Parenting, it works, bitches.

Who are these bitches?

The claim is deliberately paralleling the language of this.

Ah ... I thought you had become possessed by some jyte-devil for a minute there.

I would probably have agreed with the claim if there were a colon or a period after "parenting" (like the referent).

Oo oo ... then there's the offensive misogynistic version: "Parenting: it works bitches."

Those are neat comics--so the non-descript "bitches" in question are any non-believers in the efficacy of parenting or, as the case may be, science, etc., or actually anyone who disagrees with the person laying on the ad hominem argument to the "bitches."

I see in your previous comment to Flower's claim about children being able to view jyte content that you recognize the problems with the claim: it's general, even "good parenting" sometimes fails, and so I will attempt to reconstruct the case underlying your claim, its contradictory nature and the faulty grounds for sustaining it. This leads me to question the claim as a case of stylish bitching momentarily seducing or dispatching not only your reason but the reason of everyone who voted for the claim.

1. Children see only what their parents want them to: "If the child is able to see it [jyte] that means that clearly the parent has decided that the child is allowed to see it."

You recognize that this isn't always true (parenting sometimes fails) and yet you pursue it vigorously as a valid assertion, ignoring your own point that parents, including "good" ones, are not always able to monitor and constructively control what their children do or see.

2. Parents without the assistance of the public must monitor children's exposure to media sources (internet, television, books, CDs, etc.): "It is the parent's job to monitor their children to the extent that their children need monitoring."

Surely the public, all the adults in society, can be counted on, individually and collectively, to exercise some responsibility to manage their affairs in ways that are discreet or that govern other active community members to behave sensibly with regard to the protection of minors: many people recognize this partnership of society and parents via rating guides, V-chips, zoning laws for adult DVD and novelty item stores, police background checks for child care workers, laws against sex offenders coming within a certain distance of children's schools, and so on.

The idea that only parents are responsible for protecting or monitoring their children's media use doesn't stand up.

3. We either maintain communication practices and images that are not fitting for children or we entirely give up reasoned discourse among adults: "I will not give up avenues for adult discussion just because they are inappropriate for children."

The issue isn't one of protecting children versus maintaining adult rights to discursive venues: that's just a false dilemma. Adult discussion doesn't die in a PG zone only to be magically energized in an R rated media world.

I don't think Flower, when she made her claim about young children being able to view jyte, was implying that jyte would have to be eliminated in order to protect children. She was chiding those responsible for the little spate of posts about spouse sharing, complete with a panel of cartoons of stick figures copulating.

Flower's effort was quite modest, and in my view necessary, and worth the support of people who care about jyte. If jyte was filled with posts about spouse sharing and graphics of lewd silly comics, I can't see many adults of the sort who would participate with you in interesting "adult discussion" wanting to stick around. Jyte as amateur sex site would contradict the very thing you want to conserve: jyte as a place for responsible adult conversation.

4. Parents or adult guardians who can't responsibly control their children's electronic media habits, who cannot parent, are not your concern: "Any child who is here is the responsibility if their adult guardian. If their adult guardian can't parent, that's not my problem."

Jyte is not meant for children, agreed, and I think most kids under ten or twelve would find jyte impossibly boring. But to throw off all social responsibility in the face of the inevitability of imperfect parenting makes me question your claim on two more grounds: 1) the utter selfishness and insularity of the position is appalling--that one wouldn't even be bothered to invoke the most modest form of group governance or self-monitoring, as Flower performed it, leaves us with the model of a world where, 2) for the sake of some "adult discussion," numberless children browsing the internet with imperfect parental monitoring are needlessly put at risk of exposure to sleaziness and vulgarity. And all the while a sort of Gresham's Law churns on in the place the champion of "adult discussion" wanted to protect: the bad money will drive out the good.

5. Flower's claim reminding posters that "Young children are able to view the contents on Jyte," asks for "all adult content" to be removed and would destroy jyte or the internet as a whole: "removing all adult content to protect children...will destroy a vital means of communication if it catches on...."

Again with the all or nothing fallacy. I'm assuming you see jyte as the "vital means of communication" here, but maybe you mean the internet as such. Whatever the case, your assertion is hyperbolic: no one suggested removing "all adult content" and destroying the internet or all venues of adult discussion.

Flower's claim reminded people that kids could happen upon jyte and the implication seemed to be that she was expecting folks to uphold the already practiced standard of not posting a whole string of tasteless claims, at least one or two of which had sex graphics.

Jyte does a pretty good job of being porn free. I've only seen one link here to lesbian sex photos on flickr (thanks go to fiXedd for that one if I recall correctly). Still most of the discussions about sexual matters here that I've seen are handled with a maturity and frankness that doesn't assault everyone with the repetitious banalities of porn graphics and lewd tales, but seem instead to have an overall goal of educating and informing.

@blakesgarden, WRT #4:

You're right about one thing, being a good parent is hard. Heck, raising a puppy is a lot of work. Raising a good, well-adjusted kid from birth to adulthood is extraordinarily tough. I don't think anyone is questioning this. That said, I wholeheartedly agree with the statement you quoted: "Any child who is here is the responsibility if their adult guardian. If their adult guardian can't parent, that's not my problem."

My parents certainly aren't perfect (who is, after all?), but I think they've done a damn good job raising me. To be honest, I think your statements about "the inevitability of imperfect parenting" are a major cop-out. If my folks have taught me anything about parenting, it's that "with great power comes great responsibility." There are few things more powerful than training a child who will continue to have an impact on the human race long after you are dead. Of course, this means that the amount responsibility placed on parents is insanely huge. If you can't handle this, don't become a parent. There's nothing to be ashamed of in not wanting to take on such a responsibility. On the other hand, there is something to be ashamed of in "parenting" a child without taking proper responsibility for its well-being.

Since you seem to like taking concepts from other arts (i.e. Gresham's Law) and applying them to parenting, I'll take the liberty to do the same. A good programmer knows that if their program doesn't work, the bug is almost certainly in their code. It's hardly ever the fault of the compiler, or the runtime library, or the operating system.

In short, if you are a bad parent, this is your problem. It's not your government's problem, it's not your child's school's problem, it's not some random website's problem, and it's certainly not my problem. Real men and women take responsibility for the people, places, and things in their care. Remember that.

It's hardly ever the fault of the compiler, or the runtime library, or the operating system.

a shot at fleshing out the whole metaphor ...

[I think parenting probably uses an interpreted language, instead of compiled.]

operating system = the child's physical body
runtime library = the parent's behavior & instructions
interpreter = the child's thought processes
program = the child's behavior

Well, I tried!

Actually, the more I think about it, it seems like validating user input is a better metaphor than my original one. Let's say someone's written a program that asks the user to enter a number in a text field. Now, let's suppose the user types in a bunch of gobbledygook and the whole program crashes with a parsing exception. Is that the user's fault? Of course not. The programmer should have added code to throw out bad input at the source.

It's very similar with kids. If a child receives undesired input (from the Web, or TV, or books, or music, or…) and doesn't handle it the way you would like, that's not the fault of anyone but the parents.

Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.

[Off-topic] Your new avatar is awesome! I mean, really, a dog in a dinosaur suit. 'Nuff said. :)

My in general was to cover other areas of parenting. Some children will become violent or criminal despite good parenting. It was never to excuse parents who let their child surf the internet unsupervised and then run into problems. That is either a legitimate mistake soon to be corrected or bad parenting. Whereas your child having a disorder or a temperment issue can be just plain bad luck and a challenge.

Flower in fact seemed to want the whole internet sanitized. When we said that any child who is unsupervised on the net can easily find far worse, she felt that the problem is everyone uses this "excuse" and thus nobody censors. But even if we limit it to Jyte, I'll abide by the terms of service, but I will not censor myself for the sake of children who shouldn't be here. It would totally change the nature of Jyte for me. It'd probably make it not worth my while. I want a place where I can say whatever I want. I don't want to be censored to the level of what is appropriate to a 4 year old. (Although, to be honest, I don't think there was anything in that claim that would cause a problem for a 4 year old, but that's a different issue. It would quite possibly make a 4 year old go ewww gross and look away.)

See, the thing is, young children should never have unsupervised net access. So, it's really stupid to censor based on what young children might find. It's incredibly stupid and dangerous to give young children unsupervised access because they might do far, far worse than finding a porn site. If you don't have the skills to limit your computer to safe sites, you just probably gave that kid nightmares and got your computer full of viruses. Congrats. I hope you don't leave yourself logged in on any sites...

If you have raised a young child so poorly that they don't know the rules, don't know why the rules exist to protect them, and have an opportunity to break them when they are so young that they will actually be slightly harmed and you have to answer some questions or deal with some nightmares that is not my problem.

The internet is one of the biggest boons to free speech that has ever existed. While Jyte itself is not bound by the first ammendment, I do believe that we must always fight people who want to limit what free speech we have. The internet itself must remain open to all forms of speech, no matter how disgusting, including the speech of people who want to limit free speech. It's one of the things that helps to protect our freedom.

And stop raising your kids in bubbles anyway. It's unnatural.

[Off-topic] Your new avatar is awesome! I mean, really, a dog in a dinosaur suit. 'Nuff said. :)

Thanks, Jonathan. XISTH information found that in response to my Labradorasaurus claim. :-)