Ephemera Friday
September 18, 2009
And here we go again, with your weekly update to When You Marry. I'm skipping ahead to the "Where Babies Come From" chapter, mostly because the previous chapters (on marital strife and quarrels) were kind of normal and borderline helpful, especially if you need to know EXACTLY how to verbally abuse your wife over her bad cooking.
(HINT: Tell her "Get a cookbook, sister, get a book and start studying. This is the last lousy meal I'm eating here, understand?")
(No, seriously. That's totally marked as a productive approach to quarreling. And here I thought this class was gonna be an easy A. Stupid girl-brain!)
Anyway, despite the chapter title and all the many touchy-feeling reference to intercourse found elsewhere in the book, NO WHERE is there any actual description of...you know, where babies come from. Sperm meets egg in his local fallopian tube...somehow...and then ta-da! A brand-new American citizen! I guess they cut out the facts of life chapter (which exists in the 1953 version) to make more room for all the talk (SO MUCH TALK) about genetics and skin color, as white people in the 60s apparently lived in dread fear of Spontaneous Black Baby Syndrome.
(On that note, some of the pages in this chapter are rather offensive. Without the "rather" part. Old tyme-y racism! It's not funny because it was true. Consider yourselves warned.)
Additions start here. Read from the beginning here.
I think I'm most concerned with the idea that "Sperm meets egg in his local fallopian tube...somehow...and then ta-da!"
His? ;)
Wow. Just....wow.
I have this nagging feeling we should hunt Brenda down and give her a hand. Then I remember it's the Sixties. Amy, you must find this woman and find out how it all worked out! You can't leave us hanging!
"Any intellectual inferiority on [women's] part is due to less opportunity to develop themselves."
Gee, whose fault was THAT?
Sorry, this part really is unfunny.
Human stock? Man, it sounds like that section was written my Hitler. Seriously.
And we all know that the answer to an unhappy marital situation is to put a baby in the equation. Babies solve everything!
*by* Hitler, not my Hitler. Good heavens!!
The scary part is that this wasn't written that long ago. Very recently in our history, really.
The crazies who believe this crap, those who wrote it, and BRENDA are likely still living!
Today's Republicans, probably.
Eeek!
today's update was the final straw. I went on the Intertubes and bought the first 1953-edition I could find. Now I'm $5 poorer, but dang my book collection is going to be better for it.
Oh, wow. Okay, now that I got through all of that...firstly, poor Brenda. I wonder if things ever worked out for her and Quin/Zion/Lion. Secondly, the racist punnett squares were just a million different kinds of crazy. So offensive, and yet so hilarious because of how absolutely WRONG it was.
So THIS is why the youth decided to look to rap videos and celebrity mishaps for sex education. It makes SO MUCH sense now!
About the sex-y fun-time part - this just reminds me of my fried's family's cabin, which had been in the family for generations. In that cabin, there is an old medical help book. In that book there is a section on "how babies are made." I guess that the generations of my friend's family all pored over that section, because the book opens to that section ON IT'S OWN! I don't know why, as it's really boring, dry descriptions, but when you're 12, that stuff's like the Hustler letters to you.
All I'm sayin', is that maybe the actual fun part fell out from, uh, over-reading by Brenda, and is lost to the ages.
You absolutely won the jackpot when you got Brenda's old book.
Wow.
What a cliff-hanger! & also; my poor, poor grandparents. Brings some things into perspective though.
I really, really want Toine and Brenda's child or grandchild to be a reader of this blog.
(I wouldn't mind seeing the page on having The Cooking Talk, just for fun..)
Oh, man. Poor Brenda and her mulatto baby. Does she really think she's of "breeding stock?"
Wow...there is just so much in this last episode of "Love, 1962-American Style" that I don't know where to start. The drawings, the 'all humans are the same species' (like DUH!!), the 'emptying of the uterus', Plant-Baby, 'forget(ting) the agony', 'reproduce more of 'their kind'' (ooo...double quotes...holy crap!).
I never had a convo with a 'professional eugenics counselor' regarding my 'designer baby.' Totally missed the boat there.
Poor Brenda. i wonder if she ever got 2wn to make her an Honest Woman. They had old-tymey shotguns in 1962, right? I'm picturing old Grandpappy in one of those old westerns, LOL
People still talk about eugenics, they just don't realize that's what they're talking about nowadays.
Every time someone says that someone shouldn't be allowed to reproduce? Hello, eugenics!
"The crazies who believe this crap, those who wrote it, and BRENDA are likely still living!
Today's Republicans, probably."
This comment was FAR more offencive than anything I read in the scans.
Good LORD.
K.
Interesting fact: My brother is Factor 11 deficient (one way of being a Hemophiliac.) My Dad is also Factor 11 deficient. While my Mom is a carrier, she is not. Therefore, it was not passed down from my Mom, it was passed down from my Dad.
I thought this book was full of truth...I'm crushed...
The "now" in the line "intelligence test now indicate that women have as much mental capacity as men" really, REALLY bothers me.
holy shit we've come along way.
I came here for the chuckles, but I'm staying for the Brenda and 2wn/Zion Story line...
I came here for the chuckles, but I'm staying for the Brenda and 2wn/Zion Story line...
I came here for the chuckles, but I'm staying for the Brenda and 2wn/Zion Story line...
I came here for the chuckles, but I'm staying for the Brenda and 2wn/Zion Story line...
This is the best soap opera EVER. Crossing my fingers that Brenda's baby is a happy and well adjusted adult.
This is the best soap opera EVER. Crossing my fingers that Brenda's baby is a happy and well adjusted adult.
This is the best soap opera EVER. Crossing my fingers that Brenda's baby is a happy and well adjusted adult.
HEY! Epilepsy is NOT a reason to exclude someone from having a kid. Stupid eugenics. All the interesting people would be gone.
Oh Brenda! I hope everything works out for you and your mulatto child.
On a serious note however, it's pretty crazy to realize how far we've come in terms of reproductive technology in only fifty years.
Of course, now we know that the older the father, the worse for the kid. And I don't think the racism charge applies, as the answer debunks the question.
@Amanda - I agree with you :( . Sigh.
@Dan - Then what political group today do you think would more closely identify with this book? Hint: not liberal democrats.
I wonder how future generations will view our archived news stories.
@Amanda and Anon: If you were paying attention, you would know that the regulatory czar, Cass Sunstien has proposed eugenics in many ways. Some of which are forced abortions, and sterilants in drinking water. Last I checked, he is as far left as they come.
@Amanda and Anon: If you were paying attention, you would know that the regulatory czar, Cass Sunstien has proposed eugenics in many ways. Some of which are forced abortions, and sterilants in drinking water. Last I checked, he is as far left as they come.
What in the heck is "thourougbred family"?
I've been trying to keep up with these "marriage book" updates, because, and I'm not making this up, the comments you leave beside the pages make me laugh very, very hard. And I'm usually reading them during class, so you can only imagine how great THAT is to experience.
Disturbing. A mix of funny and really not. That's modern American history alright.
I bought this book on Amazon on a lark when you first started talking about it -- it was donated to a Methodist church library in someone's honor and is a 1953 version -- I would be happy to send it to you if this is the one you were looking for :)
Wow. I'm learning so much about Brenda. Bi-racial dating? A possible pregnancy? Wow.
We simply must track Brenda down. Start asking around folks.
Why are people so offended by this book? It was written in another time, when science and education had not reached the levels they have today. For instance, the pages explaining how white and black people's genes mix was educational, captions notwithstanding.
I feel bad for Brenda, not knowing how it all worked out for her. She's probably about 65 years old now. I hope she's at peace and happy with whatever decision she made or was forced upon her.
The scary part is that early abortion rights groups (ie Margaret Sanger) were huge proponents of purifying the population through eugenics. So, let's not hang it all on the conservatives, people.