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Well, I will wade into these waters and doubtlessly emerge covered with mud. I believe that the nuclear family is God's plan for humanity. I do not believe that a woman fulfilling the role of wife, mother and homemaker is or should be considered demeaning at all. I happen to be a licensed professional (lawyer) whose career theoretically should be glamorous and fulfilling, but I have said to both of my wives (I lost my first to breast cancer after 33 years) a thousand times how much I envied their freedom, the actual importance of the work they did, and their ability to structure their days pretty much as they wished. I would always look at the women in my offices and think "How could this paper-shuffling silliness possibly be more fulfilling and rewarding than being a full-time wife, mother and homemaker? Indeed, how could it be fulfilling and rewarding at all? What bizarre and delusional philosophy have you bought into?" My current wife worked many years as a social worker because she had no other choice in the USSR, but she is so thankful to now have a normal home life.
If a man and woman want to have a nuclear family with the man fulfilling the typical female role - fine, go for it. But I am firmly in the camp that believes the collapse of the nuclear family is the road to Hell and we are already many miles down it. So celebrate your newfound strength and independence, ladies. Enjoy those "rewarding and fulfilling" careers away from home. Be just like men in every way. You are actually losing what you think you are gaining and are destroying society in the process.
My nuclear family experience, my 18 years of marriage, was the most damaging thing that has ever happened to me.
I defend my decision to stay in it for the sake of my children as long as I did, but at the end it became a disaster.
I ended up married to a man I didn't really love, with two sons by him, since I accidentally got the one, I decided that two would be best. I was determined to do my best as his wife and create a harmonious home if it killed me. My own happiness be damned. And I did a good job of it, too, although I had to work because not only did our economic situation require it, but if I didn't, he harassed me and treated me as worthless. During the times I was temporarily unemployed (brief stretches) I worked harder at home as a homemaker, than I ever did when I had a job. I was determined to make the home perfect, get the best prices on everything that had to be bought, and be the best Mom who ever lived. When my ex husband was unemployed (for longer stretches, occasionally over a year) he indulged in pot and alcohol, and played a lot of video games and yelled at everyone and didn't clean or cook or anything.
So much for a nice, wholesome nuclear family. It ended when he started getting wildly paranoid and having to carry a loaded gun around to "feel safe" in our home (from me? I don't even know.) He said his AK was his "security blanket."
I had many other lovers in my life, before and to a lesser extent since that faithful stretch of 18 years. As a teenager, I slept with adult men. Never felt damaged or like a victim. Because they eventually went away, and I was well protected from pregnancy and lucky enough not to catch anything, so they were nothing but harmless fun. It was the one I stuck with (as social expectation would have it) that nearly destroyed me. After my divorce, I felt like the universe asked me, "So. Now what do you want?" And I could only reply, "I don't know...whaddya got?" And my life has been pretty amazing since.
We still talk, my ex and I. He insists that I never really loved him and I betrayed him, because his idea of a proper loving wife, is one who has to stay by your side no matter how you treat her. Once upon a time, I'd have had a lot more pressure to stay in that marriage no matter what. Now, though I stubbornly tried, at least I knew I did not have to put up with this and I could and should leave.
In a way, I think that the confusion and frustration I see is a world where some guys think they can act badly in their marriages and they run into a mess when the woman feels she doesn't have to put up with it. I know a man who "gave up on American women, because they're too headstrong" (his words) and brought an 18 year old girl here from another country. Well fast forward about 7 years, now she speaks excellent English, and got a teaching job, and he cannot (even though he tries) control everyone she talks to, and she's got it in her head that she doesn't have to put up with being treated like an adorable idiot. She has gone cold to him. And he is angry because he wants her to have a second child, and she wants to focus on her career. He feels she is violating the terms of their agreement. He thought he bought a breeding house-slave, and he got an actual human being who might just be smarter than he is, at this point. Watching from the sidelines, I do not predict a happily ever after for this couple. He approaches all of their problems, as "She just needs to understand that I'm right and she's wrong."
I look around though and it's kind of funny. I grew up thinking, "Men want this, but they also seem to want that, and it's so contradictory and confusing!" And men do the same thing, trying to figure out who they are supposed to be, and what the heck women want. And the problem is, there is no hive mind. One woman will be happy and fulfilled as a homemaker, and another will want to fly an airplane. Some people are lazy, and bad at keeping a house, some are lazy and bad at their jobs, and some are dedicated to doing their best in any role.
And I have known amazing well adjusted adults who came from broken, or even abusive, families... And I've known kids from excellent wholesome nuclear families who went on to become utter degenerates. If I had a nickel for every person I've known who went to a private Christian school and told me all about how they pretty much grew up to hate and reject everything their faith ever stood for, if I had a dime for every happily corrupted innocent I have known, I would have enough change to buy lunch. The fact is nearly every parent simply does the best they can with the tools they have, and learning that about your own parents no matter what life paths they walked, is part of growing up.
I would say the greater social toxin we deal with is this need to lay blame for our own failings anywhere but on ourselves. But...(insert Kermit the Frog meme)...that's none of my business...
I don't know that people don't think that women should not have a life outside the the home. It's more about "What type of life are you having outside the home?". I think what men are complaining about is that the women have taken up some of the bad habits women have always complained about in men. These habits weren't desirable when the men did them. It isn't desireable when the women do them either. It would appear that some women try to normalize the behaviors as acceptable when in fact, the behaviors have always been destructive to the family unit.
I also don't think many of the younger women realize what they are giving up when they choose a path of extreme independence. Many of the these women do want want a family unit with kids and a husband later on. Unfortunately, biology only allows women a short period of time to make that family. Women are blowing through the years where they need to be developing meaningful relationships if they want a family. IMO, it doesn't matter as much about who takes on which roles in a relationship, but the two people must work together as a unit. A lot of marriages don't work because the couple never learn to work together.
Yes because every single woman will regret not having children at a young age. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nor'Eastah
All this makes me laugh! I'm a 69 yo male, surrounded by women - wife, 2 daughters, 2 of my 6 grandkids are girls, plus my neice and her daughter. They all feel differently about these things, and that's fine with me. I still don't see what all the fuss is about.
People are people, first. We all have 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, 2 ears, a nose, a mouth, etc. (apologies to anyone who does not). To say that our lives must be defined by those few parts that differ between male and female, is silly. In the wild, not all animals reproduce; not all can, and not all live long enough to. Most animals in the wild were taught how to create a habitable den or burrow, hunt for the appropriate foods, and survive the cold ("making a living"). If humans are truly intelligent animals, they should all be able to do the same for themselves.
Throughout history, there have always been women who did not marry. For that matter, there have always been men who did not marry, either. They had multitudinous reasons for it, not the least of which was individual preference. To state that women are the weaker sex, the "lesser vessels", the less intelligent of the sexes, subservient by nature, and all the rest of that, is the mark of an unthinking person. Some women earn less money than men, but some earn a good deal more than most men. Some women are stronger than the average Joe; look at the Russian lady shot-putters!
People are people first, and all people are different. One of my grand-daughters wants to be an astronaut; one of my grandsons thinks being a pastry chef would be awesome! Go for it, little guys, but just be happy, whatever you do!
Your words have sadly fallen on deaf ears. Before I logged onto C-D forums I had no idea how many people were still trying to fight changes that had happened decades ago. Especially pertaining to women and their autonomy. It's disturbing how some people refuse to let go of "the good ol' days" it's kind of pathetic really. Even more pathetic is this idea that society has become so awful which is debatable obviously but don't tell them that, they don't want to hear it they want to wallow in this cynical doom and gloom narrative which makes me wonder why some of these folks haven't offed themselves. Of course there is always the same scapegoat they have for all of society's problems, "blah, blah, blah, feminism, blah,blah". It's like these people have a brain aneurysm because it's all they can think about.
To me women having the freedom to determine their own lives is a good thing. Every single person on this planet should have the freedom to do so man or woman for better or for worse. Even if one makes mistakes at least it will be their mistakes they made on their own instead of being told what to do by someone else. Rather die on my feet as my own person than live on my knees subservient to someone else comes to mind. And there's this daycare debate which despite what some people think is debatable. This why I have grown more secular over time. Religion really is a tool for control.
I won't wade into the feminazi thing because that's not a term I ever use, but I have no problem with any of your choices except the support of Planned Parenthood, and that's a different discussion. (Margaret Sanger's son was our family doctor and used to make house calls when little Troglodyte74 had a fever!) I am very similar to you and decided at the age of 12 I would never have kids. I am simply too much of an introvert (when I read Thoreau, I think "Am I the reincarnation of this guy?") and have too many interests of my own to want kids. Golf and motorcycles are two very expensive hobbies, just for starters. (I used to keep a photo of 5-year-old Little Me on my desk at work and tell anyone who asked that he was my Inner Child and took up a great deal of my time.) Anyway, my comments are not really addressed at individuals, you or anyone else. Of course we are all different and have to make our own lifestyle decisions. I'm talking about societal trends, which I believe are in the wrong direction and have been for a long time.
Is the bolded what you mean by "the collapse of the nuclear family"? A societal trend of a growing percentage of people choosing not to have a family? I'm still trying to understand what you mean.
Men lost the privilege of having all the power just bc of what's between their legs.
Some are cheesed off about it.
I mean, that must totally suck. To go from being overlords of over half the population to having to compete with 100% of the population for jobs/power/etc...to not be automatically defered to...
It's butt hurt after 40000 years of being the default boss without actually having to do anything to earn it besides being born.
The ones who are truly upset have never accepted that the sexes should be equally respected and treated.
Is the bolded what you mean by "the collapse of the nuclear family"? A societal trend of a growing percentage of people choosing not to have a family? I'm still trying to understand what you mean.
What he means is that unless his first wife had kids by someone else (he already said his present wife does) he did NOT have what he terms "a nuclear family". BTW, the fact that he considers the nuclear family "G-d's plan for humanity" is, remember, strictly his opinion. YMMV, and most people's do.
I just gave a simple example to answer your question......because the basic answer is a MAELSTROM (and that's putting it mildly)!
I wish I had my copy of outstanding USSC cases handy (but it is deeply packed somewhere). In it, there's an opinion by Sandra O'Connor about a case about birth control. Her opinion notes (as I recall since it has been about a decade or more since I read it) that birth control has determined for a generation or more how American women can live their lives outside the home and therefore, it should not be outlawed.
Okay, I think this is it:
"The sum of the precedential inquiry to this point shows Roe's underpinnings unweakened in any way affecting its central holding. While it has engendered disapproval, it has not been unworkable. An entire generation has come of age free to assume Roe's concept of liberty in defining the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions; no erosion of principle going to liberty or personal autonomy has left Roe's central holding a doctrinal remnant; Roe portends no developments at odds with other precedent for the analysis of personal liberty; and no changes of fact have rendered viability more or less appropriate as the point at which the balance of interests tips. Within the bounds of normal stare decisis analysis, then, and subject to the considerations on which it customarilyturns, the stronger argument is for affirming Roe's central holding, with whatever degree of personal reluctance any of us may have, not for overruling it."
It's quite an interesting read, especially for the topic currently under discussion.
Thank you for that I am not against birth control but killing or planned parenthood is a different story. I am sure there are good things in everything and not everything is cut and dry of course. I'll read this later tonight after I have peace and can digest it better. Hope you're having a great Tuesday
There is no such thing as a 'strong' women, nor will there even be one. Hypocritical and ignorant, yes. Strong, never. All women are inherently weak as are all men. Men are capable of becoming strong, women are not, nor should they be. Women are capable of becoming enlightened-and possibly enlightening others more than men-but not so much in America as they easily succumb to the materialist and consumerist lifestyle.
Enlightened is not being 'strong' however. Living a consumerist and money oriented life is not being strong either. Having sound principles and being devoid of confusion is a strong trait.
Show me an example of a strong women in America and I will show you a fraud.
As to what causes one to think the way that they do, it is usually experience.
Most women are incapable of objective perception because of their inherent weakness to be exploited. Most women in America are therefore exploited as consumers but some consider their exploitation as being 'strong'.
Strange days indeed. Very peculiar times.
Last edited by Objective Detective; 06-27-2017 at 07:57 PM..
There is no such thing as a 'strong' women, nor will there even be one. Hypocritical and ignorant, yes. Strong, never. All women are inherently weak as are all men. Men are capable of becoming strong, women are not, nor should they be. Women are capable of becoming enlightened-and possibly enlightening others more than men-but not so much in America as they easily succumb to the materialist and consumerist lifestyle.
Enlightened is not being 'strong' however. Living a consumerist and money oriented life is not being strong either. Having sound principles and being devoid of confusion is a strong trait.
Show me an example of a strong women in America and I will show you a fraud.
As to what causes one to think the way that they do, it is usually experience.
Most women are incapable of objective perception because of their inherent weakness to be exploited. Most women in America are therefore exploited as consumers but some consider their exploitation as being 'strong'.
The other day I was reading the comments on a news story and one man there commented that women should stay home and take care of the children. It gave me a pause, especially as I realized that this was from a younger man, perhaps 30 years old.
I've seen a lot of posters here calling women feminazis and saying men can't find a good girlfriend in certain cities because of all the "independent" women out there. I also have seen posts that stop just short of saying women should be second class citizens and depend on men to take care of them. And trust me, there's no lack of women to back them up.
I'm just curious to know where this attitude comes from, women as well as men. I realize a lot of men are bitter about former wives and girlfriends, but somehow I feel the issue is deeper than this. So does it come from the way a person is raised, or is it because a person is angry and wants a target or is it a religious thing? Just what is it about independent women that make others feel so threatened, if that's the case?
Where and why do people have this attitude that women should not be able to have a life outside the home?
I'm really interested in seeing your responses.
These people are called "traditionalists". It's not about hating anyone or being angry. They simply believe in a traditional relationship because they believe that many of our social problems today are caused by not having a 2 parent household with one person staying home with the kids instead of sending them off to a stranger all day.
It's not a religious thing, it's not a bitter thing, it may or may not have to do with how they are raised. They simply see how things once were and how they are now, and firmly believe that the traditional way is better.
They believe that the men are the hunters/gatherers and the females are the ones who do the nesting. Most guys who are traditionalists also think it makes the female less...I guess I would pick the word "combative". I don't know if that's quite the word I want but it's pretty close. What I mean is that some guys see these independent females out there who put career over everything and those females can be kind of manly, to be honest.
Anyway, it's simply a preferred lifestyle. Nothing wrong with it if both parties are happy in that lifestyle.
As for feminazis...that's a whole different story, but I'm not going to get in to that here because it will turn very political and this is not the forum for that.
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EVERY SINGLE ONE.
I am not against birth control but killing or planned parenthood is a different story. I am sure there are good things in everything and not everything is cut and dry of course. I'll read this later tonight after I have peace and can digest it better. Hope you're having a great Tuesday
