Children on Serenity - practicable?
POSTED BY: AgentRouka
UPDATED: Thursday, April 26, 2007 02:10
VIEWED: 11786
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Anyone have, say, statistics on the child mortality rate in the wild west (and I mean the wild west). Or war regions, or regions of starvation or in families that carry around their children in their criminal get-away cars?
Because I think that's generally going to be higher than most parents would like.
And even so, the Wild West was a region free for everyone's settling (very relevant native population aside). Serenity is owned by Mal. Any changes that would have to occur to make a baby work, would have to be cleared with Mal first (and that includes just randomly recruiting crew members for baby-sitting/teaching duty) and somehow I don't see him readily switching his life and boat and livelihood around for someone else's kids when he's not even ready to take that step on his own. Changing his life away from crime, I mean.
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Yes, Serenity is Mal's domain (So he has some say), but why would that make him give up crime?
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Because crime has them regularly shot at, running from the law and taking isolated routes out of the range of help, among other things.
For example, imagine the situation where they were boarded in "Bushwhacked". How easily could the Alliance guy have blackmailed them with sending their child into foster care? What about Jubal Early's invasion? Their own little bandit-fighting jobs, such as in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" or "Heart of Gold"?
Imagine any of the dangerous situations they have been in because of their jobs, and add an infant or toddler to them. In particular if it's Zoe's infant or toddler. Or Kaylee's. It's a huge additional stress factor for everyone involved and that's not even speaking of what it does to the child.
Something would have to inevitably change to prevent those situations from happening, a precaution they are quite simply not capable of taking now, or those things would never have happened in the first place.
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I still do not see it as an issue. :)
Simon is a fugitive. It's not a part time thing - nor something that can be waited out. Maybe charges will be dropped but it is not something you can live by. If he has kids (with Kaylee or another), he would still be a fugitive. Will still be on the run. Is there a safer option for him?
Mal has got this world destroyed thing going on. Shadow, his home was destroyed. Haven, which was portrayed like a second home was also destroyed. Then he saw Miranda. Shipside is safer after all that. :)
Zoe was born vesselside. She sees the dangers, also the biological clock is ticking. I doubt she would take it well if Mal told her she couldn't.
Jayne - well he is Jayne. Doubt he will give it much thought. besides here the kid would probably stay oin land unless Serenity takes on more "Crew".
IMO there are a few basic assumption that go into this:
1. Landside is safer.
2. there are safer ways to earn money.
In a flashback in OoG Mal more or less said he wanted to live like a real person, implying there were not too many opportunities landside for him and his type.
Not that I support Firefly having kids in it. Not at all. Just enjoying the scenic discussion 
Situationwise - People still have kids in conflict zones. Think Gaza strip, chechnia, or other. Iraq? People get shot at. People die. People still have kids. more danger.
Larger chance of the kid getting all shot up, but I think the crew have their designated bullet catchers. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by nbz:
Simon is a fugitive. It's not a part time thing - nor something that can be waited out. Maybe charges will be dropped but it is not something you can live by. If he has kids (with Kaylee or another), he would still be a fugitive. Will still be on the run. Is there a safer option for him?
There is, of course, the option of not having kids?
I doubt, in particular in Simon's case, that kids are anywhere on his "to-do" list for the foreseeable future. Just like romance isn't.
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Mal has got this world destroyed thing going on. Shadow, his home was destroyed. Haven, which was portrayed like a second home was also destroyed. Then he saw Miranda. Shipside is safer after all that. :)
Hardly. Just like airtravel is safer than car travel, but doesn't appear to be. Usually all passengers die in a plane crash, so if catastropphe strikes, you're dead. But the number of car accidents is much greater than that of plane crashes.
Planet-based destruction is far less likely than the chance of a ship crashing or otherwise causing its passengers' death. Serenity herself nearly got her crew killed in "Out of Gas", already.
Mal likes Serenity because it's a self-determined life. Not because it's safer.
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Zoe was born vesselside. She sees the dangers, also the biological clock is ticking. I doubt she would take it well if Mal told her she couldn't.
I also doubt she grew up on a ship like Serenity, leading the life they do. I believe that on-ship-raising is definitely possible. But not on Serenity as she is currently run.
And if Mal told her she couldn't, hey only option would be to leave. She can't make him accomodate her own life-altering choices if he's not willing to make those necessary changes. Not taking it well would be her problem, not Mal's.
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IMO there are a few basic assumption that go into this:
1. Landside is safer.
2. there are safer ways to earn money.
Your basic assumptions seems to be that they must (want to) have kids to begin with, leading the life they do.
If they have no options to accomodate children in their life, the always have the option of simply not having any. Which would be the responsible thing to do.
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In a flashback in OoG Mal more or less said he wanted to live like a real person, implying there were not too many opportunities landside for him and his type.
I doubt Mal and Zoe tried hard to lead a normal life. It wasn't maybe a year or so after the war and they spent considerable time in an Alliance POW camp. "Live like real people" is probably very specific to them, not necessarily to every former Independent soldier.
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Not that I support Firefly having kids in it. Not at all. Just enjoying the scenic discussion
Same here. It's a compelling subject. :)
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Situationwise - People still have kids in conflict zones. Think Gaza strip, chechnia, or other. Iraq? People get shot at. People die. People still have kids. more danger.
I doubt, though, that they are having those kids in their mobile get-away-car of sharp edges. In some regions, they have kids because they don't have birth control. In some regions, I imagine that an ethinic "our oppressed people must survive!" sense of defiance plays a role. In others, simply bcause they want to live a normal life amid the chaos, yes.
But in all those cases, it's not just a handful of people living on the edge, it's an entire people. Lots of them, who are going through the same things, and little alternative to their lives.
Simone and River aside, all of the crew DO have an alternative of choosing a safer lifestyle. It's like living in your car and driving back and forth between criminal jobs that have you shot at when you, theoretically, could hold a steady job. It's fine to choose that freedom when it's just you but it's a different thing to choose it for a child.
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Larger chance of the kid getting alNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
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Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Your basic assumptions seems to be that they must (want to) have kids to begin with, leading the life they do.
Yup, that is the sticking point. I pretty much agree with your points too.
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I've been enjoying this thread and wanted to add my 2 cents.
Children are born in unsafe conditions everywhere. Because the BDS and BDM have our the characters as criminals, I think the criminal lifestyle might be the best analogy to one or more of the characters having children. Look at drug dealers or gang bangers. They often have children. This may not be the best or safest situation but Nature is one heck of a persuader.
Zoe's "I'm not so afraid of losing something that I'm not afraid of trying to have it" is pretty indicative of how many people feel in those situations.
The child (or children--which is more likely) is not going to have some comfortable middle class childhood with a bike in the suburbs but that doesn't preclude the parents from having and loving children in poor situations.
As a note to an earlier post, homeschooled children often do extremely well in college and are often advanced over conventionally educated children. My two sons both started taking college classes in what would have been their 8th grade year. This advanced placement is not unusual.
Having said all that, I agree with the person who said the storyline would be difficult with a child. In order to maintain some semblance of realism, a child should change the character of the show somewhat and that would be difficult but certainly not impossible for a writer of Whedon's abilities. And, one of the things he does best is create characters that change.
Certainly it would be an interesting storyline. God, can I weep that I will never get to see that or any other storyline played out on Firefly ever again? (breaking down in sobs)
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*hugs redhead*
There there... there there... there's still hope... we just have to hold the line... there there...
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Quote:
Originally posted by redhead:
Children are born in unsafe conditions everywhere. Because the BDS and BDM have our the characters as criminals, I think the criminal lifestyle might be the best analogy to one or more of the characters having children. Look at drug dealers or gang bangers. They often have children. This may not be the best or safest situation but Nature is one heck of a persuader.
Yes, but the question is not whether they are biologically capable or whether some of them might want to. The question is whether it's a responsible choice and practicable long-term without making real changes to their lifestyle.
Also, I don't think that it's usually the "drug dealers and gang bangers" who actually raise those kids. That'd be their girlfriends or wives, I suspect. Nor do they likely take their kids along to their criminal adventures, as would be happening with kids on the ship.
And I just don't think that our common-day drug dealers are what we should be considering when we measure responsibility.
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Zoe's "I'm not so afraid of losing something that I'm not afraid of trying to have it" is pretty indicative of how many people feel in those situations.
Feel, sure. That's irrational. Thinking, that's the question, though.
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The child (or children--which is more likely) is not going to have some comfortable middle class childhood with a bike in the suburbs but that doesn't preclude the parents from having and loving children in poor situations.
There's poor and then there is recklessly dangerous. I have trouble thinking of the latter as truly loving.
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As a note to an earlier post, homeschooled children often do extremely well in college and are often advanced over conventionally educated children. My two sons both started taking college classes in what would have been their 8th grade year. This advanced placement is not unusual.
Those who actually DO go to college, I don't doubt it. I have a friend who was homeschooled much to her advantage. But I'm fairly certain that there are those whose homeschooling works to their disadvantage who end up never seeing the inside of a college and who therefor don't figure into such statistics.
But - without forcing it on Inara or Simon or River - how would Zoe and Wash pull off such an education for their children?
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Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Anyone have, say, statistics on the child mortality rate in the wild west (and I mean the wild west). Or war regions, or regions of starvation or in families that carry around their children in their criminal get-away cars?
Because I think that's generally going to be higher than most parents would like.
And even so, the Wild West was a region free for everyone's settling (very relevant native population aside). Serenity is owned by Mal. Any changes that would have to occur to make a baby work, would have to be cleared with Mal first (and that includes just randomly recruiting crew members for baby-sitting/teaching duty) and somehow I don't see him readily switching his life and boat and livelihood around for someone else's kids when he's not even ready to take that step on his own. Changing his life away from crime, I mean.
No statistics but I did find this from the University of Michigan - But the graves themselves reveal the high rate of death among the very young, shocking to modern sensibilities. In the 19th century, the overall percentage of burials in Horse Prairie involving children under 10 years old was just below 50 percent. There was no decade in the century when the proportion fell below 45 percent.
Up until the end of the 20th century the chances of children dying young would have made people more likely to have them not less, but that wouldn't necessarily follow through to the Firefly 'verse. It's been interesting reading all the different points of view.
...........................
You can question the meaning of life on a floaty
island of your own for a while.
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