Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 25, 2013

" But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ’men Gang aft agley…. "

Again biology trumps economics.

If you wait until you have the time and money and everything is right, you will never have kids.

Fortunately, they have a large extended family with nobody under the age of twelve. Also Zonker.

I’m too bored for this arc.

Is she a Harvard grad?

So she had a bun in the oven before she got married? Has yet to graduate college, no job prospects…if she’s been trying to get away from being like her flaky mother, she’s not doing a very good job about it.

she will be fine. first reason, it is a comic strip. second reason, is mit grads do really ok in the real world.

Cronos convergence!

You know, if they really were peanut-sized a couple of days ago, how is it they’re due in June? This doesn’t add up.

My husband and I waited a year after marriage before trying to get pregnant, then got pregnant immediately after we started trying. Even so, there were some who assumed that we were pregnant before marriage, those who didn’t know us very well, I guess. Time had passed without them knowing it.

Marking my calendar.

Alex and Toggle were married in the sequence of June 11-22, 2012. She is expecting in June 2013. True, the pregnancy happened quickly, but it would appear that they were married. Of course, in today’s world, I guess it doesn’t matter all that much, I am just trying to keep it in sequence of actual events. Human gestation does not take a year.

Many parents refer to their offspring as “little peanuts.” I don’t think Alex was being all that technical …

The question is whether they mean June in real-world time or June in comic-strip time. Sometimes the two run together, but that piles paradox on paradox as well. The uncanny valley of comic strip time!

There is a consistency here in terms of time. In the strip they were married in June 2012. Also, in the strip, they have a due date of June 2013.

But, if folks want to believe she was pregnant before marriage, it is up to them. Whatever.

Married before pregnancy or not, I have no trouble believing it was not planned in the strip, unless you are talking about it being planned in the mind of GT…

I foresee Zonker leaving his waiter job to go back to being a nanny.

She was married well before she got pregnant, but I know several women who got pregnant on the honeymoon.

In the 4th month, the fetus is 6.5-7 inches long and weighs 6-7 ounces. Much bigger than a peanut, yet I do believe that we humans are capable of expressing ourselves in a way which is not always to be taken literally.

@ Linquist – Indeed! And in the original too! Well done.

What difference does it make if they were married at the baby’s conception? As long as he steps up to the plate and acts as a father.

My granddaughter had twins two weeks after graduating from dental tech school. She did say the last month of school was exhausting, but she was on the job within a couple of months. Plus she breast fed them for a year, with mid day breast milk bottles left for the sitter. She’s a marvel!

Nowadays, people have a more accepting view of pregnant unmarried women. In the 70’s, a teacher could lose her job if unmarried and pregnant. In some private schools, this could still be true.

I thought she was still in her first trimester.

In the 70’s, even married teachers were let go as soon as they were “showing.” Times change, many lawsuits later.

She may still be in her first trimester, so that would put her at about 3 months, but we don’t know exactly what time frame GT had in mind here. It is harder to carry twins for quite so long, if you really want to get technical about it.

I thought maybe GT was inspired a few weeks ago by the royal baby news.

We know how some people are against planned parenthood.

Labor starts during the finals I bet

Well, more likely they want other people to follow it; or, would prefer no-one has sex at all, since they’re probably not getting it….

If “the biological imperative” is as true for our species (Homo sapiens) as it is for, say, ants or elephants or redwood trees, then again, “biology trumps economics”.

Reason: It may have been better economically for Alex and Leo to have used contraception and waited till both had well-paying jobs before “begetting” children, but the ol’ “imperative” weighed in and “biology trumped economics”!

Is this Trudeau’s point with this story arc?

You never plan to draw a deuce.

Fortunately, we never had this concept; rather, a holy act when performed in a holy manner, much like eating and drinking are not a sin. And people wonder why we never embraced the church except under duress.

Is Alex at a coffee shop in her bathrobe? Pregnancy-brain kicking in already.

PP (Planned Parenthood) doesn’t say, Don’t have sex. It says, Use condoms (e.g.). But California’s huge, heavily taxed porn industry (centered around Hollywood), is fighting all attempts to legally force its actors to use condoms during filming.

It seems fairly obvious that Alex is thrilled with her pregnancy, despite difficult circumstances. Since she and hubby are thrilled with her pregnancy, she will not abort. That is why it is called choice. It is true that some would prefer that women not have this choice. They are in a tiny but very vocal minority. I don’t know how or even if GT will splice PP into the strip. Possibly pregnancy wellness checks? PP does plenty of health services for women besides abortions.

They actually do constant testing, and as of a news story I heard a couple of years ago, they use the best test. If they do get a positive, the whole industry shuts down for two months while everybody is tested repeatedly.

In terms of working in something about PP, prenatal visits at PP are a big benefit to women on a budget, among many other services for women at PP. If not for PP, lots of women would be without urgently needed health care.

Ya jus’ gotta channel all that anger somewhere more positive, pal Cal.

As for being in pregnant and having children while in grad school, I’ve known women who have been able to manage both simultaneously (and at good schools, too), although it took longer for them to finish their research. (And for engineering, it might be particularly difficult.) As for interviewing while pregnant, I just listened to a seminar this morning by a woman who interviewed for her current job (high level scientist), went home, went into labor within a few hours, and had a baby by the next day. After she finally started working, she did a great job leading one of the more challenging research projects. The whole babies vs career decision-making starts right where Alex is in life, and it looks like she will be right at the epicenter of it (as she is with everything else in life). She’ll make it work, like lots of women manage to do (although it won’t be easy).

“… if you produce more offspring than can survive then you have collapse and a tremendous die back of the species. It could even bring it to extinction.”

Thus we humans follow the “biological imperative” reproducing like rabbits as hurtle through space on Starship Earth. Trouble is, our spaceship can only carry so much life-supporting cargo. Even if we do find 10 times more fossil fuel (oil, coal, natural gas) than we’ve discovered so far, eventually it will peter out. At an ever increasing pace. And don’t even think about global warming.

Nothing can stop us. Nor can we stop ourselves.

Even the very best economists say you have to have “growth” to sustain global societies. But when economics collides with biology, biology always wins.

BIOLOGY TRUMPS ECONOMICS.

We’re doomed.

Yikes!!!!! Even in a comic strip we’re counting the months. How pathetic!!

And for Scratchy — PP saves more pregnancies than it ends.

Thank God it’s Friday already. I really don’t want this arc to turn into a pitch for Unplanned Nonparenthood.

Why should I pay for roads when you will not?

Sandra Fluke did not want condoms. You have outed yourself as a worshipper of Rush Fatass.