Tag Archives: Husband

Mentoring

Young women: one of the best things you can do with your life is care for kids

1 Comment
Does government provide incentives for people to get married?
Should women postpone marriage and raising children for other things?

Super-mom Lindsay sent me this article about by a former feminist who was once opposed to children, then had 4 of them in 5 years.

Introduction:

Up until my mid-20’s I was firm in my belief that I never wanted to have kids. A combination of events made me reconsider the issue, and by the time we got married I was open to the idea of having some pre-set, small number of kids and had begun thinking about the precise timetables on which I would have them.

[…]It would have been inconceivable to me to imagine that constantly having my plans derailed by pregnancies and not even having any idea when I’d be done changing diapers would be an improvement over my fully controlled, well-ordered life, but it has been.

[…]Lately I’ve been imagining what I would say to 2003 Jen if I could go back in time and give her a crystal ball to show her what her future would be like. I’ve been trying to imagine how I would talk her down from the balcony ledge after the crystal ball got to the “four kids in five years — and doing NFP!” part, how I could possibly convince her that this life is not only not a recipe for misery, but the true fulfillment of everything she thought she wanted.

I would love to tell you that I’d simply be able to explain that each child is such a joy and a blessing, but that would not have resonated with Old Jen; I might have agreed, but ultimately I would have said that those joys and blessing are just too much hard work. “I just don’t see how that kind of life could be anything but miserable for someone like me,” I would have said.

So how do you convince a woman that “hard work”, i.e. – self-denial, self-control, self-discipline, self-sacrifice – while caring for children could actually lead to a fulfilling life? And most importantly, that it should not be postponed in pursuit of something that appears more fun, more thrilling or more important (according to a feminist measure of fun, thrills and importance).

She makes 5 points in her post.

Here’s one:

3. “It’s not what you do, it’s whom you serve.”

A product of secular society, I’d fallen into the common notion that the way to find true happiness is to focus on yourself more and other people less. It makes perfect sense, after all: doing pleasurable things for me is fun, sacrifice and hard work are not fun; ergo, the secret to happiness must be to live for myself as much as possible. Right?

How shocked I was to discover that I was wrong — dead wrong. Part of fully understanding the concept of vocation was understanding that a vocation is not to be thought of as “what you do” as much as it is “whom you serve.” It was nothing short of revolutionary to hear the concept that God has called every one of us to serve others, that living for yourself is not a valid option; that the key to deep fulfillment, to finding your very purpose in life, is as simple as finding out the specific way in which you’re called to serve. Do that, and you will find peace.

It sounded not only too simple to be true, but too difficult. As a spoiled only child the idea of living to serve sounded terrible. But once I actually took a leap of faith and tried it, I had no doubt that this was truth.

Next,I want to talk about one of the young Christians I mentor, and then about the woman I supported for President in the 2012 election.

I spent Friday night playing with one of the young women I mentor. This is the one who did the BS in computer science, and is now doing the MS in computer science. After playing a few rounds of “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes”, she mentioned the salary from her internship this summer. She asked me “what am I going to do with so much money? I think I had better stop thinking so much about myself and find some people out there to help”. And I was so pleased. Because this woman, more than any of the other young people I mentor, is my replacement.

J. Warner Wallace likes to talk about training your replacement, and I have several replacements, but none better than her. I remember when she was younger, she was a bit more selfish than now. She still organized events, like bringing Frank Turek, Tim McGrew, etc. to speak on her campus. But she never showed much interest in one-on-one care for others. It was my hope that just like me, she would react to computer science salary with a sense of obligation to others, and so she has. And that’s how I think women ought to be. They should be educated, they should be successful – but they should be open to the needs of others.

Michele Bachmann

The woman I admire the most in the world is former GOP Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who was my first choice for President in 2012. I had been following her for many years before that, when she was just a state senator. I liked her because of her interest in apologetics, as well as her focus on her family.

Marcus and Michele Bachmann and family
Marcus and Michele Bachmann and family

The  radically leftist New York Times did a profile of her.

It says:

Nearly two decades ago, a stay-at-home mother and onetime federal tax lawyer named Michele Bachmann felt a spiritual calling to open her clapboard home here to troubled teenage girls.

“We had our five biological children that God gave to us, and then he called us to take foster children into our home,” Mrs. Bachmann told a Christian audience in 2006. “We thought we were going to take unwed mothers in,” she continued, adding, “We took 23 foster children into our home, and raised them, and launched them off into the world.”

Today Mrs. Bachmann is Representative Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, first elected to the House in 2006, and now a candidate for her party’s nomination for president. In Washington, she has grabbed the spotlight as a staunch fiscal conservative and brash Tea Party leader. But a look at her life here shows that it was her role as a mother, both to her biological children and to her adolescent foster daughters, that spurred her to seek public office.

[…]Mrs. Bachmann’s political awakening began with her deep disenchantment with the public school system.

[…]By the late 1990s, with her own children enrolled in private Christian schools, Mrs. Bachman was upset by the education her foster children were getting in public school. Teachers gave them “little special attention,” and many were “placed in lower-level classes, as if they were not expected to succeed,” she told a House subcommittee in 2007.

One brought home “an 11th-grade math assignment that involved coloring a poster,” she testified. Another “spent an entire week watching movies.” A third “remarked to me once that she was in ‘stupid people math.’ ”

So Mrs. Bachmann immersed herself in the minutiae of Minnesota’s graduation requirements. She worked with a conservative researcher and began giving talks in church basements.

[…]The Rev. Marcus Birkholz, the pastor at Salem Lutheran Church, which Mrs. Bachmann attended for years, calls her “a lady with energy and a heart” whose uncompromising “support for the unborn” extends beyond fighting abortion. “She sees the whole picture,” Pastor Birkholz said. “It’s not just bringing a child into the world; that child has to be nurtured and educated.”

[…]Mrs. Bachmann, whose biological children now range in age from 17 to 29, worked until her fourth child was born. (Her youngest, Sophia, is headed to college this fall, while the eldest, Lucas, is a medical resident at the University of Connecticut, pursuing a specialty in psychiatry.) Friends remember her planning neighborhood picnics and organizing bicycle parades.

“I had all these balls in the air that I was juggling,” she said in an interview with Minnesota Monthly last year. In choosing to leave work, she said, “I finally realized my dream, which was to be mom of a big, happy family.”

What does it mean? It means that women ought not be horrified by husband needs or children needs. They should not be opposed to responsibilities, expectations and obligations in relationships. Sometimes, the path to greatness means taking a few years off from work to homeschool your kids. After all, isn’t it better for God to have FIVE Christian kids who will surpass you in influence?  Michele didn’t get involved in politics by thinking of herself. She got involved in politics by thinking of her children, and her 23 foster children.

Here’s my advice to young women: 1) Study something hard that pays. 2) Work a few years and get debt free. 3) Marry a good provider in your mid-to-late 20s. 4) Have as many children as your husband can support. 5) Be actively involved in the education of your kids (with apologetics, too). 6) Open your home to kids who don’t have a mom or a dad. 7) Teach your kids the importance of caring for others. 8) Run for President (as a Republican).

News

What does it mean for a woman to respect a man?

4 Comments
My favorite painting:
My favorite painting: “Godspeed” by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1900

Matt Walsh writes a popular blog where he sometimes talks about male-female relationships. I got the impression that he was writing too much about how to blame men, and not enough about the policies and practices that provide incentives for men to underperform, e.g. – mostly female teachers, unfair divorce laws, stimulus spending geared towards women, etc. So imagine my surprise when I came across this article about men and their need for respect.

Matt is concerned that men are hearing too many negative messages in the culture, and not getting enough respect for what they do right.

He writes:

These cultural messages aren’t harmful because they hurt my manly feelings; they’re harmful because of what they do to young girls. Society tells our daughters that men are boorish dolts who need to be herded like goats and lectured like school boys. Then they grow up and enter into marriage wholly unprepared and unwilling to accept the Biblical notion that “wives should submit to their husbands” because “the husband is the head of the wife.” [Ephesians 5]

It is a fatal problem, because the one thing that is consistently withheld from men and husbands — respect — is the one thing we need the most.

Yes, need. We need respect, and that need is so deeply ingrained that a marriage cannot possibly survive if the man is deprived of it.

Often, people will say that a husband should only be respected if he “earns” it. This attitude is precisely the problem. A wife ought to respect her husband because he is her husband, just as he ought to love and honor her because she is his wife. Your husband might “deserve” it when you mock him, berate him, belittle him, and nag him, but you don’t marry someone in order to give them what they deserve. In marriage, you give them what you’ve promised them, even when they aren’t holding up their end of the bargain.

OK really, one last quote from Matt:

Respect is our language. If it isn’t said with respect, we can’t hear it. This is why nagging is ineffective and self defeating. This is why statements made in sarcastic tones, or with rolling eyes, will never be received well. We have a filter in our brains, and a statement made in disrespect will be filtered out like the poison it is.

Men are notoriously reluctant to share feelings or display vulnerability. Many times, we keep those inner thoughts locked away — our feelings guarded and hidden — because we know we are not respected. A man will never be vulnerable to someone who doesn’t respect him. Never.

A man isn’t satisfied or content if he isn’t respected. If he can’t find respect where he is, he will seek it somewhere else. This can have disastrous implications for a relationship, but it applies in other areas of life as well. A man is much more likely to stay in a low paying job, a physically demanding job, a dangerous job, or a tedious job, than a job where he isn’t respected.

I’m only emphasizing this because I think it might actually be news to some people. Society does not permit men to be vocal about their need for respect, so the need is often ignored.

What I’ve found in speaking to women about this is that all the married and divorced women know about this need that men have. And by and large, they agree with it, too. But that is much rarer among single women, which is why men need to be ready to explain their needs and feelings. And women need to allow them to do that and then provide what men need in order to keep them performing.

Let’s take a quick look at the Bible, because that’s always a good thing to do when you want the truth about these things.

Ephesians 5:22-33:

22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.

24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,

26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;

29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,

30 because we are members of His body.

31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

Some women get scared by that, but they shouldn’t be, because women get to pick their husbands, so just pick someone whose leadership you actually respect. Believe it or not, it is actually very comforting to co-operate with someone who knows what he is doing, and has demonstrated that through his past decisions.

And now for my opinion about this topic.

To start, remember that men are supposed to be good at the following roles:

  • protecting
  • providing
  • moral leader
  • spiritual leader

If a woman sees a man – any man – working away at these tasks so that he can solve her problems with something more than confident promises about the future, that’s the time to practice respecting him. All men need to be recognized and encouraged in these areas, by all woman who care that men are masculine.

When I think of protecting, there is obviously the physical protection, but there is also the protection from lies and bad decisions. For protection, what I end up doing most is analyzing decisions for women and then giving my recommendation. I have 12 young people I mentor, men and women, who are in undergraduate or graduate school. My job is to make sure that they are not studying garbage subjects, and not wasting their summers. I am proud to say that the 7 women I advise are all in STEM areas, and that took some convincing. Why is this protection? Because women need to not starve, and they need to not feel pressured to settle for a guy because they can’t be financially independent by themselves. I am not a feminist, but I do think that women make better wives when they study hard subjects and do hard jobs. It shapes their character so that they are easier to reason with, less fun-focused, and more able to perform hard work without complaint. I also advise women not to waste money of pursuing fun and thrills when they are young, and instead advise them to save and invest it early. One of the young ladies I mentor just finished her BS in computer science, and just finished her first semester of an MS in computer science, worked as a TA and in the summers as a software tester, got an internship with a great software company for the summer, and she has an account with Fidelity, just like me.

When I think of providing, I think of the man’s ability to work for money. It starts in high school, in the summers or evenings and goes on right to retirement. I did a summer internship with a huge telecom firm when I was in my sophomore year of high school, so it is possible. A man should not rely on others for money, he needs to be independent. A man should not find paid work “boring” and “meaningless”. In fact, part of what it means to be a man is to do things that you don’t feel like doing, so that you can provide for others. A man does not spend his money on alcohol or travel or other entertainments. He will have plenty to spend it on when he gets older – his family or maybe charity. A man buys things for others that will help them achieve goals – solving problems for others with his earned income. For example, if a woman has surgery on both of her hands, and cannot lug the vacuum up and down the stairs to clean up her cat’s fur, then the man buys her a corded hand vacuum, which is much lighter for her to use every day, (he knows she has OCD and wants everything clean). Money makes a woman’s life easier, freeing her up to do more important things. It’s important for a man to get started early earning money, because earnings can be invested to produce a return. A man’s confidence about the future has no cash value. A woman’s feelings about a man’s potential future earnings has no cash value. Cash has cash value. There is no such thing as assumed future income, there is only a resume, which predicts future earned income based on the reality of past earned income.

A good moral leader is not just good at being moral and spiritual himself, but of convincing others to be moral and spiritual. He is able to present his views on moral issues in a convincing way, especially to non-Christians. He studies philosophy (in his spare time! not as a job because it does not pay!) and is aware of research that helps him to make his point about topics like abortion and marriage. He has an interest in current events and politics, and is able to talk about legislation, policies and court cases related to his worldview. He is able to solve problems that could impact a person’s ability to be moral or spiritual in the future. For example, consider that some people really do lose their faith when experiencing evil and suffering. A good spiritual leader advises a woman to not make plans that are likely to fail, so that she will never blame God for her own poor decisions. A good moral leader convinces a woman to be serious about marriage early, so that she is not tempted to become a single mother by choice later. Those last two cases are cases I actually had to face, and I won the first one (she dumped a complete loser of a man and married a really great one), and lost the second (she became a single mother by choice and had a fatherless son). But the point is that there is more to being a moral leader than reciting moral rules. And there is more to being a spiritual leader than reciting Bible verses. A good leader proves he can lead by pushing the people he leads into real world achievements.

These are the things that a good woman looks for in a man, and when she finds them, she accords a man respect in those areas.

News

New study: children from broken homes more likely to have mental health issues

1 Comment
Does government provide incentives for people to get married?
Do children do as well when they are raised by single parents or step families?

This was reported in the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Children brought up by single parents and in step families are three times as likely to suffer from mental health problems, a major study has found.

Research on more than 10,000 children found that those brought up by both natural parents are far less likely to suffer severe emotional and behavioural problems.

The major study by University College London shows large differences in the well-being of children, depending on their upbringing.

Experts said the findings added to “a mountain of evidence” about the damage caused by family breakdown, with children left stressed by marital breakdowns, or falling into poverty which could increase their risk of psychiatric distress.

The Millennium Cohort Study examined the mental health of 10,448 11-year-olds living in the UK.

Overall, 6.6 per cent of children living with both natural parents were found to have severe mental health problems, compared with 15 per cent of those living with single parents, and 18.1 per cent of those living in step-families.

[…]Higher levels of mental health problems were found among boys, who were more likely than girls to suffer from conduct problems, hyperactivity and inattention.

[…]Children brought up in low income households were also more likely to suffer mental health problems, with a four-fold difference between the wealthiest and poorest households.

So, from a Christian perspective, here’s what I want to say about the harm caused to children when men and women choose to make babies with people who are not capable of making a commitment.

Chastity

First, the Christian view of dating and courtship is not very popular today, even among conservative Christians. Instead, most people have embraced the “feelings-driven” model of dating and courtship, where relationships are viewed as a vehicle for experiencing fun and thrills. The Christian model stresses self-control, by requiring strict chastity – no sex before marriage. But, if you ask feminists, they will tell you that women should engage in premarital sex for recreational purposes, and that women should not think about the harm that could result from an unplanned pregnancy (abortion or fatherlessness). If a woman thinks that recreational sex is OK, then she will attract a man who thinks that relationships are about personal fulfillment, not about commitment. When you take premarital sex off the table, the focus of relationships becomes about making a match based on commitment, not fun. Men who get into relationships for recreational sex are the exact kind of men who want relationships to be about fun, not commitment. And that’s why women should not choose them, because as the study shows, children suffer.

Stewardship

Second, the Christian model requires the man to provide financially for his family. Christian women are expected to favor men who focus on their studies, choose jobs that pay well, and save their money for their future families. In fact, fathers are supposed to guard their daughters from men who do not work, do not save and are not financially prepared for marriage. Again, this view is not embraced by most people. Most young women believe in feminism, which is the view that men and women are interchangeable, and men have no specific duty to provide for others. So, when women choose men, they are not choosing them according to this requirement to provide. Instead, they choose men who let them rule, or who are fun, or who don’t expect anything out of the woman except sex. A man who makes no demands is valued higher than a man who earns money and requires emotional support for the stress he incurs from working and saving. And naturally, when children arrive, these women find that men who were unemployed or underemployed are not able to take responsibility for their children.

Commitment takes self-denial and self-control

So, there are two reasons why people are not staying together. And both of these are embraced by women today. Women see premarital sex as something they can give to a man to get his attention without having to support him in a feminine / supportive way. And women see a weak man who does not work and save as having no authority over them to lead them. The desire to avoid the judgment and leadership of marriage-minded men causes women to choose losers who are easy to control and manipulate – men they won’t have to listen to or support. The problem with those men is, of course, that they don’t keep commitments. And that’s why we have this problem of broken homes.

Welfare

It would probably help if we were not paying women welfare in order to have babies before they are married, too. After all, you get more of what you subsidize, especially when our new emotional view of morality makes moral judgment of single mothers impossible. Almost every single mother chose to have sex with a man who did not commit, the only exception being rape. But instead of blaming women for their poor choices, we pretend that they can do as they please, and that men must enable their irresponsible choices. When we cut off the funding for women who choose to become single mothers (by choosing to have sex with men who cannot commit) then children will do much better. Children are more important than women or men. We have to shame the grown-ups into restraining their wildness, so that children get what they need from both of their parents.