House of Eratosthenes

Tucked away in a fairly innocuous defense of a burgeoning local Ukranian immigrant family within this morning’s Letter to the Editor section of the Sacramento Bee (link requires registration), is a nugget that I had to go back and re-read several times. I thought for sure this was a joke. I’ve bolded this oasis of “OHMYGOD” lying within a small desert of fairly mundane argument, and from that boldening you can probably figure out where I’m going to go with this.

A loving family
I know Vladimir Chernenko. He is a big, good-hearted man who speaks very little English. I teach at the charter school where he works full time.

Most of his children were born in Russia, where religious persecution was and is still very real. One letter writer actually blamed the Chernenkos for ruining our ecosystem! Another suggests that if this family gets a large amount of assistance someone else’s family will suffer. Our system guarantees that the unwed mothers with multiple kids born from different fathers will always get their well-deserved checks.

Know this: All of the Chernenko children were born into a loving family where both parents are married. They will grow up cherished in a loving home, regarded as gifts from God.

Finally, there is more than one “choice” – respect theirs.

A little background: On December 16, my local newspaper published a story about this local family of immigrants which, the week before, had welcomed into the world their 9th son and 17th biological child. The family appears, to the best of my knowledge, to have achieved a new status as the largest family in the United States.

Let’s get the sugary stuff out of the way first. By all accounts, Vladimir and Zynaida Chernenko, as far as I can tell, run a household filled with exceptionally hard-working people. Everybody who knows them, including the author of the above letter, vouches for them. They are held up by their church as an example of familial devotion and faith in God. One daughter has married and moved out of the house, and several among the older children pitch in and help out. According to a quote from the mother in the article, the family tries to give back to the country that has helped them so much. That’s all good.

And there’s nothing combative, so far as I know, about the Chernenkos or about the Bee staffers who wrote about them. The story appeared in the Family section. You know, every metropolitan newspaper has a “Family” section. Sometimes they call it Scene, or Focus, or Time and Money, or Style. It’s where you find out what belly-button gems are in fashion, what Ann Landers thinks about taking that philandering husband back, and how to make toilet seats out of macaroni.

So that’s another point. The Chernenkos were written about as a story. As glurge. They weren’t spoiling for a fight. Frankly, I feel kind of sorry for them for being thrust into a controversy they clearly didn’t want. Alas, two days after the Bee story, USA Today picked it up, and Yahoo News followed the day after. Now the Chernenkos are in the middle of a little bit of a firestorm.

I’ve ignored it because I don’t like to criticize people who, so far as I know, are fundamentally good.

But the criticism is deserved.

They don’t speak English.

They drive around in a 15-seat passenger bus.

They receive public assistance. And while they show gratitude, whereas other beneficiaries of public assistance sometimes do not, nothing has been said about limiting the family to seventeen children. Obviously, Mom and Dad are ready, willing and able to make an eighteenth.

That’s wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

So no, Mister Letter Writer guy. I don’t respect their choice, nor do I feel morally compelled to do so when they depend on public assistance to support the I-don’t-know-how-many youngest of the seventeen children. Because when that happens it is not really “their” choice, is it?

I’d be feeling a lot more positive about it if they were making ends meet with donations. That would be a completely different thing. If that were the case, I’d even be on your side, helping to chastise those who criticize the Chernenkos. I’d be out there saying “Hey, if you don’t like it, don’t have seventeen children of your own, and DON’T DONATE.”

But this is public assistance that comes from taxes. So I can’t say that.

So i can’t join you.

These taxes are taken — by force, if necessary — from families that must limit themselves in terms of perks, toys, and size, so that they can pay those taxes.

How does this get ignored by people like you? I’d really like to know.

Let’s proceed now to the boldfaced OHMYGOD stuff. Well-deserved checks? Unwed mothers with children by multiple fathers?

Let me see if I got this straight now. An unwed mother has a child by a man who will not accept financial responsibility for that child — because, after all, she has to get that “well deserved” check, which implies there was a vacuum of responsibility for the state to fill. So something must have happened. He took off, he was too young to take a job, he left the country, he was never told of the pregnancy — whatever.

But wait! You said “multiple kids born from different fathers.” So then, this happened again, and probably again, and perhaps still yet another time. For each of these “multiple kids,” a “well deserved check” is needed, so again, for one reason or another, all these dudes are unready, unwilling, or unable to accept responsibility for fatherhood.

She’s spreading the legs for them. All of them.

Sir, this reduces our available possibilities down to very few. She’s irresponsible, she’s got a thing for the bad-boy, she’s dumber than a sack of hair, or some combination of the three. Her checks are well deserved?

Needed, I can buy. Bad things will happen if the checks aren’t cut, okay. Advantageous to society in the long run, would be answered by me with simple cool-headed skepticism, and an open mind for hearing the argument.

But well-deserved?

Are you out of your freakin’ gourd?

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Respect Their ChoiceThursday, January 5th, 2006

Respect Their Choice
Thursday, January 5th, 2006