New Zealand Conservative

From the Herald today, there is an article on a researcher who looked into intelligence and desire for children by women when they were young. The more intelligent the girl, the less children she wanted, apparently. Women lose a quarter of their maternal urges for every 15 extra IQ points they have, according to international research. ... Using data from Britain's National Child Development Study, Mr Kanazawa studied the links between intelligence and maternal urges in women. He found more of the former meant less of the latter. Even after adding controls for economics and education, the results remained the same - the more intelligent the woman, the less likely she was to have children. Mr Kanazawa published his findings in his book, The Intelligence Paradox, and the research into the number of children compared with IQ was in the chapter titled "Why intelligent people are the ultimate losers in life". He found that the more intelligent both men and women w...

It doesn't take much to trigger vocal, full-on hatred of children and mothers given the right subject matter. In this case, it was directed against a woman who is the mother of six children with two on the way (expecting twins), who lives in a state house with her husband, and who would like a bigger state house for her expanding family. Que outrage that any woman who has a state house would dare to have give birth to any more children. Except, what is she supposed to do with the buns in the oven - abort them? Should she be like this mother , who decided to write a letter to the editor justifying her abortion of her third child because he or she didn't suit their lifestyle? We certainly have a problem in New Zealand, and it's not women having children. The problem is our much too generous welfare system, the lack of jobs for low skilled men, and the high cost of living that means that if a family wants to have a better living that mere subsistence, both parents ne...

We are raising a phenomenal number of children who will never learn the proper way for a man to treat a woman. All they will ever know is that he's the guy that impregnates and then leaves. Already now there are many women, mostly young Maori women, who expect nothing more of a man. New Zealand has among the world's highest rates of sole parenthood, especially among low-income groups for whom the DPB may seem a viable lifestyle option. In the 2006 census, 25 per cent of all New Zealand children and 43 per cent of Maori children lived in sole parent families, compared with an OECD average of 16 per cent. Otara administrator Delaney Papua, who turns 20 next month and is expecting her first baby in November, says going on the benefit seems to be just what you do when you get pregnant. "All the people that I know that have kids go on it, so I kind of just assumed that you have to be on that," she says. The babies' fathers often have no role in the families t...

The effect on her daughter's life that she had and her whole story . “I was a horrible mother and I knew it. I didn’t have any time to raise my little daughter, but I couldn’t even entertain the idea of giving up my career… I still remember the look of sadness on my daughter’s face as I ignored her day after day after day. I was too busy chasing an appearance so I could feel loved when real love was staring at me every day through two big hazel eyes.” (From  my conversion story ) Imagine a little girl growing up with such an absent mother . She watches her mother climb mountains and chase dreams, buy her everything and appear successful, but a little girl just wants to know she matters, that she is loved, and that she can make people smile. Instead of being raised, she is dropped off at daycare and propped in front of television, moved like furniture from one place to another, and given stuff to keep her quiet. Like the stark objective truth that it is, she needs...

Yesterday I was attacked by occasional commenter, Medusa , who told me to get off my arse and get a real job, the implication being that staying home to raise my children is not worth my time and they turn out just fine if a woman works full-time.  In fact she went further and implied her children would turn out better than mine because she worked while they were growing up!  Anyway, Medusa's comment was incredibly catty and I responded in kind, but, it reminded me of this post that I wanted to write. Namely that feminism has influenced very deeply how most people see women in society and what little value is given to motherhood. Marxism early on recognised the bourgeoisie mother at home as a real obstacle in achieving a socialist society and so worked on making all women think that they would be far more valuable working than staying home raising their children and looking after their families. In other words, becoming a generator of income rather than a raiser and tea...

Society no longer encourages women to be mothers. Motherhood is almost a dirty word unless you are a gay male who wants to adopt a child, and then it's all about getting access to that wanted child and the mother discarded. But we used to value children, didn't we? I don't know what it was like in New Zealand, but in the United States they were considered a child-centred society after WWII. By the late 1950s however, women who saw motherhood as service to society and who dreamed of scores of little kids to nurture, were suddenly caught in the crosshairs. A new wind had blown in from academe. Chic "mental health" professionals were suddenly sneering at homemakers, even part-time working moms, accusing them of "momism" and "smother love," that was producing weak sons and aggressive daughters. I had been ignoring the sneering columns in the press and ladies magazines about motherhood being parasitical and wasting women's talent. I had...

The powers that be in Russia are only all to aware the threat that demographic decline poses to their country and are taking many steps to address it, including large cash grants to new mothers and cheaper mortgages for those raising families. Now here's an excellent initiative that brings a smile to my face. Russians have queued to see one of the most treasured Orthodox relics, believed to have miraculous powers to boost fertility, as the country struggles to reverse a population decline. The relic on loan from Greece, that believers venerate as the belt of the Virgin Mary, arrived on Thursday afternoon in Russia's northwestern city of Saint Petersburg, where hundreds, mostly women, stood in line to pay their respects. Arriving in Russia for the first time in its history, the relic will remain in the Russian imperial capital until Monday, after being flown from its home on Mount Athos in Greece It will then be taken on a month-long tour across the country, with stops i...

MK has a good post on an issue that isn't much discussed. What the father might think. What the father might feel. Related Link: A stain on my soul Jason Baier talks often to the little boy he calls Jamie. He imagines this boy — his son — with blond hair and green eyes, chubby cheeks, a sweet smile. But he’ll never know for sure. His fiancee’s sister told him about the abortion after it was over. Baier remembers that he cried. The next weeks and months go black. He knows he drank far too much. He and his fiancee fought until they broke up. “I hated the world,” he said. Baier, 36, still longs for the child who might have been, with an intensity that bewilders him: “How can I miss something I never even held?”