Pregnancy as Activism
(I wrote this in December 2008. I don't agree with this perspective any more)
The Duggar family (http://www.duggarfamily.com) just had their eighteenth child. They subscribe to the Quiverfull (QF) doctrine, which holds that "Children are an heritage of the Lord: and the Fruit of the Womb is His reward. Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them..."
So who are these folk?
Mama (Michelle) Duggar was voted 'Young Mother of the Year' in 2004 by American Mothers Incorporated, which also sponsors Mother's Day. Papa ("Jim Bob") Duggar is a former Arkansas legislator.
They would have been in junior high school (9/10th grade) when Bill Clinton first became Governor (1979).
Some adherents of QF have expressed concern over the drop in the white birthrate in the US and in Europe. A couple of others have expressed an eagerness to replace the lower and middle ranks of government with a more co-operative staff that will obey the will of the people and of their elected representatives. For example, by introducing Creationism into the public syllabus.
Education was one of Clinton's most vaunted achievements as Governor.
I can't find a lot of educational data for the Clinton years in Arkansas but David Osborne, who wrote a monograph on that subject, suggests (http://nymag.com/news/features/45063/index4.html) that Clinton got it just right, by not improving education too much on the grounds that better educated Arkansans would find greener pastures outside the state.
According to a census taken in 1990 (two years before Clinton left office and after nine years as Governor of Arkansas), 66% of Arkansans over 25 had high school diplomas, only 13% had a college degree and only 4.5% had post-graduate degrees.
According to a document (http://arkbea.org/policy/default.html) published by the Arkansas Business and Education Alliance, Arkansas has been ranked in the bottom forties for teacher pay despite being ranked in the mid-thirties in teacher qualification.
In a state which sheepishly thanks God for Mississippi, it might not be so odd for the Duggars to find some way of taking control of the situation. You cannot accuse them of ignorance. Trying to remedy a failure of the state is clearly not ignorance (and you will find their website quite insistent on the fact that they are well versed in the arts and that chess is the favourite family game)
Neither can you accuse them of irresponsibility - they haven't taken up arms, nor have they built themselves a fortified commune. Rather, they have relied on preaching, writing, running for office and (if you will pardon the pun) good breeding, to make their assault.
In my books that's a pretty good expression of Democracy and quite original.
The Duggar family (http://www.duggarfamily.com) just had their eighteenth child. They subscribe to the Quiverfull (QF) doctrine, which holds that "Children are an heritage of the Lord: and the Fruit of the Womb is His reward. Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them..."
So who are these folk?
Mama (Michelle) Duggar was voted 'Young Mother of the Year' in 2004 by American Mothers Incorporated, which also sponsors Mother's Day. Papa ("Jim Bob") Duggar is a former Arkansas legislator.
They would have been in junior high school (9/10th grade) when Bill Clinton first became Governor (1979).
Some adherents of QF have expressed concern over the drop in the white birthrate in the US and in Europe. A couple of others have expressed an eagerness to replace the lower and middle ranks of government with a more co-operative staff that will obey the will of the people and of their elected representatives. For example, by introducing Creationism into the public syllabus.
Education was one of Clinton's most vaunted achievements as Governor.
I can't find a lot of educational data for the Clinton years in Arkansas but David Osborne, who wrote a monograph on that subject, suggests (http://nymag.com/news/features/45063/index4.html) that Clinton got it just right, by not improving education too much on the grounds that better educated Arkansans would find greener pastures outside the state.
According to a census taken in 1990 (two years before Clinton left office and after nine years as Governor of Arkansas), 66% of Arkansans over 25 had high school diplomas, only 13% had a college degree and only 4.5% had post-graduate degrees.
According to a document (http://arkbea.org/policy/default.html) published by the Arkansas Business and Education Alliance, Arkansas has been ranked in the bottom forties for teacher pay despite being ranked in the mid-thirties in teacher qualification.
In a state which sheepishly thanks God for Mississippi, it might not be so odd for the Duggars to find some way of taking control of the situation. You cannot accuse them of ignorance. Trying to remedy a failure of the state is clearly not ignorance (and you will find their website quite insistent on the fact that they are well versed in the arts and that chess is the favourite family game)
Neither can you accuse them of irresponsibility - they haven't taken up arms, nor have they built themselves a fortified commune. Rather, they have relied on preaching, writing, running for office and (if you will pardon the pun) good breeding, to make their assault.
In my books that's a pretty good expression of Democracy and quite original.
Comments