Society is out of tune with our biological nature. A lot of problems in our society come from an imbalance between the laws and expectations of society and our own natures. Teen pregnancy is looked at as a bad thing, but perhaps what is wrong is that society doesn’t give teenagers the option of growing up as fast as their bodies do. In ancient times and in other parts or the world people have children and start families at younger ages without suffering from it. I feel that as a teenager I could have handled being a parent if society was set up in such a way to more fully support it. But the simple reality is that it’s not. The problem is not as simple as that, there are many factors involved, a big one is that people do not agree on what chastity means and how to teach sex education. Another problem is that schools are so unwilling to make accommodations, but without education our status in society is compromised. So we must chose to forfeit our education and social status to have a family when we are biologically designed to do so, or stifle that energy for many years until education and career are taken care of and society accepts you as a fully capable adult. Given those two options it’s no wonder people look for another way, through birth control, porn and masturbation, abortion, etc. but even these alternatives are looked down on. I hope someday all this fanatic, uncompromising obedience to religious dogma will fade away and people will come to a more rational recognition of nature, but from the looks of things that day is a long way off.

Any thoughts?

Interesting
Society is comprised of imposed ideals that people go with over time, and deem normal. Religion, in order for it to get to the people, adapts to certain societal conditions, and then teaches opposite, if it is proper teachings.

Being a parent isn't easy as just having a child, getting a job and paying bills, loving the child and family. One can do just that, but that is still what we are shown to believe in as a way for a proper family. What I am saying is even the ideas of having a family are influenced by many aspects of ideals that people shape society with.
Though in the old days people had children at younger ages, it didn't mean it was proper for their real purpose. It was only proper for their conditional purposes. So it didn't mean their actions weren't improper either.

Now in our society, we are all faced with pressures not just of society, but of corporations and government. They feed ideas into society so the people can shape their lives around them. There are more layers to the world's societal functions than meets the eyes. More times than not, the gov. and corporations utilize certain religious institutions for their own benefits, and thus society is imposed on by institutionalized morals set with the function to make those in power have more power and those with money to have more money.
If we look to how our body develops, then we can have children when we reach the prime high point of puberty. But that still doesn't change the ignorance in society. Unless there is support for it to be that way, it won't be. And when there is support for it, in the now of society, there will be more changes that need to happen before it can be fully balanced.
Why have children anyway?

Is masturbation, abortion, porn...natural?

In either case, we would have to ask if having children at an earlier age is more fitting for the educational development of ourselves and our children. Education not just in school, but in life experience, developing proper wisdom and wise discrimination.

In my own opinion, I wouldn't have children at all. No hatred for them, no thoughts of a bother, just not in our world society, and also that I see no need, reason and function to have children in my life. I rather cultivate without the help of a child...there is the world and its living beings to take care of. That is enough for me

Peace and Blessings friend,
Lin

I think there is a big difference between being physically ready to have children and being emotionally ready to have children. Most people under the age of 20 simply are not emotionally ready for that level of responsibility. I was 35 when I had my daughter, and it was still a big adjustment. I think one of the things that is different now days is that we have a much longer life span - nearly twice as long as it used to be. What has happened is there is a very long extended adolesence - well into the 20's. But that doesn't change the fact that most people are physically ready for sex in their teens. I think society needs to accept that and take the responsibility for teaching safe sex rather than abstinance (which is the same thing as sticking your head in the sand IMO).

Agreed!

I would like to add...Wise enough to have children

It took us over 2 years to decide if we were responsible enough to get our kittens!

We will never be ready for kids

Many interesting ideas, arnquist. Not entirely sure I agree with any of your assumptions!

I'm 31 and still feel like I'm on extended adolescence at times I honestly never wanted kids, but having it happen before you're 18 kinda changes your perspective. I couldnt imagine how different my life would be without my son...he's 13 now and almost as big as I am!
In some ways it has been good, in others its left me fairly disoriented. I have so many more ideas about parenting now (lol...now that I have been through a decent portion...) as opposed to before...but moving forward inadvertently always has large amounts of gray area! (I've already given him the 'wrap it!' talk )

Check out the book "Sex, Lies and Menopause" if you have time.

Actually, a woman's cervix these days doesn't really mature until her early 20s. So, 23 is about the optimum time to pop one out.

Although, I agree that earlier is probably better than later for the baby. Risk of birth defects definitely goes up with the age of the mom.

This is why I say in a Taoist government, these types of things would be well-studied and publicized. When it comes to family planning, the populace should be educated on optimal biological ages to bear children, etc.

Thanks for the interesting seed for discussion.

WHile therre is a lot that I could say about it and philosophize, I think I will say something that really might be a different perspective.

Let's talk about scaling laws. Scaling laws are those relations that by looking at what your size is, can predict how long will you live, how much is your blood pumping, its pressure, how much do you breath, and so on. For example it has been known for quite a long time that number of heartbeats in a lifetime is pretty much constant between different species. Oh, yes, those are all average quantities, averaged over a whole specie. So I can predict how much will on average live a 0.1 kg creature, just by knowing its weight, and so on. Those are laws that span through many orders of magnitude, maeaning they are equally true for the smallest multicellular being, as for the biggest mammalian. We knew about some of them from a long time, but now for the first time we are starting to have a theory about why it is so. And because of the theory we are discovering a lot more. And extending the work in many other places, like looking at scaling laws between cities, and so on.
The person who really brought this work on is Geoffrey West (Santa Fe Institute). In my memory Geoffrey is the person, that when I asked him how could I learn more about his work, he answered: "Any of my nature papers will do". Any... Wow.

Well, one of the scaling laws predicts the amount of energy that is consumed by a creature. Another when is on average its reproduction time. And since those two are related between them, knowing one you can know the other. Well, the average reproduction time for a chimpanzee of our size, is about 13 years, give or take a couple. But we don't consume any more the energy of a 65 kg chimpanzee. We, with out house, our car, and so on, consume about the energy of a small whale. So each of us, in the west, is like a small whale. Now the reproduction time for a small whale is about 35 years, so we are absolutely inside nature when we reproduce at 35.

And why is it so? Why scaling laws, are a big topic and I remind the interested reader to any of Geoffrey Nature paper (there is actually an mp3 of him giving a lesson on the web). But this particular effect you could think of it as: the more we become big, the more we need time to grow before reaching an adult (according to our society size). This is when you have a house, a car, a job, and generally are an ok member of society, not needing mommy or daddy to support you anymore. This takes time. To grow from 65 kg, to the tons needed through the external objects that you need to own, and to learn how to control all your external body takes time. So at 13 a kid is not fully formed anymore, does not know how to control what will become his external body, and is surely not ready to have kids. At 35 he is, and this is why we reproduce at 35.


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...1187290,00.html
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/94

Very interesting, Pietro. Thanks for sharing!

Yes, I was totally blown away by his work when I saw his first speach. I see him as the guy who is giving birth to a new biology. One that has predictive abilities, like physics, and not just descritpive abilities like it had for the last hundreds of years. I am pretty sure he will win the Nobel prize for his work some time soon. And for the non academists, Nature is considered a very high ranked journal. It is very hard to get a paper in Nature. So someone who sais: "any of my Nature papers will do", is indirectly telling you how succesful his work has been.

By the way the link I put before, the one from video google, is of a talk quite similar to the one I have seen. Same non existant power point, same hand written slides, same concepts, even same structure of the talk. I just spent 1 hour looking at that, again.

Where I come from the ob/gyns had a special professional term for women over 25 expecting their first child: "oldster-labor." In large enough cities accordingly equipped, "oldster-labor" cases were placed in special high-risk birthing facilities, because all kinds of complications in this age group were well known to be the norm more than the exception. Statistically, the ideal age, in terms of the baby's and mother's health shining rather than failing (right away as well as for the rest of their respective lives), was found to be between 18 and 23.

As for emotional readiness, I don't know many modern people who are ready to be real parents in any age group. That's because nearly all were brought up by parents just like themselves, i.e. parents who were unconsciously trying to get from their children what they didn't get from their parents. Energetic/emotional vampire parents. Or the toxic-dumping parents. Or the "I'm-too-busy-to-be-bothered-by-your-problems (so don't you dare have any)" parents. Or the "now that you're here, you'll have to work real hard to prove to me that you deserve to exist" parents. Or... I could go on and on, the list is infinitely long and exceedingly bleak.

Parenting is supposed to be about giving, not getting. This has been screwed up in civilized societies for a bunch of thousand years, and I believe that's what's wrong at the core of everything that ever went wrong. This, far as I've been able to discern, is the root of not some but all evil in our world.

I think one of the biggest (but by no means the only) problems with teen pregnancy is the fact that our society shows so little respect to young people. In Australia you cannot vote until you're 18, and yet you can drive a car and buy smokes at 16. We're treated like children throughout school and then expected to magically "grow up" in the few summer months between graduating and starting university. In a number of other societies a child becomes an adult when they reach puberty. They can take on the responsibilities and rights of being an adult. They can start to procreate (and it's expected of them). We in the west say that these children have "had their childhood taken away", but I disagree. I think we simply smother our young far too much - wrap them up in cotton wool so they don't have to see the nasty side of life... and still expect them to function fully when they reach 'adulthood'. I think this shows that Western culture truly is moving further away from the natural way and cycle of life.

Where in Australia can you buy smokes at 16? And, it should be pointed out, that you can only be a learner driver at 16.

There is no "magic" age when someone becomes an adult.

Quite frankly, I am glad that I didn't have any expectation from family members or myself to procreate at the onset of menses!

I tend to agree.
Historically, humans have lived much shorter lives - and have been much more intensively involved with responsible physical labor (farming, gardening, ranching) from an earlier age.

I think that if I'd grown up on a farm/ranch, I would've been helping from somewhere in grade school, and by the time I was in my mid-teens I'd be running the place... and perhaps starting to shift towards starting a place of my own, clearing trees, plowing fields, building my own place, starting a family, with all that youthful teen-to-mid-twenties energy.

~ later ~
Also, I think that community structure has been different historically. Smaller more isolated villages, so that you actually knew and looked out for everyone in your village as a process of growing up, helped take care of each other's kids (even while growing up), etc. Living with the extended family was more common.

Modern community tends to be very fragmented. People live alone, with one or two people, or with just their immediate family, - and often don't know nor hang out with even their immediate neighbors. There's a lot of resultant isolation, both psychologically and practically, including the increased burden of raising kids alone vs. the more traditional structure of "it takes a village to raise a child".

I think that (at least some of) the Amish social model is very appealing. Also the modern movement of Intentional Communities (link).

hear hear! contemplate original sin. we chose to baptize at home to avoid the term original sin dumped on the kid by some priest, (something that was a major frictional issue btw the king and the church in Denmark around 16-1700). but you know, it seems to be a deep worldwide both sub and conscious consensus about this, it seems hard to avoid. i think this is what hurts the most is when you realize that you have unwillingly contributed to this domino-effect dumping your own unconscious sh on your child. if that isnt the ultimate evil..

This really rings true to me being a former Mormon. I am so grateful for my parents, I think they did a really good job. Which is why I'm excited about starting my own family when the time comes. People who investigate the Mormon church and are willing to look past the mythology will see well balanced, loving, respectful people. Well, that's usually what you'll see. Mormons aren't perfect, they're just trying to be. And I don't think that's a bad attitude to have, as long as you realize perfection is impossible and don't get stressed out over it. Anyway, families are the most important thing in the world. Bad families leads to bad societies leads to bad world.

depends on what period in history we look at. We've been taught the system of "history" invented in Germany about 150 years ago that postulated "progress" and "improvement" of the human condition (without any scientific proof, incidentally -- it was just decided that people need to be taught that their lives are getting better and better, they are much easier to manipulate if they are told that whatever is done to them is making their lives better and longer) --
--however, the well-informed (and the non-sold-out) among paleoanthropologists assert the opposite:

prehistoric humans lived long healthy lives, and were equally good at caring for the young and the old (e.g., skeletons were found with evidence of disabling injuries that happened at least thirty years prior to the individual's death -- which means someone cared for the prehistoric disabled person during all this time.) The skeletons they loved to date as those of 25-year-olds (asserting that's the average prehistoric life span) on closer examination proved to be those of 75-year-olds free of modern disease...

It ain't for nothing that the main mantra of taoism is "return," not "advancement." They knew...


Oh sister...

yeah, it's one huge banana peel spread underfoot -- every generation slips at exactly the same spot.

??? You have any peer reviewed studies to back that up or just more anecdotal evidence from your family? The "consensus" between science, comparing historical records and archeaology shows that people live long NOW, and that is djusting for infant mortality because people always try to claim the whole "no, people just seem to live longer because less babies dies artificially inflating the average life span". We can compare growth rings in bones etc. to see how old people were at the time of death.
Every society has had a "Golden Age" myth just like most people look back on the times of their childhood as "the good ole days". The bottom line is it is wishful thinking and doesn't fit the evidence. The only "scientists" who back up claims that we live shorter or less healthy lives (admittedly we do now have problems with people eating too much, or over processed foods, but less death from common diseases etc) are those whose "scientific method" fits quite comfortably into those of Intelligent Design or Conspiracy "researchers".
"Progress" is not always a good thing, it gave us the Bomb, but it also gave us Penicilin. We certainly need to reconnect with Nature, but we don't need to throw out what we have learned during the past few hundred years of scientific "advancement". Lao Tzu said to "stay with the ancient Tao, yet move with the present", we need not fear "advancement", it is like everything, a part of the Tao. Tao is not threatened by change, it flows through it. We need not fear having our myths destroyed. Keep the meaning behind the myths, but "move" with the new information as it becomes available.

I have a teacher at school now who..and I could literally see this and it was actually rather funny..sort of in the us vs. them we need to arm nuclear weapons to the teeth mode.

It's wild to meet people with this strong programming because it's like....You can't see how clearly destructive and arrogant your views are for the Earth?

Maybe Al Gore knew what he was talking about after all

ps. I don't judge or blame people with these views because I know that build up of fear energy can be so powerful. Let's face it.

Well, I heard it from at least two sources. One being Jarred Diamond, the second being Vilhjalmur Stefansson, captain who described the life of the Eskimo people before they started eating western style, having lived with them.

And I do think (but I am not an anthropologist) that the consensus is that hunter gatherers lived a long and healthy life. The idea of the short and bruttish life coming from some philosophers in the 19th century. But with agriculture things went downhill (but was necessary, or at least you could not go back) because agriculture gives you more food (of less quality, but still you feed more people), than hunting.
Industry was from there an improvement.

BTW (sorry for the sidetrack), have you read Guns, Germs and Steel, from Diamond? Really interesting. And especially it explains in a direct way how the land you are in defines the kind of economy you tend to get, and from this the society that is developed. With richer lands generating enough surplus in the economy that they always build up casts, poiticians, even merchants. While poorer countries where everybody have to find their own food every day simply does not permit such 'luxuries'.

and why the condescending tone pray tell?..

I read "studies" when I have nothing better to do with my time or when I need to learn what the common-denominator status of a particular field of study is today --
but on the subjects that really interest me, whenever these happen to be ones I can't learn about "from family anecdotes," I read books. Occasionally by cutting edge (and occasionally controversial precisely because of that) authorities. Occasionally on the subject of buying, selling, and bartering "peer reviewed studies" and the consequent near-zero relevance of same to the actual value of any work done by any researcher. And occasionally on the subject of paleoanthropology. The latter was the source of the information I presented -- e.g., it can be found in
HOW THE HUMAN BEING EMERGED FROM THE CATACLYSMIC HISTORY OF THE EARTH,
By NOEL T. BOAZ, Ph.D.

So that's me. What about you -- where do you learn what you believe to be true? Could it be you were taught by salaried "repeaters" who were taught by other salaried "repeaters" to repeat what they were told to repeat? Many, many people mistake a bunch of things they were conditioned to repeat for "science." As one Lewis Carrol's character put it, "what I tell you three times is true." Surely what they tell you three hundred thousand times must be three hundred thousand times more true!

But is it?..

Most "scientists" of anything life-related are "repeaters." Most repeaters-for-hire are repeaters of lies. Most lay repeaters of those repeated lies have no clue how what they're repeating was concocted, and when, and by whom, and why, and what for.

Learning how to stop that sh.t, how to stop being one of the repeaters taught by other repeaters to repeat what you're told to repeat and believe it just because you were told to believe it three hundred thousand times or more is as good as enlightenment, I tell ya... transforms a parrot into a human, for starters... really, really cool to wake up and tell all of the repeaters to take a hike. Beats nirvana.

Taoist81,

When something doesn't fit in with the currently accpted consensus, it gets labeled as an 'anomaly' and ignored. You might also want to check out Forbidden Archeology by Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson.

Conspiracies!!! I like conspiracy theories, whether they're true or not, it's nice to see people brave enough to question the official story. That Forbidden Archeology book looks like it's drawn a lot of skeptics saying it's biased because of the author's Hindu beliefs and use of outdated information, but who knows, it could be closer to the truth.

Anyone who learned history (even "official" history as taught in Europe, don't know what they teach here but have a feeling that, um, hardly anything) -- as I was saying, anyone who learned history realizes that "civilized" history has always been made via nothing but conspiracies (and actions decided upon by the conspirators with enough power to act on their conspiracies). The opposite view of conspiracies as something unreal, something that "never happened," and especially "isn't happening now," is the outcome of successful (and always ongoing) brainwashing that causes the brainwashed masses to have this knee-jerk response to anything that is not the official version -- bah humbug, conspiracy theories! -- and to feel gratifyingly superior to anyone in disagreement with the syndicated media's prolefeed (Orwell's term for planned disinformation of the masses). Once you spit out the prolefeed, conspiracies become, alas, our current reality to the same extent they have always been, rather than some paranoid fantasy or the outcome of the "theorist's" ignorance and gullibility. "Not believing in conspiracies" is only possible if one hasn't been paying attention to history as it actually happened.

Sad but true, if I relied on school to teach me everything I would be a total zombie! I've been watching tons of documentaries lately and getting a much fuller picture of the world.

Sicko
Fahrenheit 9/11
Bowling For Columbine
Michael Moore Hates America
The Enemies of Reason
Root of All Evil?
Bible vs Book of Mormon
Lifting the Veil of Polygamy
Why We Fight
War Made Easy
Loose Change
Zeitgeist
Guns Germs and Steel
The Great Global Warming Swindle
Doomsday Called Off
Walmart, High Cost of Low Prices

Penn and Teller: Bullshit is good stuff too. There are a couple I'm looking forward to as well, Prince of Peace/God of War and Religulous. Gotta take everything with a grain of salt though, biased agendas and honest mistakes can always creep in.

The reproductive patterns of women in todays affluent western nations differ greatly from those of our ancestors.decrease in age menarche,in the number of pregnancies, in duration of breast feeding and increase in age at first birth all lead to an increase in the overall number of ovulations and menstruations a women has within a reproductive lifespan.This accounts for the rise in many female disorders we see in modern society.Endometriosis,osteoporisis,osteoarthritis,ceverical cancer,etc.
P.s.Anyone who believes we live longer now then in the past.isn't looking back far enough.Also it may be well and fine that people in western nations live till eighty or older.The question should be what sort of life do they have?Drop into a nursing home or hospital and have a look, then consider if our current agenda of poly pharmacy is truly successful.

One should definitely not "ignore" the "anomalies" but one should also refrain from basing their entire view of human history upon them. When one reads the various research journals and those "nasty", "untrustable" studies done by people who actually know how to test fossils and bones, it is interesting to note that all these diverse people from different places find that humans never lived to be hundreds of years old. We never had "magical" golden ages where our technology and societies were more advanced and less damaging to the planet than now (obviously it was "less damaging" because there were fewer humans, but not that our "way of life" itself was less destructive). All the myths of society talk about them, but (just like the Book of Mormon) there is no evidence for it. So they either flew away on space ships, taking every stitch of evidence with them or, as occam's razor would suggest, they didn't exist (accepting that one cannot prove a negative, it is just remarkably unlikely).
The ancient societies were just as modern archeaological and palentological research suggests, primitive cultures not all that far beyond what we see in modern ape "societies". Regarding lifespans, based on the majority of evidence thus far uncovered (again assuming they didn't take it with them to their new alien homeworld) humans have for a very long time had (allowing for infant mortality and disease) a lifespan in the vacinity of 70 years. The "average" is closer to that now, because we have more people who are able to eat and have access to medicines so they don't commonly dies from the flu or other diseases that once meant near certain death. Do we have modern problems that ancient people never faced? Yes, obesity related problems for example. New diseases that we have likely helped to create. Sure. But, our ancient ancestors did not have an advantage over us in their likelihood of reaching the ripe old age of 50.
The problem with many books, just like the movie Loose Change and the various "studies" that Intelligent Design proponents espouse, is that they far to often focus on the art of debate (keep in mind that in logical debate on can rather easily construct a logical arguement based upon a completely false premise) with a small amount of "anomalous" evidence while ignoring the vast majority of the evidence. (that "anomalous" evidence, by the way, is not "discarded" by most scientists, most try to see where it fits, even if where it fits is based on chemical changes making an object appear older or younger than it actually is, e.g. the Shroud of Turin circa 1500 CE not 33) Science, no matter what the Discovery Instititute tries to tell you, is not some vast conspiracy to force "Darwinian Theology" on you. It is the pursuit of understanding.
Apologies to all who took offense to the first or this post. It is simply disheartening to....oh, nevermind. Logic and reason are too often taken as dirty words nowadays. Good day all.

Personally, I see the Industrial Revolution as a very large culprit in the moving away from the natural.

Take the advent of jobs and so-called careers. Nobody before the IR was taught to go out, get some good education, and then get a job.

How many individuals prior to the IR worked for an hourly wage?

Most people were taught a ways and means to either go into business for themselves via a trade of some sort (smithing for example) or were taught how to be self-sustaining through a barter system, hunting/gathering, or agriculture. I guarantee that the pilgrims and Columbus didn't get in their boats, brave the fierce Atlantic ocean, to go to school and get a job.

Combine that with the modern trend of rising inflation and stagnating pay (my cost of living increases for the last four years combined doesn't equal the inflation for even one of those years).

The system that is in place retards personal autonomy because that's how big business works. Big business needs employees to work menial jobs, without them big business fails, but how do you keep an economy based on big business from collapsing? Educate the public that the only way to succeed in life is to get a job and attempt to climb a corporate ladder. Every corporate ladder has a top rung for every individual where the only way to advance is by the retirement or death of the person above you.

How this all fits in is that it is advantageous for an economy based on big business to keep people at the employee level, and it works much better if the employees delay pregnancy to use their youthful years for the advancement of the big businesses we are talking about.

I find it ironic and sad that if you go to school for business ownership in college you get taught by people who are government (or private, depending on the campus) employees. How are they going to teach you to own a business successfully if they've never done it? Those that you find who have done it are likely to have failed at it, how can you trust your attainment of knowledge in their hands. Theory only goes so far without the experience of practice.

I'm done for now, perhaps I'll come in and ruminate more later.

As a final, tangential note, I've always found it astounding in a very negative way that at the age of 18 a person can go out and make a pornographic video, but that you cannot buy one in most states in the US until you are 21 years of age. There's something wrong there.

-LDiR

For the majority of time homo sapiens have lived on this planet we were hunter and gathers.Diseases such as flus and epedemics simply did not have a large enough matrix to survive in.It was only with advent of agriculture that people began to congregrate in large numbers for protracted period of time.Agriculture is directly responsible for a vast majority of ills we suffer in our society today.Pre european settlement Australian Aborogines for example did not suffer from diabetes,heart disease,alcholism etc.Replace aborginal with native american,inuit etc.This doesn't mean the lives were all cheese and bisquits,no doubt starvation, infection and warfare were killers but in terms of over all health and well being, there can be no comparison between a well balanced varied hunter gather diet and limited grain based agricultural diet.Truly would you rather spend your days hunched over in some grain field supporting a hieracrchy of priests and nobility or take matters into your own hands and share your luck with your tribe who in turn share their luck with you.