Tuesday, April 24, 2007

In Praise of the Maiden Auntie

Tsk, tsk. Little Voxy-poo is all Up In Arms again, about the disaster which is College Education for Feminist Non-Brood-Mares. It seems as though fully one-third of college educated women are failing to breed! The horror!

Or perhaps not. Sometimes it seems to Pretty Lady as though her anti-feminist friends have two parallel brains; the brain that sanctifies the female as the Nurturess Over All, and the one which allows that some women are Fiends Incarnate, who should have their fallopian tubes cauterized at birth.

Really, boys! How many psychotic, neurotic, frenetic, generally messed-up females have you have the priviledge of knowing, and do you really think that all of these women ought to be in charge of babies?

It has been Pretty Lady's unfortunate experience to have encountered a great number of messed-up persons of both genders, Pretty Lady being a magnet for that sort of thing. And the sober conclusion that she has come to, after knowing these sorry people in an intimate way over a long period of time, is that some people should not breed.

One of the most interesting things she has noticed in her ad-hoc psychoanalytic adventures is that the vast majority of persons who were permanently scarred by a Mommy from Hell had mommies with abnormally high IQs. Pretty Lady doesn't know whether female valedictorians are more likely to mess up their children, in an orgy of thwarted ambition, or whether they merely are able to do so in more flamboyant ways.

Be this as it may, it strikes Pretty Lady that providing college educations to all potential Fiends Incarnate is a grand filtering process for weeding out the psychos, and safely installing them in civil-service middle-management positions, where their sadism can find a relatively harmless outlet. Ultimately, this race of twisted pseudo-humans will die out, or morph into cool-ass Maiden Aunties, an archetype for which there is ample historical precedent.

Because in Pretty Lady's considered opinion, the way to save Western Civilization is not to produce more forcibly Western Civilized humans at all costs. It is to produce stable, well-adjusted humans, who are pleased with their lot in life because they voluntarily chose it, and wish to pass this well-adjusted bliss along to the next generation. Creating a generation of traumatized individuals who were unwillingly raised by Mommies who would much, much, much rather have been backpacking through Nepal does not serve this end.

21 comments:

Granny J said...

Oh, so very well put!

Anonymous said...

I have yet to meet more than a handful of psychologically balanced, decent people whose IQs are genius or higher. There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that that high intelligence comes at a price in terms of sanity and other measures of how balanced you are.

k said...

THANK YOU!!!

--Signed,

A Professional Maiden (ie, childless) Auntie.

miket, statistics say you're correct.

I, of course, like to think I'm a stellar exception.

Although...now that you mention it, it sure didn't start out that way...

BoysMom said...

I have to disagree with Miket. My father is a genius IQ, my mother is very close if not there. The difference, I think, lies in growing up in a family where everyone else is just as smart as you are and it is No Big Deal, you are normal compared to those around you. Well adjusted? Well, they are no worse than the average American.
I suspect that being able to manipulate, and get away with manipulating, those around you from a very young age does far more to damage a person than intellegence alone does.

Pretty Lady said...

Gracious, I wasn't even thinking genius. It seems to me that even persons of IQs over 150 or so have a rough time playing 24/7 nanny, unless they have a specific vocation to do so--my own dear mother falling into this category. Boysmom, I suspect that you are a great deal like my mother.

The fact is, some women are born to nurture, others should be strongly encouraged not to attempt the experiment. It is that simple. This 'one lifestyle fits all' method of social arbitration strikes me as Extremely Dangerous.

And, MikeT, for what it's worth, Pretty Lady considers herself extremely sane and well-balanced, as long as she does not have to be around other people's toddlers for more than two hours a week. Should she produce a toddler of her own one day, it is to be hoped that this toddler will be roughly similar to her in terms of temperament and intellect. If he turns out to be like some of those monsters she used to babysit, she will not answer for the consequences.

Desert Cat said...

IQ 165--I'll leave you to decide how sane or balanced I am. ;P

Anonymous said...

"I suspect that being able to manipulate, and get away with manipulating, those around you from a very young age does far more to damage a person than intelligence alone does."
I strongly suspect you're bang on the money with that, Boysmum.

"IQ 165--I'll leave you to decide how sane or balanced I am."
That's leaving the barn dooe *wide* open, DC.. :)

k said...

Yeah. I'm with boysmom too. BIG time.

DC, you see, statements like that are prima facie evidence that you ARE nicely sane and balanced.

But, don't worry. I won't blow your cover.

Chris Rywalt said...

PL sez:
Should she produce a toddler of her own one day, it is to be hoped that this toddler will be roughly similar to her in terms of temperament and intellect. If he turns out to be like some of those monsters she used to babysit, she will not answer for the consequences.

In my experience I have learned that your own children are different. I never liked other people's kids very much and don't enjoy spending time with kids at all. I'm told I'm good with them -- I coach soccer now (which is hilarious on so many levels) -- but dealing with kids is just one more item on a long list of things I'm good at but don't like to do.

But my own kids are totally different. Somehow the biological programming takes over and makes it okay. I mean, they still make me nuts. But I like them more than I like other kids.

As far as your kids turning out like you, I don't think there's any way to predict it. Children arrive as themselves, I'm convinced.

Pretty Lady said...

Well, of course Pretty Lady is not interested in spawning a Mini-Me; she is not quite so narcissistic as that. But a reasonable amount of intelligence, plus a tendency to sleep regularly and soundly would be very, very, very nice.

The ADD brats who threw their blocks at her shins instead of building intricate palaces with them, as she did at the age of three, made her extremely apprehensive.

Anonymous said...

Hate to tell you, Pretty Lady, but the smarter your kid, the more hellish their toddler years. But Chris is absolutely right; it *is* so very different when they're your own.

Judge Well Ye Wolves said...

"We are but a moment's sunlight, fading in the grass."
This golden age of unencumbered choice for women and men will not last long I fear. The long-term effects of divorce, family dissolution, media-rich child-rearing are not clear- but so far, I don't see that they point to anything positive. Do barrens (male and female; in disclosure, I am one) have a contributory role in maintaining society if they don't have a genetic hook into the next generation? When a population of a town ages, there is a point when most of the children of one generation are in high-school or gone. Those parents tend to vote school funding increases down in their city, on the grounds that it won't be doing them any good anymore. Don't even get me started on senior citizens. The point- do barrens uplift a culture long-term? The answer? We don't know yet!

Chris Rywalt said...

Mitzibel sez:
Hate to tell you, Pretty Lady, but the smarter your kid, the more hellish their toddler years.

Forget the toddler years. My kids are at least as smart as my wife and I and are now nearly 10 and 8. And they are completely insane. William has ADHD and maybe even Asperger's, so he's not typical by a long shot, but he is incredibly challenging. Some days he's wonderful and amazing, as when he decides he's going to memorize Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter" (something I didn't do until high school). Some days are difficult, as when he decides "fuck" is his new favorite word.

Corinne isn't as wildly crazy, but she's sensitive. If I just use the wrong tone of voice -- wrong being unpredictable at any given time -- she'll just shut down.

The toddler years were, in many ways, much easier than this. Toddlers don't argue as much, for one thing.

What I'm saying, PL, is unless you have children with someone much dumber than yourself, your kids are going to be hell on wheels. But that's a good thing. You don't want to raise a sheep, do you? I was thinking of writing a book on my philosophy of parenting. I was going to title it Bringing Up Spartacus. Because who would you rather your kid be, Spartacus or those pasty-faced Roman generals whose butts he kicked all over the Italian peninsula?

Judge Well Ye Wolves said...

I'm sorry, Chris, refresh my memory- who ended up on a T-bar along the Appian Way?
PL- Should you decide NOT to have children that are "hell on wheels", and need someone much less, um, capable than yourself (per Chris' suggestion) to help you with that- well, I don't want to brag, but.....

Judge Well Ye Wolves said...

See, I prove it daily- clear writing eludes me:"Should you decide to have children that are NOT "hell on wheels"

Chris Rywalt said...

JWYW sez:
I'm sorry, Chris, refresh my memory- who ended up on a T-bar along the Appian Way?

I'm sure most people would agree that that's beside the point.

Judge Well Ye Wolves said...

OK- that comment is now 0 for 2. What was typed as light-hearted josh came out looking snarky. I apologize, Chris, for any offense given; no disrespect intended.

Chris Rywalt said...

Oh, no, not at all. The only reason I didn't mention the ending was so someone else could. If anything, I sounded hurt because my writing is below par today thanks to a nasty sinus infection. I'm just not all here.

So you didn't sound snarky. Don't worry about it.

Anonymous said...

hehe. you call him voxy-poo. ^_^

Desert Cat said...

"Little", no less.

k said...

That's because she is not afraid to speak the truth.