I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

I had an email spat with a Tx-based girlfriend over the blues and the reds. Namely, I am blue, she's red. Her argument? Well, it seems the blue states want us take care of everyone and feel that our taxes should go to help those less fortunate.

So, this seems soooooo much worse than say, taking all our taxes and using them to manipulate the press to effect a regime change, make the VP even richer, and take control of another country's resources? This is so much worse than hiring a former racehorse guy and making him head of FEMA, and paying him twice - once for a job he didn't do, and once again to quit?

hmmmm.....

And the subject we were discussing? Why is it women in this country don't get more help with childbirth and childrearing. Why is there not free access to healthcare for all children? Woops, I know, it's not part of GDP. It's not an economically productive activity (well except for buying tons of baby gear and all that). Help moms? 'What are you, nuts? Mine suffered. She didn't have one bloody bit of help her whole life. What's wrong with that?'

My friend was angry because she'd paid, with health insurance from a Fortune 500 company, a lot of dough to have her twins, and she felt her nanny (Mexican) would get to have them free. Ahhh, so now we're really down to the argument. The real issue is using economics to keep 'undesirables' from having more children. If we help women, give them and their children free healthcare, well isn't that just like handing undesirables a free breeding card?

And who is undesirable? Well, in this argument, which carries a long distance from its British Imperialist roots, is anyone brown, yellow, black, red, or nonwhite. Wait, let me restate that. If they've got a good job, so the argument goes, and they've assimilated into the greater society, and tasted prosperity, well they're all right then. They'll do the good old common sense thing and have 1-2 childen, possibly 3, but that's really stretching it, because that's all they can afford as white collar working stiffs.

Fair enough. So with that logic, undesirable;  poor; or undesirably poor; or poor and undesirable people would automatically quit having children on the spot because they can't afford it. By this Darwinian thought experiment, only the working, employed, and productive will bring forth issue, and therefore perpetuate the prosperous economy.

So why doesn't it work that way? It is true that people with middle class incomes do have fewer children, yes, that part of the formula is working. You know why? Because it's effin' hard to survive modern existence with children. You're a combination house-slave and office drone. Many of my friends became soccer chaperones and gave up any sort of evening life. For the kids, you know. It's all so they can have some sort of existence, interests, and achievements. They can't drive there, no. You have to drive them. And you can't leave them. It's not safe. So parents live in their car, in a quiet suburban hell of working, chaparoning, and errand-running. No one in their right mind would sign up for more of this crap.

But here's where the formula breaks down. It seems poor people and undesirable immigrants have loads of children, whether in this country or out of it. India doesn't have an enormous population for nothing, you know. What's up with that?

And this is not necessarily a bad thing. Lots of high achievers came from large, poverty-stricken families, facing enormous adversity. I am not saying every poor large family produces achievers and this is thus a mandate to reproduce en masse. But clearly some large and poor families do produce barrier-breakers and achievers on all fronts. Jackie Robinson came from a single-mom headed family of 6 or so, and they were impoverished beyond our current comprehension in this country. The guy who started Starbucks grew up in the projects in the Bronx. I could name similar examples all day. You get the idea.

So this lovely Imperial idea we've cherished for decades that affluence will produce the correct number of children and restrict impoverished children is bunk. What it really is....is a form of economic birth control. It's also why poor people don't seem to have abortions, and middle class white women aged 15-28 do. Children restrict your chances for movement, for career advancement. Now, this presumes you are in a position to strive for career advancement.

And it's only if you're a female do children restrict you. If you're a male, apparently, they ground you and make you a better producer. It's why we elect men presidents who are married with children. It's well known that the male with a family will work longer, harder, and more productively, and is less risky of a long-term management prospect than a single man.

So let me delineate how it looks on the Ladder Of Prosperity for working stiffs in this country. This is the white-collar world make-up. To obtain the best positions for prosperity, you first need to be male and married, with a family, preferably white, though that is changing and other races are being allowed to play. Second best prospect, unmarried male. Next best prospect: married female, who is childless or whose children have grown. She's grounded, and undistracted. Fourth best prospect, unmarried female, but you can't bet on her for the long term because she might get married and have babies, and well.... you know.  Married younger female is ok, but you know in advance she can't work too many hours and will need to take time off for doctor's appointments for the children. So promote her once in a while but not into any positions of serious importance. At least, not until the children are grown. Much less desirable is the single mom (yes I have been asked in job interviews about my family and marital status, though it's illegal to deny a job based on that). So any unmarried woman who gets pregnant....wow, look how far she drops down the ladder here. She has to find a way to get back up 3 rungs or so just to compete the next rung down from unmarried men for third and fourth best prospect for prosperity.

So much for equality of the sexes in the workplace.

And where do the poor fit? Lots of unmarried moms there with large families. What are their chances for advancement?

The whole idea of making sure there is no free medical care for moms and babies is a clever affluent ploy to prevent the poor from having more children. But hahaha.... the joke's on us. Anyone who senses you'd like to stamp 'em out, well what do you think their reaction will be? Darwin holds the answer, much as we should stop looking in this direction. It's to produce more offspring so the chances that one will survive will be greater. The joke is on the middle class - it costs them greatly, even with job-provided insurance, to have children in a society that does little to protect them, and allocates next to nothing for their education and survival. The poor have their children too, and do what they can to make sure they survive. My father came from a  large, poor, immigrant family. They almost starved to death during the Depression and WWII. He did well, earning a PhD, immigrating to America, and starting his own affluent little family. This is the hope of the poor....one of them will make it and prosper. But the middle class have cut off their nose to spite their face. Thinking to starve themselves of a much-needed benefit so as to keep another class down....

....well, are you laughing? Cause I'll say it again....the joke's on us.

And what about us as women who support this kind of thinking?

Well gee, I guess that leaves us free to continue to scrabble for 3rd and 4th place on the Prosperity Ladder.