Cofty, I don't think that fairness and no harm are the only morals that matter. A good many people also value loyalty and sanctity.
Modern Morality .
by jhine 48 Replies latest jw friends
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jhine
Vidiot , you say that you know couples who move in together to see if they can stand living with each other in the first place , isn't that the same thing ? Before they marry , if that is what they plan , they test the water . Then if they feel that they can be happy together they get married . Isn't that "try before you buy " They feel that having established that they can stand waking up to each other every morning they have a better chance of staying married when once the commitment is made . Only that does not seem to be the case .
Pistoff , I agree that couples who have no chance of staying together and are creating a bad atmosphere in the home , are not doing the children any favours staying together . Sadly divorce will happen . Trouble is when it happens how many times do children get caught in the crossfire ? Arguments over access , hearing one parent dissing the other , feeling that maybe somehow they are to blame (it does happen , children are very sensitive ) . I know one couple where they children are not allowed to talk about one parent , even to say what they have done during time spent with that parent ,when with the other parent . One of the children has started self harming . Of course that is an extreme case and thankfully not many adults are that immature , but in between the range of parents who handle divorce well and people like that are all sorts of situations where the children are punished for the anger between the spit couple . Maybe I am hand wringing but to go the other way and say that no harm is done by the higher number of couples who are splitting up (not necesarily divorcing ) is sticking your head in the sand . Real people , including grandparents who sometimes lose accesss to grandchildren , and I know someone to whom that has happened , are hurt by family breakups .
I cannot just be unlucky and know a disproportionate amount of couples who have children and have split up with the attendant problems that this brings .
jgnat , at the moment I can only say look around you . When I look I see many one parent families , many families where there are step parents (many of whom are excellent ) which means that children have limited access maybe to one parent and are possibly in situations of tension between real parents and step parents .
It isn't just family life that I have been discussing . Maybe teen pregnancy rates are lower , though I would have to check that for the U.K. , but is the fact that teenagers are having sex earlier before they are emotionally ready in some cases good ? . I absolutely agree that more open discussion of sexuality is good , so that teens can make more informed decisions . I do not agree with the WT attitude to sex .
Jan
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Apognophos
I have to agree. I'm not sure that it bothers me if unattached adults sleep around, but when parents break up, I think that the children are almost always harmed, even if the harm is not visible. In one case I know of, the children are seeing a therapist for their high anxiety since their parents split, and the girl is unable to even watch a movie in a theater without having a panic attack from the nervous stimulation of the sounds and visuals.
It seems to me that for most of human history, relationships were much more stable. Perhaps it was because there was far less mobility in the population, so one's choice of mate was limited. Of course there was more societal pressure to stay together too, but that was probably an effect of the aforementioned. One has to wonder how many of those couples genuinely loved each other, and yet somehow they stayed together without killing each other. Perhaps knowing that you can't just run away from the relationship forces you to try harder to make it work.
Of course there was also a sense of ownership of the man over the woman, and while I tend to inherently recoil at that notion, I suspect that when the relationship was not abusive this actually served a beneficial purpose as a glue that held the couple together. There was no guarantee that children would be raised in a loving environment, but at least it would be a stable one.
I'm not sure how much stability matters, versus affection, in raising a healthy child, but I suspect they're equally important. Because children were historically more vulnerable to predators, they were hardwired to be inherently more anxious than adults and to stay close to their parents for protection, so I believe that even an amicable divorce is fundamentally injurious to their psyche.
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Vidiot
jgnat - "Crime rates are down. Infant mortality is down. Teen pregnancy is down."
But... but... but... church attendance is down!
Auggggghhhhhhhh!!!
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jgnat
jhine, our perception can be skewed quite easily. I myself was a single parent and a teen parent. The alternative would have been battered wife, dead. I was a competent and responsible parent who worked hard to give my children stability. My ex is still an abusive jerk who has told my son on multiple occassions that he is a defective and should not have been born. My son shrugs it off because he knows he is a worthwhile human being. Both my children rise up and call me "blessed".
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be_ignorant_about_the_world
Agreed, children are better off born to mature parents. So teen pregnancy is a good indicator on the sociological health of a society. The lower the teen pregnancy rates, the better off the society. Here are the UK statistics. It is getting better, but still higher than the EU.
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Onager
I was in a lapdancing club for a stag do a few years ago. I had a brief conversation with one of the ladies, before she worked out I was there under sufferance and wasn't going to pay for any "fun".
She told me that she lives in Poland, but comes and works in this club in the UK for 3 months a year and that earns her enough money to live for the rest of the year in Poland.
I didn't enjoy a single minute I spent in that club. I mean, seriously? Sitting round a table with work colleagues is not the environment I want to be in when enjoying the sight of naked ladies. It's just weird.
But I can't argue against the ladies choosing to do it for work though. I wish I could work 3 months out of 12.
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jgnat
Onager, interesting economics. The cab drivers I talked to in New York worked for similar reasons. They made their money in the Big Apple then spent the rest of the year in Puerto Rico or some other tropical paradise. The noise, stink, dirt, and stress for a few months paid for paradise.
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Onager
Onager, interesting economics. The cab drivers I talked to in New York worked for similar reasons. They made their money in the Big Apple then spent the rest of the year in Puerto Rico or some other tropical paradise. The noise, stink, dirt, and stress for a few months paid for paradise.
Yeah, if a person is not being coerced into it then I don't have any argument against them doing something which I (or my sister or mother) would find distasteful.
If they are being forced into it against their will then that's a different matter. That's an issue that extends well beyond just the sex trade though.
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jhine
Jgnat , I do not argue that your children are better off without their father in the home (as are you ) I do acknowledge that some marriages are not going to work and that insome cases it is better for a couple to split . Many single parents are fantastic , of course, and I'm sorry if some of my comments are upsetting you , I am generalising I know . The fact does remain though that in many divorces the adults do not behave well and the children suffer , especially in the case of adultery when one parent is very bitter (understandably ) about the other . My adult friend whose dad went off with another woman still is punished for that . In a row with her Mom recently she was told "you are so much like your f.....g dad " !!!
These are real people not statistics who are suffering .
I have to agree that teen pregnancy rates are falling , not as much in the UK. as elsewhere though . I do not know how much truth there is in the percetion that this is partly caused by the fact that in our welfare system
single Moms are found flats and provided with an income by the state and this makes it attractive to have child , but I suspect that there may be some truth in that .
The figures for STIs (sexually transmitted infections ) tell a different story . the figures for 2012 are not good . Public Health England reports that the number of of STIs DIAGNOSED rose by 5% overall with the under 25s experiencing the highest rates . Half of the diagnoses were for Chlamydia , the incidence of which rose by 46% . It is known as the silent killer because it can go undetected for so long . It can cause pelvic inflammatory disease and damage women's reproductive tracts if left untreated .
This is a quote from Dr Gwenda Hughes from PHE . -
" Too many people are continuing to have unsafe sex , putting themselves at risk of STIs and the serious consequences associated with infection, including infertility . "
The people doing this are getting younger , is this because of the increasing sexualisation of young people and the prevalent attitude in todays modern youth culture that sex is almost a commodity , not something special to be , I want to use the word honoured but that may sound old fashioned .
As I said in an earlier post in our local pharmacy there are Chlamydia testing kits given out freely especially aimed at 15 - 24 yr olds . That speaks volumes about the problem .
I see jgnat that you have started a different thread about what constitutes good moral behaviour . I will follow that with interest .
Jan