So, in this post I’m going to briefly go over three challenges to producing effective, influential children. First, choose a better spouse. Second, Christian classical schools. Third, socialist countries make homeschooling and private Christian schools effectively illegal.

1. Choose a better spouse

So let’s start with the first one. Christian parents and pastors need to educate young people to choose spouses who are equipped educate to produce effective and influential children.

So in the case of choosing a man who will be involved in producing effective, influential children, here are some tips:

• don’t choose a man based on attraction to his appearance or displayed wealth
• whether homeschooling or private Christian schools, the man should have chosen a major and a career that allows him to pay to avoid public schools
• it’s better to choose a man whose career allows him to work from home, so that he is available to supervise the education, and discipline the children as they grow
• he should demonstrate his ability to move people in his circle of influence to greater effectiveness and influence, for example making them try harder at school and work, or get better at defending the Christian worldview, especially on controversial issues

So in the case of choosing a woman who will be involved in producing effective, influential children, here are some tips:

• don’t choose a woman based on attraction to her appearance or sexual availability
• children need their their mothers at home from birth to age 5, so if a woman has a career, then she needs to put it on hold during that time. If a woman wants to do a career to benefit the Christian community as a whole, e.g. – Supreme Court justice, then she should probably not have children between those ages
• it’s better to choose a woman who has demonstrated the ability to do hard things, so that she has the ability to take responsibility and be accountable for producing results, e.g. – a degree in computer science, and two years of private sector coding experience
• she should demonstrate her ability to move people in her circle of influence to greater effectiveness and influence, for example making them try harder at school and work, or get better at defending the Christian worldview, especially on controversial issues

It’s no good to complain when the children arrive that your spouse isn’t involved in spiritual and moral education. The time to settle that was when you were training to evaluate and choose your spouse. And Christian parents and pastors have a role to play in equipping young people to make better choices.

2. Classical Christian schools

I’ve looked over the curricula of a number of these classical Christian schools, and I am not convinced that they are useful for producing effective, influential Christians.

Suppose I were trying to educate my child to be the next Jay Richards or the next Stephen C. Meyer or the next Kristen Waggoner or the next Clarence Thomas. Are classical Christian schools useful for producing results like that?

Education has two goals. 1) educating the person in valuable skills, so that they can earn a lot of money without sacrificing family engagement, and without violating their conscience. 2) it should teach young people to resist the culture on the basis of reason and evidence. If we are talking about God’s existence or origins, then we are dealing with mainstream science. If we are talking about gospel reliability or the resurrection, then we are making historical arguments using mainstream evidence. If we’re talking about religious pluralism or the problem of evil, then we’re talking about mainstream philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. Etc.

I have yet to meet anyone involved with classical Christian schools who was steering young people into careers where they would make a lot of money, working from home, and not exposing themselves to cancel culture. You would think that these classical Christian schools would be focused on careers like developing software with open-source components, but they don’t have the skills. Secondly, apologetics is poorly handled in these curricula. If there is any, it’s presuppositional – an approach that is used by none of the most effective and influential Christian scholars. The ones who actually debate non-Christians and move the ball downfield in the culture.

3. Move to a conservative state in a conservative country

Many Christian men and women often pooh-pooh my seriousness about marriage and parenting planning. They say “I was born in Washington, and it’s a fine state. The public schools are great here. And I’m sure the government, although entirely Democrat, will respect my rights as a parent and as a Christian. After all, I pay their salaries.” But this is just laziness and ignorance. The people who say this don’t want the burden of having to make plans, and execute plans in order to produce effective, influential children.

Consider this article from Daily Wire, about Germany – a secular socialist state:

Home education has been outlawed in Germany for more than a century; four years ago, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against a family from Darmstadt, Germany, which had asserted the right to homeschool their children. Private religious schools, although legal, must follow state-mandated curricula from the area in which they are located.

Tobias Riemenschneider, a pastor at Evangelical Reformed Baptist Church in Frankfurt, Germany, said in an interview with The Daily Wire that the nation’s restrictive education laws present “great difficulty to parents who are convinced by their Christian faith that it is God’s will for them to raise their children themselves in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” He noted that parents who defy government sanctions against home education risk incurring considerable fines, prison sentences, and the possibility that authorities will take their children.

The same kind of stuff is happening now, in states like Washington and California.

It’s just like those Christian-owned business in SOGI states. SOGI states elevate sexual orientation and gender identity to be a protected category, like race. Christian businesses in those states think “well, I was born here, and my family is here, so I’m going to start a business here, and keep right out of politics. I’m sure God will make my laziness and ignorance work out”. They are taken by surprise by being persecuted by secular left tyrants. A much better plan is to be serious about moving to a state with low taxes, high liberty, and support for the plans of Christian parents. It’s better to spend your own money on educating your kids, rather than to spend it on legal defense.

A while back, I explained my three concerns about attending church. One of them was that male pastors and church leaders have adopted the priorities of radical feminism, and have turned against men who want a traditional marriage in which the man leads and the wife supports. Well, I found something that really illustrates what I mean by that, so that everyone will understand it.

Above, you can see a tweet by Michael Foster, a pastor who hosts a podcast called “It’s Good to be a Man”. His web site states that his goal is: “Extending God’s house & father-rule by helping men to establish their own houses in strength, workmanship & wisdom.”

He explains in subsequent tweets that he is just urging men to ask questions to find out how the woman became a single mother.

Reactions to the tweet

Here are some reactions to the tweet:

• asking Foster where are his warnings about single dads
• calling Foster a misogynist
• insulting Foster’s appearance
• using 1 counterexample to deny a mountain of evidence
• single moms who deliberately chose bad men, and then play the victim by accepting no responsibility for their actions
• claiming that Foster was expressing an irrational opinion
• accusing Foster of being a child abuser

The negative reactions are all anti-intellectual and childish, especially trying to refute statistics with “you hurt my feelings” or telling a single personal story as a counterexample.

Here’s a disclaimer. In this post, I am talking about single mothers by choice, and single mothers who initiated divorce. Widows are excluded.

The risks posed by single mothers

Now, let’s improve Foster’s warning, by looking at some evidence – is a marriage to a single mother really more likely to result in a bad outcome?

First of all, women initiate 70% of divorces. If you meet a woman who divorced her husband, she either had a defect in her ability to evaluate and choose a man, or she had a defect in her ability to maintain a commitment to the man she chose. Either way, a woman who divorced her previous husband has red flags. There are two possibilities. She either chose a good man or she chose a bad man. If she chose a bad man, then it shows that she didn’t choose a man with good moral character and spiritual leadership. That means that those things were low priorities for her when deciding who to get naked with. Alternatively, she married a good man, and failed to maintain the commitment. Then she has different problems: problems with male leadership, problems with responsibilities, problems with commitment, problems with contentment, etc. You need to ask questions to get to the bottom of what happened, and more importantly, what she has studied and done to change her worldview. Don’t take her words for it, look at her actions.

Second, the number of premarital sex partners a woman has makes her a higher risk of divorce. The more sex partners, the more risk. The problem with women who engage in sex with men who don’t commit to them is that they necessarily don’t see a man’s willingness and ability to commit as valuable when choosing a man. Women who have premarital sex with men who don’t commit see OTHER THINGS as more valuable. They are rewarding the man for his height, his muscles, his tattoos, his piercings, his entertainment of her, etc. A good man should be very wary when a woman who gave her best youth, beauty and sexual interest to men like that now want to “settle” for a boring, unattractive provider who they see as having lower value than the men they gave sex to without requiring a commitment. What they really wanted was bad boys, and they threw sex at those bad boys without asking for commitment. With the man they perceive as low-level, they are insisting on commitment first, because they don’t want this low-level man as badly as they wanted the bad boy. They are settling for less than they feel they deserve. This is where sex-withholding, feelings of unhappiness, and frivolous divorces come from. And by the way, hollering Jesus doesn’t fix that risk any more than hollering Jesus fixes student loans accumulated for a useless non-STEM degree. Jesus-hollering isn’t evidence that a woman has persuaded herself to change her view of which men are the most attractive. A woman’s lack of respect for men who prepare for commitment and who keep their commitments is dangerous for marital stability. The hysterical reactions to a man’s judging a woman for her past mistakes don’t cancel the damage and risks caused by those mistakes. They simply tell the man that this woman is unrepentant, and therefore unteachable, and likely unsuitable for goal-oriented marriage. She is not qualified for the job of wife: self-sacrificial love for her husband, respect for her husband, and supporting her husband in what he is trying to achieve for God.

Here’s what the Bible says about sex outside of heterosexual marriage and about frivolous divorce. Read the critical replies to Foster’s tweet. The critical responses show the default position of church-attending Christian women and pastors to the Bible in this culture. First, the critics don’t accept the Bible as an authority over women’s choices in any area of life. Second, the critics don’t believe that women should bear any responsibility for their past actions. Nobody believes that women choosing bad men is the woman’s fault in this society. So you should assume that single mothers don’t take responsibility for their own failures. And that means that she will have taken no steps to repent of her mistake, and change her character so that she doesn’t make the same mistake again. It’s up to you to look at what she has been reading, listening to, watching, etc. and to check her actions in order to find out what she really thinks about what the Bible says. You can’t marry a woman who responds to any mention of the moral law and moral obligations with denial of responsibility and insults. If she hasn’t become an active crusader against women who choose bad men, and women who choose premarital sex, and women who choose divorce, then you can’t really believe that there’s been any real repentance. The risks to you are too high to take a chance on someone who is not certain. I’ve only ever met one single mother (Kerri) who blamed her own divorce on her own bad decisions.

The culture opposes male leadership

Foster’s warning is intended to help men to make better decisions, so that their relationships will produce results for God. But his critics aren’t interested in what men are trying to achieve for God. They are only concerned that women get what they want, regardles of their past actions. In their opinion, men exists solely to serve the needs of women. Women don’t have to be good enough for marriage, men just have to give them what they want regardless of the woman’s suitability for wife and mother roles. The role of men in any relationship is not to lead and achieve goals for God. Their role is to let women rule over them, disposing of their earnings as they see fit, for the benefit of the woman.

When women are young and pretty, they are entitled to hot bad boys to entertain them. When they are older, have tons of sexual experience, and children from different fathers, they are entitled to a husband to financially support them. But a husband with no power to lead the home, since their past choices of man showed they have no interest in following a man who has good character. And the churches, pastors, courts, schools, hospitals, etc. are all there to enforce this view of men as clowns / slaves.

This is what women are told about the role of men in every area of society. This society, including the Christian parents, Christian pastors, Christian culture, etc. do not produce women who prefer early marriage to men who are good at moral leadership and spiritual leadership. Therefore, men who are chaste, sober, have good educations, good private sector jobs, good savings, etc. need to be extremely careful. Look at the responses to Foster’s tweet, and think: do these people care about providing you with a good wife? Or is their concern all about how to insult you and shame you, until you are submissive to her needs?

Your marriage is your enterprise for serving God

My advice to men right now is to read over every single critical tweet in that thread that Foster started. Imagine that you are trying to get these women to do something in a marriage that is part of your plan to make the marriage serve God. You’re trying to get her to watch a William Lane Craig debate. You’re trying to get her to stop spending money on 50 Shades of Grey and Harry Potter. You’re trying to get her to stop smoking and drinking. You’re trying to get her to talk about the sermon instead of essential oils. You’re trying to get her to read a Thomas Sowell book. You’re trying to get her to not put the kids in day care or public schools.

You need to assume that her response to male leadership like this will be the exact same as the responses that Foster is getting to his tweet. And then after you have assumed it, then you need to keep your hands off that woman. Keep your distance, and ask her questions to find out what her real views are, and whether she is interested in growing into the kind of person who is safe for you to marry. Don’t forget that chastity and sobriety are important during the evaluation process, so that you aren’t influenced away from your leadership role. Don’t listen to her words, look at her actions.

My plan is to quit working and retire before age 50. That’s the result of many years of living debt-free in inexpensive states, investing money, and not spending money on entertainment, travel, etc. But young people aren’t going to be able to go that route. Not only are they borrowing and spending, but they are also voting for policies that will prevent them from ever being able to retire.

This story from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, for example, shows the result of voting for a big spending socialist.

According to final data from the Treasury Department, net interest costs reached $659 billion (2.5 percent of GDP) in fiscal year 2023, a $184 billion increase from the previous year. In this piece, we explain that:

• Interest costs nearly doubled over the past three years, from $345 billion in 2020 to $659 billion in 2023.
• Interest is now the fourth-largest government program, behind only Social Security, Medicare, and defense.
• The federal government in 2023 spent more on net interest than it did all spending on children, and it also spent more on interest than most major programs or program areas including Medicaid, veterans’ programs, food and nutrition programs, and education.

Interest is currently the fastest growing part of the federal budget. After growing from $221 billion in 2013 to $345 billion in 2020, it has nearly doubled to $659 billion in 2023. Relative to the economy, net interest costs grew from 1.6 percent of GDP in 2020 to 2.5 percent in 2023.

In the coming years, interest costs are likely to further explode. With interest rates at a 16-year high, current debt holdings originally borrowed in a low interest rate environment will increasingly be rolled over at much higher rates. Meanwhile, the federal government continues to add roughly $2 trillion per year to the national debt.

Why is this a problem? Well, it’s a problem because interest on our debt is so high, that it blocks spending on other government programs. The interest on the debt is such a big part of the budget, that there is no spending space left for discretionary spending. And eventually, that will impact non-discretionary spending, too. According to far-left CNN, Medicare’s trust fund will be gone by 2030, and the Social Security trust fund will be gone by 2033. That means those programs will be forced to cut spending. And those are the CBO estimates. I think those numbers are optimistic.

How will the government pay for all of this spending and debt? Why, by raising taxes on incomes, of course. And who will pay these higher taxes? Not me, I’ll be retired. The young people who think socialism is a great idea will be paying for it. They ought to know that, but instead, they only worry about climate change, gay marriage, abortion and infanticide.

Another thing that young people who vote Democrat support is open borders. They love the idea of people being let into the country, even though they will use more in social services and government welfare than they pay in taxes. It sounds so generous, but young people don’t realize that they are the ones who will be paying for this “generosity” for the rest of their working lives.

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Biden administration let in 9 million illegal immigrants during his term. These are not people who are here legally on work permits, these are people who crossed illegally. That means that they could not meet the legal requirements for coming into the country on a work permit – speaking English, having an education, having work experience, etc. Who is going to pay for their educations, health care, policing, etc? The young people who voted for Biden will.

Young people are going to be working just as hard as their parents did, but with much less wealth to show for it. That’s the cost of the “generosity” they vote for when they vote for socialism. And if they try to vote to take that money from job creators, then those job creators will just start shipping jobs overseas, and moving their money out so they don’t have to pay taxes on it here. There’s no way to fix this by confiscation or redistribution.