…being a good mother
by Linda Beale
crossposted with Ataxingmatter
Friday Animations–being a good mother
These days the tea partiers and libertarians have tended to mock those who think that we should all tax ourselves to take care of those who are less fortunate, and that the wealthiest amongst us–corporate managers, private equity managers, and shareholders–should pay more in taxes. Libertarians claim that everything they have “earned” is theirs, and that the government is stealing from them. They forget, or fail to notice, that nothing they have earned would have been possible without roads, contracts, internet, schools, disease control, decent food, clean air, clean water, clean soil, etc. Those are the things we want government to do for us–protect and preserve the environment that nurtures us, protect and preserve the infrastructure that gets us to and from our work and homes and lets us socialize with our friends and co-workers, protect and preserve our sources of food, clothing and housing. Help those of us who are most vulnerable whether from inherited traits or catastrophic illness or unfortunate accident or lack of work or old age. Protect and preserve.
So this struck me as a good video feature for today–a pup whose young ones had grown up and been adopted, willing to mother some motherless kittens who needed milk and warmth and pulling out of danger. Mothering. Maybe that isn’t far from what is at the heart of good government, community spirit, and neighborliness –caring and showing a willingness to help others, to protect them, and preserve for them a home.
as Hobbes said, “…..nasty, brutish and short.”
It would be hard to exaggerate the virtues of animals. Humans leave a lot to be desired in the virtue department. NO
mothering may be too strong an image for the american voter. but fathering ought to mean about the same thing, with a little more room for feeling virtuous about it.
Actually Linda hints that the root difference between the political points of view, is every (man,woman) an island, or are we all in this together. Its amazing how the evangelicals are on the wrong side of this if you really believe what christ said, but of course if his sayings do not conform to your theory they must be ignored.
lyle
actuall, christ predicted that. it’s funny the people running around saying you gotta have faith… jesus said judge the tree by it’s fruit. and “many will come in my name…so as to fool the very elect.”
the evangelicals.. the ones on TV are about like the rest of us. they believe what they want to believe and they believe they got the inside track on the truth.
If God wanted me to believe what the TV evangelicals say then he would talk to me, they are worse in His eyes than I am.
And Calvin was assuredly fooling the “elect”, who are not the folk who think they are.
The elect aren’t supposed to know whether they’re elected or not, but then a lot of Calvinists wind up cheating.
It’s the mothering instinct in my chicken that makes it want to sit on a vacume cleaner attatchment in a cupboard of my poarch. Females of all feathers are easily misdirected by these harmonal surges. Having little interest in female whim, I throw the silly hen out so she can eat earwigs and lay eggs.
(Having a great interest in male whims, however, I love throwing things out. Except my dog. )
cursed
puts his finger on it. people are like chickens. sadly, he has never seen a rooster so he does not know what foolishness male hormones lead to.
It takes getting married to come to really regret what those “foolishness male hormones lead to.”
I have at two banty roosters, and I have discovered that with chickens one can easily identify the essence of masculine and feminime charactoristics.
One of my roosters is dominate. First thing in the morning and last thing at nite he likes to kick the other roosters feathery behind. The rest of the time he has to worry managing his territory so silly free range hens don’t wonder off or get killed by a cat or a dog. Hens like the rest of their sisters are no good at defending territory.
Another thing that a rooster does that a hen never does is when he finds a tasty bug he steps aside so one of the hens can eat it. Hens never ever do this. Neither does the non dominate rooster. Hens like all females are covetous. When one finds a delicacy all the other ones seek to disposses the hen who has it.
Hens like females are mean to one another. I constantly have to seperate one little hen from the hens because they constantly peck her. If she nests with a rooster on either side of her she never has blood spots.
The hand that rocks the cradle is not fit to rule the nation
Voters are more like my pups then my chickens. When I allow the dam to visist the pups I misdirect the pups by attracting there attention, then I slide a board allowing the dam to rush in from another direction, while the pups are looking at me. We fool the pups every time.
When dishonest Abe said that you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, he might have been technically correct, but the truth is that you can fool enough of the people all of the time to hijack a democracy. Allowing females to particapate in the franchise makes fooling the electorate so much easier. The confused maternal instinct of this dog nursing kittens is case in point.
If one wants a long term relationship with a woman, one must learn to tolerate a certain level of kitten pictures, puppy pictures, and all that warm cuddly stuff. Relationship to public policy? Shaky.
islm:
quoting Mrs. Rustbelt:
“All men are dogs and most are not housebroken.”
cursed
setting aside the male female debate for a moment, i think you are on to a wrong headed idea with “allowing the dam to visit the pups.” this was a theory of child raising popular during the forties. destroyed a lot of young lives, not to mention robbing the mothers of the most fun they were ever likely to have in life.
Rusty,
I envy the social relations of moose and white tail deer.
Ah yes, the life of a rutting buck.
On the other hand, there a 1 million people with rifles in Michigan looking for the buck – don;t envy that so much.
I have not gotten one yet this season!
? The female dog needs to nurse, bite, and lick little behinds. I stay out of it as much as possible. I allowed the mother to handle it and hoped for the best. I took my ques from her. I know, that I know nothing, about many things. Mothering being one of them. There was one little rapscallion who was totally into self from the time he hit the ground. He never wanted to submit to the after nursing behind licking. The dam used some pretty tough love on him. Every night she would check them all out, and part of the process was giving them a good bite on the chest to get them to go with the program. That one little dude she would really give a particullary good chomp every night. I just figured a momma raising a litter, aint got time for nicities.
I think a seldom appriciated problem with our society is the we were not raised in large litters any more. So few litters being pumped out by stay at home mothers dishing out tough love. Now we have small litters with self absorbed, emasculated, pampered little princes who arrived at this condition in part because then never had to get out and scratch. To compete with multiple siblings, for both parents affection, and food on the table.
Well, he had the “short” part right. She’s a dachhund.
cursed
mothering ain’t what she used to be, that’s fer sure. whether for better or worser i can’t say. i have some sympathy for your views, but try not to get dogmatic about them. endless variety if you look for it.