Prolific Fatherhood

You're going to love this story. This man has 21 children and he's only 29 years old.

Outraged?

I think it's strange that there is so much outrage. Is it only me? Here's a fellow who is doing nothing illegal. It sure looks like he didn't rape anyone. It looks like the ladies knew what they were dealing with. Here's a fellow who earns minimum wage and proudly states he had four children in one year. Twice. And this is a guy you wanna "get with?"

Slim pickins out there, I guess.

Sure, as a Christian, I would have to state right here that sex is a gift best reserved for marriage. I'd also state that the young man is rather irresponsible, as are his mistresses. (Is that what I should call them? I want to be reasonably respectful, but blunt. Maybe those two qualities don't go together very well.) These folks are not thinking about the consequences of their actions in regard to the people they'll bring into this world.

But here's what I'm thinking: without Jesus, this behaviour makes a lot of sense. As do a lot of other things.

Without Jesus, why WOULDN'T it be ok to have sex with whoever, whenever you felt like it? You'd only have to consider the potential consequences to yourself if you lived like that. You could reason that you're not hurting anybody, and totally flip off the nutty religious folks and say it's "love." Then you could fall in "love" with a different person every few months or so.

What's wrong with that? I mean, without some moral framework that says such behaviour is wrong, what's wrong with that? (And yes, I recognize that some folks have a moral framework apart from God. I used to be an atheist, you know. I think I still have the T-shirt somewhere. But my moral framework came from within myself and what I felt was right, and was not based on outside, unchanging things like the Bible and Truth. Then again, I'm following the Bible and what I feeeeeel to be Truth. So round we go... Um, another post.)

And yes, you can get all hopping mad if you want to that all of us are supporting these children with our tax dollars. (I'd agree... though calls to castrate the fellow are a little over the top, don'cha think??) But look. If anything, that shows a little planning on the part of ol' Mr. Desmond here. His kids might not vacation at Disney World, but they're provided for. They're not starving. And all you folks getting all outraged have to realize that this is the sort of thing that we encourage when we provide a "safety net" for the poor and jobless.

It's for the children.

I mean, I might disagree with the whole premise of the government giving handouts to people, but I can understand that the outrage is a bit misplaced when the funds are there for the KIDS. Shouldn't we be glad that these children are being helped by someone? And instead of getting all mad at the moms and dad in this situation, can we get angry that we've instituted a system that allows this to happen on such a regular basis?

Jesus said that you'll always have the poor with you. To my mind, it's just a question of who should be helping the poor and under what circumstances. Are we comfortable helping poor people who made poor decisions? The question is an important one. Maybe it's just my little brain thinking off-kilter... but we're not called to help just those who lived moral lives and are going through hard times. We're called to help the drunken homeless and everyone else. Not to enable, but to help. Which sometimes means saying no, and letting that person go through a hard time. Sometimes that means "throwing good money after bad on people who won't change." If it's my money and I get to decide how to spend it, I hope that I do the best I can with the resources I'm given.

Another matter altogether to talk of government spending on the poor.

Another matter even after that to act all surprised that people take advantage of Uncle Sam!

I hear alarming statistics about out of wedlock births and the dependence of the poor on the government. May I gently say... all it takes is one economic downturn, and we're there with them. On the other hand, all it takes is one massive economic downturn, and these children might not get the support they need...

If I were to get a VOTE on whether this lifestyle were legal and ok, I'd vote no. But I don't get a vote. It's too bad, too, because if y'all think I'm intolerant now, there's a whole lotta other stuff out there I'd be nyet-ing.