Maria del Carmen Bousada gave birth to twins in December 2006, and died this week at the age of 69. Nadya Suleman gave birth to 14 children, which she might have some trouble supporting. There has been wailing, hand-wringing and bitchy scorn expressed about both of these women and their decisions. Thoughtless, selfish, plain old bad mothers (the ultimate insult to a woman) - many varied adjectives are tossed at them.
From a different perspective, though, how many new fathers of age 66 and over exist? No one knows. How many men have fathered 14 children that they do not support? No one knows. These men don't make headlines, and are rarely criticized. Certainly the 66+ - year-olds are not. The multiple fathers only are if caught in the wringer of child support, and even then they never make the news.
I have never been particularly sensitive to double standards: I am annoyed but not outraged that I must automatically take precautions every day that no man would need to think of in his entire lifetime. But still, this is one that needs to be examined.
From the beginning of women's liberation, I saw it not for women alone but for all people. Women could have real professions, not marry, not have children. Men could raise their children while the women worked. It was not the dissolution of one set of boundaries but the dissolution of all of them that should have ensued.
Men die young, too. Men can't keep their pants zipped. Men are thoughtless and selfish, loving and responsible. They get scant blame and scant praise for any of these characteristics.
Who will raise the children that these women (so selfishly and thoughtlessly) gave birth to? Loving relatives, perhaps. Failing that, loving adults who adopt or otherwise take them on in some other role. Failing that, they might grow up roughly, unloved and in trouble, like so many children whose parents are alive.
Watch over all children who are not appreciated, not properly taught, not just the few born in unusual circumstances. They all deserve loving, responsible parents, even those invisible to the press, who have parents but might as well not.
Not Cassandra, but an in-law
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I confess that I am more troubled by women like the 69 year old that had twins, than by a man who has children late and dies before grow up.
The fact of the matter is, most children prefer mom.
If we give up the fact that we are, biologically and psychologically, the true mothers of children, we do give up the thousands of years of worship given to us by mankind. The Venus of Willendorf, with a briefcase, and a stay at home dad in the kitchen? Loses some of her power.
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