The Children's Era: Main Idea
The Children's Era: Main Idea
Women and Children First
Despite all the other agendas swirling around in this speech, Sanger's main point is clear: the world has a lot of problems right now. Yeah: Sanger's speech is pretty much evergreen in that way—when doesn't the world have a ton o' problems?
But Sanger's not just talking about problems in general: you know, like the environment and the job market and the fact that people on the West Coast can't get Waffle House home fries and people on the East Coast can't get In-N-Out.
Sanger believes that one of the biggest problems stems from people having children they don't want and can't care for. She says that for social reformers to attempt to care for those children after they're already here is like trying to stop a leak by putting a bucket under it. (Which works for like half an hour, tops. Trust us on this one.)
Sanger wants to get to the root of the problem by giving women the power to decide how many children they have and when they have them. She believes this solution will lead to greater wellbeing of mothers and children and ultimately to the greater wellbeing of societies everywhere.
And wellbeing—like easy access to regional fast food—is one of those things we can definitely get behind.
Questions
- Sanger says women should choose when they have children, but she sure does have a lot of requirements. What would she say to a woman who wants a child but can't afford one?
- Why was the idea that women ought to be able to choose when to have children so freaky that Sanger had to ally herself with other agendas to get her message taken seriously?
- Whose life seems to matter more to Sanger, the mother's or the child's?
- How do you think Sanger sees the role of fathers in the choice to have a child or not?
Chew On This
Sanger claims that women should choose when they have children, but she doesn't seem to trust individual women to make their own decisions.
Sanger's list of requirements for parenthood are an appeal to other agendas and not a reflection of her own most pressing concern, the right of women to choose to become mothers or not.
Quotes
Quote #1
When we point the one immediate practical way toward order and beauty in society, the only way to lay the foundations of a society composed of happy children, happy women and happy men, they call this idea indecent and immoral. (29)
Sanger's speaking of pregnancy prevention here. Is there a moral component to childbearing? Is it right to have children? Wrong not to have them? Or vice versa? Must there be a moral imperative or proscription? Or is it just a personal choice?
Quote #2
There can be no hope for the future of civilization, no certainty of racial salvation, until every woman can decide for herself whether she will or will not become a mother and when and how many children she cares to bring into the world. That is the first step. (52-53)
Hold up, Margaret Sanger. What is this "racial salvation" you're talking about? Whose race are we saving here? And why does race enter into the conversation about what you're saying is a personal choice?
Quote #3
The problem of bringing children into the world ought to be decided by those most seriously involved—those who run the greatest risks; in the last analysis—by the mother and the child. (63)
"Hey," says our girl Margaret, "If you're not playing the game, you don't get to make the rules."
Quote #4
And if we could organize a society for the prevention of cruelty to unborn children, we would make it a law that children should be brought into the world only when they were welcome, invited and wanted; that they would arrive with a clean bill of health and heritage; that they would possess healthy, happy, well-mated and mature parents. (92)
Sure, that all sounds ideal, until we start thinking about the implications of making laws about who gets to have kids. What about a single parent who wants a child? What about parents who get divorced? What about babies who are born with illnesses?
Quote #5
We want to free women from enslaved and unwilling motherhood. We are fighting for the emancipation of the mothers of the world, of the children of the world, and the children to be. (104-105)
Sounds like Sanger is saying that with choice comes freedom. This sounds considerably less sketchy than some of her Judgey McJudgepants ideas about who's qualified to be a parent.