Quote:Having experienced more or less the discussed scenario from the kid's end, and seen and spoken with others likewise, I can explicitly and uncategorically debunk this nonsense. Bad parenting is bad parenting, and good parenting is good parenting, and the number of adults involved in either is irrelevant or, in fact, beneficial to see in larger groups because of the greater number of chances that someone responsible having the needed time and energy to spare at any given point.
Okay... I'm going to try to respond to that without starting a flame war with a heavy post blindness sauce that spirals off into gibbering infinity. First I can't believe you invoked it
takes a village. That is equivalent of invoking the Godwin's law of Parenting... you automatically lose the debate the second it's invoked as a positive. I told you not to do that for a reason. Seriously, you invoked
it takes a village.
First, I counter your personal anecdotes with one dead four year old cousin of mine. Which is the direct result of the only actually communal breeding harem (CBH) I've had personal experience with. So call me jaded. The other kid got most of his parenting from doing what most kids I've seen do when that ugly bit of their parents getting divorced do... seek it else where. In otherwords your invoking a 'He said, She said' style arguement. No one's mind really changes from those.
Second, I'm swapping out your Glooblflargs namely, 'good parenting' and 'bad parenting' as it would take far, far to long to flesh those out.to meaningful terms and replacing it with just 'parenting'. To expand, a Gloobleflarg is a key, central point in a debate, arguement, or politcal campaign that no one ever actually got around to defining. Its an empty term that the listener or debater is left to secretly define themselves. Basically, it can be replaced by a random sound effect, thus being honest about being more Madlib then meaningful speech.
Third, you do realize your arguement boils down to basically: As the number of participants in the CBH approaches infinity then percent chance of one of them having time to do parenting approach 100%. To which I''d counter with: The percent chance of any offspring being unparented by the CBH at any given time interval approachs 100% as the number of offspring approaches infinity. Baiscally, the 'infinite number of monkies' arguement... on a less cosmic scale. Which means the most important word in your arguement goes to
someone. Which is more likely to be a non participant in the CBH than a participant, if we go by numbers... unless the entire community is involved and then your in a hippy commune and you can off replace parented by some one at random with given LSD by someone at random.
Which is the largest part of why, to me at least, your arguemnt utterly fails to counter what you were responding to. It basically turns parenting into a games of statistics. As statistics are crazy easy to make say what you want them to say. Its the literal truth that papers coming to completely opposite conclusions use the exact same statistics to prove their points. Again I'm not trying to pick a fight and it would take far, far to much effort and research into your personal life to pick your personal anicedotes appart... possiblely a 20 year or so megastudy.
So instead I'll explain why you lost via the parenting equivalent of invoking Godwin's law. The 2 men and 2 women (minimum) formatt is only possible in two formatts. Foursome or wifeswap. For wifeswap Your looking for Marmalade Girl fanfiction or something. For Foursome of the described type (rather than a loose association)
it takes a village makes a rather a lot of sense and works with my point rather well.
The reason why
it takes a village to explain parenting practices that are a good idea fails, is where that saying comes from. Seriously. That phrase is straight from Africa. Specifically villages of Kleenex people. As in those who are disposable, interchangable, and expected to die randomly like minorities in a slasher film with an insanely racist director. Once husband/wife is as good as any other huband/wife as life is short and pointless and someone has to take out the trash/cook. Where dating is composed of the men (as a group) going to another village (thus limiting inbreeding chances) and prettiing themselves up... then the available women wander out in a herd and pick a mate entirely by how pretty he looks. Its from those sections of Africa were you are forbidden to name and infant until two years of age... because its so likely to die that your not allow to get attacted until that point as its probably going to live long enough to get to puberty at that point. If you name the infant its a lot harder to forget about it.
It takes a village because the parents are often not going to live long enough to raise the kid.
In a non third world context, it means your free to ignore the kids as eventually someone will get around to doing it for you. Quick use the Ultimate Babysitter! (a.k.a. a TV set, or LSD in Hippy communes) Buy them a toy line so they have stuff to amuse themselves with while we ignore them. This is why they have friends and grandparents! These are hallmarks of negligent parents. Which has is not restricted to CBH at all. These are signs of failing at parenting. As I aid the equivalent of Godwin's law being invoked.
Now to take a foursome into being you find another trait of these societies comes into play. Segregation of children by sex, during which time your homosexual by law. Then when you come of age your now straight by law and go to the men market. Yes, by law. All it would take is a female couple by chance picking a male couple and a little bit of ignoring said law.