The papers are filled with it. The courts can’t handle it. Welfare offices overflow with it. Ministers rail against it. Teachers must deal with the results of it. Society abhors it. Children suffer for it. And the whole country pays for it in one way or another.
The object of this scornful missive is the selfish, irresponsible acts of casual sex, not only without the benefit of marriage, which is another issue, but without giving a thought to the consequences of the act five-minutes after orgasm.
Put even more succinctly, it is the good-time Charleys who hop from bed to bed, jumping on top of whoever is in it, then disappearing, never to be seen again—-and the dumb, often impregnated women who lay back and let the men get away with it.
There is a dangerous subtlety in this game of musical beds that few people “catch” when they encounter it in the news, on court shows, or even in made-for-television story plots. And if they do catch it, they have been scammed long enough to believe it is politically incorrect to mention it.
In “reality life” it’s the harried woman, of whatever race, trying to do the wash, go for a walk in the park, run the dog, or attend church, with two or three pre-schoolers pulling on her dress, and, likely as not, one in the oven.
More than once, when I’ve seen this, I’ve thought to myself: “There’s something wrong with this picture. Where the hell is the husband, or the father, or at least a man?” Most of the time the “man of the house”, for the moment anyway, is conspicuously absent, as if he (or sometimes they) had nothing to do with producing this human menagerie.
I had to laugh, disdainfully I might add, when I read a column by Pamela Jones-Jackson, a research fellow at Florida State University, in which obesity in children is the topic. Jackson decries, and rightly so, the adolescent obesity problem, which, she says, our intrusive government is stepping in and trying to fix.
“Parents, not government, need to be role models for their children,” opines Jackson, “and establish a few basic guidelines. It is time to take action and parents and educators to incorporate these concepts into our children’s lives.”
That’s fine, Ms. Jackson, but I have a few questions. Whose children are you talking about? Surely not the ones who don’t know who their fathers are. And which parents do mean? Certainly not the women with three or four kids whose “partner in bed” has taken off and left the family to struggle alone, without a husband or father.
I have a word for these men: Cowards. Any hit-and-run male who impregnates a female should at least have the common decency to discuss marriage with her. If he can’t support a family he has no right producing one. And if marriage is too much for his bloated self-image, he should try to screw up enough courage to stick it out with the woman, and make an attempt to become a “family” —for the child’s sake. Children, after all, are the real victims here and any man that refuses to accept that reality isn’t fit to be called a man.
And I have a word for these women, too: Stupid. The woman who cannot muster enough self-esteem to say No, and halt the proceedings before things get out of hand, is just plain dumb.
Worst of all, the man may have his night in bed but he may never have his day in court. Because, the way the law enforcement system works it seems that the man is never held responsible for his part in the pregnancy—even if they can find him. So it behooves the woman to take matters into her own hands by opening the door and letting the man out, instead of opening the gates and letting him in.
We talk about the concepts of abstinence, birth control, virginity, and self-control, but seldom are the ideas of responsibility, decency, virtue, and “rightness” ever given their due as essential ingredients for a civilized society.
We are not animals. Let’s stop acting like it.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”