March 8, 2011

World's youngest grandmother

Slate summarizes:
Spot a 25-year-old with a 2-year-old, and you could be forgiven for thinking that the baby is the woman's son. But in the case of one young Romanian woman, he's her grandson. Consider the source, but the Sun says that two years ago, at the age of 23, Rifca Stanescu became the world's youngest grandmother. Stanescu reportedly eloped at age 11 because she was afraid her family was going to marry her off to an older man (her groom was 13). She wasn't "forgiven" by her family until she produced a daughter a year later. The daughter, Maria, gave birth at 11. "I am happy to be a grandmother," Stanescu said, "but wished more for Maria." 

"Romanian" ...  Lemme guess ... I bet she's the kind of Romanian where you don't actually need the last four letters of the word "Romanian."

Yup

44 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ceausescu would have been proud.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I was wondering. So, journalism is now about intentionally obfuscating instead of informing.

Good stuff, guys.

Good stuff.

Max said...

Those are startlingly white-looking gypsies, for Romanian gypsies at least. (Spanish and French gypsies tend to be mostly European genetically; Romanian gypsies much more southern Asian.)

Anonymous said...

Rifca Stanescu became the world's youngest grandmother.

"Romanian" ... Lemme guess ... I bet she's the kind of Romanian where you don't actually need the last four letters of the word "Romanian."

Then you guessed wrong.

She is the kind of Romanian where the last THREE letters are superfluous. She is a Roman Romanian, not a gypsy.

Romanian surnames ending in "escu" are the real McCoy. Gypsy escu's are about as common as Jewish von's, and for the same reason.

currahee said...

re. photo: 23???

UltimateAwesomeness said...

Anonymous, I'm Romanian and she is Gypsy. Gypsies have Romanian names just like your former slaves have Anglo names. Is Obama's Jones dude an Anglo-Saxon then?

Anonymous said...

You know, the demographic consequences of ... um ...

Damn, she looks 50! What's up with that?

TH said...

In the pic, she looks about 35 and white, although her relations look more Gypsy. Perhaps she's a "convert" or a daughter of one.

Gypsy escu's are about as common as Jewish von's, and for the same reason.

There were some Jewish von's in Austria-Hungary, e.g John von Neumann, Ludwig von Mises, and Theodore von Kármán.

Anonymous said...

She is a Roman Romanian, not a gypsy.

Huh?

A gypsy wife has become the world's youngest grandmother - aged just 23.

In gypsy culture virginity is greatly prized and women are married young so that new husband's can be sure their new wives are virgins who affect a good dowry from the families of prospective husbands. Loss of virginity means a deal is cancelled.

She told how in Romanian gypsy community it is common for couples to marry young.

Rifca added: 'I did not try to stop my daughter getting married because this is the tradition, it's what happens.'


Good try though.

Anonymous said...

Nothing but a bunch of lawless gypsies roaming around. No need to be curious about Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania or even Poland. No siree, the only people who matter are those various Asiatics pouring into this country because their countries aren't such great places to live.

Got any wild animals with bleeding, puss filled wounds to entertain us with, instead. Obviously, interest in and connection to any part of Europe is barred Americans nowadays. Eat some more high carb Chinese food, buy some more shoddily made Chinese imports and sing the praises of your Chinese overlords. Life as we know it is over because these hyperbreeding, ruthless and obsessive tiger people want to be our masters.

Did you ever have any friends, Steve Pocahantus Sailer!

Syncretism said...

Yeah, this chick looks way over 25. Lying to get attention, Gypsy girl?

Don't forget to give your child an eyepatch and send him to the subway entrance.

Steve Sailer said...

She looks a lot like my cousin Eddie, who is a well-preserved 57-year-old man.

Kylie said...

The grandma looks 25 to me.

I guess some don't realize how fast the women in certain cultures lose their youthful bloom. Diet, hard work, lack of preventive medicine and basic health care all take their toll.

An even more dramatic example of this is the Afghan girl.

Her real age isn't known but she was probably about 12 when the first photo was taken in 1984. We know the second photo was taken 18 years later, in 2002, making her age then around 30.

The Afghan Girl, at 12 and at 30.

Anonymous said...

The 30 year old Afghan woman doesn't look that bad. Yeah, her face is kind of weathered. But any decent glamor magazine photo doctor could probably make her look hot. Not so easy with the Gypsy granny!

agnostic said...

Looks like she's been living on a 7-11 diet ever since she ran away. Hard to imagine it could've turned out otherwise -- it's not like she eloped in order to marry up, where she'd be better fed (at least I hope that doofus doesn't count as marrying up).

none of the above said...

Yeah, it might age you a bit, to start cranking out the kids at age 12.

agnostic said...

Men with Gold Chains, movin'-on-up Gypsy edition:

Rich Italian Gypsies

That grandma wouldn't be in such bad shape if she had one of these beer-belly barons taking care of her.

Anonymous said...

I knew a girl in high school of Gypsy desent, wrote about the persecution and oppression found here:

http://kopachi.com/articles/the-erasure-of-romani-women-by-alexandra-oprea/#more-141

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZeZ4viIguTIJ:www.aapf.org/focus/episodes/testimonials.php+alexandra+oprea&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:bbXarHntTQUJ:projects.essex.ac.uk/EHRR/V1N1/Oprea.pdf+alexandra+oprea&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESi2-Kh5Ma_9OjCTg_oduvz4ZC2-JPw01eRy7VDD1Yph0YLQuIzjwbPaCGoznJp3eEFJKuEvFfEI-Dbju7wLqoOuX26iW01DF-EK-_vXwFeBrtIMTP4-5k5y6eTAgUY-aFDEbExj&sig=AHIEtbT1dLYi456V89k7TST9MosoeXsrSQ&pli=1


she was quite attractive and on facebook ,but she doesn't look anything like ugly gypsy women she was actually beautiful

CJ said...

Not getting much at the link.

Anonymous said...

Baby's baby having babies.

Chicago said...

Romanians and others are always getting blamed for the misbehavior of gypsies as there seems to be this great reluctance to actually come out and specify it. She might be older, who knows, it's not as if they're adverse to lying about things for one reason or another. Insofar as names go one can't tell since they regularly change names, especially when they move. For example, one of the most common gypsy names in the US mid-west is "Miller". Figure that one out.

Anonymous said...

Agnostic, that link is epic. OMG. Wow. Commenters there say that those houses are actually in Romania.

Kylie said...

"The 30 year old Afghan woman doesn't look that bad. Yeah, her face is kind of weathered. But any decent glamor magazine photo doctor could probably make her look hot. Not so easy with the Gypsy granny!"

I think we're talking two different things here. Yes, I agree that the Afghan girl is naturally attractive and the gypsy granny is not. But I was responding to the comments about the granny looking so much older than mid-20's. That could be remedied with a complete makeover. No, she wouldn't be hot but she wouldn't look 50, either. Poor diet, hard work and lack of decent overall health care (as well as childbirth) take their toll.

Sgt. Joe Friday said...

25? Yeah, riiiight. If she's 25, she's been "rode hard and put up wet."

My wife is 54 and looks better than that.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous, I'm Romanian and she is Gypsy. Gypsies have Romanian names just like your former slaves have Anglo names. Is Obama's Jones dude an Anglo-Saxon then?"

No he's obviously Welsh...

AmericanGoy said...

Agnostic, I was looking for that beach, errr, lord, picture forever.

Thank You!

Michael Farris said...

Some years ago I often passed by a couple of ostentatious (Polish) gypsy houses near where I lived. They weren't as purely hideous as the Romanian houses but they were a lot more grandiose than local standards call for and very much in what the French call mauvais gout.

After some time I noticed they were empty, no curtains in the windows no furniture inside.

In back there were some small low outbuildings that looked almost like very long garages parallel to the road but with several doors (no windows that I remember).

The gypsies lived in those, my theory was that the houses were just for show, the real estate equivalent of a big ole gold chain.

A comment at the link mentions that the Romanian gypsies don't live in those big houses either (assumes there was a lack of money to finish them) but I bet they're just more gold chain houses and not meant to be lived in at all.

Michael Farris said...

Also ... the second time I was in Romania was after France had kicked some gypsies out and there were noticeably more gypsies in Bukarest than the first time I was there.

When I (very tactfully) tried to ask a person or two about this I got "Don't get me started....." looks and some anti-French muttering.

In stores, twice (within a few days of each other). I was significantly (by local standards) short-changed. In both cases as soon as I challenged the amount (using my scraps of Romanian) they gave me the right change with something like apologies. Both times involved young pretty women who either have bad math skills or bad honesty skills. The first didn't look gypsy at all but the second could have been a partly assimilated city gypsy.

As for the whiteness of baby grandma, you do see that sometimes. The genetic gypsy/gadjo divide breaks down here and there both with some gypsies disasssimilating from gypsy culture into the mainstream and some non-gypsies assimilating in. Hungarians tell me some gypsy women work as prostitutes (with the approval of their husbnds) and occasionally add a half gadjo kid to the brood. I'm not entirely sure about that though.
But still, an occasional blondish or redheaded gypsy isn't that unusual though a whole group of them would be.

Anonymous said...

Gypsies have a long history of working as prostitutes, which is why their complexion tends to be much lighter than what you'd expect.

Anonymous said...

sing the praises of your Chinese overlords ... Steve Pocahantus Sailer!

lol, it's cuz steve has a really bad case of yellow fever and his overlords promised him an amy chua lookalike if he does a good job for them.

sabril said...

I agree it's possible that she is 25. Lifestyle can really age girls quickly. Still, if I had to guess I would say she is probably lying for one reason or another.

Anonymous said...

What a gyp!

slumber_j said...

When did the notion that "Spanish Gypsies are called gitanos" gain traction? What *is* that?

No, they aren't: they're called "Spanish Gypsies." Unless you're speaking Spanish. In which case, water is called "agua," bread is called "pan," etc.

Also, I've rejected the idea that they're less troublesome here before. I lived in Spain for many years. My elderly father's mugging at the hands of a Gypsy and their general reputation both indicate otherwise. They are a bit better integrated into the population as a whole than elsewhere in Europe: that's true. As I've said, one meets a lot of people in Spain who are part-Gypsy, which isn't the case elsewhere.

George said...

Her hubby didn't want to fork over 500,000 lei for her dowery. I don't blame him. That's about $16.60 in real cash money.

Anonymous said...

Maybe she, and her family, are "Roman" Romanians pretending to be Gypsies?

Gary said...

I don't believe the headline:

Somewhere a pygmy woman has her beat.

Lucius Igorevich said...

Since Lucius doesn't seem to be around, I'll take on his responsibilities for a moment.

She started her fertile period at 12, and now she's 25. Those of you knocking her looks, consider SWPLs who start their fertile periods at 30, and then nature ends them at 43.

So, in a certain sense, she looks in her forties, and she is in her forties.

But actually, she's got another 15 years of fertility ahead of her.

Bob said...

"some gypsy women work as prostitutes"

I learned this many years ago from Cher's "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves."

tommy said...

It's like that scene out of Deuce Bigalow, Steve: you're racist because you noticed.

Anonymous said...

Well, she beat country music singer Loretta Lynn, an old-stock American who married at 13 and became a grandmother at 29.

dores said...

Loretta Lynn was, I guess--don't know her personally--mostly "old stock American" to judge from looks and the kind of people who settled that area. She is also, however, partly American Indian, though I don't know how much. Her sister, Crystal Gale, spoke of it. A lot of whites in that part of the South are part Indian. The country singer Bobby Sands was another example.

tramp or maybe thief said...

"I learned this many years ago from Cher's "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves."

And where was this gal's pappa, I'd like to know.

Anonymous said...

A suitor, one Paris, wants to marry Capulet's daughter, Juliet:
Paris"Younger than she are happy mothers made" as a persuasive statement.
Lord Capulet: "And too soon marred are those so early made."

Romeo&Juliet, Shakespear

(and Juliet was already 14)

ATBOTL said...

"A lot of whites in that part of the South are part Indian."

I bet a lot more say they are part Indian than actually are.