I‘ve been so busy with all the shenanigans surrounding AVFM and their little conference that I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting the good old Men’s Rights subreddit. Don’t feel bad, Men’s Rights subreddit, for today I took a few moments out of my hard-core semi-vacationing to pay you a little visit!
While there, I noticed the regulars discussing a terrible quandary that faces all modern men: “As a man, would you help a child in distress?”
Here are some of the answers that got upvoted:
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 3](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-3.png?ssl=1)
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 1](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-1.png?ssl=1)
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 4](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-4.png?ssl=1)
Yep. Upvotes for a fellow who says he let a three-year-old boy literally fall out of a shopping cart and smash his head open because, oh no, some hypothetical hysterical mother might have accused him of child molestation.
The details of his story make so little sense I can only assume he’s making the story up — if he was walking past the bakery, how could he have been close enough to “reflexively grab” a child in a shopping cart inside the bakery?
I’m not sure which is worse, the thought that this guy actually let a kid fall and smash his head, or the thought that he made up a story about doing so in order to gain some internet points from MRAs. (Well, the former, obviously, but either way this is a mortifying spectacle.)
But not everyone got upvotes. Here’s a comment that got thumbs down from the Men’s Rightsers — along with a heavily upvoted reply:
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14.png?ssl=1)
Human Rights: You’re doing it wrong.
Thanks to r/AMR for pointing me to this lovely thread.
I read somewhere that mothers are less grossed out by the smell of their own baby’s poop than other baby’s poop. It is a physical thing.
That actually makes sense.
Back in the 1970’s, there was an edition of the magazine “National Lampoon” that had a magazine-within-a-magazine called “Negligent Mother Magazine.” One of the “ads” in it was for the “Sparties – the seven-day diaper suit.” The picture was of a red-faced and squalling baby, wrapped up in a diaper suit that covered the poor kid from shoulders to bottom.
I was a new mother. My first-born was a few months old. I fell on the floor laughing.
I’m very squeamish in general, but I’m okay with bodily fluids from babies. I suppose it’s because I used to really want to be a mom, and so I felt obligated to be uniquely tolerant of even the grossest stuff from babies. I’m not even grossed out by the smell of kids who need to be changed.
These days, I doubt I could ever become a mom in my lifetime due to various social barriers. But at least it’s easy for me to be around my baby cousins.
That just strikes me as wrong and unfair. Fertile women can have as many children as they want, whether or not they are good and loving moms. But people who truly want to give loving care to children, but do not fit whatever ideas society may have about who SHOULD care for kids, do not get to.
Feh. There are so many kids who need homes and do not have them.
RE: mint sauce
I’ve never had it with meat, but if it’s anything like mint raita used for Desi meat dishes like seekh kababs and chicken tikka, then I’m all for it! If only the Desi restaurants nearby weren’t so damn expensive… X_X
I must be weird then. I gagged at the smell of my baby’s dirty diapers after she stopped breast feeding. (Before that I swear it smelled like a combination of mac and cheese and carrot cake.) I longed for her to take to the potty. I don’t handle poo well, even though I’ve had plenty of practice.
Yes, there are.
Ally, you’d be a better mom than me!
I can only really deal with kids if:
a) they’re a patient and I’m just assisting with a transport to the ER
b) they’re over 10, and speak in understandable, non-redundant, sentances
c) I’ve gotten to know them, and they’re only around me for 30 minutes at a time
or d) i can convince myself I’m not really working with the kid, but with the kid’s pet.
If I have kids, I might just have to raise a puppy and a kitten simultaneously, just so I can pretend I’m really just training the kid how to care for our fuzzy overlords.
Or I could skip little kid altogether, and foster/adopt a pre-teen/teenager.
That’s something far, far off in the future, though. I may be an adult, but I have a lot of growing up to do before I go there.
RE: pallygirl
And silverbeet, nothing improves silverbeet either.
Aw, I kinda liked silverbeet!
RE: cassandrakitty
is it one of those things that once you plant it in a garden you’ll never get rid of it?
Nah, nah, I have it on good authority that THAT is potatoes. You really will NEVER get rid of them once you plant them. (In the area of NZ I was in at the time, anyway; they’d tried to dig ’em up years ago and I was STILL finding purple little thumb-size taters in the garden.)
@samantha
I’ve wanted to be a mom since I was 14. I’ve never really understood why, although I’m guessing that the desire partly arose from abuse trauma – I grew up wishing that I could start a family on my own that wouldn’t be abusive as the one I was raised in, as if somehow that would erase the abuse in my own childhood. It was also something related to gender dysphoria because I felt that I could finally have a legitimate claim to womanhood if I became a mom. And overall, I’ve always loved kids.
But I eventually accepted the reality that adoption would be difficult if not impossible for me to do, due to being trans and having a very unstable financial situation. I doubt I’ll ever be able to afford it, and even if I could, I would have to deal with being a single trans mom, facing not only the stigma that single moms face but also the suspicion that I’m abusive just for being a trans woman.
It would be a miserable life for both me and the kid, so there’s no point in wanting to be a mom anymore. I’ve accepted this fully, although I admit that after thinking about this I’m finding myself trying to not cry. (I can’t be crying in a library.) Motherhood is just a fantasy to me now.
Sorry, that was a really weird and sudden comment with lots of venting in it. There’s a lot going through my mind today.
It’s one of those things that’s massively unfair, yet still better than the alternatives. There are plenty of foster/adoption nightmares already (eg, the market for babies from China) and past attempts to stop undesirable women from reproducing are classified as historical atrocities.
@ contrapangloss
A friend and I in high school used to joke that if either of us ever decided to have kids we’d do an exchange where she would take my kids when they were infants, and I’d take hers once they were about 5 or so, since she loved babies, and I’m far more interested in kids that can talk and run around. I don’t dislike infants, it’s just that kids get a lot more interesting once you can have a conversation with them.
Ally,
You’re still really young. Who knows where you’ll be in 10 or 20 years? Maybe you’ll be married and financially stable. You just never know where life will take you.
Seconded. Never say never.
I’m glad my typo provided such amusement!
Pecunium — I was trying to avoid massive TMI, but the conversation was about me being bitten, and you saying you don’t do that cuz mouths and me being all “yeah, which would be a problem for the bitee, not the biter”…of course, I think you were cooking at the time, so idk why I thought you’d remember this!
And now I want your cooking, great. Because mint sauce is gross, but somehow you’d manage to make it edible!
Re: perpetual spinach — perennial plants grow back year after year, they don’t always stay above ground year round. So I guess a perpetual plant is a more precise term? Not that I’ve ever heard it used to describe any other year round plant, but idk.
Also, Ally, yep to the “you’re still young”. Who knows where you’ll be at 30, or, for that matter, where science will be (thank you for accidentally reminding me to check up on uterus transplants, they’re starting to look quite viable!)
Blarg, I guess no news is good news? Of the nine Swedish women who had uterus transplants (from living donors, mostly relatives), two rejected the uterus but are fine, and four were given IVF in early March or late Feb., no news on how that’s going. The first successful pregnancy in a transplanted uterus miscarried around 8 weeks, so I guess they’ve made it longer than that? Fuck, if they are still pregnant…they’ll hit 50/50 viability in a month…
They’re all cis women, but if science can get a baby out of a transplanted womb this year, who the fuck knows about a decade from now? Wish I could find an update in how their pregnancies are going though.
Baby poos and wees? Exploding?
There’s a famous ad about that – “Number 3s”
I think my aversion to small humans and their body fluids is partly from lack of exposure – I’m the youngest of my family by seven years, and my only contact with other kids was at kinder and school.
Didn’t like most of them then, either. Gimme kitties any day. :/
Oh, speaking of kitties: good news! Took Fribbles to the vet for her three-month checkup today. She’s put on 150 grams since the last check, which for an 18-year-old cat with hyperthyroidism and hints of kidney trouble is pretty damn good!
Given that the laws are getting more progressive with respect to LGBT rights, and also the rights of non-coupled people, there’s no reason to assume current adoption or fostering norms will be this way in 10-20 years’ time. Also, you might partner with someone who already has biological children, in which case you could be a step-parent. I think they’re also making advances in reproductive technology where the contributing cells aren’t gametes, so there will hopefully be loads of options for you to be a parent irrespective of your transitioning process. I hadn’t heard of transplanting uteruses before.
Great news on the cat check-up. 🙂
I’ll be leaving my crotchdumpling at the end of the driveway, in case anyone’s interested in a free one. What. A. Grump.
Go Fribbles!
Fribbie Power!