McCall's has a new dress pattern up, called simply "Princess dresses". It doesn't have the Disney mark on it. It does not use the word "Cinderella". Clearly it must be 'not' the dress worn by the live-action Cinderella in the new movie. McCall's has a habit of doing this, and to be honest, it makes me giggle. Last year, we had 'not' Elsa, a dress with a sheer upper bodice and a train that started just under the arms. Before that, we had 'not' Merida, a princess-seamed green dress with white elbow and shoulder puffs.
Well, I'm about to do it to you guys. I am about to make one of those posts where everyone knows what I'm talking about, but I am going to get pretty far before identifying it plainly, and I am not going to delve into the details at all. Frankly, I don't need the details to make my point.
King David, despite being described as a man after God's on heart, did some pretty dreadful things. He lusted after a woman who was not his wife. He sent for her and had sex with her. Then he got her husband killed, when her husband refused to help cover up for her pregnancy. That is arguably pretty dreadful stuff with pretty permanent results. Of course, he did not escape punishment. God sent a prophet to explain why he had done wrong, and the child died. Was this 'enough' punishment? Was it within the statute of limitations? Should God have allowed King David to learn his sin through a prophet he already knew, instead of, say, sending in someone who was unconnected to the King? What about their second son, Solomon? Was God wrong to have given Solomon the kingdom? Was it a sign that David had not 'repented enough'? King David and his son have been dust for thousands of years.
Should we forgive King David? What crime has he committed against us?
There is another man who has been dust for slightly less time. His name was originally Saul of Tarsus, but he was renamed "Paul" after his conversion. He wrote an awful lot of the New Testament and spoke clearly on a variety of sins and evils, including most of the New Testament verses against homosexual behavior. Although he did not engage in homosexual behavior as far as we know, he did hunt down Christians and kill them before his conversion. He considered himself the very best Pharisee of Pharisees at a time when that was basically the most pious thing you could be. He was even celebrated for his piousness. He had to understand that he was doing wrong, and change his ways.
Does Paul's sin make his lessons on sinful behavior irrelevant? Should we take his writings seriously?
Both of these issues are making the rounds in recent days, due to the revelation of actions committed by a young man when he was a teenager. This should indeed be a controversy, but it should be an entirely different kind of controversy than the one I see floating around article comments and chat rooms. This should be a dialog about the problems that lead to inappropriate sinful behavior and the proper criminal justice system response when the perpetrator is underaged. Instead, it has become a two-prong argument, and both prongs seem geared specifically towards targeting Christianity rather than the actual sinner.
The "King David prong" can be summed up as a movement I have seen in recent years geared towards punishing people for the 'sin' of "Not Living Up To Our Expectations". In it, someone is judged, not by whether he acknowledges his sin as wrong or tries to justify it as right, but whether he has dared to hold himself to a standard that he has violated with his behavior. In this 'brave new' situation, you are better off to keep your (and others') expectations low, to ensure that you do not fail, than to aim high and miss your mark - even if your actual shot lands much higher than it ever would have managed were you to keep your expectations small. These are the people who excuse the sin of people like Bill Clinton and Lena Dunham because the perpetrators maintain that they have committed no crime, but do their best to drive out any pastor who has admitted to adultery, acknowledged his error, and asked for forgiveness. This is the exact opposite of what Christianity should be about.
Think about yourself for a moment. Never mind other people's sins. Think about your expectations of yourself. Think about other people's expectations of you. Because I am a Christian and because my sins are generally not severe in modern society and not obvious to a casual onlooker, some people have this notion of me as this perfect sweet excellent woman, and I hate it. If I try to note that I'm not really all that wonderful, they take it as modesty. In this present day, I am downright afraid to have people take that view of me. I never know if they are going to turn virulently upon me, if I should have a sin revealed that actually horrifies them... not for the sin itself (and utterly regardless of my response to it), mind you, but for the new, manufactured 'sin' of "Not Living Up To Their Expectations".
Why do you think God used King David? Why do you think God went after Saul of Tarsus? Why do you think God chose the Israelites, a group of such unruly, stubborn, imperfect people that they kept getting showed up by pagan Romans who had more faith in Christ than the very people who had been awaiting His arrival? Do you think maybe God wanted to teach us that He can make perfect where we stumble? That God can use people who don't "Live Up To Expectations"? Christianity is not about a bunch of perfect people talking about the way we should live. Christianity is about a bunch of sinners finding out that God is patient and loving, and that His laws come from Himself. That leads us into the other prong.
We could call the second prong the "Saul of Tarsus prong". In this particular case, it centers around homosexual behavior, but it could really be used for any convenient sin. Unlike the "King David Prong", this one primarily springs from non-Christians, and it, too, misunderstands what Christianity is for.
Paul's writings show that he was very aware of his own sins and failings. Despite that, he wrote an awful lot about what was sinful and what wasn't, and what was proper behavior for a Christian and what wasn't. Did anybody ever question the appropriateness of a man who used to drag off Christians to their death in saying that the 'stronger brother' should not burden the 'weaker brother' and the 'weaker brother' should not condemn the 'stronger brother'? Why would anybody listen to someone with a "thorn in his flesh" when he says that all have sinned and that eternal life comes through the grace of God? We certainly hold people up to a similar standard today. Should a man who committed adultery (and repented of his sin) be allowed to teach about marriage? Should a woman who had an abortion be allowed to run a pro-life organization? Should a teen who got out of a gang be allowed to tell other teens how to stay out of gangs?
The whole point of being a Christian is that you are holding yourself to God's standard. You are failing to live up to God's standard. You are repenting and receiving forgiveness for your sins against God's standard. Here's another way of putting it. Would you go to a dentist who has cavities? Well, perhaps instead of looking at his mouth, you should listen to his words. If he tells you that the American Dental Association recommends that you brush twice a day, should you decide that the American Dental Association is wrong because he doesn't brush twice a day and he has gingivitis? Of course not! In fact, making that conclusion is, in debate, called "ad hominem" - it is what happens when you attack the bearer of news rather than the originator. So should someone who has engaged in sexual sin and repented of it be allowed to become the bearer of God's news about homosexual behavior? Of course! (And here I finally drop the name.) Josh Duggar does not speak against gay 'marriage' according to Josh Duggar's authority. Josh Duggar speaks against gay 'marriage' according to God's authority. Of course, it's so much easier to pound Josh Duggar into the ground than to go up against God... but you must be aware that Christianity is a place for sinners who repent, for people who miss the mark and wish they hadn't, for people who know that they are sick and are seeking out the Physician. If you want a religion of "perfect people" who are telling you "how to turn yourself perfect", go seek out Scientology. God's Law is about what works. Christianity is about what happens to you when you realize that you can't do it by your own power.
And eventually, when you stand before God and He says, "Why didn't you listen to me?" it will do you no good to say, "Because I didn't like the looks of the bearer of Your message."
Showing posts with label traditional family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traditional family. Show all posts
Monday, May 25, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Back to the Fathers
The year is 2015. The pictures and quotes have been flying all over Facebook. In 1985, we were treated to the first part of one of the most excellent trilogies ever made... Back To The Future.
In the first movie, our protagonist starts out in 1985, a beautiful, perfect 1985 that now evokes nostalgia in everyone who was born before 1990. He gets dropped into 1955 in the first movie. In the second, he travels to 2015. In the third, he winds up in 1885. The year now is 2015, and we are finding that "the future" is sadly lacking in some areas, such as hoverboards and flying cars, but surprisingly similar in others, as the writers cleverly repeated trends as has always happened in the past and seems likely to continue into the future.
What I'd like to talk about, though, is the psychology and the sociology of the show. They hit upon one solid, repeatable truth, and gave us many excellent examples of it. A father's influence is vital within his entire family.
Note: If you have not seen the trilogy, stop now. Watch it through. Then read the rest of this post.
In the first movie, Marty McFly's father is not exactly an inspiring fellow. He is harried, submissive, and detached from other people. This deficit in his own behavior shows in his entire family. His wife drinks a little too much. (That point is subtle and takes some attention to detail.) His eldest struggles along as a night worker at a fast food restaurant, and his daughter is frumpy and consistently griping about her unpopularity. Marty himself is keeping himself from a potential career (or, at least, ten minutes of fame) as a musician by his crippling insecurity. During the course of the movie, George McFly learns how to be both assertive and connected, and his entire family benefits. His wife at the movie's end is healthier and happier, and their children are all progressing slowly towards successful lives of their own.
One instance, though, does not a trend make. In the second movie, Doc notes that Marty's family falls apart and traces the origin of the problem to his son's and daughter's arrest when his son gets browbeat into participating in criminal activity. As we see a night around the McFly table, however, we know that Doc is no expert in family sociology. (Did we expect him to be?) Marty is a manipulated blowhard. His wife married him for pity (not unlike his father's wife in the beginning of the first movie) and often goes out on long trips after work without letting him know where she has gone. His children have no respect for him. They are living in a neighborhood where the cops do not like to travel after dark. We do not see the end result when Marty changes his ways, but we clearly see how his wife and children's welfare depend heavily on his own behavior.
Families need their fathers.
In the same movie, we see that the antagonist Biff appears to have an absent mother and absent father. He is raised by his grandmother. We have no idea what happened to his parents. We do see his internal frustration with his grandmother and the way he takes it out on everyone else.
When Marty returns to 1985, or, rather, the problematic 1985A in which his father is dead and Biff has married his mother, we see the effects of Biff as a father once again spreading through the entire family. His mother is so beaten down that she justifies the abuse she suffers at his hands. Marty's older brother is on parole, and his sister can't seem to handle her money at all, as she has a dangerous amount of credit card debt. Marty himself apparently keeps getting thrown out of boarding schools. You almost can't blame Biff for griping about the "perfectly good money" he wastes on these "worthless kids".
Of course, the best movie isn't a hammer meant to drive a lesson deep into your head. The series has always been primarily about how you can improve your future by what you do today. In addition, the series is smart enough to not make a good father a guarantee of good children; Marty has his own problems even under the influence of his changed father, and one of the children of Lorraine's traditional 1950's father winds up in jail. Still, the message is clear, even if it is an unintentional result of a carefully-crafted series that pursues every thread to its most logical conclusion (flying cars aside)...
Families need their fathers. Of course, not everything relies wholly upon the father. However, he definitely has a profound effect on every member of his family.
We would do well to remember this.
In the first movie, our protagonist starts out in 1985, a beautiful, perfect 1985 that now evokes nostalgia in everyone who was born before 1990. He gets dropped into 1955 in the first movie. In the second, he travels to 2015. In the third, he winds up in 1885. The year now is 2015, and we are finding that "the future" is sadly lacking in some areas, such as hoverboards and flying cars, but surprisingly similar in others, as the writers cleverly repeated trends as has always happened in the past and seems likely to continue into the future.
What I'd like to talk about, though, is the psychology and the sociology of the show. They hit upon one solid, repeatable truth, and gave us many excellent examples of it. A father's influence is vital within his entire family.
Note: If you have not seen the trilogy, stop now. Watch it through. Then read the rest of this post.
In the first movie, Marty McFly's father is not exactly an inspiring fellow. He is harried, submissive, and detached from other people. This deficit in his own behavior shows in his entire family. His wife drinks a little too much. (That point is subtle and takes some attention to detail.) His eldest struggles along as a night worker at a fast food restaurant, and his daughter is frumpy and consistently griping about her unpopularity. Marty himself is keeping himself from a potential career (or, at least, ten minutes of fame) as a musician by his crippling insecurity. During the course of the movie, George McFly learns how to be both assertive and connected, and his entire family benefits. His wife at the movie's end is healthier and happier, and their children are all progressing slowly towards successful lives of their own.
One instance, though, does not a trend make. In the second movie, Doc notes that Marty's family falls apart and traces the origin of the problem to his son's and daughter's arrest when his son gets browbeat into participating in criminal activity. As we see a night around the McFly table, however, we know that Doc is no expert in family sociology. (Did we expect him to be?) Marty is a manipulated blowhard. His wife married him for pity (not unlike his father's wife in the beginning of the first movie) and often goes out on long trips after work without letting him know where she has gone. His children have no respect for him. They are living in a neighborhood where the cops do not like to travel after dark. We do not see the end result when Marty changes his ways, but we clearly see how his wife and children's welfare depend heavily on his own behavior.
Families need their fathers.
In the same movie, we see that the antagonist Biff appears to have an absent mother and absent father. He is raised by his grandmother. We have no idea what happened to his parents. We do see his internal frustration with his grandmother and the way he takes it out on everyone else.
When Marty returns to 1985, or, rather, the problematic 1985A in which his father is dead and Biff has married his mother, we see the effects of Biff as a father once again spreading through the entire family. His mother is so beaten down that she justifies the abuse she suffers at his hands. Marty's older brother is on parole, and his sister can't seem to handle her money at all, as she has a dangerous amount of credit card debt. Marty himself apparently keeps getting thrown out of boarding schools. You almost can't blame Biff for griping about the "perfectly good money" he wastes on these "worthless kids".
Of course, the best movie isn't a hammer meant to drive a lesson deep into your head. The series has always been primarily about how you can improve your future by what you do today. In addition, the series is smart enough to not make a good father a guarantee of good children; Marty has his own problems even under the influence of his changed father, and one of the children of Lorraine's traditional 1950's father winds up in jail. Still, the message is clear, even if it is an unintentional result of a carefully-crafted series that pursues every thread to its most logical conclusion (flying cars aside)...
Families need their fathers. Of course, not everything relies wholly upon the father. However, he definitely has a profound effect on every member of his family.
We would do well to remember this.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Daddy's in Mexico with Sally
One of the bigger controversies of 80's films is Steven Spielberg's decision to replace guns with walkie-talkies in the DVD version of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Remember that? Spielberg made a pretty little speech about how he felt the guns were 'too scary' for youngsters and he felt it was wrong to depict them in the movie.
Happily, Spielberg has seen the light, and regrets that decision. The guns will be back for the Blu-Ray release of the film.
That didn't stop me from thinking, though, as I listened to some E.T. soundtrack music while pinning and cutting a new dress on the dining room table. (Yes, I am that weird.) Spielberg was responding to a lot of criticism he received about that part of the movie. Apparently, there are many parents who believe that showing guns in a children's movie is just too scary. I have to wonder about their priorities. The scariest thing in that movie, for the children, has nothing to do with weapons or aliens.
Early in the movie, we are introduced to a family in crisis. The mother is obviously overtired and has little control over her kids. There is no sign of a father. We soon find out why, when the little one blurts out that "Daddy is with Sally in Mexico." From the way her older brothers hush her up, and her mother's shattered poise, it was obvious that only one member of the family did not know. The theme emerges a few more times. The boys are very obviously keeping important problems from their mother to spare her feelings and keep from burdening her further.
I was about eight years' old when the movie really hit the market and started being shown and reshown everywhere. I saw it at friends' houses, with that familiar green thing on the VHS tape making it easy to pick out from the others. I saw it at school for an 'afternoon treat' during a Christmas party. I saw it in a summertime drive-in theater. Right around that time, my closest neighborhood friend's parents got a divorce. It was like that in the mid-80's. You were going along your merry way and suddenly a friend, a neighbor, maybe even your own mom and dad were getting a divorce. In a way, it was like a battlefield. You never knew which of your fellow soldiers would fall next.
Spielberg chose to remove those guns from the DVD edition of the movie. Do I wish he had removed the parental abandonment angle from the movie? After all, in other famous kid movies, like Iron Giant and Toy Story, the missing father is barely alluded to, and his method of disappearance is never explained. No, I wouldn't want it removed. It is one of the major reasons, perhaps even stronger than the alien himself, this became such an iconic and important movies of the '80's. It dared to do what so many movies do not, and show all of us just how badly it hurts a family when "Daddy is in Mexico with Sally".
In this day and age, divorce is no longer a new and strange phenomenon. Our children are growing up with peers who never had a father, whose mothers never even married the guy, and they are being taught that this is fairly normal and no big deal. On top of that, we have seen all sorts of new gun legislation and attempts at gun legislation, enforcing and reinforcing the notion that guns are just too scary for children. Fatherlessness, though, that's just no big deal...
The idea of facing an adversary bearing weapons is practically second-nature to these kids. The guns aren't ever even pointed at them. Not a single shot is fired. What scares them is the lack of a parent, or the fear that, at any time, one of their parents may simply walk away... and go to Mexico with Sally.
Happily, Spielberg has seen the light, and regrets that decision. The guns will be back for the Blu-Ray release of the film.
That didn't stop me from thinking, though, as I listened to some E.T. soundtrack music while pinning and cutting a new dress on the dining room table. (Yes, I am that weird.) Spielberg was responding to a lot of criticism he received about that part of the movie. Apparently, there are many parents who believe that showing guns in a children's movie is just too scary. I have to wonder about their priorities. The scariest thing in that movie, for the children, has nothing to do with weapons or aliens.
Early in the movie, we are introduced to a family in crisis. The mother is obviously overtired and has little control over her kids. There is no sign of a father. We soon find out why, when the little one blurts out that "Daddy is with Sally in Mexico." From the way her older brothers hush her up, and her mother's shattered poise, it was obvious that only one member of the family did not know. The theme emerges a few more times. The boys are very obviously keeping important problems from their mother to spare her feelings and keep from burdening her further.
I was about eight years' old when the movie really hit the market and started being shown and reshown everywhere. I saw it at friends' houses, with that familiar green thing on the VHS tape making it easy to pick out from the others. I saw it at school for an 'afternoon treat' during a Christmas party. I saw it in a summertime drive-in theater. Right around that time, my closest neighborhood friend's parents got a divorce. It was like that in the mid-80's. You were going along your merry way and suddenly a friend, a neighbor, maybe even your own mom and dad were getting a divorce. In a way, it was like a battlefield. You never knew which of your fellow soldiers would fall next.
Spielberg chose to remove those guns from the DVD edition of the movie. Do I wish he had removed the parental abandonment angle from the movie? After all, in other famous kid movies, like Iron Giant and Toy Story, the missing father is barely alluded to, and his method of disappearance is never explained. No, I wouldn't want it removed. It is one of the major reasons, perhaps even stronger than the alien himself, this became such an iconic and important movies of the '80's. It dared to do what so many movies do not, and show all of us just how badly it hurts a family when "Daddy is in Mexico with Sally".
In this day and age, divorce is no longer a new and strange phenomenon. Our children are growing up with peers who never had a father, whose mothers never even married the guy, and they are being taught that this is fairly normal and no big deal. On top of that, we have seen all sorts of new gun legislation and attempts at gun legislation, enforcing and reinforcing the notion that guns are just too scary for children. Fatherlessness, though, that's just no big deal...
The idea of facing an adversary bearing weapons is practically second-nature to these kids. The guns aren't ever even pointed at them. Not a single shot is fired. What scares them is the lack of a parent, or the fear that, at any time, one of their parents may simply walk away... and go to Mexico with Sally.
Monday, December 19, 2011
The scientific argument for monogamy
I've heard this one before. Have you? "Humans might be naturally promiscuous," they say. Then they bolster their opinion with, "After all, our closest ancestors are apes and monkeys, and they're promiscuous." Now what do you say in response to that? You know that men are not apes, and that we aren't supposed to act just like them. The argument against their talking point has generally taken that tack (apes also engage in rape and infanticide, and we wouldn't want to make that part of society, would we?) or simply the emotional/spiritual form (we have the ability to act beyond our instincts, it separates us from the animals, etc.), which is hard to explain to someone who doesn't think we're anything special.
So in interests of advancing a new argument to bring into the mainstream, I would like to introduce you to the Prairie Vole.
The prairie vole is a curiosity among voles because of it's monogamous behavior. It has, in fact, *very* monogamous behavior. It forms a life-long mating bond. The mated couple live together, groom each other, engage in various animal forms of affection (rather than only showing interest during mating time), and the male even helps the female nurture and raise the children. Promiscuity is very rare, mostly because the mated vole comes to dislike the very scent of other voles of the opposite sex.
Why should we care about the prairie vole? After all, doesn't the whole "we are promiscuous because apes are promiscuous" argument hedge on our similarity to apes? Well, that's the interesting thing. We share DNA with the prairie vole. Specifically, our sexual-behavior DNA is an identical strand. It has the same information, and it repeats the same number of times. Does it make a difference? Yes. When that DNA strand was fitted into a sample group of the ardently promiscuous meadow vole, they turned just as monogamous as the prairie vole.
Curious, I did a search on "prairie vole" and "homosexual". The best I could come up with was a study that showed that prairie voles formed temporary same-sex relationships under certain conditions. However, though the relationships involved shared sleeping space and some grooming, they did not mention anything about actual *sexual* behavior.
So in interests of advancing a new argument to bring into the mainstream, I would like to introduce you to the Prairie Vole.
The prairie vole is a curiosity among voles because of it's monogamous behavior. It has, in fact, *very* monogamous behavior. It forms a life-long mating bond. The mated couple live together, groom each other, engage in various animal forms of affection (rather than only showing interest during mating time), and the male even helps the female nurture and raise the children. Promiscuity is very rare, mostly because the mated vole comes to dislike the very scent of other voles of the opposite sex.
Why should we care about the prairie vole? After all, doesn't the whole "we are promiscuous because apes are promiscuous" argument hedge on our similarity to apes? Well, that's the interesting thing. We share DNA with the prairie vole. Specifically, our sexual-behavior DNA is an identical strand. It has the same information, and it repeats the same number of times. Does it make a difference? Yes. When that DNA strand was fitted into a sample group of the ardently promiscuous meadow vole, they turned just as monogamous as the prairie vole.
Curious, I did a search on "prairie vole" and "homosexual". The best I could come up with was a study that showed that prairie voles formed temporary same-sex relationships under certain conditions. However, though the relationships involved shared sleeping space and some grooming, they did not mention anything about actual *sexual* behavior.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Equality of what, exactly?
I am a member of the Ladies Against Feminism group. As such, I have joined their Facebook page and often read and reply to the people there. I wanted to take one of my answers today and expand it for the edification for anyone who reads this blog.
One self-proclaimed feminist wrote the following (excerpt): "A real feminist believes women should have all the same choices as men do. However, the fact that most people who do choose to stay at home are women obviously says something. it cannot in every case be a choice or else 50% of stay at home parents would be men."
Now this falls into an error that feminists and liberals (the two groups often overlap) both follow. This error is defining equal opportunity as equal outcomes.
This nation was created in order to give each of us equal opportunity, and it has historically succeeded admirably. Anyone is allowed to start their own business. Anyone is allowed to work his way up, to find a way to pay for higher education, to transcend the social and economic class into which he.. or she.. was born. If you have a dream, America is the place to be. You will have no better luck in any other country.
Now of course, all human beings have different dreams. Many dream of simply having a safe, comfortable life. Some want to invent something new. Others want to heal anyone they can help. Still others simply want to accumulate wealth. It is a delight to me to ask people what they dream of doing and encourage them to take steps towards that end. I know one young man who merely wants to be the best teacher of history, the one who gives untold students a love for knowledge of the past. I knew one middle-aged woman, a data entry worker, who wished she was repairing, refurbishing, and selling antique furniture on Long Island. Walk down any street and understand that those houses hide (or display, depending on the house) all sorts of fascinating professions and hobbies. I've seen an entire basement taken up by a beautifully intricate, lifelike model railroad running its tracks through mountainous villages and a miniature city. I married the son of the man who invented the Auto-Reverse for the cassette tape deck.
What's my point? Well, if each person is a dynamic, living person with hopes and dreams, then not everyone is going to have the same dream and not everyone is going to have the same hope. Not everyone will want to be a doctor, and not everyone will want to be a carpenter. The last thing I would expect from equal opportunities is equal outcomes, because not everyone values the same things. One person will be utterly happy with a part-time job, an old trailer, and the ability to take three-hour walks daily. Another will prize money over time. Yet another will gladly give up all his money to be surrounded by children. If we are forced to have equal outcomes, we cannot have equal opportunity.
Back to our feminist talker of the day. "It cannot in every case be a choice or else 50% of stay at home parents would be men," she asserts. Is this true? A Pew research poll in 2007 showed that only 21% of full-time working mothers and 16% of stay-at-home mothers believe that full-time work is ideal for them. On the other hand, 72% of working fathers believe that working full-time is the best situation for them. Why would someone believe that equal opportunity to make your own choice would result in a 50/50 split of homemaker men and women, when over 70% of fathers prefer to work full-time and about 20% of mothers prefer the same?
Personally, ideally, I would think that equal opportunity would result in 100% of working mothers feeling that full-time work is ideal for them, and 0% of the stay-at-home mothers feeling that full-time work is ideal for them. Of course, we don't live in an ideal world, and, as our feminist of the day pointed out, not everyone has the ability to choose what he or she prefers in the area of homemaking versus working outside the home. So what should be done to make that choice more available?
Most feminists believe that more women should be pushed out of the homemaking sphere, by force if necessary, in order to ensure that they have equality through equal outcomes. I believe that equality comes through opportunity, and that true choice will result in the majority of women feeling that they are in their ideal situation. Given that 84% of stay-at-home women are in their ideal situation and only 21% of working mothers feel the same way, my analysis is that any method of coercion, any oppression of choices, is happening due to the feminist 'remedy'.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Expansion desired
When Bernie and I first married, we decided that we would like to have three children altogether. Well, I did the deciding, really. I said I wanted three. He said he definitely at least wanted two. I didn't worry over it. I didn't feel the need to compromise, or debate. I was diagnosed at age 20 with Stage II endometriosis and I didn't even know if I could have children.
My husband's mindset changed with the birth of our daughter. Oh, he was very happy and helpful with the birth of our son, but it was a stressful time for us, financially, and that gave him worries about how he was going to care for his family. Now he's settling into a more secure position, and we're doing alright. Before our daughter, he said he definitely wanted one or two children. Now he joins me in saying that he definitely wants three... maybe even four!
When we purchased this house, it must have seemed silly for a young couple to pick up a four-bedroom bi-level. This house is both big and small at the same time. It's a very good house for people. It can hold probably five, maybe even six at the peak of its comfort level. We bought it knowing that we wanted several children, and we still do.
Of course, then reality intrudes. I had to work full-time while my husband dealt with an education issue and got himself a steady job that allowed me to return home. I was under tremendous stress and could not carry a pregnancy. Thanks to that, the age gap between my son and daughter is greater than I'd hoped. They are six years apart. I'm starting to creep close to age 35, when fertility drops and pregnancy starts becoming dangerous.
We still want a third baby.
Those of you who read this and pray, do pray that it may be in God's will to bless us a third time. We are doing what we can, and it's way too early to think that we might be having any difficulty, as we're only on our second cycle of attempting. But do please feel free to pray. Sooner is better, in my opinion, but I will take what God gives me, when He gives it to me, and have faith.
I do believe that God did not give us a four-bedroom house just so that we could have two children and then stop.
My husband's mindset changed with the birth of our daughter. Oh, he was very happy and helpful with the birth of our son, but it was a stressful time for us, financially, and that gave him worries about how he was going to care for his family. Now he's settling into a more secure position, and we're doing alright. Before our daughter, he said he definitely wanted one or two children. Now he joins me in saying that he definitely wants three... maybe even four!
When we purchased this house, it must have seemed silly for a young couple to pick up a four-bedroom bi-level. This house is both big and small at the same time. It's a very good house for people. It can hold probably five, maybe even six at the peak of its comfort level. We bought it knowing that we wanted several children, and we still do.
Of course, then reality intrudes. I had to work full-time while my husband dealt with an education issue and got himself a steady job that allowed me to return home. I was under tremendous stress and could not carry a pregnancy. Thanks to that, the age gap between my son and daughter is greater than I'd hoped. They are six years apart. I'm starting to creep close to age 35, when fertility drops and pregnancy starts becoming dangerous.
We still want a third baby.
Those of you who read this and pray, do pray that it may be in God's will to bless us a third time. We are doing what we can, and it's way too early to think that we might be having any difficulty, as we're only on our second cycle of attempting. But do please feel free to pray. Sooner is better, in my opinion, but I will take what God gives me, when He gives it to me, and have faith.
I do believe that God did not give us a four-bedroom house just so that we could have two children and then stop.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Yesterday, I took my copy of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame to my grandmother's house. She hasn't kept up with Disney movies since Pocahontas, and I wanted to assure her that they were still turning out quality stuff. I went alone, because the kids are too young to see it, and we sat and visited afterwards.
This post has nothing to do with the Hunchback whatsoever.
We got to talking about Obamacare and its implications for the aging. It wasn't until I was driving home, however, that a really odd thought hit me.
Our parents take care of us when we are infants, when we're young children, patiently changing our diapers and mashing our food and talking to us when we can't talk in return. I've always thought that one good deed deserves another, and so this culture teaches us that we pay our gratitude forward in caring for our own children. Increasingly, we are teaching and therefore learning that the way of things is that the children are our future and of utmost importance, while the job of the elderly is to pass on and allow the younger ones to take the field.
I am now thinking that this is wrong.
Instead, this is what happens. When you are a child, your parents care for you. As you mature, however, they slowly begin to revert. As a person gets older, he finds his memory beginning to slip. His words become muddled. He may no longer be able to reliably clean up after himself. He may lose his teeth. He is 'regressing' in behavior and abilities to a more childlike state. That is when you pay, not forward, but back.
That is when the right thing to do is to care for your childlike elderly parent as that parent has cared for you. That is when you return all the gentility and dignity with which they have endowed you.
Of course you should care for your own children, but not out of a debt to your parents. You care for them because you love them and give of yourself, literally, for their creation and subsistence. You do not repay a debt to your parents by raising your children and abandoning the elderly to their fate. You repay a debt to your parents by caring for your parents.
My grandmother is still in full possession of her faculties. She and my grandfather still live independently. I hope I will always find time to spend with them while they can still intelligently answer my questions and share their thoughts and discoveries. As they age and become more childlike, I hope I will be able to give them the same care, kindness, and basic human decency as they gave me when I was 'knee-high to a grasshopper'.
This post has nothing to do with the Hunchback whatsoever.
We got to talking about Obamacare and its implications for the aging. It wasn't until I was driving home, however, that a really odd thought hit me.
Our parents take care of us when we are infants, when we're young children, patiently changing our diapers and mashing our food and talking to us when we can't talk in return. I've always thought that one good deed deserves another, and so this culture teaches us that we pay our gratitude forward in caring for our own children. Increasingly, we are teaching and therefore learning that the way of things is that the children are our future and of utmost importance, while the job of the elderly is to pass on and allow the younger ones to take the field.
I am now thinking that this is wrong.
Instead, this is what happens. When you are a child, your parents care for you. As you mature, however, they slowly begin to revert. As a person gets older, he finds his memory beginning to slip. His words become muddled. He may no longer be able to reliably clean up after himself. He may lose his teeth. He is 'regressing' in behavior and abilities to a more childlike state. That is when you pay, not forward, but back.
That is when the right thing to do is to care for your childlike elderly parent as that parent has cared for you. That is when you return all the gentility and dignity with which they have endowed you.
Of course you should care for your own children, but not out of a debt to your parents. You care for them because you love them and give of yourself, literally, for their creation and subsistence. You do not repay a debt to your parents by raising your children and abandoning the elderly to their fate. You repay a debt to your parents by caring for your parents.
My grandmother is still in full possession of her faculties. She and my grandfather still live independently. I hope I will always find time to spend with them while they can still intelligently answer my questions and share their thoughts and discoveries. As they age and become more childlike, I hope I will be able to give them the same care, kindness, and basic human decency as they gave me when I was 'knee-high to a grasshopper'.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Plenty
I did laundry today. I hung sheet sets and jeans/pants on the line and did underwear and the smaller stuff in the dryer. Not as economical as hanging everything out, I know. Still, this middle-of-the-road solution works for me. As I finished putting the clothes away, I got a sense of well-being. I do enjoy having the laundry done, for the same reason why I love foodshopping. I get a deep satisfaction from seeing my house set up with plenty. Not wastefully huge, not scarce... just plenty. I know my husband would give me an odd look if I demanded that he come and see my 15-month-old daughter's dresses all hanging neatly in the closet, so I will show it to my readers instead.
Since my family is a classic single-income homeschooling family, we don't exactly have a lot of clothing money. I shake my head incredulously when I hear of women going to the store and spending $200 on clothing as if it's nothing. So how did I manage to glean such a lovely wardrobe? Well, "glean" is a good way of putting it.
Back in the Old Testament days, according to the laws of Ancient Israel, you were told to only harvest your field once. Instead of picking over it again and again to garner every grain and every fruit, you needed to leave it alone for the poor, the widows, and the orphans. This was an interesting kind of 'welfare program' unlike most common systems in that it required the recipients to work for their gain. Look in the book of Ruth to find a story of a widowed woman patiently gleaning leftover grain in order to feed herself and her mother-in-law.
My church has a giveaway room, and my aunt has kept the pretty dresses that family members sewed for her daughters. My stepmother-in-law also keeps an eye out for pretty things at yard sales. Through these sources, I have patiently assembled my daughter's wardrobe. The things you don't see hanging are the 2-3T dresses that I have folded and put in a box for next year.
Making plenty from little can be done, but it does take patience and foresight. I need to be willing to pick up items that I don't need right away. I need to have enough skill with a needle to repair discarded outfits with very little wrong with them besides a lost button or burst seam. I need to be vigilant and creative. My reward is that lovely closet full of little hanging dresses that my girl hugs in delight when I present them to be worn.
Does my post have a point? It has several, which is why this isn't really a proper Article Post of the sort that I usually write. For now, though, I just want to focus on that happy feeling I get when I see "the plenty" in the wardrobe, and how fulfilling my job as a homemaker in a frugal household can be.
Maybe you'll get a picture of my garden vegetables another time.
Since my family is a classic single-income homeschooling family, we don't exactly have a lot of clothing money. I shake my head incredulously when I hear of women going to the store and spending $200 on clothing as if it's nothing. So how did I manage to glean such a lovely wardrobe? Well, "glean" is a good way of putting it.
Back in the Old Testament days, according to the laws of Ancient Israel, you were told to only harvest your field once. Instead of picking over it again and again to garner every grain and every fruit, you needed to leave it alone for the poor, the widows, and the orphans. This was an interesting kind of 'welfare program' unlike most common systems in that it required the recipients to work for their gain. Look in the book of Ruth to find a story of a widowed woman patiently gleaning leftover grain in order to feed herself and her mother-in-law.
My church has a giveaway room, and my aunt has kept the pretty dresses that family members sewed for her daughters. My stepmother-in-law also keeps an eye out for pretty things at yard sales. Through these sources, I have patiently assembled my daughter's wardrobe. The things you don't see hanging are the 2-3T dresses that I have folded and put in a box for next year.
Making plenty from little can be done, but it does take patience and foresight. I need to be willing to pick up items that I don't need right away. I need to have enough skill with a needle to repair discarded outfits with very little wrong with them besides a lost button or burst seam. I need to be vigilant and creative. My reward is that lovely closet full of little hanging dresses that my girl hugs in delight when I present them to be worn.
Does my post have a point? It has several, which is why this isn't really a proper Article Post of the sort that I usually write. For now, though, I just want to focus on that happy feeling I get when I see "the plenty" in the wardrobe, and how fulfilling my job as a homemaker in a frugal household can be.
Maybe you'll get a picture of my garden vegetables another time.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
And you shall become one flesh
I have seen a trend that disturbs me. It is a similar trend to that which was seen in the 1800's, in areas of Europe and the southern United States. It always seems to follow wealthy societies. It would be nice to pretend that our wealthy society has been able to increase our worldly goods without falling into some of the traps of previous times, but humankind has not 'evolved' as many claim.
There are a few ways that we have seen wealth harm families in modern-day society, but there is one in particular that I would like to focus on today, and that is the separation of spouses from each other and parents from their children.
In the Victorian era, the very wealthy husband and wife did not find it unusual to have separate sleeping chambers. They spent their time among different friends; the wife in the parlor with the women, and the husband in the drawing room with the men. He might travel for months or years in search of more wealth, while she might go to visit a friend and not return for months or years. They were so wealthy that they could afford for each of them to live basically entirely different lives.
Most people in the U.S. share a marital bed (many of whom are not married, but that's another post), so how can I say that we're falling into the same trap? Well, have you ever seen the standard Master Bath of today? A separate shower, separate tub, two sinks set with a swatch of countertop in-between, and the toilet closed off into its own little alcove. There are, not one, but two walk-in closets in the typical New Home design that I see on the architectural websites, and the closets are nowhere near each other.
My concern goes far beyond walk-in closets, though. The huger homes of the upper-middle class and the rich allow for people to pursue their separate hobbies far beyond calling distance of each other. Even the middle class and lower-middle class often boast one vehicle for each family member above the age of 16. The largest separation in the family that I see, however, comes from the common cell phone.
The working husband and working wife, with their separate dressing areas and their separate mobile offices and their separate lives, could go for a week or longer while barely speaking a word to each other. As their children spend the working hours at daycare and school, and their evenings and weekends on a myriad of lessons meant to make them as fine and fancy as the other 'rich' kids, a family comes to the point where they strive to have a hasty sit-down dinner just in order to have the chance to see each other.
Now I hardly seem to be describing the life of a "rich" family. The upper-middle class, middle class, and even some lower-middle class families can meet this definition. Of course, so can the 'poor'... that is, those who are sufficiently poor for the Federal and State governments to provide their cars and cell phones and various activities. That is because this has become a decadently wealthy country. When we speak of the 'poor', we truly do not understand what it is to be poor. You may no longer be able to ask your mother for a description. Ask your grandmother.
Imagine for a moment a well-to-do but not 'wealthy' American farm out somewhere in the Midwest. The father and mother sleep in a bed that would be considered tiny by modern standards, in a room that would barely fit a modern nursery. The children share rooms. They need to discuss who needs the horse and buggy and who is going to accompany them. There is no daycare. The parents spend each day in the company of their children.
In the evening, there is no house big enough for each person to pursue separate hobbies in places where they cannot be heard by the others. The entire family sits down in the same room to learn writing or darn socks with no means of amusement except each other. This was not even considered poverty. It was merely the means by which the 'common folk' lived.
By now I can almost hear the objections. "But back then, the medicine was bad, and the food was harder to come by! The literacy rating was lower, and the technology was practically nil! We have all of those benefits today!" To which I answer: What does it benefit you if you gain the world and lose your soul?
Am I advocating an end to technology? Certainly not. However, I would like for us to show some ability to gain wealth while not making the mistakes that come with it. I would like to see the benefits of a modern society without the drawbacks. After all, if our lives are longer and more miserable, our education is up but our children are increasingly disturbed, our health is better but we are emotionally harming ourselves on a daily basis, have things truly improved?
How much better would we be if we took the best from each era? If technology helped to bind families together, wealth was a means to living well and aiding others instead of drifting off into fuzzy selfishness, and our longer lives were spent doing that which is worthwhile?
There are a few ways that we have seen wealth harm families in modern-day society, but there is one in particular that I would like to focus on today, and that is the separation of spouses from each other and parents from their children.
In the Victorian era, the very wealthy husband and wife did not find it unusual to have separate sleeping chambers. They spent their time among different friends; the wife in the parlor with the women, and the husband in the drawing room with the men. He might travel for months or years in search of more wealth, while she might go to visit a friend and not return for months or years. They were so wealthy that they could afford for each of them to live basically entirely different lives.
Most people in the U.S. share a marital bed (many of whom are not married, but that's another post), so how can I say that we're falling into the same trap? Well, have you ever seen the standard Master Bath of today? A separate shower, separate tub, two sinks set with a swatch of countertop in-between, and the toilet closed off into its own little alcove. There are, not one, but two walk-in closets in the typical New Home design that I see on the architectural websites, and the closets are nowhere near each other.
My concern goes far beyond walk-in closets, though. The huger homes of the upper-middle class and the rich allow for people to pursue their separate hobbies far beyond calling distance of each other. Even the middle class and lower-middle class often boast one vehicle for each family member above the age of 16. The largest separation in the family that I see, however, comes from the common cell phone.
The working husband and working wife, with their separate dressing areas and their separate mobile offices and their separate lives, could go for a week or longer while barely speaking a word to each other. As their children spend the working hours at daycare and school, and their evenings and weekends on a myriad of lessons meant to make them as fine and fancy as the other 'rich' kids, a family comes to the point where they strive to have a hasty sit-down dinner just in order to have the chance to see each other.
Now I hardly seem to be describing the life of a "rich" family. The upper-middle class, middle class, and even some lower-middle class families can meet this definition. Of course, so can the 'poor'... that is, those who are sufficiently poor for the Federal and State governments to provide their cars and cell phones and various activities. That is because this has become a decadently wealthy country. When we speak of the 'poor', we truly do not understand what it is to be poor. You may no longer be able to ask your mother for a description. Ask your grandmother.
Imagine for a moment a well-to-do but not 'wealthy' American farm out somewhere in the Midwest. The father and mother sleep in a bed that would be considered tiny by modern standards, in a room that would barely fit a modern nursery. The children share rooms. They need to discuss who needs the horse and buggy and who is going to accompany them. There is no daycare. The parents spend each day in the company of their children.
In the evening, there is no house big enough for each person to pursue separate hobbies in places where they cannot be heard by the others. The entire family sits down in the same room to learn writing or darn socks with no means of amusement except each other. This was not even considered poverty. It was merely the means by which the 'common folk' lived.
By now I can almost hear the objections. "But back then, the medicine was bad, and the food was harder to come by! The literacy rating was lower, and the technology was practically nil! We have all of those benefits today!" To which I answer: What does it benefit you if you gain the world and lose your soul?
Am I advocating an end to technology? Certainly not. However, I would like for us to show some ability to gain wealth while not making the mistakes that come with it. I would like to see the benefits of a modern society without the drawbacks. After all, if our lives are longer and more miserable, our education is up but our children are increasingly disturbed, our health is better but we are emotionally harming ourselves on a daily basis, have things truly improved?
How much better would we be if we took the best from each era? If technology helped to bind families together, wealth was a means to living well and aiding others instead of drifting off into fuzzy selfishness, and our longer lives were spent doing that which is worthwhile?
Friday, April 30, 2010
Response to Feminism
I was pointed to a link this morning on a definition of feminism. It sought to strip away the history of the feminist movement and present the concept fresh, with nothing clinging to it. I read through it, and I discovered the problem, the snag, the reason why I still cannot call myself a 'feminist' despite its attempt to stick to a single core concept that the author no doubt hoped I could support.
Here is the link: http://tomatonation.com/culture-and-criticism/yes-you-are/
I will be quoting from it and responding as a member of the group Ladies Against Feminism, who seek to live by, in the words of the main site, a "strong, intelligent, biblical view of womanhood."
It starts with a definition.
However, this definition doesn't even mention legality. It mentions politics, economics, and society. Politics is a touchy subject. At one time, the vote was held by male property owners. This wasn't for the purpose of disenfranchising women. After all, the grown sons still living in their father's household could not vote, and the wife cast the vote in her husband's absence. This was a means by which the vote was given only to taxpayers. Remember that this was before the income tax. That being said, I think I can tentatively agree with political equality of the sexes. If a male in a certain situation can vote, a female in an identical situation can vote.
Economic equality is a different matter entirely. It assumes separation where there should be cooperation. With the breadwinner/homemaker model, the man earns and his wife saves. Before the Industrial Age, the husband and wife worked together on a farm or at a business, and it did not matter if one "earned more than the other" because the money all went to the same place. Of course, now that the man might work for one employer while the women works for another, "equality in economics" ignores the simple and wonderful fact that women bear and nourish children with their own bodies. This interruption in a career will result in economic inequality of outcomes if it is approached with equal opportunity or, if you wish to have equal outcomes, requires unequal opportunity. The only way to provide equality on both ends is to neutralize the woman's ability and desire to bear children. I cannot agree with this.
Social equality has problems of its own. As mentioned above, women bear and nurse children. They have different standards of physical modesty, different allowances made in pregnancy and breastfeeding, and are properly treated differently in a respectful society simply by being female. Of course, I acknowledge that I share with the feminists a desire to prevent situations in which a woman is assumed to be less intelligent or less capable for being female. But I would not like to see her treated no differently than a man in society.
This brings me to another problem, which could merit a post of its own. One of the people responding to the link in hopes of helping us to understand feminism said the following:
See, once the article is done with the definition, it spends most of its time defining what feminism is not. It isn't the clothes you wear, or the job you do, etc. This makes some sense, because this definition of feminism is meant to strip out what makes people male or female, and clothing is part of what distinguishes male from female. The bodies are different. Even a woman's jeans are different from a man's jeans in form, jutting out in some areas and not others. But that's beside the point. Here it is:
In short, I must reject this "Yes You Are" philosophy of feminism, even shorn of its history and more radical statements. I can advocate equal rights under the law in a constitutionally-limited government. I cannot advocate that the childbearers of society be treated exactly the same as the non-bearers in matters of economics and sociology in which they are meant to be complementary. Likewise, I cannot advocate the "default human" stripped of a sexual identity. My choice is that of the richly masculine and richly feminine, pair-bonding to become the "complete human". I simply believe that it is a better solution.
Here is the link: http://tomatonation.com/culture-and-criticism/yes-you-are/
I will be quoting from it and responding as a member of the group Ladies Against Feminism, who seek to live by, in the words of the main site, a "strong, intelligent, biblical view of womanhood."
It starts with a definition.
feminism n (1895) 1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes 2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests — feminist n or adj — feministic adjThis is how far I got before I spotted the first problem. Can you spot it? No doubt, legal equality of the sexes is a good and proper thing. God Himself set this up in Ancient Israel, in which women had equal status with men in criminal and property law. A woman's testimony was as good as a man's. When this was perverted in exile, Jesus restored it to our attention by having His resurrection first viewed by two women instead of two men. They satisfied the legal requirement for two witnesses.
However, this definition doesn't even mention legality. It mentions politics, economics, and society. Politics is a touchy subject. At one time, the vote was held by male property owners. This wasn't for the purpose of disenfranchising women. After all, the grown sons still living in their father's household could not vote, and the wife cast the vote in her husband's absence. This was a means by which the vote was given only to taxpayers. Remember that this was before the income tax. That being said, I think I can tentatively agree with political equality of the sexes. If a male in a certain situation can vote, a female in an identical situation can vote.
Economic equality is a different matter entirely. It assumes separation where there should be cooperation. With the breadwinner/homemaker model, the man earns and his wife saves. Before the Industrial Age, the husband and wife worked together on a farm or at a business, and it did not matter if one "earned more than the other" because the money all went to the same place. Of course, now that the man might work for one employer while the women works for another, "equality in economics" ignores the simple and wonderful fact that women bear and nourish children with their own bodies. This interruption in a career will result in economic inequality of outcomes if it is approached with equal opportunity or, if you wish to have equal outcomes, requires unequal opportunity. The only way to provide equality on both ends is to neutralize the woman's ability and desire to bear children. I cannot agree with this.
Social equality has problems of its own. As mentioned above, women bear and nurse children. They have different standards of physical modesty, different allowances made in pregnancy and breastfeeding, and are properly treated differently in a respectful society simply by being female. Of course, I acknowledge that I share with the feminists a desire to prevent situations in which a woman is assumed to be less intelligent or less capable for being female. But I would not like to see her treated no differently than a man in society.
This brings me to another problem, which could merit a post of its own. One of the people responding to the link in hopes of helping us to understand feminism said the following:
Feminism is not about "being men" - it is about refuting the concept that men are "default humans".What, pray tell, is a "default human" and should we be striving for it? This is another problem with feminism. They appear to be making women like men and men like women because they are striving to create in one person an entity that represents the best of masculine and feminine, usually by stripping out the defining traits of both. This is the "default human". This I reject. Man is delightfully male, better than the "default human", complementary with the female, with strengths inherent in his masculinity. Woman is delightfully female, better than the "default human", complementary with the male, with strengths inherent in her femininity. The wonder of biblical womanhood is that it acknowledges not the "default human" but the "complete human", a man and a woman pair-bonded for life, bringing the fullness and richness of both sides to the table. This ties into the other part of the article that gave me trouble.
See, once the article is done with the definition, it spends most of its time defining what feminism is not. It isn't the clothes you wear, or the job you do, etc. This makes some sense, because this definition of feminism is meant to strip out what makes people male or female, and clothing is part of what distinguishes male from female. The bodies are different. Even a woman's jeans are different from a man's jeans in form, jutting out in some areas and not others. But that's beside the point. Here it is:
The definition of feminism does not judge your lifestyle. You like girls, you like boys, doesn't matter.Ah, but that is the point. That which makes you female echoes through every single cell in your body, and informs everything you do in one way or another. Since I am a "Lady Against Feminism", I guard my sense of humor and do not indulge in jokes that tear down men. I seek modesty and attractiveness in my fashion. True, I can pull this off in jeans or dresses, but even when I dress in jeans and a t-shirt I am still doing so in a feminine manner. This is still off the heart of it, though, so let me say it right out.
It has nothing to do with your sexual preference or your sense of humor or your fashion sense...
The definition of feminism does not judge your lifestyle. You like girls, you like boys, doesn't matter.They are not talking about the friends you make. They are talking about sexual preference. This is perhaps the largest example by which we can understand feminism and the desire to make us non-gendered beings. It doesn't matter. You 'like' girls, you 'like' boys, it doesn't matter. However, biblical femininity cannot work that way. This is not out of some 'hatred' for homosexuals. This is not even a matter of disapproving of the homosexual lifestyle. This is simply how femininity and masculinity works. When you see each person as richly male or richly female, you cannot pretend that pair-bonding two richly-female or richly-male people can result in that "complete human" which we seek. (May I add something here? When feminists scoff at us for seeking a man to make us complete, they are doing exactly what they claim to abhor, considering the male to be the "default human". We understand that our men also seek us to make them complete, and therein lies equality.)
In short, I must reject this "Yes You Are" philosophy of feminism, even shorn of its history and more radical statements. I can advocate equal rights under the law in a constitutionally-limited government. I cannot advocate that the childbearers of society be treated exactly the same as the non-bearers in matters of economics and sociology in which they are meant to be complementary. Likewise, I cannot advocate the "default human" stripped of a sexual identity. My choice is that of the richly masculine and richly feminine, pair-bonding to become the "complete human". I simply believe that it is a better solution.
Monday, April 19, 2010
A better way than this
A cartoonist posted this in his blog a few days ago:
I generally hate 'abstract sculptures', but this one seemed to reverberate in my very soul. I spent a few years of my life at that crank (granted, not working minimum wage), trying to wring out the pennies we needed to keep the household going. Now my husband is the one who turns the crank.
Granted, not all jobs are quite this bleak. Many people are able to make their living doing something they enjoy, or, at least, something that is not consistently monotonous. My husband works as a computer programmer, a "code monkey", as he puts it. Still, most workplace jobs involve a certain level of cranking. That goes doubly for the kind of jobs in which working women often find themselves.
This is one reason why the feminist anti-homemaker viewpoint baffles me. They wish to replace a system in which the man returns home from the crank to find beauty, warmth, and stimulating conversation. They wish to end a system in which the woman spends all of her creativity, intellect, and strength in fulfilling tasks that make life for her husband so much more than 'the crank'. They want to take her from her home and children.
Their idea of utopia is the man and the women both out at their own separate cranks, grinding away while the government takes half of what trickles out and raises their children for them. The feminist dream ends each workday when whichever parent finishes at the crank first having to stop and pick up his (or her) children from daycare, then to arrive at a cold, empty house in hopes of making things a little brighter for the sake of his (or her) mate.
(Of course, this changes the house life even on weekends and holidays. I see more and more women choosing to put their children in daycare on vacation days so that they can "get a break" and have time to do the chores. I hear them complain about vacations from school, grateful when their own children return to someone else's care. You have to live with a child to know how to 'deal with' that child. You have to spend most of your hours in a child's company to get into that child's groove, so to speak, to understand which sounds of frustration denote hunger and which sounds denote sleepiness. But I am getting off the subject.)
We laugh at books and magazines written in the '50's that encourage housewives to fetch drinks for their husbands. There is even an Internet meme full of advice such as making yourself pretty when he returns home from work and not bothering him with trivialities until he has had a chance to relax. We read it and scoff about what doormats those women were back then. The next time you hear that advice, though, and the next time you are ready to laugh, I want you to go back to that picture and I want you to look at that crank.
That cartoonist's blog post continues:
You know what this is? It's a sculpture by Blake Fall-Conroy, the Minimum Wage Machine.
From the site:
The minimum wage machine allows anybody to work for minimum wage. Turning the crank will yield one penny every 5.04 seconds, for $7.15 an hour (NY state minimum wage (and Ohio state minimum wage, too--)). If the participant stops turning the crank, they stop receiving money.
I generally hate 'abstract sculptures', but this one seemed to reverberate in my very soul. I spent a few years of my life at that crank (granted, not working minimum wage), trying to wring out the pennies we needed to keep the household going. Now my husband is the one who turns the crank.
Granted, not all jobs are quite this bleak. Many people are able to make their living doing something they enjoy, or, at least, something that is not consistently monotonous. My husband works as a computer programmer, a "code monkey", as he puts it. Still, most workplace jobs involve a certain level of cranking. That goes doubly for the kind of jobs in which working women often find themselves.
This is one reason why the feminist anti-homemaker viewpoint baffles me. They wish to replace a system in which the man returns home from the crank to find beauty, warmth, and stimulating conversation. They wish to end a system in which the woman spends all of her creativity, intellect, and strength in fulfilling tasks that make life for her husband so much more than 'the crank'. They want to take her from her home and children.
Their idea of utopia is the man and the women both out at their own separate cranks, grinding away while the government takes half of what trickles out and raises their children for them. The feminist dream ends each workday when whichever parent finishes at the crank first having to stop and pick up his (or her) children from daycare, then to arrive at a cold, empty house in hopes of making things a little brighter for the sake of his (or her) mate.
(Of course, this changes the house life even on weekends and holidays. I see more and more women choosing to put their children in daycare on vacation days so that they can "get a break" and have time to do the chores. I hear them complain about vacations from school, grateful when their own children return to someone else's care. You have to live with a child to know how to 'deal with' that child. You have to spend most of your hours in a child's company to get into that child's groove, so to speak, to understand which sounds of frustration denote hunger and which sounds denote sleepiness. But I am getting off the subject.)
We laugh at books and magazines written in the '50's that encourage housewives to fetch drinks for their husbands. There is even an Internet meme full of advice such as making yourself pretty when he returns home from work and not bothering him with trivialities until he has had a chance to relax. We read it and scoff about what doormats those women were back then. The next time you hear that advice, though, and the next time you are ready to laugh, I want you to go back to that picture and I want you to look at that crank.
That cartoonist's blog post continues:
Ladies, your husband has spent his entire day at that crank. If you are a full-time homemaker, or even if you are a part-time worker, he has spent his day at that crank for you and for your children. He will spend tomorrow at that crank. He will work that crank until he is elderly, and he's doing it for his family. If he is like my husband, he may complain about his work, but he never complains about the fact that he will be winding away at that or another similar crank for most of his life. That 50's meme that so many women find ridiculous, the easy chair and the glass of his favorite beverage, the effort you take to look pretty and provide him with a hot supper... that is the least we can do in return.
Picture that. Picture standing there for four hours, six hours, eight hours a day, turning that crank to squeeze out one penny at a time till you have enough to pay the rent, put gas in the car, keep the water, electric, wash the clothes, feed the kid, pay your taxes.... Your day revolves around being there to turn that crank. Your life revolves around turning that crank. Your precious limited time on this dear sweet earth is eaten away by that crank.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The fight continues...
So I've recently read that the gay activists are considering a "calling in gay" day on which they all decide to take a vacation day instead of going to work. Presumably, this will make some sort of difference someday. I personally suspect it's going to end up teaching them just how great their numbers are and how important their little faction is in this big country.
See, this idea suffers from the same kind of insipidness as the repeated plans to not buy gas on a certain day, only with likely a smaller population group. If all who label themselves 'gay' (including the virgins, which, by the way, is one method they use to make the Christian label of sin work for more than just the act to which it applies, giving an excuse to cry hatred where none exists) leave and manage to take a fair amount of their non-gay supporters with them, they just might be able to, in some local areas, have almost as much of an impact on this country and its economy as Columbus Day.
If they make it yearly and try to roust more and more people to the cause, the biggest possible effect I can see is a Christian or two getting hung on an anti-discrimination clause a few years into the future for simply showing up to work on the 'wrong day'. But let's face it... there are more and more reasons to lawfully persecute Christians in this country than there have ever been, and it's only going to get more bizarre.
As far as I'm concerned, they can go for it! It's a much healthier way to get out their frustrations than keying cars, harassing restaurant customers, sending white powder to Mormon temples, knocking down old ladies, and telling Californian blacks who venture out of their neighborhoods that they'd better just watch their backs.
In other news, a committee in New Jersey claim that civil unions might not be doing their job because sometimes participants aren't treated quite like they're legally married. Wake up, people, and get used to it! Maybe twenty years ago or so, people who were married were treated as if they were married. Nowadays, however, many stores will not even link our savings cards so that my husband's milk purchases count towards our free sixth gallon. The person who opens an account owns it, and it's increasingly difficult for me to conduct any kind of business with a company if the account is in my husband's name (and vice versa), even for ridiculous things like electricity or telephone going to the same house!
When I was working full-time, whenever my husband showed up to bring me the lunch I'd forgotten or the medication I needed, I had to give him my name, department, phone number, and card ID ahead of time or they wouldn't even tell him that I worked there. He could have showed up with the original copy of our marriage certificate to no avail. Was this a security procedure due to the nature of my work? Actually, no. It was only put into place to deal with abusive spouses. He wasn't allowed to pick up my paycheck, either, but it could get mailed straight to the house we both live in!
It takes twice as long to fill in any application or registration for hospitals or doctor's offices nowadays, because the forms do NOT assume in any way that being married means that you live in the same house, have the same telephone number, go by the same last name, or even want your spouse notified in case of an emergency. Add a kid as the product of your marriage and it gets even longer!
This society is proceeding slowly towards that in countries like Holland, where anybody can marry and almost nobody ever bothers to do so. "It doesn't really mean anything anymore," I've heard from residents when trying to find out why. The sad thing is that the people pushing hardest for this change are the gay activists, who want gay marriage to, in the end, be nothing more than a reason to shut up any voice within society that suggests that there's any religion that does not approve of their actions. Too bad for the five or ten gay couples in the U.S. (and the 97% or so heterosexuals, with 70% of them claiming the Christian religion) who were actually hoping to get something more meaningful out of it than a piece of jewelry and a bunch of words.
See, this idea suffers from the same kind of insipidness as the repeated plans to not buy gas on a certain day, only with likely a smaller population group. If all who label themselves 'gay' (including the virgins, which, by the way, is one method they use to make the Christian label of sin work for more than just the act to which it applies, giving an excuse to cry hatred where none exists) leave and manage to take a fair amount of their non-gay supporters with them, they just might be able to, in some local areas, have almost as much of an impact on this country and its economy as Columbus Day.
If they make it yearly and try to roust more and more people to the cause, the biggest possible effect I can see is a Christian or two getting hung on an anti-discrimination clause a few years into the future for simply showing up to work on the 'wrong day'. But let's face it... there are more and more reasons to lawfully persecute Christians in this country than there have ever been, and it's only going to get more bizarre.
As far as I'm concerned, they can go for it! It's a much healthier way to get out their frustrations than keying cars, harassing restaurant customers, sending white powder to Mormon temples, knocking down old ladies, and telling Californian blacks who venture out of their neighborhoods that they'd better just watch their backs.
In other news, a committee in New Jersey claim that civil unions might not be doing their job because sometimes participants aren't treated quite like they're legally married. Wake up, people, and get used to it! Maybe twenty years ago or so, people who were married were treated as if they were married. Nowadays, however, many stores will not even link our savings cards so that my husband's milk purchases count towards our free sixth gallon. The person who opens an account owns it, and it's increasingly difficult for me to conduct any kind of business with a company if the account is in my husband's name (and vice versa), even for ridiculous things like electricity or telephone going to the same house!
When I was working full-time, whenever my husband showed up to bring me the lunch I'd forgotten or the medication I needed, I had to give him my name, department, phone number, and card ID ahead of time or they wouldn't even tell him that I worked there. He could have showed up with the original copy of our marriage certificate to no avail. Was this a security procedure due to the nature of my work? Actually, no. It was only put into place to deal with abusive spouses. He wasn't allowed to pick up my paycheck, either, but it could get mailed straight to the house we both live in!
It takes twice as long to fill in any application or registration for hospitals or doctor's offices nowadays, because the forms do NOT assume in any way that being married means that you live in the same house, have the same telephone number, go by the same last name, or even want your spouse notified in case of an emergency. Add a kid as the product of your marriage and it gets even longer!
This society is proceeding slowly towards that in countries like Holland, where anybody can marry and almost nobody ever bothers to do so. "It doesn't really mean anything anymore," I've heard from residents when trying to find out why. The sad thing is that the people pushing hardest for this change are the gay activists, who want gay marriage to, in the end, be nothing more than a reason to shut up any voice within society that suggests that there's any religion that does not approve of their actions. Too bad for the five or ten gay couples in the U.S. (and the 97% or so heterosexuals, with 70% of them claiming the Christian religion) who were actually hoping to get something more meaningful out of it than a piece of jewelry and a bunch of words.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
The simplest things
I took an Internet test this morning on being a '1930's wife'. I thought I'd score as low as other people I'd seen taking it for sure. I was amazed to find that I scored very highly. I was more amazed to see the kind of things the test required of a good 1930's wife, considering how many people scored poorly.
So what kind of things did I check? I dress before breakfast. I am cheerful in the mornings. I greet my husband with a smile when he comes home from work. Supper is generally on time. I know how to sew a button on a shirt. I try to learn a bit about what he's doing at work. I'm pretty frugal with the money. (Those outside of my uber-frugal New Englander family would say I'm exceptionally frugal with the money.) I'm pleasant even with unexpected guests. I speak with my husband before making large decisions/purchases. I checked that I wear red nail polish, but I don't know if that counted for or against me.
What kind of things did I not check? I don't gossip. I don't correct my husband's speech in front of guests. I don't go to bed angry at him.
Is it so difficult, ladies? I've heard so many women complain bitterly about "what was expected" of that 1930's wife. I've heard them scoff. Doesn't she take any time for herself? Isn't she more than just a doormat? Of course she is! Don't sound so stupid! Does it really take that much from a woman to smile when her husband comes home? To listen to him? To care about what he's been doing, his needs and his struggles, his successes? What'd you even get married for?
I worked full-time outside the home for three years while my husband finished an advance college degree that would allow us to live on a single income so that I could homeschool our son. It was so difficult! I got a taste of what my husband deals with, and on top of that I had to deal with a lot of the household stuff. You know what, though? I learned from it what made a day better and what made it worse. It's a tough world out there, especially in the "cubicle farms," underappreciated and struggling for position.
Do you know how much nicer it is to live that life if you come home to a smile? If you wake up to a pleasant demeanor? To have someone supporting you and not tearing you down? Women act like it's such an unreasonable demand on their time and energy, but it's so little, it's so little and it means so much.
Now you don't really have to know how to sew on a button if you've got the money to buy a new dress every spring and fall. You don't have to know how to cook a masterpiece if you can put something together that's healthy and pretty nearly on time. You don't have to do curlers in your hair and makeup every evening just to look nice when your guy comes home. You have a vacuum cleaner, a dishwasher, a washing machine and dryer, a microwave, and a car. Some people talk as if everyone should go back to the 30's, but that's not necessary. Where we've made progress, let's keep it.
But I would love to keep that 30's attitude, the cheerful, loving, giving wife who doesn't think it's a burden on her time to smile at her husband when he comes home. Someone who cares about taking care of him, who is interested in him. Someone who does the homemaking, not growly and begrudgingly, but with pride and a bit of finesse.
So what kind of things did I check? I dress before breakfast. I am cheerful in the mornings. I greet my husband with a smile when he comes home from work. Supper is generally on time. I know how to sew a button on a shirt. I try to learn a bit about what he's doing at work. I'm pretty frugal with the money. (Those outside of my uber-frugal New Englander family would say I'm exceptionally frugal with the money.) I'm pleasant even with unexpected guests. I speak with my husband before making large decisions/purchases. I checked that I wear red nail polish, but I don't know if that counted for or against me.
What kind of things did I not check? I don't gossip. I don't correct my husband's speech in front of guests. I don't go to bed angry at him.
Is it so difficult, ladies? I've heard so many women complain bitterly about "what was expected" of that 1930's wife. I've heard them scoff. Doesn't she take any time for herself? Isn't she more than just a doormat? Of course she is! Don't sound so stupid! Does it really take that much from a woman to smile when her husband comes home? To listen to him? To care about what he's been doing, his needs and his struggles, his successes? What'd you even get married for?
I worked full-time outside the home for three years while my husband finished an advance college degree that would allow us to live on a single income so that I could homeschool our son. It was so difficult! I got a taste of what my husband deals with, and on top of that I had to deal with a lot of the household stuff. You know what, though? I learned from it what made a day better and what made it worse. It's a tough world out there, especially in the "cubicle farms," underappreciated and struggling for position.
Do you know how much nicer it is to live that life if you come home to a smile? If you wake up to a pleasant demeanor? To have someone supporting you and not tearing you down? Women act like it's such an unreasonable demand on their time and energy, but it's so little, it's so little and it means so much.
Now you don't really have to know how to sew on a button if you've got the money to buy a new dress every spring and fall. You don't have to know how to cook a masterpiece if you can put something together that's healthy and pretty nearly on time. You don't have to do curlers in your hair and makeup every evening just to look nice when your guy comes home. You have a vacuum cleaner, a dishwasher, a washing machine and dryer, a microwave, and a car. Some people talk as if everyone should go back to the 30's, but that's not necessary. Where we've made progress, let's keep it.
But I would love to keep that 30's attitude, the cheerful, loving, giving wife who doesn't think it's a burden on her time to smile at her husband when he comes home. Someone who cares about taking care of him, who is interested in him. Someone who does the homemaking, not growly and begrudgingly, but with pride and a bit of finesse.
Monday, January 14, 2008
The true reason for 'equal representation'
Now some of you may read that title and instantly think that I'm going to talk about racism or sexism. Actually, I am not. I am going to talk about the push to have children see an equal number of storybooks in which Prince marries Prince, in which Princess remains single, or in which any other sort of non-standard romantic/sexual relationship or family ensues. There are generally two groups who are letting this in: the group that is pushing for it and the group who figures it's only fair to accommodate them. I am going to be speaking of the first group, a much smaller set, who are pushing for much more than is immediately apparent. They would prefer to completely remove the depiction of heterosexual married couples and parents, and they have a very important reason for it.
Numerous studies show what is already self-evident to many of us. Children do best in every part of their life with a mother and a father married to each other. You can take some cherry-picked examples of the best non-traditional families stacked up against the worst of the abusers in traditional families, but when given a fair shake, non-traditional families fail to measure up.
You see, I read an article some time ago about 'failure of feminism', written by someone on the hardcore side of feminism about the increasing numbers of upper-class women deciding to become full-time homemakers. A paragraph in that article clued me in.
Kids want a mom and dad. Kids want their mom and dad to be married. Consider the theme in movies and books prior to this present day. Consider an old Disney movie called 'Parent Trap'. When people write books and movies to mirror real life rather than to set an agenda, you see child after child in one of these non-traditional families wishing they were in a traditional one. However, traditional families are not formed by the guiding principle of groups seeking to push non-traditional depictions for children, and that is the principle of sexual freedom.
See the correlation? People who believe that women should not be homemakers seek to hide from women the choice of a meaningful, politics-free solution to their desires, because that will work against the principle of feminist 'liberation'. People who believe in sexual freedom will seek to hide from children the ideal of a traditional family, because as long as they know it is possible they will wish it for themselves and do their best to implement it for their children. The key here is to think, "We want them to do it our way, so we must not let them know that a better way exists."
Of course, the hardline feminists and 'sexual freedom' advocates aren't exactly thinking "a better way exists." At least, that's not what they say. Generally it's that a "way exists that seems better to the unenlightened masses." They're the intelligent ones, the thinking people, the educated elite. (The fact that they have been steeped in four to eight or more years of heavy propaganda in liberal extremist colleges means that they must be 'critical thinkers' for following the liberal extremist viewpoint to a T.)
Eliminating mention of the traditional family will not actually improve the fortunes of non-traditional families. It will simply give the impression that such fortunes are improved, the same way that you may think 25mpg is excellent for a car when you do not know of the 50mpg European minis, or you may think malnutrition is normal if you simply never see the fortitude of a man well-fed.
Note again that I am not speaking of everyone who favors letting children in school know that some children don't have fathers or mothers, that some live with their grandparents, etc. I personally favor this. It includes children from non-traditional families and prepares children from traditional families for dealing with them without meanness. Neither do I intend to bash people who are in non-traditional families and doing their best. A lot of single parents agonize over whether their struggle is going to hurt their children, and I don't mean to add to that. My problem here is with those who would try to hide from us the better choice, the choice that we tend to prefer, that we tend to feel deep inside is the right one, in order to glorify their favorite alternatives.
Numerous studies show what is already self-evident to many of us. Children do best in every part of their life with a mother and a father married to each other. You can take some cherry-picked examples of the best non-traditional families stacked up against the worst of the abusers in traditional families, but when given a fair shake, non-traditional families fail to measure up.
You see, I read an article some time ago about 'failure of feminism', written by someone on the hardcore side of feminism about the increasing numbers of upper-class women deciding to become full-time homemakers. A paragraph in that article clued me in.
By contrast, a common thread among the women I interviewed was a self-important idealism about the kinds of intellectual, prestigious, socially meaningful, politics-free jobs worth their incalculably valuable presence. So the second rule is that women must treat the first few years after college as an opportunity to lose their capitalism virginity and prepare for good work, which they will then treat seriously. - http://www.alternet.org/story/28621?page=4Notice what this means. Women are finding intellectual, prestigious, socially meaningful, politics-free jobs worth their incalculably valuable presence as homemakers. Therefore, to prevent them from being homemakers, we must teach them that they must set this ideal aside and prepare themselves for the jobs that will not make them as happy. You must keep them from knowing that a better way exists, or they will take it, and feminists' goal of 'liberating' women from their preferred sphere of influence will never happen.
Kids want a mom and dad. Kids want their mom and dad to be married. Consider the theme in movies and books prior to this present day. Consider an old Disney movie called 'Parent Trap'. When people write books and movies to mirror real life rather than to set an agenda, you see child after child in one of these non-traditional families wishing they were in a traditional one. However, traditional families are not formed by the guiding principle of groups seeking to push non-traditional depictions for children, and that is the principle of sexual freedom.
See the correlation? People who believe that women should not be homemakers seek to hide from women the choice of a meaningful, politics-free solution to their desires, because that will work against the principle of feminist 'liberation'. People who believe in sexual freedom will seek to hide from children the ideal of a traditional family, because as long as they know it is possible they will wish it for themselves and do their best to implement it for their children. The key here is to think, "We want them to do it our way, so we must not let them know that a better way exists."
Of course, the hardline feminists and 'sexual freedom' advocates aren't exactly thinking "a better way exists." At least, that's not what they say. Generally it's that a "way exists that seems better to the unenlightened masses." They're the intelligent ones, the thinking people, the educated elite. (The fact that they have been steeped in four to eight or more years of heavy propaganda in liberal extremist colleges means that they must be 'critical thinkers' for following the liberal extremist viewpoint to a T.)
Eliminating mention of the traditional family will not actually improve the fortunes of non-traditional families. It will simply give the impression that such fortunes are improved, the same way that you may think 25mpg is excellent for a car when you do not know of the 50mpg European minis, or you may think malnutrition is normal if you simply never see the fortitude of a man well-fed.
Note again that I am not speaking of everyone who favors letting children in school know that some children don't have fathers or mothers, that some live with their grandparents, etc. I personally favor this. It includes children from non-traditional families and prepares children from traditional families for dealing with them without meanness. Neither do I intend to bash people who are in non-traditional families and doing their best. A lot of single parents agonize over whether their struggle is going to hurt their children, and I don't mean to add to that. My problem here is with those who would try to hide from us the better choice, the choice that we tend to prefer, that we tend to feel deep inside is the right one, in order to glorify their favorite alternatives.
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