Back to quote signs - easier than italics. "Sorry, but that's nowhere near enough to form anything like a meaningful relationship IMO. Parrots can do both those things." I guess this goes back to the other discussion about what makes a person who they are - just giving birth, taking care of Alex, and loving her, makes her her mother in my book. I accept that you don't agree. note: Anyway, you can't be telling me that Alex doesn't get to fix her mother; isn't there some kind of nondisclosure agreement for betas? :P Or, if she does fix her, she's a different person than when she was a cat (although she retains that transformative ability.)
"Yeah, my cat died a while back. :(" Sorry to hear that. Just to be clear, I was referring to the human relationship part, I was kidding. :)
"True enough. I tend to instinctively side on the "nurture" part when in doubt." I also have my instinctive reactions. See next:
"Claudia is most certainly not the best mother figure. :p There are plenty of bad mothers out there. I think Claudia's about average TBH." Average good or average all others? It's the difference between being average as a student in preschool, and being an average student in PhD Philosophy at Harvard. When you say someone is an average mother, imo it's not enough that she doesn't abuse the kid and provides a physically safe environment so that they survive childhood with most limbs intact and minimal trauma. Such a kid will still have lots of problems. An average good mother, imho, is involved with her kids' lives, and doesn't just ignore unpleasant issues. She may not handle them perfectly well, but she doesn't neglect them either. I hope this is not frustrating you, as I recognize that my instinct in this area is pretty strong, so there's really no purpose arguing it. For example, the conversation over dinner in this chapter really got on my nerves (as much as I admired Inverarity's execution.) I consider Claudia a poor mother, perhaps she did her best but it wasn't good enough. It may not have been her fault - being a bad mother doesn't mean she's a bad person - but she's not a good mother, even an average good mother.
"That is entirely possible. But if that was the case, I don't think it's because Alex isn't hers biologically. Rather, it would more be a case of having Alex be forced on her without giving her much of a choice."
Makes sense to me.
"I just don't want to put myself into the position of having to say parents are necessarily less loving toward adoptive children than they would be to biological children." Given a choice between biological children and adoptive, or just one?
"It depends on what you mean by 'family.' There are plenty of families that are technically families, in that the people there are related by blood, but so lack in warmth we might want to say they're not "actually" families." Correct.
"Heh. You could say that the printing press was invented by "Gutenberg," just by the Gutenberg who existed before he got amnesia." Got it, thanks. :)
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tealterror
Date: 2012-04-29 02:29 am (UTC)"Sorry, but that's nowhere near enough to form anything like a meaningful relationship IMO. Parrots can do both those things."
I guess this goes back to the other discussion about what makes a person who they are - just giving birth, taking care of Alex, and loving her, makes her her mother in my book. I accept that you don't agree.
note: Anyway, you can't be telling me that Alex doesn't get to fix her mother; isn't there some kind of nondisclosure agreement for betas? :P
Or, if she does fix her, she's a different person than when she was a cat (although she retains that transformative ability.)
"Yeah, my cat died a while back. :("
Sorry to hear that. Just to be clear, I was referring to the human relationship part, I was kidding. :)
"True enough. I tend to instinctively side on the "nurture" part when in doubt."
I also have my instinctive reactions. See next:
"Claudia is most certainly not the best mother figure. :p There are plenty of bad mothers out there. I think Claudia's about average TBH."
Average good or average all others?
It's the difference between being average as a student in preschool, and being an average student in PhD Philosophy at Harvard. When you say someone is an average mother, imo it's not enough that she doesn't abuse the kid and provides a physically safe environment so that they survive childhood with most limbs intact and minimal trauma. Such a kid will still have lots of problems. An average good mother, imho, is involved with her kids' lives, and doesn't just ignore unpleasant issues. She may not handle them perfectly well, but she doesn't neglect them either.
I hope this is not frustrating you, as I recognize that my instinct in this area is pretty strong, so there's really no purpose arguing it. For example, the conversation over dinner in this chapter really got on my nerves (as much as I admired Inverarity's execution.) I consider Claudia a poor mother, perhaps she did her best but it wasn't good enough. It may not have been her fault - being a bad mother doesn't mean she's a bad person - but she's not a good mother, even an average good mother.
"That is entirely possible. But if that was the case, I don't think it's because Alex isn't hers biologically. Rather, it would more be a case of having Alex be forced on her without giving her much of a choice."
Makes sense to me.
"I just don't want to put myself into the position of having to say parents are necessarily less loving toward adoptive children than they would be to biological children."
Given a choice between biological children and adoptive, or just one?
"It depends on what you mean by 'family.' There are plenty of families that are technically families, in that the people there are related by blood, but so lack in warmth we might want to say they're not "actually" families."
Correct.
"Heh. You could say that the printing press was invented by "Gutenberg," just by the Gutenberg who existed before he got amnesia."
Got it, thanks. :)
"It makes perfect sense, and I agree. :)"
Great.