Modern family life, one of my favorite topics, has gotten a lot of play in the past week.
Andrew Sullivan wrote a lovely piece in the New Republic on the growing assimilation of gay culture and how this has resulted in the dwindling number of flamers. As a big fan of the Village Halloween parade, I am a tad disappointed.
I guess Maggie Gallagher at the Volokh Conspiracy has been attacking gay marriage. Ack. No patience to even write a blog post on this topic. Check out Crooked Timber for more. Tim Burke, too.
A new word for the day. Natalists = families with more than three kids. (In the past, they were known as Catholic.) Brooks wrote about red state natalists last year. Thank God the Duggars came around with their 16 kids, so the topic got another 15 mintues. For snarky anti-Christian commentary and rebuttal, go here.
My two cents? If you have too many kids, they are easy prey for creeps. I also think that it’s a bad policy to be outnumbered by your kids. It’s a major advantage in our family that when all hell breaks lose, Steve and I can each sit on one of them.
And Ross sends me a link to an article from the Wall Street Journal, which reports that hyphenated names are against the law in Germany.
In a society that values order and tradition, the rules are meant to prevent German children from being the victims of ridicule or confusion. A forename must indicate a person’s gender, for example; if it doesn’t, a second name should be given that clarifies the matter.
“We have had these rules for as long as I can remember,” says Karin M. Eichhoff-Cyrus, director of the state-funded German Language Society, which helps enforce the rules. “Everyone knows you cannot have a name that is ‘Refrigerator’ or something.”
And why no hyphens? Dr. Eichhoff-Cyrus, who hyphenated her own surname after marriage but is not allowed to pass it on to her children, explains that the concern is hyphenation multiplication. If a double-named boy grew up to marry and have children with a double-named woman, those children could have four names, and their children could have eight, and their children could have 16. The bureaucracy shudders.
Forget about last names. We’ll all stop ridiculing little Johann Burger-Meister-Meister-Burger once he stops wearing those damn lederhosen.
Apt. 11d 
OMG I’m a natalist.
So what is a liberal a-religious woman with 4 children?
Something like a gay Republican?
I do agree, from personal experience, that being out-numbered makes life more challenging.
What I want is the piano teacher of this uber-mom of 16 — she writes that the piano teacher comes over twice a week to do the family’s laundry.
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MORE than three is a natalist? My wife told someone at her firm that she was having a third and she got this pause and then a snarky “…that’s ambitious…”
I don’t know where these people think the engineers to keep their water pure will be coming from, when they are 90.
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Hey Momedusa…I am a lesbian republican (at least I was a republican) AND a natalist. But the children have a nice balance of liberal parents and conservative parents.
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You can take the girl out of the…
Last week, Ursula (the wife of Dancing-Hotep down the hall) had a teaparty for a few of the local ladies (plus me — ’cause we all know I’m no lady). She used her collection of foofy cups and sauces
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One admits that modern life seems to be very expensive, however some people require cash for different issues and not every man gets enough cash. Thence to get fast business loans or college loan would be a right way out.
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