Monday, April 17, 2006
Good Advice from RedStar 2000: Don't Have Kids!
I tend to recoil at the thought of raising kids, especially in the present era (which attitude probably contributed to the decline of a relationship of one kind or another with a couple of women in my life...). I have always had cats (and can't imagine myself getting through life without having at least one cat to come home to), but that's as close as I'll get to raising a family. And that by itself can be expensive enough, especially if the kitty gets sick. (My present one has been as "healthy as a horse" over the past ten years, but if I had magical thinking, I wouldn't even dare type such a statement...) Anyway, I can't imagine, especially if you're struggling under present-day capitalism, how it would be desirable to have a kid.
For these reasons, I guess, I was quite amused by a section I read from RedStar2000 on RedStar's advice to working class women not to have kids . I find it a little difficult following these installments from RedStar, which apparently come from threads in forums on other sites. However, that doesn't stop me from being quite amused by them. And given the mood I'm in lately, this particular installment struck me as being particularly, blackly hilarious (because it's so true):
When I was a child, my parents both worked...but they could afford to buy a reasonably spacious house, two mid-range cars, medical insurance, vacations, stuff like that. You think that's possible now?
People are indeed "living longer"...lots of them in "nursing homes" which are total shitholes.
What do more and more young working people have to "look forward to" now? They can't afford to go to college without plunging deeply into debt. Their job prospects: a bunch of shit-pay temp jobs. Lots of them can't even afford to move out of their parents' house...the rents are just too high!
At the lower end of things in America, there are people with full-time jobs who are living in their fucking cars!
Why the hell do you think so many young people in France are so pissed-off? Because the future looks "really great"?
Why not try a bit of Marxism here...if the word doesn't offend you.
What happens when an aging capitalist society approaches "the end of the line"? What do you think life "will be like"?
It will be shit! Closer to the 19th century than the 20th!
I have seen things get worse since the 1970s...with my own eyes. I see no reason whatsoever to expect any improvements and every reason to assume the decline in living standards for the working class to continue.
At this point, I would expect you to interject a load of Trotskyist babble about how we should "fight for reforms" to "stop the decline" and "make things better."
Well, you can forget that! There ain't gonna be no more "reforms." That era is over.
What there's gonna be is more and more shit from here on out...until people are ready for a revolution. And that may still be many decades into the future.
So I repeat: DON'T HAVE KIDS! The chances are if you do, you will just make things even tougher on yourself than they're already going to be anyway.
----------
P.S. After all of this, I decided that it would be appropriate to visit a blog by a young working mother somewhere (just to get a different perspective, maybe). So, I visited Dru Blood, who would definitely know what this guy is talking about...but has never shown a moment of regret about having kids (even if she is good at expressing resentment at the system (well justified, I might add) for making it so tough).
For these reasons, I guess, I was quite amused by a section I read from RedStar2000 on RedStar's advice to working class women not to have kids . I find it a little difficult following these installments from RedStar, which apparently come from threads in forums on other sites. However, that doesn't stop me from being quite amused by them. And given the mood I'm in lately, this particular installment struck me as being particularly, blackly hilarious (because it's so true):
When I was a child, my parents both worked...but they could afford to buy a reasonably spacious house, two mid-range cars, medical insurance, vacations, stuff like that. You think that's possible now?
People are indeed "living longer"...lots of them in "nursing homes" which are total shitholes.
What do more and more young working people have to "look forward to" now? They can't afford to go to college without plunging deeply into debt. Their job prospects: a bunch of shit-pay temp jobs. Lots of them can't even afford to move out of their parents' house...the rents are just too high!
At the lower end of things in America, there are people with full-time jobs who are living in their fucking cars!
Why the hell do you think so many young people in France are so pissed-off? Because the future looks "really great"?
Why not try a bit of Marxism here...if the word doesn't offend you.
What happens when an aging capitalist society approaches "the end of the line"? What do you think life "will be like"?
It will be shit! Closer to the 19th century than the 20th!
I have seen things get worse since the 1970s...with my own eyes. I see no reason whatsoever to expect any improvements and every reason to assume the decline in living standards for the working class to continue.
At this point, I would expect you to interject a load of Trotskyist babble about how we should "fight for reforms" to "stop the decline" and "make things better."
Well, you can forget that! There ain't gonna be no more "reforms." That era is over.
What there's gonna be is more and more shit from here on out...until people are ready for a revolution. And that may still be many decades into the future.
So I repeat: DON'T HAVE KIDS! The chances are if you do, you will just make things even tougher on yourself than they're already going to be anyway.
----------
P.S. After all of this, I decided that it would be appropriate to visit a blog by a young working mother somewhere (just to get a different perspective, maybe). So, I visited Dru Blood, who would definitely know what this guy is talking about...but has never shown a moment of regret about having kids (even if she is good at expressing resentment at the system (well justified, I might add) for making it so tough).
Comments:
<< Home
I really like the Redstar website, but there are several things that bother me about some of what he writes. I don't know so much about this. I agree that I can't really fathom why anyone would have kids in this day and age, and I think that it is probably a good idea to discourage that. Although I am quite young to be able to make a judgement on such things, I am already quite certain that I do not at all want to have children. But I think that focusing on population as a social problem is a fallacy and it usually leads to some sort of neo-Malthusianism, which as anyone who has read Marx should be able to tell you, is pernicious.
OK, but I don't think RedStar is blaming population as the source of social disintegration - I don't see him advising people not to have children on the basis that having children will contribute to the social ills of the general society. Rather, he's advising them to avoid having children as a way to reduce the individual hardship in their own lives (in addition to focusing on the increasing misery that awaits children who are brought into the world).
Such advice doesn't seem at all contradictory to Marx's analysis (or, especially, Engels'), because it kind of recognizes how material conditions can determine the ideal makeup of the family within the working class.
In earlier stages of capitalism, it actually benefited families to have more children, because of the ways that children could contribute to the family's wealth or subsistence, and because adult "children" could be counted on more (or, rather, required more) in the old "extended" family to contribute to older parents' survival. Also, occupations were more often taught from one generation to the next, with crafts people or agricultural workers, for instance, being trained by parents at a very early age. And, in earlier, industrial capitalism, children also could be counted on to contribute to adult workers' family income because there were fewer limits placed on child labor while, from the capitalists' standpoint, the work that needed to be done could be done by children with a much greater immediate creation of surplus value (something Marx wrote a bit about in Capital I, right?).
In our "advanced" stage of capitalism, when individual people can go through so many occupations, when even the nuclear family of the '50s is more "extended" than many people's living situations, when workers are atomized and child labor is generally discouraged (probably more for practical than ethical reasons - although it is often found, and even resurgent, in the most inhumane situations)...it is actually less materially advantageous for adult workers to have children.
I recently read some good articles or chapters about this shift, very much in the Marxian tradition. Wish I could remember where they were...
Such advice doesn't seem at all contradictory to Marx's analysis (or, especially, Engels'), because it kind of recognizes how material conditions can determine the ideal makeup of the family within the working class.
In earlier stages of capitalism, it actually benefited families to have more children, because of the ways that children could contribute to the family's wealth or subsistence, and because adult "children" could be counted on more (or, rather, required more) in the old "extended" family to contribute to older parents' survival. Also, occupations were more often taught from one generation to the next, with crafts people or agricultural workers, for instance, being trained by parents at a very early age. And, in earlier, industrial capitalism, children also could be counted on to contribute to adult workers' family income because there were fewer limits placed on child labor while, from the capitalists' standpoint, the work that needed to be done could be done by children with a much greater immediate creation of surplus value (something Marx wrote a bit about in Capital I, right?).
In our "advanced" stage of capitalism, when individual people can go through so many occupations, when even the nuclear family of the '50s is more "extended" than many people's living situations, when workers are atomized and child labor is generally discouraged (probably more for practical than ethical reasons - although it is often found, and even resurgent, in the most inhumane situations)...it is actually less materially advantageous for adult workers to have children.
I recently read some good articles or chapters about this shift, very much in the Marxian tradition. Wish I could remember where they were...
Perhaps he's not identifying population as a social problem here, but he certainly seems to do so in other places on his website. But of course the basic point is valid: having kids is probably not a good idea.
This article is along those lines, but no real drastic answers, basically their take is to get state to do something about it.
http://www.shepherd-express.com/4_13_06/cover.htm
http://www.shepherd-express.com/4_13_06/cover.htm
# posted by 
: 7:44 AM
: 7:44 AM
The long-dead group Subversion produced as a final issue of their journal something called "Spoofversion" which contained a piece entitled "Are Children Agents of the Bourgeoisie?" pointing out they use up our times, money etc. Lots of good economic reasons exist not to have kids, not to mention the shitty world they are born into, but I think an argument can be made that children do allow us to be more human (whatever that means).
Fischer
Left communist and parent.
Fischer
Left communist and parent.
Fischer,
I'm not sure what that means, either - does not having a kid mean that I'm not allowed to be as human? (I don't know...)
However, I suppose one positive outcome of a left communist (or a libertarian socialist) having a kid is that the kid will probably be exposed to some alternative perspectives at an early age.
I suppose there's something to be said for bringing more red-and-black diaper babies into the world.
I'm not sure what that means, either - does not having a kid mean that I'm not allowed to be as human? (I don't know...)
However, I suppose one positive outcome of a left communist (or a libertarian socialist) having a kid is that the kid will probably be exposed to some alternative perspectives at an early age.
I suppose there's something to be said for bringing more red-and-black diaper babies into the world.
On the other hand, though... The kid might not benefit from the alternative perspective at all if, say, the parents separate and the parent who doesn't have the red-and-black politics gains all the influence. (Just thinking out loud...about another situation that I know of...)
richard s.
Unfortunately a large segment of the society sees you as less than human and less than adult.
We sat through the dreaded family photo this holiday season, and the jcpenny photographer arranged each sub-family...she turned to us after settling the nieces and said to my husband "strattle that stool..yeah like that...perfect...you better get used to this for when you have little ones...." I said, "What do you mean, I wasn't planning on adding midgets to our family."
I am sick of people assuming because I carry all my weight in my stomach that I am preggers....and no, it is not alright to pat my stomach!
I thank the Lord daily that we could afford Charlie's petsmart basic one education, there is no way I am banking for anyone elses future in the next 10 years if ever, I am just too selfish.
Post a Comment
Unfortunately a large segment of the society sees you as less than human and less than adult.
We sat through the dreaded family photo this holiday season, and the jcpenny photographer arranged each sub-family...she turned to us after settling the nieces and said to my husband "strattle that stool..yeah like that...perfect...you better get used to this for when you have little ones...." I said, "What do you mean, I wasn't planning on adding midgets to our family."
I am sick of people assuming because I carry all my weight in my stomach that I am preggers....and no, it is not alright to pat my stomach!
I thank the Lord daily that we could afford Charlie's petsmart basic one education, there is no way I am banking for anyone elses future in the next 10 years if ever, I am just too selfish.
<< Home
