HAAAAAAAAW HAW HAW! I love Bob!
HAAAAAAAAW!
~~ Sooz
------- "Those in the cheaper seats clap. The rest of you rattle your jewelry." John Lennon (1940 - 1980) Royal Varieties Performance ~ Dr. Sooz's Bead Links
And she's FOURTEEN. Very different story. ~~ Sooz
------- "Those in the cheaper seats clap. The rest of you rattle your jewelry." John Lennon (1940 - 1980) Royal Varieties Performance ~ Dr. Sooz's Bead Links
When I was in undergrad (mid 80's) we were having some kind of child or population discussion in one of my sociology classes. I commented that I didn't want to have kids. OMG - you would gave thought that I'd said "for my next trick I will now poke out the eyes of puppies, kitties, and fluffy little bunnies". Geez.
I've never wanted to have kids of my own. My Mom always thought I'd change my mind - once I met the right guy and got married (hahahaha). But she also had the goal of none of us kids having kids at an early age (she was 16 when she had my oldest brother). She got grandchildren from my brothers. I never had any pressure from my parents to be married or have kids - yay.
But people can be rude and I've learned it's not an opinion (not having kids) that is welcome in our society.
tee hee - you sound like my twin!
At least with the cats I can always ban them from being near my beads:)
Kathy K
uh oh - sounds like she is channeling Sooz! :)
Maybe I'm unusually blasé about this issue.
I had my first at 18, 37 years ago. Roger was an "accident". And that term may seem offensive to some now, but 37 years ago was before birth control was reliable, and accidents were just a fact of life. Actually "accident" was a much nicer term than "mistake", which was usually more correct!
Instead of having people ask why I didn't have children, I had people deliberately refraining from criticizing me for "getting myself pregnant". At 18 this was certainly no "planned family".
I may have been blissfully ignorant. I may have considered that we all have whatever our own reproductive luck we have. The criticisms I heard were about those un-restrained Catholic breeders, all with 5 or 6 children. People without children a year after getting married, were assumed to be lucky, or maybe they were professional people who went to a lot of trouble, and some sacrifice (of pleasure) to avoid having children before they could care for them.
Usually people were politely quiet about children having children as in my case, as well as people being unwilling or unable to have children.
I don't think people who don't have children are selfish. I do think that many people who wish they had children are better off than they would have been if they had been very fertile and had had children as teen-agers.
Tina
That is one of the coolest things I've ever heard. If it were a tradition here, I'd probably have a couple of dozen children by now. My house wouldn't be any messier than it is right now, either.
Kathy N-V
On Fri, 14 May 2004 14:25:46 -0400, Christina Peterson wrote (in message ):
Haw haw! Well, that info about Juliet's brain even had ME a tad scared......
~~ Sooz
------- "Those in the cheaper seats clap. The rest of you rattle your jewelry." John Lennon (1940 - 1980) Royal Varieties Performance ~ Dr. Sooz's Bead Links
Hmm. I think it was common to loan children out in the Scandinavian countries as well. My great grandmother had 13 children. (Very tired looking woman in the photo.) It is my understanding that at least a couple of them were raised by other relatives. A great grandfather from another branch of the family tree was a 'loan'. And I know my aunt on my mother's side spoke of several relatives who ended up being raised by people other than their parents. Of course in those days, people never left their villages, so a child probably often still was in close contact with the birth family. Dora
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Christina Peterson" :
]It was because there as a prayer I couldn't memorize.
oh, good grief! i'm with your mother!
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@aol.comuhuh (Candace) :
]aaaawwwwwwww! That is So cute! Sounds like someone had a good picture ](perhaps good role models, hhhmm? *s*) of how a parent acts with a baby.
thank you. at the time, i was dying of embarrassment.
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Kathy N-V :
]Depends on the age of the children. My DD is 14 and almost all of her ]friends are allowed to go to the mall without parental supervision. Since I ]am totally overprotective, we've worked out a different scheme:
that was THE hardest battle i ever had to fight.
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Christina Peterson" :
]We need uncles and grandparents and cousins, etc, but they don't have to be ]blood relatives. And every village needs children, but not every adult ]needs them.
it certainly sounds like it works. how large [in numbers] is each village, tho?
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
On Sat, 15 May 2004 0:42:20 -0400, vj wrote (in message ):
Why? Did they tag-team you and do an end run to the mall? Fortunately for me, I'm considered the lenient one. Bob would simply forbid her from leaving the house until he had found her a nice Italian husband. His stance makes everything I say sound completely reasonable.
Do tell.
Kathy N-V
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Kathy N-V :
]Why? Did they tag-team you and do an end run to the mall? Fortunately for ]me, I'm considered the lenient one. Bob would simply forbid her from leaving ]the house until he had found her a nice Italian husband. His stance makes ]everything I say sound completely reasonable. ] ]Do tell.
**chuckle** no - it was just the loudest, most common, continual battle for several years. remember - i was a single parent for 10 years - all through that whole thing. there wasn't anyone for me to seem reasonable in comparison with [except their grandfather, and he was 75 miles away].when my oldest took me on about it, she actually ran away from home. when i finally found out where she was, i had the police go pick her up. the police officer told her she had a choice - go home with me or go to children's services. she chose children's services. when she told the counselors WHY she had run away from home [AFTER the lady managed to get her jaw working again] she received a lecture she probably still hasn't forgotten at the age of 30.
but she was long gone by the time Jamie and Johnny got to that age. i simply had to put my foot down and make sure it stayed there. and their instructors at the police department did me the favor of backing me up and reinforcing my reasoning. things happen with groups that don't happen when you're alone. there's a dynamic involved that is very very hard to stand up to when wrong choices are available and encouraged. i didn't have the TIME to go with them all the time, but i did what i could in other ways.
what made it worth it was several years later when they both came back to me and thanked me for being the disciplinarian they thought i was [and my sibs, parents, and in-laws ALL thought i let them get away with too much!]
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
Oh, villages vary from less than a hundred to a few thousand. It's the kind of thing that evolved from a small group of people needing to be very careful to make full use of their "human resources" in a hostile environment. The dynamic continues as people move to towns, like Nome, etc.
Tina
I imagine my grandparents were born at a similar time to your grandmother -- in the 1860s, in Denmark.
As the daughter of a "man of means" (farm owner, in this case), she was sent to a neighbour to be trained where she earned the title of "Butter-maker" (Denmark's major export), after which she came home as a professional Butter-maker.
My grandfather grew up on a shore, where hardly any plants grew, to a sea-faring family. They were followers of Martin Luther, and because they believed in sharing all they had, they were very poor. When he was 12, my grandfather was "turned over" to a rich farmer to be his "boy" (young farm hand). Though he never had even a day of school, my grandfather came to own a store, and was successful enough to move to the USA and owned a store there. I wonder if my grandmother taught he reading writing and Arithmetic. After a few years in America, Grandpa sent for Beste. She spend 3 weeks first on a ship and then on a train to get to him. She was unable to speak English and had 6 children with her
So, it looks like children were sent out to learn a trade as my grandmother did, and also to make their own way in the world as my grandfather did, when they were teens or near teens.
Children were shared for the resource they were, but there was also great affection. And of course, with Queen Kristine of Sweden, the Scandinavian countries also had a strong tradition of strong women.
Tina
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Christina Peterson" :
]Oh, villages vary from less than a hundred to a few thousand. It's the kind ]of thing that evolved from a small group of people needing to be very ]careful to make full use of their "human resources" in a hostile ]environment. The dynamic continues as people move to towns, like Nome, etc.
that's what i thought. my mind was boggling at the idea of getting it to work in someplace like Sacrament, San Francisco, LA, or even Paradise.
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
The ties are strong enough that this sort of thing continues to work as people move from the villages to Fairbanks and Anchorage. It's just a different attitude. People consider the children to belong to the village and the child's ownself, rather than to the parent.
Tina
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Christina Peterson" :
]The ties are strong enough that this sort of thing continues to work as ]people move from the villages to Fairbanks and Anchorage. It's just a ]different attitude. People consider the children to belong to the village ]and the child's ownself, rather than to the parent.
fascinating.
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
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