From: beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver)
Newsgroups: soc.men
Subject: Re: Back Again To Father Notification...
Date: 7 Nov 92 18:14:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BxCyoH.CL0

In article <1992Nov5.021545.13753@u.washington.edu> rons@hardy.u.washington.edu (Ronald Schoenberg) writes:
>In article <Bx7npo.9EK@cs.psu.edu> beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov4.164528.1352@u.washington.edu> rons@hardy.u.washington.edu (Ronald Schoenberg) writes:
>
>[deleted material]

...

>>In response to your accusation against men, I could say, I think 
>>your calm reaction of rationalizing these inequities is evidence of 
>>the difficulty you have dealing with a feared inability to raise 
>>or love children.
>
>Actually I don't have to think about an inability to raise children
>because I've already raised three of them and the quality of the
>relationship that I continue to have with them testifies to my
>success.  

But why do you feel the need to assume that emotion on the part 
of men is the result of frustration over the inabilility to bear
children?

Did you use the fact that you couldn't bear children to
rationalize having your wife do more?


>Two of them are women (they're 25 and 27 so I should be able to call
>them women).  I have always urged them to become financially
>independent and they have taken that advice by going for advanced
>degrees in college.  

So they are not in the class of persons forced to beg or manipulate
for money.


>Sometimes I think, though, how nice it would be
>if they could get a husband who would stay home, cook and
>clean for them, and raise their children.

Why do you think so?  Would it make them happy?  Did you have such a wife?

>  They don't have that
>choice, however, unlike you and most other men.

I don't have that choice.  I've never met a woman who was
intelligent and interesting enough to make a marriage worthwhile,
and who was also interested in giving up her career just to stay home, 
cook, clean, raise children, and nothing else for 20 years.

I'm not interested in a maidservant.  Your traditional attitudes
or your history have somehow led you to believe it's an advantage
to be able to marry a cow.


>  Their having children
>is a completely different kind of decision than it is for men.

This much is reasonably true.  They won't have to worry about
someone else taking their children away, and having to pay them
to do so.

I would personally like to take off five years to raise my
children, and then go back to work.  I wouldn't mind doing
the cooking and cleaning during that time -- I do it anyway.
I wouldn't mind having a guarantee of custody based on my
sex and my housecleaning.  But I don't have the option.


>It seems to me that men will have to face the fact that they
>can't bear children, and that as a result a continuing and long term
>relationship with children will come about only if they work very hard
>to maintain a quality relationship with the mothers of their children.
>That is something to which I've devoted a great deal of effort, and I
>must say it has paid off nicely.  

50% of marriages fail.  Do you think that your daughters are immune?

Bootlicking often pays.  It's what you're proposing.
If you like it, that's fine, but don't force others to do it.

You didn't want your daughters to lick boots for money,
so why would you accept forcing men to lick boots for custody?

It seems to me that you will have to face the fact that
uteruses are not required for raising children.  Nor should
they disqualify one from getting an education and a job.

Don
-- 
beaver@cs.psu.edu                       Opinions from the PC-challenged
From: erik@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Erik Lode)
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 20:06:37 GMT
Subject: Re: compromise (was Re: Back Again To Father Notification...
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA