Tweet, Tweet.

I was going to blog about Halloween, but I forgot my iphone cord-- so I can't upload photos. Disappoint.

I was on twitter a little while ago and a friend of mine posted this article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39993685/ns/health-womens_health/?ocid=twitter

I thought it was well-intended, but was sort of annoyed by it for the most part. So I thought I'd go through it on here.

First of all, the title is "Blacks struggle with 72 percent unwed mothers rate." I suppose we're entering this conversation with the opinion that high rates of unwed motherhood are bad. As a matter of fact, I have no idea what that tagline even means-- I had no idea we were struggling with this unwed motherhood rate. What does that even mean?

Anyway.

There's a OB-GYN that's quoted in the article, Dr. Natalie Caroll. She delivers this quote:

"The girls don't think they have to get married. I tell them children deserve a mama and a daddy. They really do," Carroll says from behind the desk of her office, which has cushioned pink-and-green armchairs, bars on the windows, and a wooden "LOVE" carving between two African figurines. Diamonds circle Carroll's ring finger.

I think what struck me about this was the obviously gendered way of talking about the conversation. Children deserve mothers and fathers? What does that even mean?

Not that I'm opposed to the dual-parent agenda, but I'm not sure why we're entering the conversation this way besides weird biases. Kids deserve quality parenting. I don't know whether that means a mother and a father.

"A mama can't give it all. And neither can a daddy, not by themselves," Carroll says. "Part of the reason is because you can only give that which you have. A mother cannot give all that a man can give. A truly involved father figure offers more fullness to a child's life."

This just seems like she's blowing smoke out of her ass.

One parent simply doesn't have the time/resources to give to a child that that parent + another would be able to give-- I might be able to buy that. I don't know why a mother can't give all that a man can-- Don't know what this means. What can a man give to a child that a woman can't?

I might not disagree re: involved father figures, but one can have father figures without a father present.

"The reaction was swift and ferocious. She had many supporters, but hundreds of others attacked NWNW online as shallow, anti-feminist, lacking solutions, or a conservative tool. "

Really. I wonder why.

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So that was a pretty quick, angled reading of the article. I thought the article was written poorly and will stay away from articles by Jesse Washington in the future.[Then again, I don't recall much of what's written on MSNBC being well-written...so.]

RE: the comments about the author Mrs. Karazin's writing being a conservative tool...I don't know.

It's clear she has an agenda-- that she is pro-mother-and-father families. Which is completely fine. What isn't fine, though, is that her rationalization for it is based on complete tripe.

What I like about conservatives is that, generally, I don't get the feeling that they're hiding the ball all of the time. Instead of this undercover, poorly reasoned stuff.

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Anyway, first long entry in a while. Excuse me for not spelling a lot of things out or being clearer.

At the library, gonna try to get some work done. Long day, long night.

Deuces.