Reform candidate calls for young girls to be 'educatd'

[QuirkySquid]

Ahh wondered when the Epstein, Thiel & Musk breeding programme would arrive in the UK. To the surprise of nobody, it arrives via Reform.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-matt-goodwin-gorton-denton-children-women-b2918340.html

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You do know @SwearyBearyhe’s 4 months younger than Brad Pitt 😀

😮😮😮

You sound delightful, I wonder why it took you 20 years to find a partner.

I agree. Discuss the issue. Teach the facts.
How many young girls are being sold - just freeze your eggs for later, along with I can get someone else to be the oven.

Much of what is driving the Reform vote is a response to the social changes that liberalism, equal rights etc has brought about...and of course, change ( and the concept of 'progress') is not always totally positive or socially healthy and can have negative consequences. For example, we are now seeing how social media ( once seen as an absolute positive) can be an absolute poison that re-conditions people's minds and behaviours and results in mental and social distress.

Likewise,the drive to women's equal participation in the workforce has led to many women putting off having children, or not being able to have them at all because they now cannot afford them, and so on. People used to get married and pair off far earlier in life and it was normal to have children in your twenties. That is not the case anymore, certainly not for the middle classes.

It is said that many women have fewer children than they would ideally have liked... if you leave having children until you are in your thirties then time is running out.....and the older you are the more complicated or difficult the choice to have children becomes.

So, when people talk about 'reactionaries' in a pejorative way they are not considering that every now and then we do, as a society, need to take a step back and assess what is working and what isn't. Re-assess values and priorities. Change is not always for the better and sometimes you end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

That's certainly not a plea to vote Reform - but it does provide some reflection on why what is considered 'progress' is not always an unadulterated positive. Society does not move in a straight line towards an imagined utopia. Patterns and themes repeat, and because human nature remains the same...people will always encounter the same kinds of issue.

Just trying to reach and teach men or reach and teach women is no use. We're all in it together. The value of family and stability have become unfashionable. The emphasis has been on individual freedom to 'be your best self'; to travel; go to university, party and have fun etc Many are now doing this until their thirties.

Women's fertility is at a peak in the late teens and twenties...it declines after that. Working class women and non western women are still having children young, though..... maybe they have more realistic expectations of male/female relationships? The idea being to create a family unit and then sustain it.

The urge for couples to have children is strong and always will be. It is part of our programming as human beings. Each new child brings with it hope for the future and it totally changes/revolutionises your priorities as a person.

Oh no how dare women live their own life for enjoyment!
Fertility declines very slowly, the vast majority of women have children regularly and easily in their 30s.

I'm reflecting on how social values and priorities have changed. Change is not always without negative or unexpected consequence at both personal and societal levels.

Even though many women continued to have childen well into their forties; they started far younger. There are more risks with a first time older mother.

Do you think a late teens working class woman who creates a family with her late teens working class male counterpart has a high chance of sustaining it? Of achieving a high quality, secure life for herself and her children? Because if we're going to be steering middle class women to see their WC sisters as role models in this regard, I'm not sure they're going to be particularly attracted by what they see. Particularly as all the lecturing of teen girls in the world isnt going to make their teen boyfriends any more likely to be ready for responsible coparenting.

There are no easy answers to any of life's big questions - but that doesn't mean we can't discus them with a degree of objectivity.

I imagine that a young couple has just as much chance of making it as an older couple. It depends on expectations to an extent, surely? As well as the character of the individuals involved? Having childen is not easy at any point in life. Even when/if you are settled in a career and with a mortgage or a desirable lifestyle.

When people did typically have children younger, the rest of scoiety was more set up to accommodate or support that. There was more council housing, and housing generally was more affordable, for example. So, my parents ( age 20 and 21) had a council house; my father had an apprenticeship and a skilled job that followed from that as a result. Families tended to live nearer to each other - and so could be more supportive in a practical way. There were fewer materialistic demands or expectations.

Our society has changed very rapidly since the early 1980s, and of course, as I suggested earlier none of us are lone agents, we all exist within a wider societal context and culture and when one element changes, then so must all the others in relation to it. But it must be possible to take a step back sometimes and reflect on where we are as a society and decide if we'd like to attempt to make some changes or make some adjustments to the way we live our lives, or to what it is we are expecting from it.

If you are going to educate girls to be aware of their fertility and its window and are suggsting to them that having a family is a desirable goal, then, of course you also have to educate young men to consider their responsibilities as men - and you have to support that...by facilitating more pathways into secure and respectable jobs, and by instilling some pride in being good partners and providers.

Speaking as an older woman, I would argue that girls could do with learning just how much female reproduction can impact our lives in comparison to males, sometimes even if we reproduce or don't. The reproductive burden is not equal for the sexes and I think if girls had more knowledge and knew ahead of time what could be planned for to lessen the impact it would benefit their lives and careers.

Off the top of my head: I think giving girls a good idea of how to plan financially to have children, learn how to advocate for themselves in workplaces with regards child caring responsibilities and maternity leave related issues. Teach them to advocate for themselves with regards maternity care to ensure they aren't ignored or badly treated by HCPs. Teach them how to ensure that, if things go wrong in their relationships, they have the ability to keep a roof over their heads and not have to stay with a man because they can't afford not to. Teach them that miscarriages can happen and what signs to looks out for and where to go for help and support. Teach them that hormonal contraception can cause health problems for some women with long-term use and that perhaps barrier methods might be better options. Teach girls about peri-menopause and menopause and how it can affect women differently depending on whether they've had kids or not. Teach them about pelvic floor exercises and how important those are.

Basically teach them more than just the basics of penis in vagina = baby.

There are just lots of things I had to find out on my own that I wish older women had told me or that I'd learned about at school. I see lots of women on MN who are asking for advice about the topics above because they didn't consider how to deal with them until they were faced with them.

Having said all this, I'm not at all sure that addressing any of these practicalities involved in women having children is what Reform have in mind.

I think the second needs to be done with demonstrable outcomes before we should even consider the first. Because we do have a fair bit of data about the prospects for young women when they enter into motherhood in teen relationships, and for their children too, and they're not particularly positive.
However I doubt greatly that there would be anything directed at making teenage boys more responsible fathers, given I'd inagine when these middle aged men are proposing very young women become pregnant they're not envisaging very young men as the fathers. I'm sure what they have in mind is very young women paired up with 'older established' men. Like themselves perhaps.

However I doubt greatly that there would be anything directed at making teenage boys more responsible fathers, given I'd inagine when these middle aged men are proposing very young women become pregnant they're not envisaging very young men as the fathers. I'm sure what they have in mind is very young women paired up with 'older established' men. Like themselves perhaps.

I don't have much time for Farage as a person or politician but this is a hell of a leap you're making there - you don't have a window into these men's minds and theorising about them in the way you have is frankly a bit strange on your part.

One in six UK wildlife species are already at risk of extinction due to human activity and encroachment by the existing population. A lot of the other species aren't in good shape either. But I'm not seeing any care or sense of responsibility about this on either the Left or the Right. Maybe I'm missing something?

Oh please. We constantly theorise about the motives of men on here. Speculating about these men based on patterns of behaviour common to men who view women as breeding stock is a lot less inappropriate on the feminist board than suggesting another woman is strange for speaking about it.

Being a mother in the UK today is exhausting. Most likely you’ll have to work full time, take on the lion’s share of all domestic & child related tasks (cooking, cleaning, laundry, homework, organising, transporting, medical, possibly MH support, all the mental load etc) while at the same time looking after elderly parents. Oh, and you’ll be expected to look sexy too.

I think this is the thing that needs to be talked about honestly to girls, ie, ‘unless you choose a father for your children very very carefully, someone who will actually pick up half of the domestic load, your life as a mother is likely to be one of grinding on every day through exhaustion, work and unpaid domestic labour. Are you sure you really want kids at all?’ But obviously that message would hardly accord with the ‘increase the population’ agenda.

I was led to believe as a young woman that I could have it all, the career and children, and the truth is it has been exhausting. If I could have my time again, and know what I knew now, rather than being sold a sanitised lie, I’d make different choices.

One really positive thing that does strike me about having children younger is that it means - presumably- you can avoid the horrible trap of having to care for children and frail elderly parents at the same time. Strangely though no mention of that from the Reform end - almost as though they take it for granted that women with kids are delighted to also take on unpaid social and nursing care for the very elderly.

My tone is probably a little jaundiced because I’ve spent a sleepless night, just a few weeks after having major surgery, dealing with a teen with a medical issue, and an elderly person who woke up constantly throughout the night. The joys of motherhood in neoliberal Britain are hardly enticing.

No Reform voters thinks it affects people like them.

It's why facist parties are successful.

The older a mother is, the more risky pregnancy becomes. The risks of miscarriage, birth defects, and complications rises steadily with age.

@ArabellaScott yes, that is something I am well aware of given the age I was when I had my children. That’s a risk for women individually to consider and not something that Farage and his mob need to lecture young women about. And it’s not their motivation either, to save women from those issues, and even if it was, this idea of taxing women is a vile way to go about it.

there was a story the other week about how more men in the UK are getting married in their 60s than they are in their 20s. And nobody thinks men trying to string out their childhood for as long as possible might have something to do with the fertility crisis? If they want a tax to support parents, they should tax all the big boys’ toys (motorbikes, expensive cycling gear, pricey games consoles) and use it to support single mums trying to raise their kids.

But only facilitating things for the young white men.

This is all linked to the 'great replacement' idea from America. That white people are being replaced. That women's reproductive choices need to be restricted, creating more young white mothers. Who will stay at home and raise said children. While promoting white men and removing EDI. Because EDI reduces jobs and freedoms for young white men.

It's a vile but strong and growing narrative.

You're not missing anything (although, am not entirely sure you meant to post on this thread). It's because of value. The value of a species needs to be greater than the social or economic force against it for the species to 'matter'.

There is actually a lot of legislation in this country to protect habitats and species. It's a question of how joined up it is (not very) and how it's enforced.