A really super new podcast from Dr. J. I listened to this one three times.
The topic is: why are older couples divorcing so much these days?
I really recommend this podcast because she says some very interesting things about love and marriage. Dr. J is awesome because she tries to predict what the left will do next. She really understands what marriage is and what love is. One of the things I like about Dr. J is that she makes me understand how marriage is opposed to selfishness. That you really have to come into it having a deep sympathy for the the other person and to be willing to love them self-sacrificially, even if they don’t love you back. If you’re courting, and you find that one person is loving the other self-sacrificially, but the other person isn’t, then that is not a good sign.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Hey W:
How does this square with your view that it is a woman’s job to sacrifice her own ambitions for yours, but not vice versa? If you were really following JRM’s advice, wouldn’t you be willing to marry, even if it doesn’t promise you complete certainty that your needs would be fulfilled the way you envision? Just curious.
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Well, she dumped her career to take care of her kids, and then resumed her career after the kids hit school. It’s not that long of a period, you know. Michele Bachmann homeschooled her kids for 5 years when the public schools were failing her, and look where she is now. That’s my favorite lady.
All I am saying is that if a woman wants to marry then her husband comes first, then the children. And if as part of caring for her husband and children she wants to advocate for lower taxes and school choice to make their lives better, then she should do that – especially when the husband is working and the kids are in school. She can be the flapping President, then, and I hope Michele will be.
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What we need to see to correct the dissatisfaction many women feel with traditional roles (and thereby strengthen marriages) is to recover a proper view of the significance of these roles. Childrearing is a job. It’s a difficult job. In fact, it’s a lot harder than the corporate job I have now. It requires a diversity of skills, a degree of dedication, and an adaptability which is far higher. Corporations should see a woman’s experience in the home as work experience. Stay-at-home moms are working mothers. The “oh, you don’t work” thing is such nonsense. I encounter many mothers who feel somehow inferior, who will tell me that they’re “just” stay-at-home moms. And you won’t believe the gratitude I get when I, as a single woman in a corporate environment, give them recognition as professionals in their own right. There’s a very nice quote from G.K. Chesterton on the significance of the work a woman does at home. I must try to find it and copy it here for reference. In the corporate world, anyone is dispensable. Not so at home. The role of wife and mother is a high calling.
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Mary, you’re right. I wish I could explain this to all women because it’s a source of frustration.
Let me explain how I think of it just a little. When i was living at home for grad school, I had to leave my bird with my brother to take care of. I didn’t even want to leave the house. I used to leave class to go to the lab to call home (I hate cell phones) and I would call right after class. What is he doing? (We leave the bird outside the cage because he’s trained to fly between designated play stations) Is he OK? Where is he? How do you know he’s safe? This is for a bird (a bird who is now 21 and announces his intention to poop prior to pooping so he can be moved to a good spot) so how do you think I would feel about leaving my child at home?
The woman’s job is the more important job. The woman is the more influential apologist. The woman must know EVERYTHING that I blog about more than I do, because she is the one who has to explain it to our children so that they can make their mark. We’re going to drop 200K on each one of those kids from birth to PhD. We had better not screw it up. I don’t want to go to work EVERY FLAPPING DAY and be worried sick about what my children are doing at home.
I get so angry about this. Why can’t you people understand that work is a WASTE OF TIME??? The only things that matter are apologetics, apologetics events (which I fund) and raising apologists. I work so I have money to do that! I am so angry that women think that mothering is somehow inferior… don’t you understand that work is 8 hours has no value at all to anyone’s eternal soul? It’s just a way to get money to do the things that really matter – like giving women white roses to make them feel better about being good.
Grrraaaahh!
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Exactly. I notice a “flapping” trend in your comments. Maybe it’s the influence of the bird… :D
Here’s Chesterton on Motherhood:
“To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.”
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