about population control and liberalism. I see the left as being schizophrenic on the question of reproduction and birth control; it's all political to them. Reproduction for the Third World is not to be criticized per se, while White families and nations are harshly criticized for having large families, like the case of the Duggar Family with their 17 healthy children. When I posted a piece about them, I got some negative comments about their 'irresponsibility.' Conservatives too have their confusion regarding these issues.
Now, I don't know if this is the 'approved' conservative position on the question of reproduction, but I am going to say that, just as liberals say about sexual activity, 'as long as it's between consenting adults, who are we to dictate people's private lives?' I would just amend that to say that as long as the two parents (male and female, of course) are married and financially able to raise the child, it should be their business when they give birth. If they want to have large families, that's their business, especially if they are able and willing to provide for them and to be responsible parents. And can we dictate how old is 'too old' for a couple to have a child?
However it seems many conservatives disagree with me.
This article brought out some strange comments at Free Republic. It seems a Texas couple had a late-life child.
At 59, a mother again
ROUND ROCK — When Linda Smith, a 59-year-old grandmother, couldn't shake jet lag after a December trip to Europe, she figured she was going through menopause. It turned out she was pregnant. "It was a big shock," Smith said Tuesday, a day after giving birth to a 5-pound, 11-ounce boy named Django. "My husband was jumping up and down for joy, and I was just dumbfounded."
Linda and Steve Smith's first son died in a motorcycle wreck in December 2005 at the age of 20. "Some people might think we're trying to replace him, but we're not," Linda Smith said. "We're trying to replace the holes in our heart."
"We had all this love to give to somebody or something," Steve Smith, also 59, said as he held Django in their northRound Rock home. "We'll give it to him."
Some of those commenting on FR were disapproving of this birth, based on the parents' relatively advanced ages. I suppose if the father were 59 and the mother much younger, no one would bat an eye, but when an older mother gives birth there seems to be widespread disapproval, some of it quite unkind in tone.
Granted, some cases of older women giving birth in recent years involved extraordinary means (in vitro fertilization) but this case seems to have been a natural conception. Some of the FReepers expressed skepticism that any woman could conceive naturally at 59, (or 58, as the mother may have been when she conceived.) I know that I had read of such conceptions and births happening very occasionally in the past, in the days before in vitro or other extraordinary means. Here, Wikipedia lists some births to older mothers dating back to the days when such births could not have involved in vitro or fertility drugs.
So the scoffers who insist the mother had to have had some artificial help conceiving are just wrong.
Personally I can't see becoming a mother again at my stage of life but neither do I condemn those who do, especially if the birth is a naturally occurring one.
Would the 'conservatives' expressing strong disapproval of this couple's blessed event recommend abortion in such cases? I can see no other option in such cases. Or do they think she and her husband should adopt the baby out to a younger couple? The objections are supposedly based on the idea that 'they won't live to see their kid grow up.' Or ''they'll be in their seventies when the kid is a teenager. It isn't fair to the kid." What then? Should she have gone straight to the abortion clinic as soon as she knew?
I have a cousin who was a late-life baby, and he had a problem with being a child of older parents. But could this not be as easily interpreted as 'his problem'? He was embarrassed at having grey-haired parents coming to pick him up at school, when many of his classmates had young, vital parents. Is that not just childish shallowness? A lot of my peers were 'embarrassed' because their parents were so 'square' and 'old-fashioned' and clueless. There's always some reason for callow adolescents to look down on their parents.
It's not uncommon for orphaned children to be raised by grandparents. Those grandparents in many cases may not live until the child or children reach adulthood; should custody be denied them by the courts because of their age?
Some on both the conservative and liberal sides will say, 'well, the defective are costly to society.' They can be, but again, what's the answer? Abortion?
The 'conservative' usually says, 'she should have prevented the pregnancy.' Really? How many women are using contraception in their late 50s?
I really don't understand this modern-day horror of 'older' parenthood. I've even heard people expressing disgust when a woman of 40 or 42 gives birth. This, to me, is a strange modern attitude that was not common in the old days. The fact is, most healthy women are able to conceive well into their 40s, barring some reproductive malfunction. In the pre-pill era, many women went on having children well into their 40s and occasionally beyond. It was not seen as something for people to gossip about or condemn. I remember women, especially Catholic women, having children until age 50 or so, and having a dozen or more children in all. Nobody thought it 'sick' or creepy or irresponsible or worthy of censure. What's happened to our attitudes about birth and family size and age that has caused these attitudes to change?
Is it that all of us, even 'conservatives', have bought the idea that large families are some kind of assault on 'the environment'? Or is it the youth-worship and the disrespect for elders that pervades our culture? Is it the horror of the idea of older people being sexually active? Many younger people say such things are 'gross'.
Some of the objections are ostensibly based on health concerns: 'older mothers are more likely to have defective babies.' Again, must all babies be perfect to have a right to life?
Whatever causes this change in attitude needs to be reversed, especially when our people are being outnumbered by our competitor peoples. And those of us who are Christians -- are not children a blessing from God, even when they come at an 'inopportune' or 'inappropriate' stage of life? It seems strange for 'conservatives', especially those who profess Christianity, to condemn the natural process of reproduction.
So I wish the Smiths and little 'Django' (I assumed they named him after Reinhardt, but apparently not) a great deal of happiness. It sounds as though he will have a very loving home and family. And I pray that the parents may be blessed with long and healthy lives to see their child reach adulthood.
