Day 8: Consuming Children as Commodities

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame economic theorists for treating children like consumption goods or commodities within their theoretic models, while empirical studies actually show that this truly is how parents make their decision in terms of having a child or another child - where children are treated as any other consumption good.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise the implication of this point; that parents plan to consume their children in order to obtain personal satisfaction.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that a child is not something to be consumed and that the decision of having a child should not rest on the expected satisfaction I'll be able to derive from having a child.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that having children has always been selfish - to fulfil the parents' life, to gain more satisfaction, to have a feeling of accomplishment, etc - without even considering if you would want to have yourself as a mother or a father - only ever considering my wants, my needs, my desires.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise the craziness of the current economic system where the whole system spins based on individuals attempting to satisfy their wants, needs and desires - up to the point where children are but another way of attaining a sense of fulfillment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be abhorred at the idea of child trade, where children are traded like an item on a market - not realising that in the very decision to have a child, a parent does the exact same thing, treating a child like a commodity, where a parent tries to answer the question of how much the child is worth to them and what they're willing to trade in order to have a child.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that making the decision to have a child in this way, is actually supporting the manifestation of child trade in this world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to value everything and everyone within my world and the world in general in terms of how much I'm willing to pay for it and how much benefit and personal satisfaction I would be able to obtain from it - always making value-judgments from a self-interested perspective, not realising that life is inherently valuable, independent of me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be surprised when the actual experience of having a child is disappointing, while this shouldn't come as a surprise because an expectation was created based on a desire in terms of how well the child would 'quench a thirst' within self and in the same way where if we buy something it is always expected to be 'more' than what the actual experience is of obtaining, using or consuming the good, where we eventually get tired of the item and want to move on to something more exciting - the experience of having children won't correspond to what we had expected.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that if I make the decision of having a child based on how well the child will satisfy my personal wants, needs and desires, I shouldn't have children in the first place - because the actual experience of having a child will be nothing like what I had expected it to be - yet, contrary to stuff that you buy and get tired of after a while as using or consuming it doesn't provide you with the same amount of satisfaction that it initially did - you can't just toss children in the garbage can or bring them back to the shop for a refund.

I commit myself to the redefinition of the word value, where value is no longer defined in terms of the expected satisfaction, fulfillment and gratification something will yield me, but stands in relation to the value of life itself.

I commit myself to creating a world where the decision to have children will no longer be limited and determined by money.

I commit myself to educating parents and prospective parents so that they may see and understand that children are not just commodities with which to fulfill oneself, but are actual beings that require your support and your assistance to develop themselves as effectively as possible to be able to live a fulfilling life of their own.

I commit myself to show how humanity has accepted and allowed children to become part of the definition of life that has been presented through consumerism as that which is acquired through money as but an external representation of completion / fulfillment / purpose for the individual that give the individual an experience of completion / fulfillment / purpose, where having a child / raising a family has become but part of the consumer's process of the pursuit of happiness which is the pursuit of acquiring goods / things such as a home, a car, a husband / wife, an education, a bank account, a retirement plan, a vacation home, a lifestyle, a social group, so that one can view one's self in comparison with others as having accomplished the 'building of a life' -- where, in this process of the pursuit of happiness as 'building a life', one was so consumed with consuming the pursuit of happiness / building a life that one lost sight of the fact that one brought into this world a living being that had the opportunity to grow into the best possible human it could be that could take responsibility for this world -- an opportunity that was stolen from the child by the parent when the parent passed on the pursuit of happiness / acceptance of the consumerist system to the child.

I commit myself to stop accepting and allowing myself to consume life in my own pursuit of happiness, and stop accepting and allowing everyone else to consume life in the pursuit of happiness.

I commit myself to show how through the media in movies, TV, commercials, life is presented as the pursuit of happiness as the accomplishment of building a life through consumerism and that this presentation / definition of life is used to brainwash humans to occupy themselves with the pursuit of fulfilling a picture in their mind of what life is, to distract them from the abuse that goes on daily in the name of profit for the few.

I commit myself to show how the human allows itself to be brainwashed by the media to occupy itself with feelings of accomplishment and achievement through consumerism because it is too afraid to stand and stop allowing abuse - and to show how the parent then passes on this pattern to the child, producing another consumer engineered by those who abuse life in the name of profit.

I commit myself to value Life instead of the pursuit of accomplishment as it has been presented to me through the media / consumerism as the acquisition of goods.

I commit myself to re-define accomplishment as the creation of a world that is best for all, and to give a world that is best for all to my child so that my child can fulfill its potential as a responsible being that cares for life.

From Our Muslim Agent in the Field

If there is a price tag to replacing fathers and husbands with government checks, this is it.

But that's alright.  Remember, we don't need no stiiiiiiiinking fathers!

Besides, think of all the social work jobs criminals create for all those women majoring in "psychology" or "social work."  Why, if people were responsible and stayed at home to take care of their children, then children wouldn't grow up to become criminals and then we wouldn't have all these social work/government program jobs.  And we can't have that now can we.

Hey, you crazy kids enjoy that decline!

Day 7: Child Labour - To Ban or Not to Ban?

Also check out this short Documentary on Child Miners in Bolivia:
Witness - Child Miners - Part 1
Witness - Child Miners - Part 2

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created the conditions within this world where children from all ages are forced to take up labour in order to survive

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created the conditions within this world which place parents in a position where they are forced to send their children off into labour in order to survive as a family

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to frown upon mothers who send their children off to work instead of sending them to school -- not seeing and realising that this choice does not in fact exist -- as it is a matter of surviving or not

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created the condition in this world which force children to place themselves in harmful working conditions just to see another day

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have defended child labour within the framework of supply and demand -- where if children demand work and are willing to supply their factors of production at low prices, and enterprises demand labour at low prices -- then why should this not be allowed?

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that banning children within the current world system is not an option -- as this will only cause children to move from the formal sector where there are still "some" regulations in place for their protection to that of the informal sector where the will be placed in more harmful conditions and lesser pay -- only increasing their hardship

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that activism in the form of not buying products made through child labour is not a solution as this only means that less children will receive revenue, demand will decrease, more children will be without employment and thus will have less money to survive -- leading to more malnutrition and premature deaths

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a system where child labour is allowed is also not an option -- as children are still being placed in bad conditions which stunts their growth both physically and mentally

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a world where the extent of the presence of an abusive system does not allow children to be better off if child labour is banned

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the manifestation of child labour is a symptom, a consequence of a defective and faulty system -- where it does not help to attempt to fix the symptom/consequence as it will only be recreated over and over again -- or where the alternative is just as bad

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the real problem is our current global economic system -- and as long as this issue is not addressed -- child labour will continue to exist

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that child labour has been made a necessity within the current world system for people to be able to survive

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that as long as I do not move myself to change the current world economic system -- I am in fact supporting the existence of child labour – where 250 million children in the world are denied to be children

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to realise, that the only way we are able to end Child Labour – is to address the extensive degree of inequality accepted and allowed within this world

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that it is not a matter of banning or not banning child labour – but that it is a matter of importance that we change the current global economic system to one that is Best for All and provides for everyone equally

I commit myself to take on the actually problem which is an inherent system of World Inequality where wealth is disproportionally distributed within the interest of a few

I commit myself to make an end to child labour as this is a condition I wish upon no-one

I commit myself to expose the atrocities our current system allows and does not have a solution for such as the existence of Child Labour due to its inherent limited design and disregard for actual solution

I commit myself to create a world where parents and children can spend their time being parents and children – not slaves that work away they days just to be able to wake up and work more in conditions which are a violation to Life

I commit myself to expose that simply banning Child Labour as within the current system this does not allow for real change

I commit myself to end a world and lifestyle of consumerism where children labour their life away for the sake of cheap consumer goods in a world where money and material possessions mean everything

I commit myself to change our current values to a world that Values Life

I commit myself to the establishment of an Equal Money System which will eradicate poverty and child labour once and for all

I commit myself to the creation of a world where no-one is forced in a position of physical and mental abuse just to be able to live – one should simply live and have access to the means to live on the premise of Life without having to “fight” for it

Now Those Are Classy Dames

Ha-YOOOOOGE language warning!

However, INCREDIBLY funny, only to be outdone by its wittiness and its macabre acknowledgement of reality.



Enjoy that decline, boys.  Keep on enjoying that freaking decline!