Look at this post by a male reader of The Thinking Housewife blog.
Excerpt:
Since I wrote you last, I have decided to sign up for a few online dating sites, mostly out of curiosity. I could not imagine finding a serious mate on, say, OKCupid, but anything is possible. In poring over many hundreds of profiles in the past few days, a few things stand out to me.
- I have not seen any woman make her desire for children, or even marriage, the central focus of her profile. Even though I filter profiles based on the “wants kids?” question (which is, surprisingly, often answered “yes”), nothing in the written profile suggests it is important to them. (This is occasionally not the case for Asian women)
- The emphasis is instead on career, activities, hobbies, favourite movies/books/music, travel, and political inclinations (always to the left, sometimes the feminist left)
- The surpreme goal of women my age appears to be to start an NGO in a Third World country.
- Every woman my age has read Eat, Pray, Love.
- Most are doing (or have done) advanced degrees, often in education or healthcare.
- It is rare that a woman expresses interest in cooking, though most express interest in restaurants and food.
- I have never seen a woman mention that she desires a good home, a place to call her own, or that she is otherwise domestically inclined.
I suspect these line up with your readers’ experiences too. That said, it may be that women view these traits as being desired by men, and they may be at odds with more deeply held needs.
In fact, The Thinking Housewife says these characteristics are also common in Christian circles:
Right now, in this country, there are many children growing up in single-mother homes. Growing up without a father and with a mother who is usually not at home and who may bring strange men into your life is a desolating experience that has been proven to damage many people. I have a friend who is a teacher in a white working-class neighborhood. Many of the children there are growing up in homes of never-married or divorced mothers. These children are hungry for attention and love. Their situation portends further social chaos. Do you think the young Evangelical women you mention would brag about helping these white children? Would volunteer work with them have the same cachet?
I suggest to you that it would not.
I understand that people in Third World countries are materially poorer than these white children I mention. But in the Christian view, the immaterial is foremost and the spiritual conditions of these white children are nothing less than dire and probably worse than that of most children in the Third World. They are being raised by nihilistic popular culture.
[…]Christianity will not flourish in the Third World if it is dying in the West. We need these idealistic women to do their work at home, and that work includes becoming wives and mothers themselves.
The idealism of these women is not wrong, but the direction it has taken is. Volunteering in the Third World has become a status symbol for Christians.
And since we’ve been talking about Dickens in the comments, here is something else from The Thinking Housewife in another post.
Excerpt:
I call attention to another Dickens novel, perhaps his masterpiece, Bleak House, where Caddy’s mother, Mrs. Jellyby, permits her own numerous children to starve in her own ramshackle house while she relentlessly pursues what Dickens brilliantly calls “telescopic philanthropy.” Mrs. Jellyby also ignores her husband, who, being entirely untutored in housekeeping, in futility tries and largely fails to keep order in the house. Mrs. Jellyby is obsessed by and devotes her own and any other money that she can cadge to some supposed tribal orphans in an African village, who might or might not exist. Says one character of this formidable woman: “Mrs. Jellyby… is a lady of very remarkable strength of character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted herself to an extensive variety of public subjects, at various times, and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the subject of Africa; with a view to the general cultivation of the coffee berry – and the natives – and the happy settlement, on the banks of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population.” (Chapter IV)
Says Mrs. Jellyby herself to Esther Summerhouse, the novel’s female protagonist: “You find me… very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies, and with private individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.” (Chapter IV)
Ah, Dickens. He wasn’t all bad after all!
I wrote about my view of short-term mission trips here. Some people disagree with me on that.
Related posts
- Why do women flock to movies like “Eat, Pray, Love”
- The apologetic value of self-sacrificial romantic love
- Women should read “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands”
- Arlemagne’s post on the dangers of sentimentality in relationships
- What is the meaning of white roses?
- Is Mark Driscoll afraid to hold a woman accountable for her own choices?
- The Wintery Knight’s greatest fears about the future
- How to communicate requirements to a Christian woman during courtship
- How feminism made women unsuitable for marriage and parenting
- Why men should refuse a woman’s offer of casual sex
- What has Michele Bachmann got that third-wave feminists haven’t got?
- How Christian women can make Christian men marry without using sex appeal
- Does a man’s decision to marry negatively impact his service to God?
- The rules for friendship and courtship between Christians
- What Christian men want from Christian women… in paintings!
- Why Christian men should be chaste
- Should Christians marry non-Christians?
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Who do you people hang out with?
What kind of churches to you go to?
What ponds are you fishing in?
We have several churches in our small town that have awesome youth and children’s ministries, to white children, (because there aren’t any other kind around here). People volunteer to work with the children and reach out to their families. Men and women have rolled up their sleeves for the hard, thankless work. They are role models that are busy doing what others are complaining that people aren’t doing.
The local baptist pastor is helping a couple (not married) who lost their children to the state. The guy stole a car and is in jail and the mom is left to sort things out herself. His church is helping them, trying to get them out of the darkness and into the light, if not for themselves, then at least for the sake of the children.
My church sends people down to St. Louis to work with a ministry in the inner city and we minister to THOSE children. The children of pimps and crack whores.
Now, my next question.
How many of you people (on thinking housewives and elsewhere) who are complaining about this are doing anything about it yourselves?
Usually, the ones who are doing the actual work don’t have time to gripe at others concerning it. They are too busy doing to be complaining.
If they say very much, it’s usually to inspire others on to join them in good works, follow their example, and find peace and joy in pleasing God. They don’t waste their time trying to shame people and bring them under condemnation.
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I like this, Mara. This positive approach is much more helpful. Rather motivate people to help locals and help them see the needs in their community than criticize them for helping someone else, which isn’t even a bad thing. If there are women who do so to the neglect of their families, then bring them to account. But don’t assume that women are neglecting their obligations at home.
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I have never seen a woman mention that she desires a good home, a place to call her own, or that she is otherwise domestically inclined.
Do they say they want air?
Water?
Food?
A lot of the things the first quote is surprised aren’t answered are that basic, if you know you want them. Ditto for kids.
I know very few women who aren’t pros who will mention cooking ability– then again, they also don’t write “wears clothing,” “sleeps in a bed,” “knows how to run washing machine.” If you can do them, you’re probably from a background where it’s an of course thing, just like children– why on earth would you bring up something utterly unremarkable?
OkCupid is more like a car ad than a car manifest– the advertisement will list the things they think are selling points, not “has four wheels!” or “runs on gas, needs oil changes!” (Speaking of oil changes, there’s the issue that saying “Hi, I’m a domestic goddess that wants at least four children raised in a stable home environment” will scare off 99% of guys, and half of the ones it attracts are looking for mommy, not a help-meet.)
As for the overwhelming focus of their attention: we’re into the second generation of folks who grew up with emaciated children with swollen bellies, covered with flies over a request for “a dollar a day can save five people!” (or whatever it is now)
Add in that we can see the abuse of charity here, but we can’t see the abuse of charity there, and that physical needs are simpler than spiritual ones… yeah.
Oh, and much like the question “why do people keep adopting foreign kids instead of American ones,” there’s a big slab of “because government gets in the way” involved.
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Spot on, Foxfier!
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http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2011/01/your-charity-are-all-belong-to-us.html
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Wow! That’s not fair. And in Houston!
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“I have not seen any woman make her desire for children, or even marriage, the central focus of her profile. Even though I filter profiles based on the “wants kids?” question (which is, surprisingly, often answered “yes”), nothing in the written profile suggests it is important to them. (This is occasionally not the case for Asian women)”
Well, western women keep hearing from single *Christian* men how they are freaked out by women who are thinking about marriage and kids from the get go. So they know it’s a deterrent. So why the heck would they put it on their profiles to be read up-front on a dating site?
On the issue of third world countries, there’s also a lot of liberal propaganda portraying Americans as selfish for their comparative material wealth and a failure to be involved in helping the third world (although America does) as even more selfish. This trickles down to the individual. So a lot of it is a sense of guilt and/or obligation.
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The solution to this problem is to be passionate about marriage-related issues, and to have a deep understanding of marriage-related topics, without coming on strong on a specific guy, or on the emotions/dreams of marriage.
The woman should be very passionate on fiscal conservatism, a supporter of homeschooling and gun rights, and should be able to command enough evidence to defeat anyone who opposes his her. Bonus points if she can defend U.S. military forces against the anti-war nuts, because it shows that she values strength in men and doesn’t want to neuter them. Being able to save money and keep fit doesn’t hurt either.
I recently counseled one Christian woman who liked a guy to send him a news story showing how feminists and the feminist state and courts were embracing policies that undermined men in their traditional roles as protector, provider and moral/spiritual leader. The idea is that she would be very passionate and informed about this issue and show him that she understand what men are like and what marriage is like. That right there is a marriage proposal, but without scaring the guy. What scares men is the thought of facing a lot of challenges and responsibilities with someone who is only concerned with her own emotions, dreams and desires. What un-scares men is the thought of facing these challenges with someone who is aware of them, and who has skills and plans for defeating them. Someone who wants to help a man, and who has made decisions to gain the skills and experiences and knowledge needed to be his co-pilot on a difficult journey. Someone he can trust because she has prepared for him, instead of just dreaming of babies, weddings, diamond rings and wooden decks.
A woman has to be passionate about helping her man – and that means understanding men, and understanding marriage from the man’s perspective.
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All good advice. But then why is this guy criticizing women for not making their desire for children and marriage the central focus of their profiles? That’s not what you’re suggesting. He wants to see “wants to get married and have kids” explicitly listed as a goal or whatever they call them on dating sites.
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The desire is fine. What makes a man comfortable is how much he can see that the woman has thought things through and taken responsibility for her part of what she wants to do. I think they should put that on their profile, but they should also put what they like to do with money, what books they’ve read, whether they own a TV or not, the name or their politically-oriented blog, etc.
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Wintery, why don’t you rewrite this, substituting the word “me” for “men/man”–like this:
“What scares ME is the thought of facing a lot of challenges and responsibilities…”
“What unscares ME is the thought of facing these challenges with someone who is aware of them”
“Someone who wants to help ME, and who has made devisions to gain the skills”
It’s much more honest: you do not, after all, speak for men. You do speak for yourself. Also, you’re not counseling women on how to understand men: you’re counseling them on how to understand you. This is about you. And given that this is your blog, why not admit it instead of trying to legitimize your viewpoints by ascribing them to everyone? You don’t need to do that to be legitimate. In fact, I think you’d be more effective if you stopped generalizing: and not about men. About women, too.
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What?
First your upset because women don’t mention wanting children on a profile, now your dissing women who dream of babies.
You are a very confusing man, Wintery. Sometimes you make no sense at all.
Sometimes I really do think you want an anti-feminist robot rather than a warm, flesh and blood woman to love.
You know, men trying to form women into the image that they want is nothing new.
The problem is that they aren’t God. They are mere men. And when they try too hard to turn women into what they want, all that these men become are mad scientists drunk on their own manipulative powers.
And their creations?
They become monsters.
And the problem with most Christian men is that they think their own will lines up pretty closely with God’s. They forget that as the heavens are high above the earth, so are God’s ways high above our ways.
Here’s a mad scientist creating the ‘perfect woman’ scene for your entertainment from 1927.
If you get a chance, watch the whole movie. In it you’ll find a real, flesh and blood, saint of a woman who cares about children.
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I think women can have the desire, but that she should be practical about it. For example, I would like my children to believe in God. If she were going to be their mother, what evidence can she show me that she has taken steps to address that, and that she is aware of the challenges they will face? It’s up to her to grab the controls of her life and address that challenge.
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Fair enough.
I guess the bottom line of my gripe is this.
There are shallow and impractical Christians everywhere that Christians gather.
They are male and female.
Along with the Mrs. Jellybys, there are Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hydes who are on deacon boards or who are even pastors who abuse their wives and children.
So, it’s not a “women are shallow and impractical” issue. It is a human issue.
Continuing to call out women on sins that men share, probably equally, isn’t playing fair.
It’s magnifying the sins of one gender over another.
It’s a false balance.
Anyway, changing the subject, only slightly, how about combining the gun topic with helping foreign children.
What do you all think of this guy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMdsD00U23g&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/v/Yhq54tkNHXo?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1
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” to send him a news story showing how feminists and the feminist state and courts were embracing policies that undermined men in their traditional roles as protector, provider and moral/spiritual leader.”
Good idea. Could you recommend a link to one particular story of that kind, that a woman could send to a guy that does not read a lot?
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I’ll e-mail it to you! I don’t want this guy to find this post.
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Oh, and to address the actual question in the title…
Most women I know are nothing like Jellyby. I’m sure women like that exist in our world and our churches. But they, by no means, represent any sort majority or even a threatening minority.
The women I know who are concerned for the poor in other countries are among the following…
~Single women who, and rather than pining away for Mr. Right who may never show his face, they busy themselves with the Lord’s work, both here and abroad.
~Married with children at home who ARE taken care of first. But, as a Proverbs 31 woman, she extends her hand to the poor, both here and abroad.
~Older, often widowed, with grown children who are serving God in their own callings. She’s overflowing with love and maternal instinct, and rather than meddle too much in the lives of her children and grandchildren, she strikes a healthy balance between being the available grandma who makes cookies and babysits from time to time and the ‘galloping grandma’ (an affectionate term a world class evangelist called one of these sorts of women in his own church) who helps with her children’s home
and yet sees a need elsewhere and puts her hand to it.
All these women have a couple things in common.
They fear God and take seriously His Word that says that if we ignore the poor, He will ignore us. They are extending the hand of Christian charity to places that would never know it if these women didn’t rise up as an army and carry the news.
Psalm 68:11 The Lord gives the command; The women who proclaim the good tidings are a great host.
So shame away, Thinking Housewives. Your shallow chidings have no hold on these women “who know their God [and] will display strength and take action.” Or as the King James says, be strong and do exploits. (Daniel 11:32b)
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“The best I could do was to point out that this desire is often more dear to them than the desire to marry and have children. When they express this desire it is often with an air of disdain for their own culture, which includes disdain for their own traditions and parents.”-Youngfogey on the Thinking Housewife site.
The first sentence is no problem from a balanced Christian viewpoint. After all, the Bible do not hold marrying as dear as some traditionalists do. (Being anti -divorce and against out-of-wedlock sex is Biblical, believing that all single people should rather marry is wrong- 1 Cor. 7) I agree with you about the second sentence.
About wanting to help the poor rather than the middle class: As someone who never went to another country to help an NGO, but who were involved in help to poor inner city kids, and later middle class kids with the same problems, I can say there is a reason why the former is more satisfying. Not because, as Youngfogey speculates, the fantasy that some prince will carry me of (princes were scarcer in the inner city than they are in suburbia). Because the poor is more open to being helped, to letting their children receive help or encouragement. Therefore, I could make a difference to more children.
(The more I saw of the worst of inner city neighbourhoods, the more I saw the value my background. I appreciated my parents’ values while growing up, but seeing the difference made by a lack of them was remarkable. Seeing the difference God can make in the life of a kid from that background even more so. So, helping where values were lower was in no way disdain for the values I had.)
Perhaps the reason why women so much desire to change the world is because God made us, and not men, to be rescuers? (If any of you need evidence for this statement, God made women, by Genesis 2, to be a helpmeet. The part translated with “help” is the Hebrew word ezer. That word usually refer to God’s help in the Bible, and does not speak of an uneducated servant’s help with small things, but of a rescuer who does what the other party cannot do for himself.)
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The problem I have with the NGO attitude is that I think it proceeds from narcissism, not a desire to help. In my experience with the post-abortive woman, her personal life was totally self-centered. This stated desire to fly off somewhere to have experiences had nothing to do with the people she would be helping, and everything to do with the feelings she would have, the photos she could post on her profile, etc. She was not kind to people where she was – this was pure narcissism. There were people who needed her where she was – she ignored them.
I also am suspicious of the idea of helping people who don’t make complicated demands. Helping someone face-to-face in the cubicle next to you who requires you to read long books and write long essays and work with them side-by-side is hard. Flying somewhere for a week and then escaping is easy. Admitting that you are a Christian to your boss is hard. Admitting you are a Christians to a stranger is easy. Also, what sense does it make to burn $1500 on airfare and even more on housing, food, etc. to fly off to help people in Tokolosh, South Africa? To be efficient, spend that money right where you are, or if you must, send small businesses in impoverished areas a micro-loan instead. But no – they have to go in person, with their cameras to be sure. Because it’s all about them.
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Retha: “(The more I saw of the worst of inner city neighbourhoods, the more I saw the value my background. I appreciated my parents’ values while growing up, but seeing the difference made by a lack of them was remarkable. Seeing the difference God can make in the life of a kid from that background even more so. So, helping where values were lower was in no way disdain for the values I had.)”
This is so true. I used to work with inner city kids. I don’t so much any more. But my daughter goes to St. Louis and has taken youth from outside our church along with her. And these youth are so moved by what they see. First, their eyes are opened to a whole great, big world outside their protected little bubble. Second, they appreciated their parents and community so much more. And they are moved to live above the selfishness that the had been acustomed to. Their thinking has increased beyond their previous limitations.
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Wintery, this entire thread isn’t about how women are: it’s all about your inability to find one suitable (to you) for marriage and kids. Dearest, you’re completely letting an unfulfilled desire narrow your view until you can’t see anything but your own longing. Don’t project that onto women. That’s your issue, not theirs. And doing so isn’t serving you well. It makes you surly and judgmental.
As water seeks its own level, I suspect you might start meeting women of higher caliber when you lift your sights. You’ve become an expert at what you despise. No wonder you see it everywhere.
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Interesting piece by Dickens. Never heard of that.
I think the larger issue is men and women who shirk their responsibilities. I know a guy who has done great things in prison ministry but admits that two marriages failed in part because he put ministry over family. That was not God’s plan. I’ve heard of many preachers doing the same.
And of course, if someone approaches any ministry with the wrong motives that is bad. But you can be a narcissist with any ministry.
I think your continual broad-brush slamming of short term missions comes across as petty and prideful. There are many ministry opportunities. I appreciate what you do but please remember that others have different gifts and preferences.
Your efficiency claim self destructs. The cost / person to help those overseas is drastically lower than in the U.S. In fact, if you just want raw efficiency you’d never spend another dollar helping people or advancing the Gospel in the U.S. You’d spend it all overseas.
Some missions do help organizations that do micro-loans. And they raise a lot more money for them when people see them in person and come back and tell others and show them pictures. It is called marketing. We did that in Kenya.
Accountability is important, too. When you see missions / ministries in person you know if you can trust them and are likely to give more.
Relationships and sharing ideas is important, too. We took the Faith Comes By Hearing Proclaimer device (the audio Bible in Swahili) and it is getting played constantly at the hospital there. We’ll take a bunch more this year. They wouldn’t have even known to ask about it, but because of our relationship with them we knew it would help.
They have turnover problems in the hospital there which impact the care of the local community. I have expertise in managing teams that I think will carry over to them and they are eager to hear the ideas this year. What is wrong with wanting to spend $$ to share that, especially when it is mostly my own money? (Our church does pay for part of the mission costs.)
What is wrong with going to fellowship and worship with fellow believers to encourage them and help equip them to get the Gospel out in their communities?
And the mission experiences usually change the perspectives of those who go. And the trips lead to lots of witnessing opportunities back home.
Yes, there are inefficient and poorly planned mission trips which, by definition, should be fixed or abandoned. But we don’t stop doing apologetics because some apologetics ministries are inefficient.
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Neil, I don’t disagree with you that YOU should do it. But I’m not talking about YOU! The context here was women on dating sites.
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So men can help people in other countries, and not women – even if they don’t have kids of their own to tend to? Makes no sense to me. I agree with Neil. You can’t generalize about everyone’s motives. Some people can do ANYTHING for bad reasons and we all need to examine our motives in ANY ministry. But this is not a “woman” thing. You can’t extrapolate from ONE woman you had bad experiences with the half the world’s population. It’s simply not statistically significant. You ought to know that.
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NO! Neil is an apologist! He actually can do the job. Also, Neil is fairly accomplished and so can afford to go on his own dime.
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So you think there are no women who are apologists, who can do the job, who are accomplished, and who can get their own funding…? [raises eyebrow]
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No, a female Neil should also go!
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Jesus didn’t go on His own dime.
He was actually financially supported by many women.
Luke 8:2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,
vs 3 and Joanna the wife of Chuzaq, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contribuing to their support out of their own private means.
I think we can all agree. Mrs. Jellyby is a bad example.
But the fact that Mrs. Jellybys still exist today in both male and female form, this isn’t good enough reason to neglect–
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
–Matthew 28:19
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So maybe the title is a little too much of a sweeping statement – again. :-P
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Mara said: “You know, men trying to form women into the image that they want is nothing new… all that these men become are mad scientists drunk on their own manipulative powers.
And their creations?
They become monsters.”
I have little opinion on wether Wintery is doing this. But you are speaking the truth. An example I saw last year, on a blog I used to read, was a certain very popular blogger, who would agree pretty much with Wintery on atheism, feminism and a few other things, and has a wife who also comment on his blog.
That wife has a tongue like a razor when people disagree with her husband (she called me “pathetic” when I asked her husband for evidence for a controversial opinion, and at other times called people “idiot” or “trailer trash” for not sharing her [husband’s] world view.) She also has the coldest, hardest face I ever saw on a photo.
Men who try to make women in their image, instead of in God’s, just make monsters, not fruit-of-the-spirit women.
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Well, her language is pretty excessive, but I would like it if my wife defended me.
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Defend, yes. But this wasn’t insulting him. It was trying to get the guy to give evidence for his assertion, and pointing out evidence to the contrary. And this is not an isolated incident- she have never sounded friendly in any comment.
What you “would like” is probably the point- will you make your wife someone without any friendliness or patience or sense of justice- taking her further away from what God want her to be – for your ego’s sake?
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This article is correct. The women commenters seem to think that women are above reproach-they cannot be criticized. In a sense they are right, it has been fashionable to criticize men (husbands and fathers) for years. We take it and keep on going. Maybe the thin skin reaction is evidence that the article is true and the women know it.
To Mr. Wintry Knight, keep on speaking the difficult truth, I will keep reading.
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No, the article is just the ravings of a man who doesn’t understand and has serious issues with American women. And those who agree with him, like you JNorton, share those issues. They are issues. Not wisdom. Issues.
I don’t criticize men because I feel I’m above them and know what’s best for them. They have their own lives to live and have to figure out how best to live them.
I only push back when clueless men make sweeping, off-the-wall accusations against women based on their own frustration with women and life in general.
I push against the “Adam syndrome” that runs rampant here.
“It was the woman that Thou gavest me, God. It’s HER fault.” –Adam.
Stop looking at the old Adam as your mentor on how to treat women and start learning from the New Adam on how to treat women.
It will revolutionize your life.
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Really? One of the things I like about this blog is that WK can take it when women question his use of hyperbolic generalizations. You, on the other hand, think we believe women are above reproach simply because we’re not delighted by generalizations and extrapolations with no statistical significance? I submit instead that you are in all likelihood someone with a chip on his shoulder who thinks that somehow 2 wrongs make a right. Maybe your reaction (notice that I’m not going to generalize to all men commenting on this article) to women daring to have the temerity to question the broad applicability of unsubstantiated generalizations is evidence that you are one of those misogynists who likes to hide behind actual wrongs done to men (yeah, funny enough I agree that it has been fashionable to unfairly criticize men) in order to justify your irrational dislike of all women.
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The last time I used hyperbole I fell off my dinosaur into a volcano and the temperature was a billion trillion degrees! All these darn dinosaurs! They just are so clumsy and slow and big, just like my brontosaurus is! They’re all the same! Clumsy and big! No agile and small ones! ALL THE SAME!!!!
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Heeheehee. :D
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Touche, Mary!
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Wow. Now I see why people use fake names on forums like this.
The fact is women are deserting their homes and children to find what they think is fulfillment in the workplace. This is because of 40 years of the media ridiculing the role of housewife and mother. Tell me Mar/a/y, why do you think kids’ behavior has worsened so much in the same time period as the feminist movement?
And to Mary: You are wrong.
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One reason that the behavior of children has worsened is the increase of such things as ADHD, Bi-polar, and other mental ailments.
You can blame mothers again, but these are just as common in homeschool homes where mothers are doing staying home and doing everything you think mothers should be doing.
We are unclear as to why such mental disorders are on the rise.
Some theorys include vacinations, farm chemicals used on crops and getting away from wholesome organic gardening, increase of the use of medicines as opposed to wholeistic approaches to childhood ailments, and the increase of preservatives, sugars (including corn syrup), and refined flours.
But heck, why even look into those things as being possiblities.
It’s so much easier to blame women. They are easy target, standing right there next to you.
And if you hate women, then, yeah, blame women. It’s another good way to get them under your thumb, just the place you want them.
Knock yourself out JNorton.
This way men don’t ever have to look at whatever they may have contributed to the problem.
And they can ignore the men who have forced their wives out of the house because the men wanted a higher standard of living and resent being the sole breadwinner.
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I would be interested in seeing a comparison of mental disorders in children between single mother homes and homeschool homes.
Here’s one study that is relevant:
https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/new-study-shows-that-children-of-working-mothers-live-unhealthier-lives/
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Like I said.
Why the heck even look into those other things?
Women are far easier targets.
Men don’t want to acknowledge any part that they may play in the big picture.
Guess what?
I’m a mom. And being a mom, even in a two parent home, I have learned this.
Rule number one. It’s always the mom’s fault.
Rule number two. When it’s not the mom’s fault, refer to rule number one.
This is pretty much accepted across cultures.
Women are the easy target.
Once men blame women, they think they have gotten themselves off the hook, somehow, and don’t have to dig any deeper and see if anything else might be more of a root cause or if anything men are doing in general is exacerbating the problem.
Do I think single parent homes are ideal for children?
No. Not at all. Not in any way.
And I’m opposed to policies and philosopies that encourage and enable women to pursue single parenthood as a positive option. (Yet I feel great mercy for women who never intended or sought after it but found themselves there anyway due to the actions of the men in their lives.)
What I’m against…
And Mary expresses it better than I…
Is this sweeping “It’s because of the women. It’s their fault.”
Men forget what lead up to the place where some women began to entertain the notion that, “perhaps it would be better if I did this all by myself.”
There is a reason.
And that reason isn’t because all women are selfish. In many cases it was because men were not doing what they were supposed to be doing in the first place.
I’m for limiting government hand outs that encourage the birth of children out of wedlock.
But I’m opposed to narrow minded men who want an easy out and an easy fix, like Adam did.
There isn’t an easy fix.
Blaming all of societies ills on women won’t work for present day men any more than blaming Eve worked for Adam.
We are in this together folks. And until we address it together, rather than play the blame game, we’ll never get to the solution.
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“Yet I feel great mercy for women who never intended or sought after it [single motherhood] but found themselves there anyway due to the actions of the men in their lives.”
1) What do you mean by that?
2) How do you explain the popularity of “single motherhood by choice”?
3) If you had to name one factor that is behind the “marriage strike” being waged by men, what factor would that be?
4) If women believe feminists and begin to give sex away for free, as feminists urged, is it reasonable to believe that men will continue marry and support a family while simultaneously paying higher and higher taxes for single mothers by choice?
5) State three reasons why you think marriage is a good idea in the current feminist culture.
OK, but I do have to agree with you that the MALE response to feminism should have been to NOT HAVE SEX WITH WOMEN who offered free hook-up sex, and the MALE response should have been to never get married once no-fault divorce was legalized. (Or frankly, to have anything to do with women at all) Eventually, women would have understood that vulnerable children need protection, and would have returned to chastity and marriage as a covenant and that courtship and fatherly-involvement in dating is important for choosing the right husband.
So I do have to admit to that. And of course, I’m chaste, so I am one of those men who is in the resistance.
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I have to go and can’t respond to all your points right now.
But with all the heck I give you, every once in a while I ought to commend you for your resistence to the hook up culture.
I’m in resistence too.
(Power to the Prudes!)
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Yes, and you should see how I treat the good ones. Letters, chats, roses, books… you name it. I spoil them rotten. I remember excitedly calling up one woman to tell her my feelings about her. Women love the experience of being desired by men. Men just have to realize their power to reinforce and reward good behaviors and direct it to the good women.
You know the more I think about it, there really is something sick about men paying attention to women who deny God, and deny the moral law. Why have anything to do with them, no matter what they offer? If they reject a relationship with God thought Christ, then why go near them at all? I am not saying that men should marry even a good woman under the current circumstances (socialism is still looming), but I am saying that they should only talk to the good Christian women – the Michele Bachmanns and the Jennifer Roback Morses. Just pretend that the bad ones don’t even exist. It’s not like they like men or children or marriage anyway.
I once had a bad woman explain to me how sex before marriage was two people using each other while being unwilling to commit to love them self-sacrificially. She actually used sex to control men so that they would speak to her nicely, not make moral judgments, not ask her hard questions, not put demands on her as a way of preparing her for marriage, agree with everything she said, laugh at her jokes, support abortion and global warming and socialism, etc. She USED SEX to get men to AVOID BEING MEN. She made them give up their faith and morality in order to have sex with her, because faith and morality made her uncomfortable because they imposed obligations on her. She literally believed that she could be selfish, and pursue fun at every instance, and that somehow sex would provide her with a loving husband and a home and children WITHOUT HER HAVING TO ACT MORALLY OR LOVE SELF-SACRIFICIALLY.
Why should a man participate in that? Before God, I mean. Why should a man do that before God? Shove God away and reward her amoral selfishness? Basically deny God and morality by selecting her to reward with his attention? Especially when you consider abortion, day care, fatherlessness and other forms of child abuse that result from pre-marital sex. A man has to be a good man, and he has to love God. If all the women in the world are bad, then he should just avoid them. Seriously – talk to a woman who is doing this and you will find out how they use sex to make men behave. And what they mean by behave is making men into moral relativists, postmoderns, socialists, and feminists. They literally stop men from leading morally and spiritually by offering them pre-marital sex. Men abandon the moral and spiritual leadership roles they were meant for, and offload the responsibilities of protection and providing to the government. Because they will do anything for sex.
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@Mara: “Power to the Prudes!” I love that! ;-)
At the moment I’m favouring a delightfully “prudish” QE1 approach. I shall be the 21st Century Virgin Queen. No men! I think I’m going to go with the female version of Wintery’s strategy and advise women to stay single, not marry (since the average man is unmarriageable, and we’ll just discount the possibility that women might actually use a selection strategy) and not have kids. We’ll all become high-powered career women instead and the planet can just depopulate – or at any rate, we’ll let the non-christians go on having kids, but no more children born into Christian homes. Ah, I like my little Utopia of single people…
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Well, why don’t you fix the laws so that people can get married again? Or build a rocket ship and carry your future husband to the moon, where there are no feminists and no-fault divorce laws or biased domestic violence laws? You’re such a quitter!
Anyway, what’s your plan for dealing with all of these problems that I keep blogging about? I am particularly worried about the enormous amounts of government spending being done to deal with the problems caused by fatherlessness.
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You want to hear that I’d support conservative fiscal policy, cutting back on government subsidies to irresponsible people, and tax breaks for married people. Well yeah, that’s good and all.
But as for marriage… I prefer your approach. No men! Men are BAD! I’ll let the decent ones talk to me. But I’m going to advise women to avoid men altogether if they can. Look at Barack Obama. He’s a man. And he’s liberal. And he’s feminist. And he’s socialist. Ugh. No men! (Since men are all the same, just as women are all the same.)
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In light of what ECM said about men being complicit in feminism, by going along with it and not standing up to the feminists… I’m beginning to think that men really ARE bad!
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Song dedicated to Wintery and this thread.
And Mary, for you, just replace “woman” with “man” and this song is dedicated to you.
And both versions are dedicated to the Shakers who put us all to shame.
Long live the Prudes and the Shakers and my niece and the virgin queens of the world.
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Nice. Hehehe. ;-) I previously only knew the Lenny Kravitz version.
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So, I have a strategy. I think WK is too lenient. No interaction between the sexes! Men and women mustn’t even talk. It’s dangerous. They might even start to like each other!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&client=mv-google&hl=en&v=WlPURdxqbPA
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Part of the seeming-increase in mental, learning and behavioral disorders is that we’re paying schools to shove kids in these boxes. It’s a LOT more profitable to, as in my case, label the kid as learning disabled and get paid for the special ed– instead of thinking, listening and realizing that I’m not unable to read, I just refuse to read ‘see Spot run’ when there’s an entire shelf of story books you’re not allowing me to touch until I do.
Single parent households do have a lot more behavior problems (1/2 the parental supervision, and when the boys become teens they’re bigger and stronger than their overstretched mothers) and there is a lot of money in gov’t support if your kids are diagnosed as having mental or major learning problems.
Add in a culture that isn’t as strong as it use to be, and that teachers aren’t allowed to be disciplinarians (given the average quality of modern teachers, this is not bad– before someone freaks, I have friends who are good teachers. It’s a little like lawyers) and kids are going to be WAY more out of control, before you even get into the child welfare abuses of taking children for being punished when they do something wrong.
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Well, I’m glad to hear that I’m wrong. I apologize if I came across as mean. It just grates me more than I can express to have all women tarred with the same brush. I thought I’d give you a taste of your own “Maybe your reaction means…” medicine.
I think you may be wrong about me too. I detest the modern version of feminism. I reject the denigration of women’s roles as wife and mother. I abhore the unthinking belittling of men. I’m angered by the damage done to children as modern feminism encourages women to pursue the feminist agenda at the expense of their children (and themselves).
And that’s why I get very annoyed when women are criticized en masse as if we’re some sort of homogeneous whole. Those who frequent this forum more frequently know that I reject third wave feminism. That’s why these generalizations to “women” in general grate me.
And it grates me even further when you imply that I may not even question that generalization without you assuming I must be “one of them”. That’s like saying that any man who questions the radical feminist rantings of Simone de Beauvoir must be one of the nasty, oppressive male ogres.
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“The fact is women are deserting their homes and children to find what they think is fulfillment in the workplace.
Since this is a “fact,” as you claim, JN, perhaps you’d like to offer some data to substantiate this claim as it relates to the present times?
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My data is having lived for 48 years. I don’t need a statistic to prove what common sense and logic show. Are you denying that there are more women in the workplace than 40 years ago? Are you denying that more kids are being put in daycare than 40 years ago? Did the daycare center even exist 40 years ago?
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Who started the divorce revolution?
Not women.
It was the men who started divorcing first in the eigties.
Women had to learn how to circle the wagons and learn how do defend themselves because more and more men were proving that they could no longer be counted on to stay in for the long haul.
They had their stupid mid-life crisis and ran off with their secretaries.
Our government had to come up with help for all these new displaced homemakers who were displaced by their husbands, not by their own actions.
And guess what they found out once they were displaced.
They liked it.
They liked having a bit of financial freedom, like what men have always had. They liked not having to answer to someone else for everything in their lives. And their daughters saw it, and saw that life was better when you didn’t have a man telling you what you could and couldn’t do your whole freaking life.
Yeah, it’s bad.
I still believe in two parent homes and that we need to figure out a way to get back there.
But women will never go back to the crap they used to have to live with in the fifties, sixties, and seventies.
Men and women need to work together to fix this.
But the solution isn’t blaming and punishing women. It wasn’t the women who started it.
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Do you have anything written that shows that men’s groups supported no-fault divorce? Everything I’ve ever read showed that it was feminists and lawyers who pushed for no-fault divorce.
Here’s one essay by Dr. Stephen Baskerville, whose Ph.D is from the London School of Economics:
http://www.stephenbaskerville.net/no_blame_game.htm
Quote:
The only groups that I know of that opposes no-fault divorce are groups that support men’s rights and father’s rights.
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I was responding to JNorton’s common sense post.
He was saying what he lived through.
I’m saying what I have lived through here in the U.S. I’m commenting on what I have seen.
I was responding to his concern over all the day cares and saying it’s all about women being selfish.
I was simply pointing out to him what started it. That it was NOT all about women being selfish. (some, I’m sure were. But not all.)
You are missing my point.
You can’t come into what is going on right now, with no understanding of how we got here, and then place blame soley on women.
You can’t.
Again, women did not start this.
However.
It looks very much like feminists (not ALL women, just feminists) plan to finish this war.
American men started a war back in the eighties.
Women were not prepared for this war.
There were many casualties. Many lives destroyed.
Many wounded.
Young men coming in later and saying that women should just shape up, miss the whole point of what happened, what got us here.
Am, I defending no-fault divorce?
No.
Am I defending feminists who promote such things?
No.
I am just challenging JNorton’s misogyny and Adam complex.
It’s based on his onesided view of life in these United States. He misses the big picture in a big way.
As long as men continue to blame women and refuse to examine their own contributions (or history of contributions), women will have a hard time working up the strength to cooperate with men to fix the problem.
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Hey look what ECM says. I was shocked! He seems to think that men DO have some responsibility for this hook-up sex and no-fault divorce mess.
He chatted with me and said this:
no, men were complicit in them
as i’ve said about a thousand times
the problem is, women get aggravated because you DO paint w/ a very broad brush
you implicate everyone in your posts
of course
[men wanted] sex and less responsibility
and they got it
in spades
never mind that it’s done untold damage
human nature: take the easiest path
even if it results in your own demise
i’m pretty sure that if feminists were halfway honest (they;’re not) they’d realize they gave men the only excuse they needed to satisfy their basest urges
and they think it “empowered” women
haha!
now men can have virtualy consequences-free sex
almost on demand
and it’s only getting worse in that regard
and since women do NOT see sex like men do (why they persist in believing this myth*) they will never be “equal”
*they believe it because to admit otherwise would destroy the entire ‘philosophy’ of feminism
yes, men should not have taken the deal
but what do you expect?
path of least resistance
they could take the free sex and free get out of responsibility card or be denounced as evil patriarchs standing in the way of progress
in other words, it was win-win for men
at least superficially
only now, at the end, are we keenly aware of the damage done
(well, some of us–most of us are not or are unwilling to admit it)
My way of dealing with this is to be the kindest to women who love God and are chaste, and to just pretend that there is no free sex available. I do think women caused this mess by embracing feminism because they could not be bothered to listen to their fathers’ warnings about men and sex. I think the whole problem was caused by that first generation of women who married poorly and then pushed their man-hating views onto their daughters. And, like ECM says, most men just went along with the offer of free sex, the responsibility-avoidance of abortion, and the apparent freedom of no-fault divorce.
There is a way out of this. Men can say no to pre-marital sex and no to giving love and attention to feminists. And women can stop marrying irresponsible, irreligious, amoral, unemployed metrosexual bad boys and instead choose men based on substance and not on appearance. That’s the only way out.
Of course that’s not going to happen, but I will go down fighting.
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“as i’ve said about a thousand times
the problem is, women get aggravated because you DO paint w/ a very broad brush
you implicate everyone in your posts”
Thank you, ECM! I want to give you a hug! :)
Now, WK, maybe you’ll hear this seeing as a *man* said it. [raises eyebrow]
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Wintery: “I do think women caused this mess by embracing feminism…”
Women didn’t cause it.
Men have been pressing for sex and pressing for sex since time eternal. Women gave in.
Women should not have given in.
I agree with that.
Women should have held up a higher moral standard.
And guess what. A lot of women still do hold up a higher moral standard. But guys aren’t interested in them.
My beautiful neice has made her stand for righteousness.
No boy wants anything to do with her.
And she was homeschooled and finished up in a Christian school when her family fell on hard times and her mother had to go to work.
She never stepped foot in a public school. She never heard a feminist rant.
So there you go.
Blame the feminsts all you want.
They still didn’t cause it.
They just followed the leaders.
The men.
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WIntery, you weren’t around in the sixties but what about the seventies? Men were divorcing their wives and running off with their secretaries. And the women they were leaving, who had raised their kids, started going after half their earnings, because at the time, the men would chuck their long-suffering wives and leave them financially high and dry. These women who’d helped their husbands rise to be CEOs, putting together dinners and parties for their clients, supporting them, staying home and raising the kids, were being put out on the doorstep and they had to learn how to support themselves. I can excuse you for not knowing this because you’re perhaps too young, but this is how it was. Remember palimony? Lee Marvin and Michelle Triola? He’d lived with her for years as a common-law husband and then he kicked her out and she had nothing.
So, dear, you should familiarize yourself with a little recent history. All of you fellows who only know about no-fault divorce as being something women support should know what this support was born out of. And a lot of it was being kicked to the curb. Now women have the law on their side, they have their own assets and they have marital assets they get to split, but it wasn’t that way when I was growing up. That’s why I see this issue as fundamentally different than you. I saw feminism rise up and I saw what it was up against. And it made divorce easier on women. You may think now it’s too easy, but that’s another discussion.
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Great comment, MCS.
I think that we have to look at the worldview of these bad men on a case by case basis. Women may not be able to make moral demands on a man who disavows objective morality and embraces moral relativism. And the stance on objective morality should not just be the man’s personal preference. He must have put some effort into studying whether God made the universe and whether there is any moral standard out there apart from his own personal preferences and the conventions of his culture.
For example, if a man is a Democrat, then he cannot be chosen for marriage. The position of the Democrat party on abortion disqualifies him to be a husband. Abortion is basically the idea that sex is recreational, and that if it produces a baby, then the baby has no right to impose any duties on the parents who freely chose to engage in an activity that might produce the baby. Babies are demanding creatures. People need to go without sex until they are ready to take on the demands that a baby will place on them. Sex is not recreational. There is no right to escape responsibility for bad decisions. It is not up to the government to fix the results of your decisions by taking money from your neighbor. Marriage is about self-sacrifice, making commitments and taking responsibility. If a person is pro-abortion, they are repudiating all of that.
Here are a couple of articles you must read.
1) why women choose men who don’t believe in morality or theology:
https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/why-do-some-women-prefer-jerks-for-boyfriends/
2) how emotions cloud judgment when choosing a mate
https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/arlemagne-writes-a-magnificent-post-on-the-dangers-of-sentimentality/
3) how the pre-marital sex advocated by feminists undermines marital stability:
https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/does-being-a-virgin-before-marriage-affect-marital-stabilitity/
https://winteryknight.wordpress.com//2010/12/24/what-are-the-benefits-of-remaining-chaste-before-marriage/
https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/new-study-shows-how-delaying-sex-results-in-better-relationships-later-on/
I understand that feminism was a reaction to men behaving badly. The question is this – are women responsible for CHOOSING those bad men and PASSING OVER the good men? Are women responsible for continuing to vote for feminism, which results in sex education, single-mother welfare, etc., and more broken homes and heart-broken children? And should women turn away from feminism now and turn back to the good men, and be serious about choosing men who have reasons for behaving morally, and a proven track record of self-sacrifice and honor?
Remember, men today are more pro-life and more pro-marriage than women. And men also vote Republican more than single women. We believe in babies. We believe in marriage. I think men struggle to resist the offer of free sex, which is why women need to stop offering it to them. And I think women also need to write down the question “why do men marry at all?” on their hands and think about it all day. What causes a man to marry? What can women do to provide incentives for good men to get married and stay married?
Here’s a start:
http://standyourground.com/forums/index.php?topic=711.0;wap2
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WK, I’m going to use some wording which you may find famiiliar…
I think you also need to look at the morality of bad women on a case-by-case basis.
I understand that rejecting marriage was a reaction to third wave feminist women behaving badly. The question is this – are men responsible for CHOOSING those bad women and PASSING OVER the good women? Are men responsible for continuing to select women based on sex appeal alone, which results in the propagation of feminism, sex education, single-mother welfare, etc., and more broken homes and heart-broken children? And should men turn away from selecting on the basis of sex appeal now and turn back to the good women, and be serious about choosing women who have reasons for behaving morally, and a proven track record of self-sacrifice and honor?
I think women struggle to resist the offer of affection, which is why men need to stop offering it to them in exchange for sex. And I think men also need to write down the question “why do good women marry at all?” on their hands and think about it all day. What causes a good woman to marry? What can men do to provide incentives for good women to get married and stay married?
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Women working doesn’t = women deserting homes or deserting children. If this is your personal experience (a wife left you and your children and ran off with her, uh, job) then you have my sympathies. But having experienced it makes it your experience. Not a “fact” as you claim.
Also, children in daycare does not = desertion. I understand you might like things to be as they were, with a mom at home with kids, but that things are not this way doesn’t substantiate your claim of “desertion.” Just trying to get you to be a bit more precise in your language. It’s so easy to generalize.
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