a small rant

[juldea]

I made myself a memo to talk about this...

When driving into an area of construction on the highway these days, you tend to see poorly-scrawled orange signs that say something to the effect of "Please be careful, my mommy works here. Love, Blair". These annoy me to no end.

First off, they look terrible, and they're not at all individualized. I saw the same sign with the same name in 4 different states. Come on, state governments.

Secondly, I will not be one more whit careful for someone if they are a parent than if they are not one. A human is a human, and the loss of life is tragic no matter how many dependents that person has. I find it despicable that the government feels the need to imply that you should slow down for the sake of Blair's mommy more than for the sake of all the other workers out there.

I don't plan on having children. Does that make me more expendable than someone who does? Does it mean that I will contribute less to the world through my life than someone who is a parent?

I don't mean offense to people who have children, at all. Go them, they can handle something I'm too intimidated to try. Continuation of the species, hurrah!

...I just don't think they're any more special than I am. ;)

Comments

[baronbrian.livejournal.com]

Actuall I find those signs really amusing. Especially when I see one that says "My mommy works here" and it's on a street corner. I just have a wrong mind like that.

But it's kind of like hate crime isn't it? Why is this any different from just hitting some one in a non-construction zone?

[altair.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the "Baby On Board" craze in the 80's.

Re:

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Weren't you a baby then?? ;)

[altair.livejournal.com]

Not in spirit, darlin'

[adalius.livejournal.com]

shouldnt you be like, i dunno, posting in your journal?

[altair.livejournal.com]

I don't really like blogs. I just have a journal so I can vent somewhere if I want to, for the friends page, if I ever decide to do that again, and for my neato posting avatar.

[withlyn.livejournal.com]

I think (several weeks late, of course) that the point is not to slow down for someone's mother because parents are more important than the rest of us, but rather that people are more valuable for their relationships to other people than for their mere existence. Though it's true that all the supposed mother need do is to have unprotected sex, by having a child identify her as "mommy" we see a small part of the network of personal relationships that radiate from her to other humans, and this humanizes what, in our callus society, can seem to be litle more than a mindless automaton. Often, the suffering of a child at the loss of a parent can seem a greater loss than the simple loss of a single human life. There are all too many humans in the world, but that girl (though I realize her to be fictitious) has only one mother to lose.

Another aspect of the advertisement, I'm sure, is to point out that women can work on highway construction, too, and some people are more likely to worry about killing a woman than a man.

I don't think that parents are really more important than nonparents, or that women are more important than men, or that any one person should be valued over any other, but the point of the signs is to try to make people slow down around construction workers, and so they play with the emotions, ethics, or whatever of the people who are driving. I personally think it would be better to have a sign showing a construction worker (preferrably one actually at that site) that said "Please don't kill me. Slow down. --Joe" Or whatever. But I'm not making signs.