ESPN Magazine fired a number of questions from fans at San Diego QB Phillip Rivers. One of them is wildly inappropriate.
Rivers, you may know, is a pretty serious Catholic. He’s got six kids and I think I remember reading that he’s got one on the way. But check out this question that critiques Rivers for having so many children. Now, you can question the fan’s idiocy but what kind of jerks work for ESPN that they would pick this question out of the hat to present to Rivers.
Six kids? Regardless of your profession, it’s impossible to be a good parent to six kids. Not enough hours in the day.
— From TheBigLead.com commentsIt’s a two-year rotation: Once the diapers come off of one, we usually have a newborn. And we have another one on the way, due in October. I help when I can, but my wife, Tiffany, is the key. My big, growing family keeps everything balanced and grounded. My oldest is 11 now, and the kids are getting into football. They’re Daddy’s biggest fans, and they don’t get on you as bad as most fans. If you throw an interception, they still love you.
That’s a heckuva’ answer to a completely inappropriate question pushed by ESPN.
Rivers is a class act to respond in that way. Good guy.
You know it’s seriously like the last five millennia never even happened. Do these people think the world began with the invention of the Pill?
October 15, 2013 at 4:53 pm
In the end, the devil created the pill and he suggested it to the man who gave it to the woman and they both ate of it, and were sterile and divided. And he saw that it was awful.
October 15, 2013 at 5:57 pm
If studies show (as I believe they do) that a grammar school teacher's effectiveness is decreased proportionally for each child added to her class of 20 students, why should we not conclude the same is true for parenting? Educate me.
October 15, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Because parenting is not the same as teaching, and love multiplies, it does not subtract.
October 15, 2013 at 6:46 pm
The simple answer to Pat's assertion is that classrooms don't work like families. In the classroom (normally) all the students are the same age. The ordinary classroom is run from the top down, meaning the teacher helps the students, but the students can't help each other with "work" and are generally not encouraged to think of the other before themselves. There are exceptions to this generalization of course. With large families the dynamic is different. The children are not all the same age. In River's family with 6 kids and the oldest at 11 years old, that kid is helping mom and dad with the family's needs. I am an only child and I found that the tendency in this environment is to become preoccupied with my own needs and not necessarily to learn to think of other's first. The principle of the family is love that takes the form of service. In large families that are trying to foster love, the lived reality of service comes easily, even if it is difficult to do at times. As an only child my wife and I have been blessed with 9 children and they seem to be learning service and to think of the others first pretty well. Of course we homeschool so even our "school/classroom" model trumps the grammar school model because we don't have to accept that every kids for himself model for even a short time each day. I must say that trying to take research about classroom effectiveness from a grammar school study and apply it to the family is ridiculous. Family's, especially large ones, simply don't work like classrooms and I dare say, they are (ordinarily) much more effective at teaching love and service. Math and reading are actually pretty easy to learn compared to honor, virtue and self-sacrifice.
October 15, 2013 at 6:50 pm
Not only has ESPN insulted the QB, but he's also insulted EVERY AMERICAN SOLDIER with children who is over seas or away from home for any length of time.
Nice going ESPN idiots!
October 15, 2013 at 7:19 pm
A couple of things:
1. Its OK to ask. Its NOT OK to throw your question, complete with judgemental qualifiers woven in. Its disrespectful and isnt seeking information. Its seeking to impose ones own viewpoint on another. Otherwise known as modern media tactics.
2. I have kids and the older ones help out with chores and learning the alphabet. The good behaviors are modeled and bad ones are corrected (also modeling) for the younger ones.
3. I counter-argue that having only one child (if deliberately limiting to one) is not a good idea for the very reasons that the child is isolated from a family environment that is made richer by having siblings of different ages. Parents are undoubtedly the essential substance, but the icing is definitely brothers and sisters.
Oh, and weep for me…its work. Boo hoo. So was training for marathin, but I did it anyways, and enjoyed the hard work.
October 15, 2013 at 7:44 pm
"If studies show (as I believe they do) that a grammar school teacher's effectiveness is decreased proportionally for each child added to her class of 20 students, why should we not conclude the same is true for parenting? Educate me."
Shorter Answer: Take it up with all those parents with 20+ kids. There's like… 7 families in the country of that size. Leave the rest alone.
October 16, 2013 at 12:37 am
The reporter bean with a manufactured "fact" saying, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE A GOOD PARENT TO SIX KIDS. I am reminded that John and Charles Wesley were something like number 17 and 19 in their family birth order. They seem to have come out OK. Secondly, why does the reporter refer to children ad "kids?" Is he a part time goat rancher?
October 16, 2013 at 1:29 am
@Prat: And that is why American students (who usually have classes of 24) are doing so much better than Chinese and Indian ones (who average 37 and 65 respectively)!
No, wait. That's not happening at all; the opposite is.
"Small class sizes" is another way of saying "hire more teachers". That is its sole meaning.
October 16, 2013 at 8:58 pm
Sounds like the reporter has an inferiority complex if you ask me.
October 18, 2013 at 2:34 am
So, in short, no science or statistics as to what is the optimal or ideal number of children for two parents to rear. Got it. Thanks.
October 18, 2013 at 10:51 am
@Prat: You need 2.1 per woman if you want your society's population to remain stable. That's an average—since many couples are childless and some people are not in couples at all, the actual child-bearing couples will tend to need to have 3 or even more children. In a society like ours, if your population doesn't stay stable, you'll have economic collapse as your able-bodied workforce suddenly shrinks and you have a mass-retirement, most of whom will be at least partly dependent on government pensions paid for by the suddenly-drastically-reduced workforce. (It's slightly less of an issue for places like Japan—fortunately, given their birthrate—because they have much less dependence on government pensions and have much more private savings.)
Besides demographic concerns like that, it is intrinsically impossible to statistically analyze an optimal family size—such an analysis is even more troubled than usual by the fact correlation does not equal causation. This is kinda something you should've learned in your 9th-grade math and science classes, you might want to look into remedial education.
October 18, 2013 at 7:59 pm
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October 18, 2013 at 8:00 pm
Do you people realize that the writer took comments that OTHER PEOPLE had written about Rivers in FORUMS ALL OVER THE WEB and allowed Rivers to respond to them??? Do you guys even know what you're reading???
October 19, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Any more kids, the guy can have his own football team. Whenever I see a pregnant woman when I'm out and about, I always think "ah, another baby's going to be born". I may even wish the mom good luck!
If the baby's a Leo, so much the better.
October 20, 2013 at 8:22 pm
There are many players in the sports world who have as many children or more, with multiple women. We wouldn't dare criticize these men or ask them how they can properly raise these children. If we did, we would considered intolerant of their life choices. All 4 of my grandparents came from large families of 10-12 kids, and the love they had for each other was unreal compared to many families today. They all worked together, to help the family survive. The real issue here is that Rivers has 1 wife and 6 kids. He and his wife take care of their family and love them. He is a responsible father and husband who takes care his family based on his convictions. He isn't asking anyone for financial help for his family. He is not a dead beat dad as so many children in this country have today. As usual when somebody is doing something good, many want to drag him down. Its very sad, but true.