I think it’s far too easy to make generalizations. Statistics are great for that, but they don’t necessarily tell you what’s really going on.

Sure, a lot of poor kids come from home with drug abuse or alcoholism.

A lot of families are poor because they have too many kids they cannot afford.

A lot of large families are religious, and are poor because they think “God will take care of me”.

A lot of educated women have fewer children for many reasons (me being one of them). Concern for paying for college, concern for the environment, concern for my career, concern for my age.

I’m not sure why suddenly the whole white/black/brown thing came into play. I live in Cali, and in my town your financial success (which I don’t believe is the only measure of success) depends a bit more on your ability to speak English and less on the color of your skin. I’ve got lots of Latino friends whose families have been here for generations, and they don’t even speak Spanish. The color of their skin is meaningless.

And many of my educated friends are having three children these days.

One of the problems I’m facing these days in trying to restart my own career is reading overload. This is made worse because my reading speed has decreased over the years, due to a couple of medical issues.

What’s your approximate reading speed? How long (in hours) would it take you to finish reading a three hundred page novel? A New York Times editorial?

And if you ever feel overwhelmed by the reading load, how do you triage for selecting which things to read?

Thanks!

@anyone – If you put a link in a comment, I wouldn’t expect it to get approved in a reasonable amount of time to contribute to the discussion, even if you have commented many times in the past in a constructive way. Even if your link is constructive.

I can understand the desire to not be constantly approve comments, but as a “full-time” blogger, don’t you think 2-3 times a day of quick moderation is possible?

I know you keep notes on lots of different areas of your life, but I’m interested in a particular area: Work-related ideas. I take so many notes at work (in meetings, requests from my boss, things to follow up on, etc.) and sometimes, I have ideas for things to pursue that I can’t necessarily work on right now, but want to keep in mind for the future.

Do you keep notes on “big ideas” for your blog, and if so, how do you keep those ideas from getting lost in the day-to-day shuffle? Do you have any suggestions on how to budget “big idea cultivation” into work time?

This conversation has become so deeply offensive it’s almost laughable. These people are actually talking about having the government determine who gets to have children and who doesn’t.

Do you people understand why this is a basic human right? Why disabled people went to court for the right to have children? Poor people, people with disabilities, even people struggling with addictions–they all have just as much to teach their children as you do. You can’t shape society according to your own image. Get over it.

Trent, you’ve got to speak up. Or delete the above comments. Or something. This isn’t just another simple debate. We’re on the road to arguing that forced sterilization (i.e. that favorite tool of genocide) is OK. Are you reading me here? Is this registering?

Interesting experiment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you found the same results on any blog that is monitored by the blogger. I think its human nature to not like having people disagree with you, especially if they can back it up.

I have been on the internet since 1990 and am quite familiar with the terms “flaming” and “trolls” so please save your sunday school lesson.

Just because someone describes something as flaming doesn’t mean that it is. The problem with the term flaming is that its a matter of opinion unless a person is using profanity and specifically saying things like “you’re an #$#@#”. Even your little example could be seen as aggressively disagreeing rather than flaming. I was just expressing my opinion that writing how you tell your wife that your readers are either dumber than you and don’t get it or they are trolls is very pretentious.

The only way–and yes, I believe it’s the sole factor which will make the difference–is deregulation of contraceptive sales. Britain is already doing this. The right wing has run Planned Parenthood out of many medium-sized cities for abortions, and no one has stepped in to take over their services in providing before-the-act contraception support for the underclass. Implants, not pills, are by far the better choice for a class which has little or no experience with impulse control and should be available at free clinics and on a sliding scale for the working poor.

1. The mortality rate associated with lower socioeconomic levels more than covers that 10% disparity in birth rates.

2. There is a tendency for populations to gravitate towards the mean. Some ‘poor’ people are going to do better regardless of their parentage.

3. The parents aren’t solely responsible for the education of the offspring, society covers a large part of that and societal values are what the children learn.

It’s a crappy argument, and as someone pointed out, it’s eugenics. In trying to give a pat answer to an email, you ended up with egg on your face. Stick to money, leave behavior and breeding to the ‘ologists.