We Found Our Son in the Subway • Hacker News Board

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#111

Post by jiggy2011 » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 4:23 AM UTC

vaadu wrote: post #109

jiggy2011 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an exaggeration, sterilisation should be sufficient. Edit: I'm being sarcastic.

Not a bad idea. What if the government offered free tubal ligation and vasectomy. If you later want to have kids that cost is on you to reverse it.

Here in the UK at least basically everyone has access to free contraception, you can usually walk into a health clinic and ask for a bag of condoms and they will give them to you.

I think there may also be mechanisms for women to get the contraceptive pill gratis if they are on government support.

The issue is though that this requires some degree of responsibility and planning, which is almost by definition missing in people who breed irresponsibly. So you have a lot of people who want a lot of children or are at least indifferent to having them, however they have no financial means to support that many children. I guess if you have not been successful career-wise then having a large family might give one a sense of accomplishment.

The upshot of that is that it's not fair to let these kids starve so the government has to offer welfare to these families. For example it is much easier to get government subsidised housing if you have children. So you end up with a situation like we have in the UK where people sometimes have children because they will get a free house (and if you have more kids you get a bigger house) where otherwise they might be homeless or forced to live with parents etc.

So quite the vicious cycle.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#112

Post by muriithi » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 4:27 AM UTC

This would never have happened in Kenya where the Children's Act expressly forbids homosexuals from adopting. Sad.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#113

Post by Evbn » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 4:31 AM UTC

twstws wrote: post #92

This was hard for me to read. I spent four years waiting to adopt a child.Did almost a year of training and home visits, then waited. And waited. Why does it take so long? Because we selfishly insisted that we'd only take one ortwo children. The social workers were not subtle in letting us know that we were selfish to not want a sibling group of 4 or 5(?!) kids all at once. They made it absolutely clear that we could…

Were you waiting in the same state/program/whatever? Maybe your state has less supply and you should enlist in NY.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#114

Post by Evbn » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 4:33 AM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #107

gsmaverick wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fyi, I believe this is actually a gay couple given the author's name is Peter and his partner is named Danny.

Oops, my fault for not paying attention to details. Still, who adopts a child spontaneously without consulting their parter? The real miracle here is the partner that didn't leave him over it.

In point of fact, quite many babies are conceived against the intent or desire of at least one parent.

And this adoption wasn't completed until Danny signed on. Someone had to start the ball rolling.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#115

Post by Evbn » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 4:36 AM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #102

slurgfest wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the implications of this "question" relies on the common belief that gay men are pedophiles and/or will teach gay sex to the children. In some people's heads, it's a matter of wicked, unclean gays corrupting the innocent children. If nobody had such beliefs, then it is virtually impossible to understand why we would suppose that gay people are unfit as parents.

No, there are arguments (I'm not saying good ones) for why gay parents are different. Traditionally fathers and mothers have had different roles, this is cultural, so what happens if a gay couple adopt and don't adapt to cover the traditional role of the other gender. To use an out-dated (very) and somewhat sexist example, how will the son of lesbians learn to hunt animals, how will the daughter of gay men learn to m…

Trqditional roles are really quite a weak notion. There is huge variance among parenting styles across the population.

Just no being a drug-addicted and not having a debilitating mental disorder is enough to be an above-average parent.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#116

Post by ck2 » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 4:37 AM UTC

Evbn wrote: post #114

ck2 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops, my fault for not paying attention to details. Still, who adopts a child spontaneously without consulting their parter? The real miracle here is the partner that didn't leave him over it.

In point of fact, quite many babies are conceived against the intent or desire of at least one parent. And this adoption wasn't completed until Danny signed on. Someone had to start the ball rolling.

Whoa, this isn't a puppy.

You don't adopt a child when you have a partner without even mentioning to them, let alone discussing it.

I mean that's insane, and I don't get the downvotes.

Who the hell adopts a kid while in a long-term relationship without even asking their partner?

It's all good because it turned out okay but seriously who does this? It's a massive life-changing event. You plan these things, otherwise it shows a complete lack of respect.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#117

Post by Evbn » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 4:39 AM UTC

slurgfest wrote: post #84

gambiting wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with the question you asked. Absolutely nothing. We are intelligent, educated people - if we ask these questions, it's not because we want to ridicule people or offend them,but because we are genuinely curious. The other option would be to remain ignorant and not ask in the fear that this question might offend someone, which in my brain is just sick and wrong.

But these are not randomly selected questions. To illustrate, consider if someone posted a story asking whether Jews were genetically disposed to be greedy. This could be dressed up quite a bit, and it's not impossible that this would very rarely be asked by someone without any social awareness. But there's a smart prior which says that someone asking such a question has a strong agenda and that the "just asking ques…

Racial social identity in inter-racial families is a hugely important issue, and ignoring it is deeply harmful to a child, who faces harassment from peers and strangers, internal confusion, etc.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#118

Post by kposehn » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 4:42 AM UTC

kirinan wrote: post #20

Renews faith in humanity. This belongs on HN, because it really does point out the humanity that we all want to touch with our development. These are real people, with real issues, with real emotions, and each one of them may be a user of our products, using them to improve their lives, their sons lives, or whatever. Its very important to be able to empathize with people, and be able to know their stories, this is th…

Nail.head.hit

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#119

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 4:55 AM UTC

twstws wrote: post #92

This was hard for me to read. I spent four years waiting to adopt a child.Did almost a year of training and home visits, then waited. And waited. Why does it take so long? Because we selfishly insisted that we'd only take one ortwo children. The social workers were not subtle in letting us know that we were selfish to not want a sibling group of 4 or 5(?!) kids all at once. They made it absolutely clear that we could…

I'd like to think that the judge in this case was (very pragmatically) wanting to avoid having the infant in foster care for any longer than necessary. I'm happy that it seems to have worked out.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#120

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Fri, Mar 01, 2013, 5:23 AM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #116

Evbn wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In point of fact, quite many babies are conceived against the intent or desire of at least one parent. And this adoption wasn't completed until Danny signed on. Someone had to start the ball rolling.

Whoa, this isn't a puppy. You don't adopt a child when you have a partner without even mentioning to them, let alone discussing it. I mean that's insane, and I don't get the downvotes. Who the hell adopts a kid while in a long-term relationship without even asking their partner? It's all good because it turned out okay but seriously who does this? It's a massive life-changing event. You plan these things, otherwise i…

>Who the hell adopts a kid while in a long-term relationship without even asking their partner?

Maybe there is context that we're not aware of. Perhaps they had both previously expressed a desire to raise children.