Morality

Octuplets- Something is Wrong Here

January 31, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Don’t have time for a long analysis so this will be a hit and run type post. The story about the woman who gave birth to Octuplets troubles me. The mother already had six children and now has more than doubled her brood.

The LA Times reports following.

“And look what happened. Octuplets. Dear God,” Angela Suleman said four days after her 33-year-old daughter became the second person in the U.S. ever to
give birth to eight babies at once.

Suleman stressed that her daughter “is not evil, but she is obsessed with children. She loves children, she is very good with children, but obviously she overdid herself.”Angela Suleman said all the children are from the same sperm donor, but she did not identify him. Her daughter is divorced, but Suleman said the ex-husband was not the father.”

My first question is what sort of income does this woman have. As a father I know first hand just how much money is required to try and support a family. Providing for 14 is going to take an enormous amount of cash.

And let’s not forget that they aren’t exactly spaced. How do you take care of 8 infants. You cannot do it by yourself, it is impossible. Even splitting the work between a mother and a father would be exceptionally taxing.

But let’s say that she is a billionaire and that money isn’t a problem. I would be very concerned with the mother’s ability to spend time with her children. She is going to be pulled in so many different directions someone is going to miss out. Someone is not going to get as much love from their mother as they deserve.

I’d like to know more about the screening process for the procedure she went under. Don’t they have responsibility here to look at each candidate and qualify them. I know that sounds bad and in theory everyone should have access to the tools and resources they need to become a parent. But the reality is that not everyone should be a parent and even the greatest parent has limits.

Someone dropped the ball on this one.

A Tale of Two Widowers

October 1, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

This is the sort of post that I struggle to write. I struggle because I have a story to tell and I want to convey the message in a particular way but I am not quite sure how to do it. It is a story of life and death, of the power and pain of love.

It is moments like this where I wish that I could write music because such a tale deserves an appropriate soundtrack. A full orchestra that could impart the highs and lows of this story because I am not quite sure that I can do it justice. Since that is just not possible I am going to do my best to fumble my way through this. All I can do try my best to catch the Silver man, so here we go.

Just a few short hours ago I was at a holiday dinner with my family. The table was covered in with a beautiful linen table cloth and adorned with china and silver. Several assortments of flowers were spread out throughout the table. And of course there were lots of guests surrounding the table.

Now I could tell you about the peals of laughter emanating from children like silver bells or I could share the sounds of my grandparents and relatives discussing the election and the rabbi’s sermon. It wouldn’t be hard because those are probably things that you can relate to.

But then I might miss out on sharing a tale of two widowers. Two men who lost their wives roughly a year ago. Two men who sat at the table and enjoyed the meal, but whose eyes and words revealed the depth of the pain of loss.

It seems unfair that I can’t tell you their individual stories because it is. It is unfair because they lost the light in their candle long before they ever expected to see them go dark. It is unfair because it is unfair. Sometimes evil people live much longer lives than good people. It is unfair because life is unfair.

And it bothers me that I have to teach my children that no matter what we do life will never be fair. It bothers me that I have to teach my children about death and that no matter what they or anyone else does, they will experience death. One day the people they love the most will be gone and all they will have left will be memories.

But I’ll do my best to teach my children to seek the positive side of all this. If the loss doesn’t hurt than there is a problem. I have often thought that to a certain extent you can expect the loss to be as painful as the love was joyful.

I spoke with both of these men at different times this evening and I spoke with both of these men during shiva calls. And part of what struck me is how deeply they loved their wives and how their losses wounded them.

At separate moments they both made a point of telling me to make sure that I truly live my life because the person I love most could unexpectedly be taken from me. It is a theft like no other. I can’t say that I truly understand what they are going through, but I can say that I am convinced that the hardest pain to deal with is mental pain.

You can always find a way to get around the physical pain, but mental pain is a harder nut to crack. How do you turn off your memory. How do you forget and would you really want to.

So I find myself lost in thought about the words that they shared with me and how to apply them to my life. I don’t want to wake up and say that I failed to live my dreams because I failed to try. It is one thing to have tried and failed and another to have never done so.

I can find a way to live with the failure of having tried and been unsuccessful, but I don’t think that I can live with never having tried. Someday is a great way to put off the future, but someday doesn’t always come.

And so I find myself pondering the new year with similar thoughts and questions to those I had last year. If I have any sort of resolution it is to make a greater effort to live my dreams and to do the things that I need to do to have a happier and more meaningful life because you really don’t know when it might all come crashing down upon you.

Crossposted here.

Essays Like This Irritate Me

September 25, 2007 by Jack Steiner 7 Comments

In short I don’t like being told that I am incapable of controlling my sexual desires and that is where essays like this always go, one way or another. Tznius my ass. There are reasons why clothing may not be appropriate, but this is just…

The law in Ontario already allows women to inappropriately bare themselves, but most women clearly prefer to keep their clothes on.

If nudity is what one desires, there are many nudist colonies and secluded places where nudity will not be disrespectful to others who don’t wish to see nakedness. Why would someone feel the need to bare private body parts in public except to gain attention?

It is not in the best interests of women or men for women to expose themselves. Parents don’t want their children to have to see that. Wives don’t want their husbands to see that.

Many men may want to see that, and you will probably gain their attention by exposing yourself, but there are also many men who are committed to their wives and families who don’t want to be tempted by someone who isn’t their own wife and the mother of their children.

Breasts are a beautiful, sexual part of the body and inexplicably desired by men. Expecting men to stop being attracted to breasts is an unnatural and unrealistic demand. It would be as silly as asking a dog to stop liking rawhide.

There is nothing perverted or filthy about men being attracted to women’s breasts, or about parents wanting to protect their children from sexuality that belongs in the realm of adults.

We need to show respect to others, and showing respect means keeping private body parts covered.