Again, George Orwell’s (my favorite atheist) quote comes to mind when I read these twisted arguments against marriage and fatherhood, “Some things are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” The book, “The Faith of the Fatherless” by Paul Vitz is a great resource on this issue and I have recommended it to many fathers.
But a quick story about the young women I encountered. After I retired from the Army I worked many years as a program manager for a medium-sized government contractor in support of DoD. We enjoyed a lot of success and repeatedly won our re-competes. But my most satisfying accomplishments in those many years was to persuade three young women to focus on getting married instead of pursuing a career. I would ask them, “What do you want out of life?” And after they gave me the standard feminist mantra of career advancement, I would ask them, if they ever thought of marriage and children. Now I was an older, married man with three daughters of my own and they knew I loved my wife and children. They all answered of course. So then I would follow up with, “then why are you wasting your time pursuing a career instead of what you really want, because from what I was seeing the women who did that ended up alone, living with their cats.” All of them ended up getting married very soon and quit their jobs. One of them, the one that gave me the most pushback, tracked me down to show me her engagement ring. They just needed someone to break the feminist spell that was destroying their lives.
Probably true, but the Lord protected me. I believe I had a good reputation as a worker/manager and as a known Christian. I would invite my employees and coworkers to my home for dinner to meet my family and we would host an annual Christmas party for my office. I would pray for my employees who asked and would headline papers I would send to the government with a scripture verse that related to the issue.
The only time I got in semi hot water with HR is when they threatened to cancel my weekly Bible study prior to work that my pastor used to come in and lead. They the thought is was closed to just Christians, but of course it was not - everyone was invited. Even then they wanted me to shut it down and politely told them that if they forced me to do so, I would file a discrimination lawsuit against them the next day (an appeal to Caesar). They never bothered me again. As I said the Lord protected me.
Thanks for citing the stat about the US being #1 in the world for single-parent households. I think every conversation on this topic needs to begin with this point. Maybe there's little hope of being best in the world, but I don't have much patience for people saying there is nothing that can be done. Can we at least aspire to second-worst? Is that really aiming too high?
On reflection, this statistic is really quite remarkable. We've been used to hearing, for at least my entire life, that the US is especially bad according to this or that social metric. But "especially bad" almost always means "one of the worst, if not THE worst, rich nation, or big nation."
It's remarkable, and disheartening, that in all the world's diversity we can't find a failed state nor a decaying empire nor a feminist social democracy nor a traditionally matrilocal society that underperforms us here.
Progressives like to talk about how enlightened European nations don't have the death penalty, and do have more gun control, etc.
They don't like to talk about how those same enlightened European nations have more abortion restrictions, lower corporate tax rates, lower out of wedlock birth rates, lower divorce rates, don't pass kids on to the next school grade who are illiterate, and a host of other comparisons.
A couple of years before she died, the arch-conservative, Phyllis Schlafly, basically agreed with Reeves concerning the problems facing marriage being almost unsurmountable given the present circumstances https://www.christianpost.com/news/facts-and-fallacies-about-paycheck-fairness-117959/
Again, George Orwell’s (my favorite atheist) quote comes to mind when I read these twisted arguments against marriage and fatherhood, “Some things are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” The book, “The Faith of the Fatherless” by Paul Vitz is a great resource on this issue and I have recommended it to many fathers.
But a quick story about the young women I encountered. After I retired from the Army I worked many years as a program manager for a medium-sized government contractor in support of DoD. We enjoyed a lot of success and repeatedly won our re-competes. But my most satisfying accomplishments in those many years was to persuade three young women to focus on getting married instead of pursuing a career. I would ask them, “What do you want out of life?” And after they gave me the standard feminist mantra of career advancement, I would ask them, if they ever thought of marriage and children. Now I was an older, married man with three daughters of my own and they knew I loved my wife and children. They all answered of course. So then I would follow up with, “then why are you wasting your time pursuing a career instead of what you really want, because from what I was seeing the women who did that ended up alone, living with their cats.” All of them ended up getting married very soon and quit their jobs. One of them, the one that gave me the most pushback, tracked me down to show me her engagement ring. They just needed someone to break the feminist spell that was destroying their lives.
Nowadays, I'd expect that sort of interaction to result in a complaint to HR, maybe even termination.
Probably true, but the Lord protected me. I believe I had a good reputation as a worker/manager and as a known Christian. I would invite my employees and coworkers to my home for dinner to meet my family and we would host an annual Christmas party for my office. I would pray for my employees who asked and would headline papers I would send to the government with a scripture verse that related to the issue.
The only time I got in semi hot water with HR is when they threatened to cancel my weekly Bible study prior to work that my pastor used to come in and lead. They the thought is was closed to just Christians, but of course it was not - everyone was invited. Even then they wanted me to shut it down and politely told them that if they forced me to do so, I would file a discrimination lawsuit against them the next day (an appeal to Caesar). They never bothered me again. As I said the Lord protected me.
Thanks for sharing that story.
Ross Douthat has a good critique of the progressive "case against pro-marriage policies." Pretty devastating IMHO
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/opinion/marriage-kearney.html?unlocked_article_code=8zrCuTfzy7UonwFkbwDFYZnKObzb0q24k4Tvu4NYLceFtBDIQSGwccJOPAYuKNFsLEhTIFfEV663I0SJo6qpOV_odF09DHblfv5-CA0vwcdcuIQasnWo0iuIqeIcV7iVdSxBaF9JIIubmBj6JpOqtS_C4Ap5YAKRwkW9hMUHJms4JEnLNbwz-WyaDb4RIplyCEZWLx2XfTqXbwqibMqR3vChCxjHJZye0u8Zg5dPXp_elOrGxJ1cOLJ-e2ipTjnH4nKnRdoEEqdwnBt2O_JpGNJtMiNPSV9kQuXZCoKKbXCOYjQ2dUu32aMIx57G2BAVUqnE4h15qmJb&smid=url-share
Thanks for citing the stat about the US being #1 in the world for single-parent households. I think every conversation on this topic needs to begin with this point. Maybe there's little hope of being best in the world, but I don't have much patience for people saying there is nothing that can be done. Can we at least aspire to second-worst? Is that really aiming too high?
On reflection, this statistic is really quite remarkable. We've been used to hearing, for at least my entire life, that the US is especially bad according to this or that social metric. But "especially bad" almost always means "one of the worst, if not THE worst, rich nation, or big nation."
For example, we're an extraordinarily obese country, but apparently only #11 in the world, after 10 tiny Pacific nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate
It's remarkable, and disheartening, that in all the world's diversity we can't find a failed state nor a decaying empire nor a feminist social democracy nor a traditionally matrilocal society that underperforms us here.
Progressives like to talk about how enlightened European nations don't have the death penalty, and do have more gun control, etc.
They don't like to talk about how those same enlightened European nations have more abortion restrictions, lower corporate tax rates, lower out of wedlock birth rates, lower divorce rates, don't pass kids on to the next school grade who are illiterate, and a host of other comparisons.
This particular problem requires a combination of wealth and utter foolishness that don't often go together.