Go introspect yourself.

And by "introspect", I mean "fuck".

LOLOLOL!!!1 ROFLMAO!!!one!!

Am I being serious?! I don't know! And neither do you!

Woo!

I think we should leave the venting thread to venting.

Disagreeing with someone's vent/debating whether someone is entitled to their vent/hating on someone because of their vent/getting in a huge friggin argument because of someone's vent should be done somewhere else. I figure that this should be a thread where you can vent about anything you want without feeling like you have to censor yourself. I mean, have some common sense and don't say things that you know will actively hurt someone on the board, but otherwise, feel free to say whatever you want. If you want to start a conversation about someone's vent, take it to PM or take it to the debate thread.

What I'm saying is, no one wants to hear that what they're feeling isn't what they should be feeling. Telling someone their vent is unwarranted is gonna make them feel bad.

I'm not saying it should be a rule. I'm saying that people shouldn't be snarky and/or bitchy about what other people are feeling. If you really have a problem with what someone says here, don't say something that will hurt their feelings, but ask them nicely in a PM to explain themselves more thoroughly. That way you can avoid misunderstandings, and if you're still miffed about what they said in their vent, start a thread that you can discuss it in and get other opinions that may be different from your own. Don't immediately come out and say, "Hey, it's dumb to be mad about that. You shouldn't feel that way, because I don't feel that way."

Basically, be smart enough and nice enough to think through what you say before you say it. If you think it's gonna hurt someone, think about it some more. If it's still bothering you, ask about it to get clarification. 

Could we possibly have the Biological Clock posts moved to a new thread? I have something I'd like to say, but it's not a vent.

Could someone please clarify what exactly the debate question is, in this thread? 

Is it whether or not this phenomenon exists and/or the cause of early bio-clocks?  Whether women who reproduce irresponsibly are bad people?  Whether fae or Aer is Right^TM?  Or possibly whether Bunner should ever be allowed within 50 miles of a child or other impressionable person?

All the other questions I can think of to talk about aren't so much debate as discussion.  For me, I know the drive exists.  Some people give in to it, others don't  A few of each are incredibly stupid, negligent, or just plain evil parents.  Quite a number of folks who ought to parent never do.  My husband never thought he'd have kids, yet he's really exactly the sort you'd want raising a few dozen of them.  They'd come out a little warped, but well-disciplined, well-educated, with a great sense of humor, and strong self-esteem. 

All I'm saying is, sure, there's plenty to say - I'm just not sure it's a debate.  I'm not sure what it is, but I'm thinking we need to figure out what the heck we're talking about.

Lack of a father at a young age can influence the desire to have children quite strongly, at least according to Robert J. Quinlan's paper, Father absence, parental care, and female reproductive development¹.


He says that Divorce or separation of a girl's parents before she is 5 predicts early menarche (twice as likely), early first sex (more than four times as likely), and early pregnancy (two and a half times as likely), while separation during a girls' adolescence predicts high numbers of sexual partners.

Dario Maestripieri, James R. Roney, Nicole DeBias, Kristina M. Durantend Geertrui M. Spaepen  of the Institute for Mind and Biology, University of Chicago, USA agree. In their paper, Father absence, menarche and interest in infants among adolescent girls² they state that "Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that father absence is associated with a developmental trajectory characterized by earlier readiness for reproduction and parenting."

There seem to be many other studies linking an absentee father with early pregnancies, too. What none of the studies I have found seem to do is examine the reasons that girls are affected in this way. Some ideas I have had are:
If your father disappears, perhaps the male population is going down, and so your culture really needs more babies asap.
If your father disappears, perhaps you are not going to be able to be provided for as a child, and need to become adult and attract a mate as soon as possible in order to get enough to eat.

This really interests me. What do you think?

1 http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(03)00039-4/abstract
2 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118806978/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Perhaps... if your father disappears, there is nobody with a large baseball bat and/or shotgun to keep the hypersexual teenage boys away from you?

lol.. of course, YMMV, and this is just a joke, and if I get attacked for the above statement, then I quit at life and you suck, and I hate... stuff. and whatnot.

*cries*

I heard from a VERY reliable source that crying is sexy. *nods sagely*

I think that hardship can play a large role in how a girl develops physically and emotionally. A girl with six younger siblings, a deadbeat daddy and a mother who is either always out working or constantly high is going to be forced to mature and learn to deal with difficult situations more quickly than a girl who hasn't had to work for anything and grown up in a healthy family environment. Consequently, the girl with the six siblings may be mature enough and/or feel the inclination to have her own family far sooner than the girl with the "ideal" upbringing. (I say ideal only because it's the only word I could think of to describe it. I know that everyone has a different idea of what makes the ideal family.)

I dunno about anyone else, but I tend to define it as "Man who takes no responsibility, financial or otherwise, in the raising of his children"

Certain exceptions may or may not apply depending on various legal circumstances. That's basically *my* rough, general definition.