Embarassing Red State fertility: I'll return to data analysis tout de suite, but all this fascination with Sarah Palin and Red State fertility makes me want to confess something.
I'm ashamed to admit it, but my family, as David Letterman said of Palin's, could do a Jerry Springer show. It's embarassing, but my parents have 15 grandchildren, and I'm afraid we are probably not finished. You'll be shocked, but I have 20 cousins on my father's side and 25 on my mother's. I am unable to count the total number of children they have had, but relatives seem to average 3 or 4 kids.
We can't seem to get a handle on our baby making, so I'm sorry to say that we'll have to leave the very highest ranks of society to you Blue Staters. I do have siblings and cousins who are doctors, attorneys and business executives, and we do have kids who ace their exams--so I guess we've got something there--but as a group, we're pretty ordinary.
We're going to have to turn to you folks to save an overcrowded planet by limiting family size. Somebody's gotta run things and do the right thing. But hey don't pat yourself on the back too much for your sacrifice, because everyone looks up to you. Your name will be remembered. Nobody ever admired my ordinary clan of a couple hundred people.
So you just keep up the heroic choices, and my relatives, unfortunately, will keep on doing what they have always done.
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I'm hanging my head right now as I type this because we're up to five. Sorry about that.
ReplyDeleteRon,
ReplyDeleteHeh, delightful tongue-in-cheek.
I wish I could confess what you do. I have two siblings and 13 cousins, of which I am, at 25, the 8th oldest (right in the middle). We have zero children between the 15 of us. I will have two or three, beginning in about 5 years, but a couple of my cousins are in their early thirties now. Time's ticking. I wish we had your family's 'problem'.
Ron, are red states or Republicans even at replacement rate fertility?
ReplyDeleteBlue staters have a mercenary fertility army at their disposal. The reserves run 5 billion deep, and you can't possibly compete.
On his Links column, Half Sigma is about to file your website under the heading of "Prole."
ReplyDeleteEvidently, it's the kiss of status death.
I'm not particularly shocked. I come from a Utah Mormon family --- I'm only one of three in my nuclear family, mostly due to serious pregnancy complications in my mother, but my mother's one of ten and my father's one of 8, so I've got upwards of 65 first cousins, and at least several hundred second cousins.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit of a shock for my wife, having come from a family with about 8 first cousins, most of whom are overseas (in Ireland).
I don't like people. Why should I have kids?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, the planet can only support so many people. Eventually you are going to have to stop.