Eric D. Snider

Two to a Womb

Snide Remarks #543

"Two to a Womb"

by Eric D. Snider

Published in EricDSnider.com on June 4, 2007

Here is a heartwarming story that will warm your heart and fill your heart with warmth. It's the story of a woman who just gave birth to a set of twins. Cute, right? But wait, there's more! It's the THIRD set of twins she's had! And she had a regular kid before that! So she has seven children total, ages zero to 4 years. Quite a handful! That must be a busy operation there at her house, with all that pooping and crying, not to mention all the pooping and crying that the children are doing.

But wait, there's even more! I haven't told you the best part yet!

The mother is 20 years old, unmarried, unemployed, and on welfare! Hooray!

Her name is Amanda Gonzales, and she lives in Dallas. WFAA Channel 8 did a story about her recently (transcript here, video here) that walked the line between celebrating the novelty of having three pairs of twins, and scolding Amanda for being an example of everything that's wrong with the world. You can imagine the conversations that took place in the newsroom. Rough drafts of the story probably looked like this:

Artist's rendering.

"Noted local tramp Amanda Gonzales was prepared to pop out two more future deadbeats Thursday...."

"When is a womb not a womb? When it belongs to Amanda Gonzales, and then it's a Pez dispenser."

"Good news, Dallas men! If you've always wanted to be a deadbeat dad, we know of a woman who will probably sleep with you -- and we know she's fertile!"

The father of the latest set of twins (it's implied he is not the father of the other children) is 21 years old and also unemployed. What leads a 21-year-old guy to sleep with a woman who already has five kids? And what possesses them to spurn birth control, or to misuse it, or to get pregnant on purpose?

In other words, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!

There are so many people to blame that I scarcely know where to start. But let's begin with...

HER MOTHER. She's featured in the story. Her name is Joan. Amanda is aware that women in Texas are notorious for drowning or otherwise dispatching their own children, but she thinks she can handle the stress. Joan, her mom, agrees: "I've always talked to her and told her about it, if you ever get depressed that bad, you got people you can you can talk to, your sister, your brother, her boyfriend." We'll assume she meant to include herself as one of the people Amanda can turn to for help. And it's awesome that she's so supportive. Where was she five years ago, when Amanda was 15 and getting knocked up? What about a year later, and a year after that, when she got pregnant again and again? Where was Joan Gonzales when Amanda was a young teenager, when someone should have been teaching her maturity and responsibility? At Failed Parents R Us, that's where, picking up some kits on how to fail at parenting.

HERSELF. I don't know what kind of example Amanda had growing up. There may not have been any responsible men in her life, and her mother obviously wasn't getting the job done. But regardless of what kind of lousy childhood you had, you'd have to be straight-up retarded not to know that you shouldn't keep having babies when you have neither a husband nor a long-term partner nor a job nor an education. Were those first few babies she had super-easy to take care of? Was she like, "Hey, this isn't as bad as every single person I know told me it would be! Turns out being a mother of three at 17 is a breeze! I bet I could have four more and not even break a sweat!"? How did she manage NOT to learn her lesson after the first pregnancy, let alone after the second and third?

In the news video, she says she always wanted to have kids. "I've always tooken care of kids since I was little, babysit, and I think that's where I got it, when I used to babysit a lot of kids, I wanted to have my own, a lot of kids." A fine sentiment, and elegantly stated. But what kind of idiot thinks having kids is so easy and harmless that she should have seven of them by the time she's 20?

THE GUY. His name is Joshua Brown, for the record. Dude, you're a moron. Birth control is not just the woman's responsibility. I guess you know that now, unless you're just as bad at learning lessons as your girlfriend is. And guess what? Even if the law can't force you to stick around and be a good father to the babies you've spawned, if you walk out on Amanda and your children -- and I can see it in your eyes that you want to -- you're a worthless man. Seriously. Men have a bad reputation as it is, with the wars we're always starting, and our enslavement of other races, and our inability to put our own socks in the hamper. Don't give us another black eye by abandoning your kids. We'll come after you, we men will.

Amanda Gonzales and her brood of adorable li'l bastards.

THE SYSTEM. I'm including a lot of entities in this category. The schools probably need to do a better job of teaching sex education -- having it taught by actual teachers instead of gym coaches would be a good start -- but that's an issue for another day. The welfare system is a lifesaver in some cases, and I suppose it's reasonable that Amanda wouldn't have a job -- how is she going to work when she has seven kids under the age of 5? -- but there's gotta be a limit somewhere. But how would that work? I mean, there are babies involved here. We can't just say, "Sorry, we're not gonna help you with those," can we? That would be punishing the innocent kids, not their irresponsible mother.

The solution you're probably already thinking of but don't want to say it is to sterilize Amanda so she can't get pregnant again. Admit it, that's your gut instinct. But we don't really do forced sterilization in the United States anymore. It's had a negative connotation ever since the Nazis tried it. They ruined it for everyone, just like the square mustache and the goose-step.

So what can be done? We can't force her not to have any more children, and we can't in good conscience cut off her welfare. The state could take the children and put them in non-welfare-funded foster homes, but that seems a bit harsh. It's not like Amanda is mistreating them. She seems to love them and want them. She just can't, you know, support them. In other words, as usual, I don't actually have any solutions. I just want to make jokes at the expense of the people who cause the problems.

I said earlier that Amanda's an idiot for letting herself get pregnant so many times before she's even out of her teens. But I should clarify that, because really, you know what? Have all the kids you want at whatever age you want. It's not a wise choice, and it's not what I would do, but hey, free country. Knock yourself out. None of our busines. Squeeze out all the babies you want -- as long as you can support them. As soon as you start stubbornly insisting on having children despite having demonstrated that you can't afford the ones you already have, that's when it becomes our business, because we're the ones who have to pay for them.

Shouldn't the taxpayers have been consulted before Amanda got pregnant this last time? Shouldn't there have been a referendum on the ballot or something? Isn't this taxation without representation? After all, we're feeding the kids, yet we get no say in how they're raised, what schools they go to, what TV shows they watch, what their bedtime is. We have all the financial obligations of parenthood with none of the perks. That's not fair. I want visitation rights. In exchange for the child support I pay through my tax dollars, I want the most adorable pair of twins to come stay with me for one weekend a year. Kids love me. I'm a great uncle. I do the thing where I push on their nose and make a "honk" sound, like a clown nose. Always gets a laugh.

So either I get a set of twins one weekend a year, or I stop paying taxes. That's my final offer. Take it or leave it, federal government.

Comments & Reaction:

In the SnideCast, I included some audio clips of Amanda and her mother from the TV news story I linked to. This is probably in violation of something. Mostly I wanted you to hear Amanda say "tooken."

Since I'm such a bleeding-heart liberal, this is normally the kind of situation that would get lots of sympathy and compassion from me. Except that no one seems to be suffering. The kids are well taken care of, and the mother is apparently delighted to be a mom. And since no sympathy is called for, all I have left is being annoyed. Situations like this are why some people think we should do away with welfare altogether, though I think that would be throwing out the multiple-birth babies with the bathwater.

I have never used the word "referendum" in a column before, and possibly not at all, ever, in my life.

This item has 45 comments

Tyler says:
June 4, 2007 at 6:19 am
I really liked this column. It's the best one I've read in a while. The whole thing reminds me of some lyrics from a song I used to enjoy, "...Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding, the cretins cloning and feeding, and I don't even own a TV".

I guess what I love most about Snide Remarks columns are Eric's jabs at the hopelessly stupid so this was just good fodder for great material.
Paul Norman says:
June 4, 2007 at 7:03 am
You hear the horror stories of OB-Gyns who donate a tubal ligation unsolicited to a married woman just after she has her fifth or sixth child. Where are those doctors when you really need them?
Markk says:
June 4, 2007 at 7:12 am
The father, Joshua Brown, says he wants to "try to have my mind right". Too late for that, mate.
Sean says:
June 4, 2007 at 7:48 am
Well, technically Buck v. Bell, the Supreme Court case where Justice Holmes said it was OK for Virginia to sterilize retarded people, has never been overturned. The famous quote from that case was "three generations of imbeciles is enough." Of course, it would be crass and shameful to apply that quote to this case. There's no evidence the seven kids are imbeciles, except maybe the circumstantial evidence of their parentage.
Brad says:
June 4, 2007 at 9:10 am
One of my dad's former employees had a (drug-related) prison record. He also had three ex-girlfriends, at least two kids by each (three with one), and was dating another woman who also eventually produced a child. My dad paid him a nice salary because he actually was a hard worker...and then had to take about 80% out of each check to distribute for child support. The man took home about $50 a week if that. And then he was arrested again for drugs, which also was a violation of probation. He was 28 at the time.

What was wrong with him? What was wrong with the women who decided he was worthy of fathering their children? The world may never know.
Eric Herman says:
June 4, 2007 at 9:16 am
Dude, when you push on the nose, it goes "beep". You have to pinch it to make it "honk". Sheesh... some uncle you are! :o)
Brad says:
June 4, 2007 at 9:18 am
Bah, sorry for the double post, but I should've noted above that for the menial sort of work he did, he really was quite well-compensated. He made $8/hr where anyone else would've paid him minimum wage. $250/week take-home pay is likely a pittance to most reading this, I'm aware. :)
Phouchg says:
June 4, 2007 at 9:25 am
Lady, it's a vagina, not a clown car...
kevith says:
June 4, 2007 at 9:54 am
The fact that the perfect artist's rendering was included even though there was an actual picture of Amanda and her children makes me laugh.
Nathan Barrett says:
June 4, 2007 at 10:25 am
"but hey, free country. Knock yourself out."

I had to read this twice, because the first time, I thought Eric said "Knock yourself up."
Jesse Harris says:
June 4, 2007 at 10:42 am
Was anyone else thinking of the opening sequence from Idiocracy where the white trash hicks were popping out kids like no tomorrow while the well-educated middle-class types were doing some family planning?
Sean says:
June 4, 2007 at 10:46 am
Jesse---I guess we know where the future of this country lies. Of course, being the bleeding-heart liberal that he is, Eric failed to point out the more sinister implications of this story.

1. Clearly this woman is an illegal immigrant. I mean, her name is Gonzales and she's on welfare. What other proof do you need?

2. Because their mother is an illegal alien, these seven "anchor" children should not be granted citizenship. The 14th Amendment says as much. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside." Seriously, the intent is so clear, it may as well have come out and said, "unless their parents are illegal aliens." Also, liberal activist judges who read stuff into the Constitution that is not clearly in the text should be impeached and hung.

3. It all clearly adds up to a conspiracy by the Mexicans to take over the United States.

4. The only solution to this emergency is to build a fence across the entire Mexican border and then shoot any illegal immigrants on sight. You can tell which ones are illegal because they have dark skin and names like "Gonzales" and are one welfare. The ones with light skin and names like "Harrington" are here legally. We should not, under any circumstances, hold accountable the good, hard-working capitalists who have built entire profit models on the backs of desperate people willing to work for less than minimum wage.

5. I love to point out the hypocrisy in the Republicans' immigration agenda---and I consider myself very conservative.
Curtis Gibby says:
June 4, 2007 at 11:25 am
Since I work in television news, I laughed out loud when Eric speculated on the commentary in the WFAA newsroom. "Noted local tramp," indeed. I also liked the "taxation without representation" remark.
Neil says:
June 4, 2007 at 11:26 am
I'd like to know how she manages to afford to take care of all 7 of them and not work. Maybe welfare pays better than I thought. I may just have to stop working - I could live a good life and have a lot more free time.

Anyhow, the article is good, a little more depth than I was expecting on a Monday, but that's ok. In fact, I would say that the article is better than good - it's GRRRRRREAT!

Oh! I love the actually snippets of the interviews - really brought the story home.
Lisa says:
June 4, 2007 at 11:51 am
This seems a lot more...angry than the usual columns; but I agree completely.
Jennifer says:
June 4, 2007 at 12:41 pm
My favorite was the caption "Amanda Gonzales and her brood of adorable li'l bastards."
Nate says:
June 4, 2007 at 1:10 pm
This one wasn't too bad,but I've read funnier. I guess Sean's brilliant comment about the Republican hypocrisy was probably the funniest thing on this page to me because he convinced me that his post was in earnest.

I don't have strong feelings either way concerning the Republican immigration policy, so my response is not based on the subject matter. Posting sophomoric arguments in a comments section of a humor column and claiming them as some sort of vicory is the height of funny to me.
mommy says:
June 4, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I cannot fathom how she has the time to date...How does she meet guys when she needs to be caring for 7 children. My husband and I barely find time to date and I already have his cell phone number. I also completely don't understand how she thinks this is okay. I find it selfish to assume she should get to be a mom whether she can afford it or not, whether she can provide her children with a father or not...

Pregnant with a third set of twins as a teenager...that is some serious hormones...
Melis says:
June 4, 2007 at 5:09 pm
If she hadn't said "tooken" I would have at least felt a teensy bit sorry for her. But then, no, I can't feel sorry for her. Societal burden aside, (the outrage is palpable) she is being allowed (I say allowed because any kid who's gets knocked up over and over and over before even getting out of her teens is be allowed to do so) to let her stupidity override even the most base concept of compassion. As a mom of two kids (only! and my last name is Lopez! Imagine!) I know the tug and pull for attention and affection that goes on. I CANNOT IMAGINE how impossible it is for ONE parent to adequately give even the smallest modicum of attention to SEVEN kids. I mean, at some point, doesn't that become a child welfare thing?
Turkey says:
June 4, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Pez dispenser. HA!

As for her being totally within her rights to bear thousands of children while still sucking on the teet of the welfare system and not being in trouble for preventing further children distress, wasn't one of the arguments against modern polygamists that they couldn't adequately care for all of their children without the aid of welfare? Not that I'm for polygamy, but I don't understand how one group can be jailed for child abuse for procreating crazy numbers of kids while another party in a similar circumstance can become the basis for a feel-good story. Odd.
LeMare says:
June 4, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Welfare should be capped at enough for one bastard child. That would be a more effective form of birth control... Why does the government financially reward teenagers who can't keep their legs together?

And it is really too bad that forced sterilization has that nasty little Nazi stigma...
Sommes says:
June 4, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I think that the argument -- the one that Eric mentions above -- is that capping Welfare inevitably causes more harm to the dependents (the children who had no control over the situation) than the actual people it was intended to deter. While some of these parents are actually good people who would probably sacrifice to support the children they had there will inevitably be many cases of children being starved or exposed due to the negligence of their parents, and I'd like to think that the government would try to do more for them even if it means that they can't smite their foolish parents for their behavior.
Craig says:
June 4, 2007 at 7:32 pm
One word: Norplant.

If you get pregnant and turn to the state for support, you should be required to go on Norplant as soon as the infant is born. If nothing else, it would force the mother to have a five-year wait before emitting another spurious issue.
Slash says:
June 4, 2007 at 8:26 pm
"I cannot fathom how she has the time to date...How does she meet guys when she needs to be caring for 7 children. My husband and I barely find time to date and I already have his cell phone number."

Ummm, a girl that has seven kids by age 20 isn't 'dating'. What she's doing requires only (for some people) a couple minutes and a bit of privacy.
Momma Snider says:
June 4, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Slash, that's what I was going to say.

And #8, that was funny. Naughty, but funny.
Zimm says:
June 4, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I had no idea Idiocracy was so prophetic.

Also-- Sean, who posted #12: I hope most of your comment was tongue-in-cheek. Sheesh.
Christopher says:
June 4, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Hey dear brother, I like how you chose a column where you actually use common sense and conservatism to finally admit you are a bleading-heart liberal. It was a good column, but I'm left with a bad feeling because all I want to do now is go find that girl and punch her in the face.
Carrie says:
June 4, 2007 at 10:44 pm
This column made me laugh furiously. I laughed a lot, and I'm furious at the idiots of the world. Also, a lot of comments here cracked me up even more. I'm with Christopher; I'm going to Dallas soon, so I'm going to look this girl up and punch her in the face for him and for me.

P.S. I'm all for forced sterilization. I'm not even kidding.
Sean says:
June 4, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Maybe I should have prefaced #12 with a title like "A Modest Proposal" just to make it obvious. Or maybe it was just too long and people didn't make it to point 5. I do tend to be long-winded (just ask my wife).
Carina says:
June 5, 2007 at 2:14 am
I have two kids and I'm barely functioning.

Golf clap, Amanda, golf clap.
bCurt says:
June 5, 2007 at 10:30 am
Craig was on to the solution with the Norplant comment. Forced birth control.

"Lady, it's a vagina, not a clown car..." Regrettably, while the comment applies here, I've seen this associated with a portrait of a large family. All the children are well dressed, probably well fed and everyone seems realistically happy. All the children appear to be of the same father who appears to be taking good care of them. That is a stark contrast to the situation with Amanda Gonzales. There is nothing wrong with a large family but if you are going to have a large family - be able to support that family and preferrably do it with one man with whom you are married to.
mommy says:
June 5, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I do understand that she doesnt' need much time to get pregnant. I am a mother of 7 and my youngest are twins. My children are 2 years apart-which compared to this lady looks incredibly spaced. I have no concept how she is meeting her children's needs and making time to get pregnant so quickly. She must be really trying to get pregnant close together and after 5 children under 4 that is just CRAZY to me. We're talking atleast 4 in diapers and atleast 4 needing to be fed.

I also don't get the Mother-wouldn't your teenager getting pregnant for the third time send upsome sort of red flag?

The Welfare issue is a problem. How do we care for the innocent children without encouraging such awful behavior?
Pumpkin says:
June 5, 2007 at 5:37 pm
This is just like the movie Idiocracy. The people who should not be allowed to reproduce always end up with the most kids, and they usually fail to teach their kids any better. This all results in even more stupid people spawning equally stupid children that the responsible and hard-working of us have to pay for.
Chuckwagon Breakfast says:
June 5, 2007 at 6:38 pm
So is it just me or has anybody thought about the nightmare/marathon nursing that must go on?
mommyof3 says:
June 6, 2007 at 9:40 am
Wow! I am going to make my husband read this to remind us both how blessed we are to only have had 3 boys in 3 1/2 years! I may even hand out copies of this article (with your permission of course, Eric) to people in stores who approach me with my enormous brood and ask in horror and disbelief, "Are they all yours?"
Amp says:
June 6, 2007 at 11:02 am
The good news is that, at the rate she's going, Ms. Gonzalez will have another 35 kids before she hits menopause.
Chuckwagon Breakfast says:
June 6, 2007 at 11:55 am
Amp, all I have to say about your last comment is that if she keeps going at this rate, there's going to have to be traffic lights at certain...bottleneck areas.
Suzanna says:
June 6, 2007 at 12:51 pm
How does the press ferret out people like this? She could have said no to any interviews and kept her private life private, but she obviously has no shame. To go on TV to publicize her situation with pride just shows that she doesn't get it.
Zimm says:
June 6, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Ah, yes...now I see it, Sean. Your post was so infuriating, that by point 5, I was blinded with outrage. Well done!

Also, I 2nd Momma Snider! Comment #8 is classic.
Joe says:
June 9, 2007 at 6:21 pm
"They ruined it for everyone, just like the square mustache and the goose-step."

So I should probably shave this off, then, huh?

Seriously, what needs to be done is to take each of her kids and put them in a cannon, aim it at a 45-degree angle toward either coast, and give these kids a fighting chance.
Joe says:
June 9, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Also, I've heard the clown car quote before, and it's one of my favorites. Anyone know to whom it's attributed? It's been said so many times on the internet that a Google search doesn't really help anymore.
Bickmo says:
June 15, 2007 at 4:57 pm
People like this Amanda baffle me. ** shakes his head ***
Nicki says:
July 16, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I was just wondering if anyone has contact info for Amanda or Joshua, or possibly knows someone they know? I work for a TV show in Chicago and I'd love to have them come on! Thanks!
John Doe says:
December 31, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I'm kinda late to comment, but what the heck. For those wondering where she gets time to date, my bet (from experience) is that she doesn't raise the kids. All of my female cousins have illegitimate kids and not a single one of them raises the children; the grandparents raise them. I knew girls in high school who left their kids with grandma and grandpa so they could go out clubbing. Yeah, they help raise the kids, but if you were to measure how much time the mother raises the kids compared to how much the grandparents do, the mother is more like a babysitter who takes over when the grandparents get tired.
Jack says:
February 15, 2008 at 11:34 am
a draft of the story could be called

"Amanda Does Dallas"

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