“The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race
I sort of get Margaret Sanger‘s bitterness. Her family arrived in the New World fleeing the Irish Famine (see the real and disturbing causes HERE). Her mother had 18 pregnancies and died young. So young Maggie gets it into her head that some babies are better off dead–not her, of course, but some other babies.
In Nicaragua I met a lot of unwashed, under-nourished children and not one of them asked me to put them out of their misery. In fact some had dreams of America or finding a cute boy to have a baby with (like people have done since the beginning of time). The girls liked having their nails painted and the boys were big flirts.
As a fifth grade teacher I met kids with alcoholic parents, criminal parents and neglectful parents. Some of these kids loved poetry and being read to.
Poor Maggie transferred her bitterness onto others. Yes, poverty is horrible, but it seems to me that extermination is a little worse (even if it’s done for the supposed good of the children or the environment). Case in point: Buster, the baby born to criminal parents who turned out alright.
Author Adrienne Morris 
13 responses to “So What if Your Parents Are Criminally Insane? Meet Buster the Wonder Baby!”
At one time I lived in a building named after her.
LikeLike
Did they restrict the number of kids who could live there? 🙂 It’s hard for me to look at her as a hero when her ideas about humanity were so in line with Hitler’s.
LikeLike
What amazed me the most is all the pictures this youngster had taken of him. Isn’t that unusual, in the time?
I like your reflections on other disadvantaged kids. Many of us didn’t have enough growing up and never knew it–no one told us!
Good post, Adrienne.
LikeLike
Thanks! The little kid was actually used in a study to see if kids born to moral degenerates could be trained to be normal 🙂
LikeLike
Succinct and funny.
LikeLike
Thanks, Mike. Have a great day!
LikeLike
I thought with that grin you were going to reveal he was Buster Keaton. 🙂
LikeLike
Nope, just some kid who was being judged by his gene pool 🙂
LikeLike
He certainly looked like a cranky child until he grew up a bit.
LikeLike
You’d be cranky too if you came from a gene pool full of bad people–kidding.
LikeLike
LOL
LikeLike
Not a fan of Margaret Sanger for precisely the reason you’ve explored. Who is Margaret to decide who lives and who does not? An interesting post – and I loved the photos.
LikeLike
Margaret comes across as a very cold sort of human in interviews I’ve seen from the 1950’s or 60’s.
LikeLike