So among the other weird creepy MAGAt things that Tubby47 has uncorked is something call "natalism"
Birthin' babies.
Apparently this came up back in March:
"The White House has been hearing out a chorus of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children,” The New York Times reported on Monday. Proposals include baby bonuses for American mothers and a new affirmative-action program that would set aside almost a third of Fulbright scholarships for people who are married or have kids. Malcolm and Simone Collins, oft-profiled natalists hoping to seed the future with their elite genes, reportedly sent the White House a draft executive order establishing a “National Medal of Motherhood” for women with at least six children."
"Medal of Motherhood"?
For fuck's sake, haven't we been here before...
Mind you, the obvious point here is not just "more kids" it's "more white kids" since MAGAts, duh.
As I pointed out back in November of '24, the "problem" of an aging native population can be "solved" by immigration (or, conversely, that eliminating immigration usually results in an aging, shrinking population).
But for MAGAts that's a nonstarter. Hence the Mutterskreuz 2.0.
Anyway, this came to mind today because it's my daughter's birthday today. She's 19.
She's a terrific person, and I'm glad she's my daughter. I wouldn't trade our 17-and-a-half-years together for anything.
But.
Here's the thing; she and her brother are, in economic terms, expensive luxuries.
Seriously. They've cost her mother and I...well, lots of money. And time. And emotional investment, general head- and heartaches...they're wonderful kids, I love them dearly, but...
If your "chorus of ideas...for persuading Americans to...have more children." were limited to trivial dumbshit like a measly $5K tax credit or similar gimmicks that range from useless to outright insulting?
You can fuck right off with that shit.
The death of the eleven-kid-family is baked into any industrialized society. Once childhood mortality drops to a statistical rounding error and mechanization makes homegrowing extra farm- or millhands superfluous?
People stop pushing out sprogs.
They're fucking hard work. Good work, if you and they are lucky. But decades of often-difficult, always-expensive, sometimes-heartbreaking labor whether you're lucky or not. Even one kid is work. Two is twice the work. Four? Six? Fuck me sideways, no!
Early on my now-ex and I agreed; two, full stop. And, frankly, after losing Bryn Rose had Sheadon been a little girl? We might have stopped there. It's hard to express how difficult it was to roll the pregnancy dice again after Bryn. Terrifying. To do that four, six, eight more times?
You're out of your motherfucking mind.
And the MAGAt version is actually even worse:
"First of all, it’s telling that this administration will do anything other than what families really need. If the Trump administration was actually interested in supporting parents, they’d be pushing for paid parental leave, subsidized childcare, and an end to laws that make it deadly for people to give birth.
Actually, scratch that—because the administration’s “baby boom” push isn’t just about boosting the birthrate. It’s about reasserting a rigid, traditional vision of American family life: one where parents are straight, women are submissive, and the bro-natalists in charge get to pretend it’s all for the good of the nation."
Color me shocked, bro.
So, no. Nobody but the Quiverfull loons will sign up for this nonsense. Just like the other creepy, weird MAGATrump shit, it's just a clown car full of weirdos.
But whatever. Screw the MAGAts, it's her birthday, so...
Happy Birthday, kiddo.
You kick ass.
3 comments:
Something else Orange Julius has not yet figured out: we have a lot of company. And a glance at a search for countries with high birth rates suggests that even with all the things we get wrong, we must be doing something right. Because 19 of the 20 countries with the highest birthrates are all in sub-Saharan Africa. The exception is Afghanistan.
The reason the birth rates in sub-Saharan Africa are so high is depressingly simple: high infant mortality. I'm reasonably sure Tubby has never given that so much as a thought.
That was kinda my point; ALL industrial nations do this. It not so much "doing it right" as the expense and difficulty in raising kids in a two-job economy. Once they reliably live past puberty and the need for unpaid labor goes away (i.e. you're not a subsistence farmer or small shopkeeper or crafter) kids are something you treat yourself with. And, like treats, they're a luxury and not a main meal.
It's not they haven't figured it out; it's that they WANT it not to be true. It's no different from their fantasy of returning to Manly Jobs like factory work, mining, or logging. The reality is that those "manly" jobs mostly sucked; physically brutal, low-paying, and usually for shitty bosses. Same with natalism. They don't care about facts and data; they WANT it to be true, so they're gonna do what they want to make it true whether it works or not.
Its really the usual nationalist/fascist/etc. trope of advocating traditional values of society to get to the top and be able to rule. Shouldn't really be working in America /Carsten
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