weeps).
Good. Cancel the dedicated lane for the double strollers on the upper west side.
ManchuCandidate:
Well yeah, that works too.
Superstitious Americans simply prefer not to have kids during the year of the Earth Ox. 2011’s Metal Rabbit will solve this problem.
How can we pin this on the socialists?
bitchincamaro: Seriously.
Bill_TX: Drunk dialing does it for me.
Never fear, I am personally doing my best to reverse this trend and I am enjoying considerable success.
Prommie: Naw, there’s always other people’s babies. Not being related makes it easier to do what it takes to get ‘em on the rotisserie.
so i take it susan boyle won’t be having sexy time or a baby anytime soon…damn.
Noodle Salad: Metal Rabbit is my next band name.
The recession may be a factor influencing more Americans to opt out of parenthood with abortions and vasectomies, although there is no data available yet to suggest a trend.
Translation: someone I know had something happen to her that might be something that other people are having happen to them, and I will now write an article about it.
Good time to impose a cap and trade on babies.
Hmmm…someone needs to tell the Duggars, the Mormons, and my neighbor who has 4 kids. He thinks a vasectomy is too expensive, ergo out pops another baby from his fat, ugly wife’s cooter every 9 months, because having babies is cheaper than vasectomies. I think the Palins share this line of thinking as well.
That “Keep away from children,” thing I read on the side of a matchbox was all the convincing I needed.
Texan Bulldoggette:
Hey, I’m eating here.
But yes, the stupids outnumber us.
Bill_TX: Don’t forget to do lots of dope too also.
This will just increase the pressure on the trade in celebrity adoption of third-world babies.
Texan Bulldoggette: Oh, I forgot to add OctoMom to the list & all the other folks who think it’s God’s will to birth out 6 or 7 kids at one time due to IVF.
Lascauxcaveman: I was always partial to Fire Pig.
I had two vasectomies last week and have another planned for May. Good times!
Wow, so Bush set out to restrict or reduce abortions and ended up causing a big upswing in them? Mark that as another failure.
In a collapsing society, alcohol and children are always the best trade commodities. Untie those tubes!
ManchuCandidate: “Fuck You, I’m Eating here at Carl’s Jr.”
/fixed
Does this mean I have to give up my fantasy of impregnating Sara K. Smith and Jim Newell*? Because, damn, that’s all that keeps me going during meetings.
*Ken Layne is barren.
But what are really old and creepy Catholic guys going to molest?
WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE PRIESTS?
I still wants at least twelve; put ‘em to work so’s Ize kin git some rest.
Country Club Jihadi: “Ginger Jihadi.” Is that anything like a Mint Julep?
Wait a sec, at 11:09, Meghan McCain says she “can’t conceive of having children” and by 12:17 it’s already a trend? Ack, what fad will she be starting next? Kahlua jello shots? Poodle-cut spiral perms? Toe twittering? Whatever it is, I’m not ready.
Dave J.: But it is statistically reasonable to expect and infer (tick, tick) that couples with the option (tick, tick, tick) to defer childbirth (tick, tick, tick, tick) will elect to do when their own material sense (tick, tick, tick, TICK) of well being and life style are inordinately impacted(TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK).
Dave J.: Hizzah!
whiskey tango foxtrot: SmutBoffin: I think our humble Narrator has already sketched-out the problem we face:
Narrator: “As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man, now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilized and more intelligent. But as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.”
Country Club Jihadi: I love everything about this plan. CMON GET IN THE GAME NEWELL.
Sara K. Smith, however, needs to crank out at least three well-bred future Harvard grads, in order to save the Race.
Sincerely,
Theodore Roosevelt
Bearbloke: AINORIYEET? That movie is far more predictive that Zeitgeist could ever hope to be.
WadISay: Stop it with the ticking! Mom, is that you?
whiskey tango foxtrot: Indubitably, my good [insert race/gender/species here] - let’s toast our staggering genius with another round of double-vodka Brawndo-tini’s!!
Do we call this The Baby Bust, or is that too coplike? Tykephobia? Reprodeduction?
whiskey tango foxtrot:
That was the first thing I thought of.
Have you all see Idiocracy.
@twowheeljunkie: Yes, I follow the news.
Lazy Media: I volunteer to be the donor, and SKS can expect her kiddies to get grades in the 3.9 to 4.0 range (the *ahem* actual range on my two kids’ last report cards.)
The only genetic drawbacks will be that the kids will likely be mostly deaf and half-blind, just ike dear ol’ dad. But hey, small noses! And straight teeth! Think of what you’ll save on orthodontists and nose jobs.
(Terrific hair, also. We’re talking Blagotastic hair, mind you. That’s a f*cking valuable thing.)
Bearbloke: Can’t click on your link - but it sure made me hungry for ONE BIG-ASS TACO.
Lego Jesus Christ! What a bunch of pussies we’ve become! The Waltons had a softball roster of kids during the last depression and they all grew up wholesome and honest and said goodnight to each other. You think they ever considered aborting Jimmy-Johnny, or whatever the fuck their names were?
This is great news on all fronts for me: a baby is on the way and I’m finally counter-cultural! I’m expecting the cost of strollers on Craigslist to drop precipitously with these well-documented trends and indicators. And daycare waiting lists? All in the soon-to-be-recent past.
Noodle Salad: I played in a band called Aloha Pigs … what? … you never heard of us? Pearls before swine …
TCDang: Congrats! And remember: your actual baby doesn’t give a shit if their wardrobe and accessories come from Goodwill or your cousins’ kids’ hand-me-downs.
Kids don’t have to be expensive, despite what everybody thinks. A normal, healthy baby is dirt-cheap to operate if you do it right. Just think of it as a very time consuming hobby and you’ll be fine.
Mahousu: She was being literal. She lacks the ability to conceive of anything beyond the idea of popularity.
bitchincamaro: I call the baby double-wides “sidewalk plows.” They make me stabby. “I’m walkin’ here!”
groove: Unfortunately, the mouthbreathers will keep breeding. That’s what unfortunate about this. The smart, responsible people worry that they won’t be able to support children and act accordingly. The breeders will just keep breeding, increasing their gene pool. Expect more and more dummies down the road. I envision an “Idiocracy,” one day, with Sarah Palin’s great-grandson porn star/professional wrestler as POTUS.
Lascauxcaveman: But what’s the resale value on those things? Is it measured in per-piece or per-pound?
WWCF
What Would Catholics Fuck?
Don’t see it happening. Lieterally everyone I know had a baby last week.
whiskey tango foxtrot: I just had a reunion with 10 of my liberal leetist college friends and between us we had 16 kids. We’re trying to do our part for the demographic. A couple weren’t pulling their weight, but I have hope that will be remedied soon.
Lascauxcaveman: Yes, kids can be raised far more cheaply than the culture would have us believe.
Step 1: Don’t give them everything they ask for.
Step 2: Don’t give them all the crap everybody else *insists* they must have
Step 3: Teach them to think for themselves, and maybe even read a fucking *book* now and then. The library is free, and the whole world is in there for the taking.
Nine years ago a young friend of mine (late son’s girlfriend) killed herself. Among her reasons, given in the eight volumes of journals she left to me (long story — didn’t trust her family with them), was her inability to get her five-year-old daughter “the designer things she needs and deserves” on the kind of money most 24-year-old HS grads ordinarily make.
[Girl, wherever you are, you know I love you, but you are 12 kinds of Dumbass. BTW, I took your daughter, now 14, out for a mani-pedi on her birthday last month. She would have preferred *you*. Of course. She looks just like you, but is quite the hard sad little cynic. Growing up motherless doesn't help that.]
My brilliant, wayward friend had *absolutely* internalized this culture’s message “You are what you own.” After all, that’s what all four of her parents were like, especially the Super-Christian ones. Her own mother had always dressed her up to the nines, and she figured that’s what good parenting really consisted of: buying your kid the right labels. That’s how you show you care. That’s how you show the world that you have your shit together.
There were other issues, sure — but the “I can’t buy her nice things!” was the one that fueled the filthy tie-breaking emotional hallucination “My daughter would be better off without me.”
Among that young woman’s sad little legacy that fit in one 2×3 plastic storage box: a glut of Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik shoes. They couldn’t afford to eat, couldn’t afford to pay a traffic ticket, but … image is everything! Sigh …
Sometimes I really hate this place, this society. Sometimes I think that Getting What We Deserve would be the worst possible thing to happen to us.
iolanthe: That is one depressing story. Did her parents ever wise up to their ways of parenting? That’s almost as bad as anorexia.
Economic reasons? Ridiculous, do these people have any idea how much the arabs are paying for a good white baby these days?
chascates: Funny you’d say that. The dear departed spent 2 years of her teens in a pricey mental hospital for Anorectics. Anorexia was a problem she developed while studying ballet and competing in beauty pageants, after a pageant coordinator sneered at the hips she was beginning to develop at age 15. It’s all in Volumes 2 and 3 of the journals, which cover the last 10 years of her short little life.
No, the parents never wised up. Still the same. They lied to her daughter about how she died, and then spent years trying to “cheer up” the little orphan by buying her roomsful of stupid useless shit. Designer!
They blame their daughter’s death on Drugs and Bad Companions. You know — Drugs and Bad Companions just … dropped out of the sky and killed their Prom Queen daughter. Everything would have been just *perfect* if she’d just kept on doing things *their* way.
Thanks for listening/caring. I have a tendency to go non-snarky/earnest/very personal here sometimes, and I thank all of you who are patient with me. Your kindness imbues me with much strength for future snark.
Ohhhh, I missed the memo on this. Like a seasonal blockbuster movie, I will be unleashing my evil spawn on the plant in time for Christmas. Respect, bitchez!
iolanthe: A sad story, and all sage advice, but I’m not sure how my spouse will take the advice when I tell her it came from the Wonkette comments section. Hey Ken Layne–time for a new spinoff: Wonkaparent.
TCDang:
Wonkaparenting Tip #1: Keep the buttsecks talk to a bare minimum, in front of the kids. You want to give your child at least a chance to grow up normal.
TCDang:
Here are some tips I paid a lot for, one way or the other:
Wonkaparenting Tip #2: Don’t let your kid enlist in the Marines. I don’t care *how* punk rock (or the future’s Hipness Equivalent) he or she thinks it is. Just don’t let them have him or her. Block the doorway with your body if you have to.
Wonkaparenting Tip #3: Keep your kid away from pageants and modeling. And keep your antennae up even if they’re doing something Totally Wholesome, like Scouting or Sports or Ballet or Church Youth Group. Especially if any of their adult counselors etc. take that “special interest” in them.
Wonkaparenting Tip #4: Turn off the TV sometimes and talk. Even if they sprain their eyeballs rolling them.
Wonkaparenting Tip $5: Remember you are your kid’s parent; not his/her friend; not his/her bitch.
Anybody else still following this thread have a few tips?
Excuse me, but why are we all buying the line that intelligence is hereditary, and therefore dumb parents will breed dumb kids ad infinitum? My parents are useless, retarded, mean scumbags and I have a PhD.
Lascauxcaveman: Backed. There are some things your kid *should* learn from their peers, or in the gutter … or from their peers in the gutter, just like *WE* did.
Basic facts, sure, tell ‘em. But as for the Fancy Stuff, the advanced course, well … let them conduct their own independent investigations.
Besides, they’re all learning about buttsecks from TV … usually in some news about another Republican Congresscreature or powerful Evangelist.
doloras: I made that point in a discussion recently, with some poor young dolt I met through music stuff, who is maybe 21 and high on Ayn Rand *AND* Robert Heinlein!
He was talking about how the “best and brightest” 10% of humanity would create a spacecraft soon to escape the breakdown of human life on Earth, and that we “dumb backwoods types” would stay here on Earth to rot. He then went on to posit millennia of Earth’s “best and brightest” splintering off from various future planets, evolving into a super-race of brilliant space travelers, constantly using up dwindling resources on one planet, then bravely and brilliantly fleeing from the mess they’ve made, on to some *other* place they can fuck up.
Several points:
1. Honeychile, that first Escape Spacecraft, if someone manages to invent it, will be filled with the richest most evil conniving fucks on the planet, not the “best and brightest”. If you invented it today, Dick, Lynne, and Elizabeth Cheney would have seats, as would every member of the Bush family. They’d probably kick off the guys who invented it just to make room for teen Russian supermodels for … totally altruistic Repopulation purposes, of course.
2. It’s possible that the mind that could invent such a thing is stuck in some dumb family and some dumb school in some dumb backwater of rural Kentucky right now. Great minds often grow from harsh and boring and stupid environments, whereas many folks who’ve grown up with every opportunity and advantage just piss away all their time and money making shit for Burning Man.
3. Apparently you think that “suck all the resources from a planet, destroy, and abandon it” is what the “best and brightest” *do*? Oh, kid ….
And holidays must be fun at *your* family home, doloras. My sympathies. I know several people who crawled out of a background like yours, like roses emerging from good compost.
iolanthe: Holidays? I avoid my family altogether and they can’t do anything about it. My mother rings me about four times a year to talk about her cats, I make polite noises until she gets bored and goes away, and that’s it.
I will admit that my parents gave me all kinds of personality problems, but that’s upbringing, not genetics.
doloras: Wow. I thought it was just me. I feel better now about not having talked to my parents in 2 years.
iolanthe: Wow. Just wow. Thanks for sharing, again. Excuse me, I, uh, think I got a speck of dust in my eye or something. Lego jesus christ woman, the life you’ve led.
My wife & I, with our OCD, alcoholic (my birthfather,) junkie, manic-depressive & schizophrenic (her aunt) genes will not be having children. Though that’s not why. Worry is why. Cats are enough to worry about, and almost too much at times.
Lascauxcaveman: Almost everything a kid needs can be gotten on the cheap, tis true. I’ve got plenty of kids. I guess I did my part to make smart kids. Then I got a vasectomy. Not much fun at the time (what’s cooking, doc? Oh, the inside of my TESTICLES.), but I finally won the lifelong war against my insanely high fertility. Now we just need some good old-fashioned selection pressure to thin the herd.
iolanthe:
Wonkaparenting tip #6: Play games with them and kick their little butts out doors a lot. Kids need lots of fresh air and running about without it being too structured.
Wonkaparenting tip #7: Give them work to do periodically and have them help with things you need to do. It may take twice as long as doing it yourself, but it will teach them to appreciate working for something and give them valuable skills. I can garden and do carving and carpentry with ease, and it’s because my parents did those things with me as a kid. I also know how to wash a shirt and clean a toliet, despite being a white, middle-class male from Idaho.
Wonkaparenting tip #8: Apologize when you done fucked up. To their little faces. Right away. No matter how hard it is.
Wonkaparenting tip #9: Love them unconditionally and don’t take any shit, unless it’s in good humor. Then dish it back.
Mad Farmer Manifest: Very nice, my friend, very nice.