Mens News Daily: Dads dissed at the New York Times.
posted by Helen at 12:46 PM
Friday, January 30, 2009
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64 Comments:
To parpaprhase Rod Stewart: "Whenever I feel like getting married again,I just go find some woman I don't like and buy her a house."
*lol*
too funny uncle ken!
too true.
To some extent, a woman who has spent her time as a homemaker is actually entitled to her husband's earnings because she has sacrificed hers to enable his career. She's the one who takes away the burden of caring for the kids during the day, cleaning the house, stocking the fridge, cooking, etc. So the sense of entitlement is not entirely without cause if the woman is a genuine homemaker.
I personally don't have much respect for the sort of man who loses his job and then spends his time trying to get a similar, good job while not working. Why didn't the man go take 1 or 2 hourly wage jobs while looking for a good salaried position? He's still got bills to pay, and his homemaker wife doesn't exactly have a whole lot of earning potential.
If you, as a man, let a woman assume the position of housewife, you're just going to be wide open for crap like Mike T is spouting.
If you don't have small children at home, a "homemaker" is simply a parasite. I wouldn't touch one with a ten-foot pole.
But if you absolutely want to be able to brag that you're such a good breadwinner that you easily support a sit-at-home, then go to it. Make sure you can also support her for the rest of your life (including alimony in the case of a divorce). If you want such slavery only for outer appearances to others ("I'm such a high-earning and swell guy that I can support a leech") then you deserve what you get.
Mike T: A 100 years ago, women who stayed at home probably had a full day of work. Things have changed. Your willingness to absolutely ignore that fact is odd. Or do you think that you have to stick up for women, just because?
"He's still got bills to pay, and his homemaker wife doesn't exactly have a whole lot of earning potential."
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Absolutely, totally a sexist comment. You just assume that men have to earn all of the money.
I'll bet Princess could develop some earning power if she made a bit of effort (like turning off Oprah and trying to learn something real).
Absolutely sexist.
I do have small children, before you trash me. We are also well insured in case something happens to my husband. I do think that if you do have small children there should be a parent that stays with them.
This was something my husband wanted, he told me so before we got married. So, I’m not some parasite. In truth, even is both parents work, if one spouse lost their job the family is still in trouble, generally one spouse will earn most of the income.
To some extent, a woman who has spent her time as a homemaker is actually entitled to her husband's earnings because she has sacrificed hers to enable his career. She's the one who takes away the burden of caring for the kids during the day, cleaning the house, stocking the fridge, cooking, etc. So the sense of entitlement is not entirely without cause if the woman is a genuine homemaker.
What is wrong with this is that you are acting like the man demanded that the woman stay home. It's really more the other way around and even if it weren't in some particular case, it really is in terms of market value of the proposition. I would gladly trade places with my wife who stays at home and homeschools our children. I would love to do that. Actually, it's not so bad of a deal for me because I work from home now. But, I still have most of my obligation to my employer during the day (and often at night, for that matter).
It would be pretty cool if my wife was the big bread winner -- if even if the economy strikes and we lose our primary means of support, it was her job to find a new one. That would be awesome! I wouldn't have to worry about anything, and I would spend all my days doing math and philosophy with my kids and on my own. Most of the stuff I do now in my spare time, I would do full time. Sounds like retirement to me. Instead, I am the one that has to make sure our collective asses are covered.
Yeah, everything you are saying really is unmitigated bullshit. I don't mean that in as bad of a way as that might sound. I have said a whole lot of unmitigated bullshit over time. It might have had some mileage 250 years ago. But, not today -- modern, pseudo-liberated, stay-at-home moms have it better than virtually anyone else in the entire western world which means they really have it good compared to the entire world. They have managed to get all the benefits of being liberated and being stay-at-home. Some precious few of them appreciate that....
Another aspect is that women behave like this (and, in my experience, at least a substantial minority of them do), and men respond rationally by staying single. Then we see articles about how men are immature because they don't get married.
Dads dissed at Ney York Times. Women and minorities hardest hit.
Trey
Darn that Ney York Times. NEW please.
Trey
"I wouldn't have to worry about anything, and I would spend all my days doing math and philosophy with my kids and on my own. Most of the stuff I do now in my spare time, I would do full time. Sounds like retirement to me. Instead, I am the one that has to make sure our collective asses are covered."
I stay home and homeschool our three children. Homeschooling is *fun* most of the time, but you act like homeschooling parents don't worry about anything. If your wife is like most homeschoolers, there's always concern and worry and your days are consumed with lessons and planning for the next day and why isn't little Lucy understanding fractions, etc. You wouldn't do the stuff that you do in your spare time full time, because you wouldn't have any time left to have *spare* time - especially if your kids are younger. It sounds like you're doing a job you hate - which is not the fault of your wife and kids.
I'm failing to see what's wrong with a mother staying home with the kids, if that's what both parties agreed to when they married. It seems to make for much better kids.
It used to be considered an important aspect of manhood to provide for your own. I don't think it's the men who are supporting a wife at home with the kids who are the wusses here.
How about a man supporting a woman without kids, Kent? Is that also an important aspect of manhood?
Either he's a Real Man(TM) or a gullible twit, I can't figure out which. Especially because the wife said he was a very, very important Real Man (while there was a commercial running on Oprah), but she was trying to suppress a smirk. So I'm really confused.
Long-term housewifes (I'm not talking about staying at home when the children are small) fall into two categories:
A relative married a girl from Korea, and she literally sat at the end of a long table with the kids and colored when we had a big family get-together. That is the "child" variety of long-term housewife.
And then you've got the "boss". She married a doctor or lawyer or Indian chief (he just coincidentally had a good job) and then she immediately quit work, whether he agreed with it or not. Now, decades later, she has a short, frosted haircut, a thick leather neck and calves like a linebacker, and she looks nothing like what he married. But she is extremely rude and demanding with skilled tradesman doing work on "her" house, she threatens people in public with her husband's status, and she almost adopts her husband's achievements, status and wealth when pushing around other people in society.
My normal instinct is to "live and let live", and I just ignore people like Mike T and Kent. If they want to support some woman for the rest of her life, if they want to give all their money to a gypsy fortune-teller, if they want to donate generously to Jim Bakker of the PTL Club, or invest with Madhoff, I don't care. I'm not the boss of the world, and maybe they're right.
But it becomes worthy of content because people like that are not just content to do their own thing. They are going to push their ideas of Chivalry and Real-Man-ness and all the rest on other people. This has it's high point in legislation, from people like Joe Biden and law complexes like VAWA, where men are going to get drilled with these "chivalrous" notions.
You can think about Japanese Kamikaze pilots at the end of World War II. Social pressure can even bring about a man's suicide. Social pressure can bring about a lot. And we're no longer in an era when women need the deference and chivalry of men that they needed centuries ago. Now, women are just milking it. Men are getting used. and Mike T and Kent are basically thick as a brick.
Oh yeah - and after having been through the mill - I wouldn't touch a housewife with a ten-foot pole either. They are some of the most childish, petty, greedy, lazy people I have ever come across.
From the story: "Their goals: to keep their domestic economy from mirroring the national one — and to stay married."
Wow, how heroic of Mrs. Berry, to set as a "goal" -- not a commitment, mind you -- that she not immediately dump him once they got to that "for poorer" portion of the marriage.
But I guess if you do it when he's unemployed, you get less out of the divorce settlement. Gotta wait until he bags his next high-paying job, then get your revenge for not living the swank lifestyle you felt entitled to for the entire rest of your life.
“Don’t make me look like a jerk,” she told a reporter, “but I cannot bring myself to buy my children’s clothes at Wal-Mart.”
“But do you have to buy them at Ralph Lauren?” Scott shot back.
The reporter isn't making you look like jerk, dear, you are. Especially as this comment comes right after you complain that your country club is "the most modest one in town."
This is great stuff too:
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/mad-at-dad/
No balance at all in that article. No opinions of dads who are married to the quoted moms who are so quick to trash their husbands.
I live in a town surrounded by well off people. By that I mean that there are a lot of "stay at home moms" who manage to drive some pretty nice high-end cars to their kids afternoon events and to the mid-day hen parties that go on.
But I do see a lot of very involved dads too when they are not at the office. Coaching, scouts, attending school open houses, etc.
Yet, like this NYT article points out, I hear more of these privileged mothers bashing their guys. Makes me sick and pretty angry. Ladies, us guys go to work during the day, not to the country club. Many of us would enjoy staying home with the kids if you would just go get a job that earns enough to maintain the same lifestyle... Go for it. But I suspect you're not actually interesting in changing shoes with us.
To some extent, a woman who has spent her time as a homemaker is actually entitled to her husband's earnings because she has sacrificed hers to enable his career. She's the one who takes away the burden of caring for the kids during the day, cleaning the house, stocking the fridge, cooking, etc. So the sense of entitlement is not entirely without cause if the woman is a genuine homemaker.
Fine. While she's expressing her sense of entitlement let the husband express his sense sense of disgust at her sense of entitlement by paying her a monthly salary that she feels she is due and then deducting from her pay all of the expenses that he pays for her: free housing; free food; free use of a vehicle, and in many cases an entirely separate vehicle; free clothing; free insurance; free utilities; free travel; free entertainment expenses. Something tells me she won't have too much after he's done deducting all of the expenses that he pays for her. I'm glad I have an immigrant girlfriend.
It sounds like you're doing a job you hate - which is not the fault of your wife and kids.
WTF? Cuz jobs that support a family of five just grow on trees. LOL.
You see, when you have to support the family, you don't get to be picky. You have to figure something out that will pull in well above average pay. And if something threatens that, like some ass hole at work or a recession or whatever, you don't get to just let the chips fall where they may. Not when you are the breadwinner. You have to jump. You have to make yourself valuable enough that you will be the last guy they lay off in a recession. In fact, before you even did any of that, you had to choose a career that is really solid, that took a lot of education and qualifications. And, then you had to really work your way on up to get a salary that supports your family of five. This isn't just show up and turn a crank from 9 to 5. You have to perform. And, above all, you have to be willing to do the jobs that other people either can't or wont do (usually a combination of both if not more of the latter). That's just what it takes.
Perhaps current law reflects a time when marital bonds were largely about preserving familial wealth. land holdings and political alignments. In these times of high divorce rates and trendy fatherless children these arcane statutes may work against families, not for them.
Adrian, well said.
Trey
Pretty much the usual feminine "It's all about me." spiel.
I love it when Tracey says "what are you going to do? Beat him up for it?" and then proceeds to verbally beat him up. I can't imagine putting up with such spoiled brats. I'd say Scott Berry's years of working sun up to sun down was wasted effort.
So what's the average salary these days? Around 50K? Maybe a little less. But my point is this:
If you decide to marry and have kids (we did) and decide the wife would stay home and be there for them at all times (we did - but it didn't pan out for numerous reasons)then you basically need to be able to earn double the average wage. At least so your family lives at the level you have decided. And that was "our" decision. Mine was real. Her's was not.
So, yeah. To pull it off, you have to be better than the next guy. You have to become, and maintain your worth at that level. Hell, you have to be better today than you were yesterday. Every day. It requires a massive amount of time and effort.
I missed birthday parties, ball games, school plays, PTA meetings, first steps, helping with homework, science projects, giving words of encouragement, and way too many long mushy bear hugs. Not all of them. But way too many of them. And I never got laid as much as guys who got to go home every night. All of these are things you can never get back, you can never re-do. Life is not on video tape.
I submit it's often hard to see the spot you're standing on. And a bucket full of regret? Hard to shake.
My children are beautiful, wonderful. I love them beyond comprehension. (she didn't want them either) If not for that, the dumbest mistake I ever made was my choice of spouse. Second dumbest was my choice of lawyers.
br549,
I have the same closing sentiment that you have. dumbest mistake I ever made was my choice of spouse too. In hindsight, all that I needed to see was right in front of me before I married her. I was just naive, thought I was happy, thought things would settle down and work out fine. But things just got worse.
I also made a lousy choice of a lawyer, but what saved me was that I started insisting on things against his advice. A few times he begged me to settle for less. I held firm. He told me I was going to end up in court and it would end badly for me. I still held firm. In the end, I ended up much better of than what he wanted me to settle for.
But I also want to thank Helen and the gang of wacky commenting people here on this blog. There has been a lot of common sense being shared here. I think I'm smarter for it and I think I'll have a much better sense of what to look for and pay attention to when I start to stalk my next mate. ;-)
Here's a case that kind of shocked the Chivalry out of me (yes, I used to think a bit that way), I couldn't find a link after a quick Google search, so you can treat it as hypothetical, but I read the appellate opinion with my own eyes:
A man and woman got married when they were young. The man was just starting a practice as a physician, the woman was a housewife. No kids.
The man worked long hours and built up his practice and was earning a good chunk of money. The woman led a very high lifestyle, shop shop shop.
Everything went peachy for 15-20 years, and then the doctor started faltering with some type of problem. He all of a sudden started getting severe anxiety and panic attacks. He was screened for physical causes, he went to psychological therapy, and he tried anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication, he still had a major problem.
Then the wife filed for divorce. The doctor found he could only work part-time at best, maybe that and the anxiety were the real basis for the wife filing the divorce. Whatever.
The wife demanded very high alimony because she had never worked, she had no work skills, and she had always had a very high lifestyle. The physician presented evidence, including reports of neutral evaluators, that he really had a problem and wasn't able to work much.
The judge granted the high alimony payments and, in fact, based them on "imputed income". In other words, the alimony was based on what the doctor had been earning when he was working full-time (like 12 hours a day). The wife's lifestyle had to be maintained. The wife also got half of his assets.
The doctor tried to work as much as he could, but simply couldn't work much, so he had to start selling of his half of the assets that he retained to make the alimony payments. After a while, also because he had high attorney bills, both for him and his ex-wife, he just ran out of money.
He was destitute and threatened by a judge that he would be jailed if he didn't keep up the high payments to his ex-wife.
----------------------
Now here is one question that comes up: Why is a combination of alimony and imputed income, with the threat of jail, NOT considered to be slavery. I don't mean that in a figurative sense, I mean that in an absolutely straightforward sense. That IS slavery.
Secondly, can any of the chivalrous tough guys here really justify this? I have run into chivalrous men who almost give the impression that "I will never get sick, I'll always be able to earn well and take care of the little lady". That's kind of why I started getting the impression that chivalrous tough guys are just ... stupid. And not even really worth listening to.
Third, is the wife a cunt or what? And why on earth is the legal system set up to reward exploitive cunts and penalize hard-working men? Why? Someone please explain it to me. If women are just children, then they ought to be treated like children.
Shortly after Scott lost his job, the couple replaced their full-time nanny with a more cost-effective au pair
Why do you need a full-time nanny if you are a stay at home mom? I just lost all sympathy.
class-factotum: Why do you need a full-time nanny if you are a stay at home mom? I just lost all sympathy.
Because otherwise the children would have a negative impact on her well deserved high lifestyle.
Well, JG, beneath your dotted line, you got me. I was never able to go there, to embrace that attitude. About women, I mean. Not anymore though.
Certainly, they aren't all like that. But I'll be GD'd if the ones that aren't are just as rare as a needle in a hay stack. I don't know if the neurosurgeon who took the blob out of my head is married to a woman like you spoke of, but I have yet to see another man just over 40 who is as worn out and frazzled as that guy is. Even if he is a genius with priceless hands.
Slavery? Yes. Actually, hell yes. That is what it is. But as we all are beginning to see, the "producing" male is becoming slave to a nation. And not just the female portion of it.
JG,
"And why on earth is the legal system set up to reward exploitive cunts and penalize hard-working men? Why? Someone please explain it to me. If women are just children, then they ought to be treated like children."
Because many "feminists" pretended to be interested in equality when they were really aiming for female privilege. Our "progressive" society bought into this way of thinking and don't give a damn if men are hurt. Chivalrous men go along to get along and prove they are manly: the PC types go along to make peace and/or to get laid and think that only men who are somehow damaged goods get hurt by women and the courts. Some will find out differently and others will not. Some women are willing to be treated like children in situations where they benefit (e.g. the courts, marriage etc., alimony etc.).
If you, as a man, let a woman assume the position of housewife, you're just going to be wide open for crap like Mike T is spouting.
Depends on the type of woman you marry. As a Christian, I have access to a better dating culture than most MRAs.
If you don't have small children at home, a "homemaker" is simply a parasite. I wouldn't touch one with a ten-foot pole.
There is no such thing as a childless homemaker, aside from women who stayed at how to take care of things until their kids went to college.
But if you absolutely want to be able to brag that you're such a good breadwinner that you easily support a sit-at-home, then go to it. Make sure you can also support her for the rest of your life (including alimony in the case of a divorce). If you want such slavery only for outer appearances to others ("I'm such a high-earning and swell guy that I can support a leech") then you deserve what you get.
My wife isn't the sort of lazy, good-for-nothing that you've obviously known most of your life. Neither are the women in her family.
Mike T: A 100 years ago, women who stayed at home probably had a full day of work. Things have changed. Your willingness to absolutely ignore that fact is odd. Or do you think that you have to stick up for women, just because?
I think it's pretty obvious, JG, that you are a perfect example of the unhinged MRA who sees any qualified defense of women as a tacit admission that a man is a secret "mangina." It may strike you as incredible, but there are still a number of women who have to work a full day to take care of the house, children, bills, errands, etc. This is especially true of families that homeschool, which my in-laws did and my wife and I will when we have kids.
All of you MRAs who put your kids through the public schools because you want your wives to work full time are also parasites. Your wives' unnecessarily presence in the workforce inflates the labor supply and creates a greater need for daycare and public schooling which costs families like mine that take care of those costs themselves. I can count the cost of your parasitism every time that Fairfax County sends me a property tax assessment.
MikeT:
Apparently, you don't have kids and you are still supporting your wife to sit at home (I infer that from: "... my wife and I will *when* we have kids.")
Your wife has no kids and no job. Sorry, I can't even get close to fathoming why you think that is equal to a full-time job (that you are probably working).
I think that religion and possibly your upbringing are an overlay on top of reality for you. You are trained that it is your job to support a woman.
I initially felt an urge to blast you back, but I think you are a well-meaning but gullible person. I have no desire to tell you personally what to do - it's completely your business - but if you are trying to push your crap through in society, and trying to influence other men in their actions, I am going to oppose you.
Women without small children and without a job are absolutely parasites. And the joke is that those types of women are usually MORE spoiled, MORE entitled and MORE demanding than women who do their fair share.
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"I can count the cost of your parasitism every time that Fairfax County sends me a property tax assessment."
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Well, you can be happy now that the real estate bubble is continuing to burst. Real estate prices may come WAY down, whether women work or not.
Gosh. As a childless parasite who does all the cleaning, cooking, laundry, shopping, yard work, minor repairs and other errands, I wonder what it would do to my marriage for me to get a 60-hour a week job that would require me to either spend all weekend doing the aforementioned tasks or pay someone to do them. Problem is that you can find a maid, a cook, and a gardener, but how do you hire the right woman to spend time with your husband so he isn't neglected?
Eh, when I was single I certainly got everything done all by myself. I certainly don't need someone to handle the home life if it is just me and that person (i.e. no kids).
We are losing sight of the issue. The real issue is one of entitlement. Is a woman really entitled to stay at home? And, if she has been staying at home is she entitled to support? They answer is simply no. It is not even remotely disputable in this day and age. And, going "Well, I am a traditional woman," and acting like that changes one single thing is just bullshit passive aggression.
If it was 250 years ago when most men could get jobs to support a family, that might be one thing. Indeed, 250 years ago most people were farmers. But, nowadays, you better be super hot or really demure and deferent or something special if you expect a man to work harder than the vast majority of his peers to earn a high salary and provide a nice life for you.
And, you're not being a parasite if you put your kids in school. You're just using the system that you pay an ass load into. Public school isn't welfare -- I am taxed heavily to make it happen. (Of course, I homeschool, but neither because it is the Christian thing to do nor to avoid being a parasite.)
And, finally, there is also nothing wrong with being chivalrous. That is, it is neither wrong nor lacking in virtue. The problem is with weanies that smugly look down upon other men for "not being chivalrous". In this day and age, you deserve to have your balls punted into your throat for pulling that kind of crap. In fact, most of the time men like that and the women they carry on with have no idea just how much chivalry does not demand half the shit they think it does. Though we never really heard directly from them, all those husbands were New York style liberal manginas. Come. On. You know they were.
I don't think chivalry is the only reason, or even the main reason, that motivates a certain type of man to want a woman to sit home her entire life (i.e. when there are not small children).
It's only offered up as the reason because it makes the man sound good and it probably fits his childhood training and religion.
Other likely reasons involve the fact that he wants to keep her dependent upon him, he thinks she'll have less of an opportunity to cheat on him than in the workplace, he wants to be the "hero" who is worshipped by an incompetent dolt, or he wants to insulate her from others.
class-factotum:
"... but how do you hire the right woman to spend time with your husband so he isn't neglected?"
Well, the hole in that one is that you don't spend time with your husband (so he isn't neglected) while he's at work. Lots of people work coinciding 9-5 shifts and keep each other company in the evening and on weekends.
I notice in every general discussion of housewives, a few of them pop up not to join in the debate, but to simply explain that THEY THEMSELVES are (supposedly) not parasites. It's all about them. And that also speaks volumes about where the priorities of housewives are at. With themselves. No matter how much a man wants to deceive himself otherwise.
But MB, that's my point. If I work a regular job, when does the housework get done? Instead of spending time with my husband, I would be spending time cleaning and doing laundry.
If we pay someone else to do all the other work, eat takeout (b/c I don't have time to cook), and consider the tax implications of a second earner, there's almost no money in it. Even now, I do some work at home for a friend for about $15/hour. After federal taxes (I believe I get taxed at our marginal rate), SE taxes, and thank you Wisconsin for wasting my money taxes, I am making about $7/hour working very part time. What's the point?
class-factotum:
You don't have to convince me, you just have to keep convincing your husband.
You and he can do whatever you want.
I don't buy your excuses, but I don't have to live with you.
I WOULD say, though, that alimony is disgusting, and the minute your husband decides he doesn't want to play the game anymore, that's it. You have to find a *gasp* job.
I've lived alone and I've lived with (smart but slovenly) women. Housework for a single person or two people living together is just not that much. Have your husband throw in his own load of laundry - it just takes a minute.
It's like a teenager with ten dozen excuses about why she can't clean up her room. And when you start examining the excuses one-by-one, she comes up with a hundred more. Sooner or later it's just easier to clean her room for her. Or, in the case of housewives, let her sit home.
Isn't Oprah on, or is that later in the day?
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MB, it sounds like you are just very bad at picking women if none of them have taken good care of you.
Not sure when Oprah is on. I have to go to my massage and facial. The pool boy is coming over a little later and then I'm going to go buy a new car and a diamond necklace. I don't have time to watch TV with all I have going on.
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Another one (just copy and then paste into your browser, press return):
http://www.martynemko.com/articles/gold-diggers-are-alive-and-well-in-2006_id1222
... Most of the men say they will talk with their wives about it, but when they return for their next session, they usually report that their wife pulled out all the stops to avoid having to work: they cried, yelled, guilt-tripped, or avoided talking about it—anything but look for work. ...
I deleted the whole article above, but here's the link:
http://www.martynemko.com/articles/men-as-beasts-burden_id1228
MB: Housework for a single person or two people living together is just not that much. Have your husband throw in his own load of laundry - it just takes a minute.
Exactly... Or agree to do the laundry together. Now the husband might complain the first time, but if you drag him over to the washing machine, and then proceed to take off his clothes for him, and put them in the washing machine, and then be all sexy and do what happy couples do right there on the floor in the laundry machine, I would imagine the next time you said, "Honey, would you help me with the laundry?" he will be ready to provide the necessary manpower.
The problem with most people is they just lack imagination. Any frustrated housewifes need help doing laundry? I could be available. ;-)
Unless there is nearly equal effort and understanding, it won't work. It becomes too difficult to let the rough side drag. And everybody has a rough side. Like any of this is news.
To both MB and class-factotum:
I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with a childless female staying at home -- nothing intrinsically wrong. I just think you have to acknowledge that the man who is supporting you while you stay at home is doing you a huge favor. So, you should acknowledge that and act accordingly. Factotum may well do that. (That and/or a combination of that and work on the side.)
The problem comes in where we start acting like a woman is doing a man some kind of huge favor by letting him support her. It isn't that he shouldn't choose that way of life, necessarily, so much as other consequences of such an idea becoming conventional wisdom. It leads to everyone not choosing this way of life, among other many and varied bad outcomes.
The comments to a blog are far to small to even begin summarizing just how it turns out that the centuries old traditional family is "the right choice". Nowadays, as just some male in society, I can't say that it is your personal best option. But, for society as a whole, it certainly is for a litany of reasons, especially once you account for the long run outcome both intended and unintended. (And, it is also usually a man's personal best choice if the society he lives in has chosen it.) Questioning the traditional family is like questioning the design of the human hand or something. Could mankind design a better hand than evolution has? Maybe. But, evolution has been working on that design for a very long time.
Adrian sez:
"Questioning the traditional family is like questioning the design of the human hand or something."
----------
Kind of the "If God had wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings" argument.
Society has undergone a drastic change in a relatively short period of time with all of the labor-saving devices, techniques and foods that have been developed over the last hundred years. Human society and organization is slowly starting to catch up to that change.
I couldn't personally stomach a sit-at-home (and that's what they are today), but I also don't necessarily want to tell others what to do.
I have had some bad experiences with housewives on power trips, bulling other people (with her husband's status and wealth), and I have also seen men in divorce court who were married to housewives just getting shredded. For no good reason - HE'S the person who should be praised.
If a woman wants to sit at home, great, but there should be no alimony or anything like that. If she has frittered away decades doing nothing, well McDonalds is hiring. And I really mean that. She can work her way up like we all had to do. Might even be good for her character if she's not treated like a spoiled child.
I personally have no respect for an expoitive woman - and that's what housewives without small children are. Whether the sucker she found agrees with it or not (and a surprising number of men just say "OK" when she unilaterally plants her butt on the sofa and refuses to go back to work).
Apparently, you don't have kids and you are still supporting your wife to sit at home (I infer that from: "... my wife and I will *when* we have kids.")
Your wife has no kids and no job. Sorry, I can't even get close to fathoming why you think that is equal to a full-time job (that you are probably working).
First of all, I never said that my wife is a stay at home wife. Ironically, she makes about 25% more than I do in our field (we are both engineers and she graduated at the top of her class). Her family is evangelical Christian and her mother too was an engineer who quit her job to homeschool her kids.
When she and I have kids we will arrange for her to quit her job as long as she possibly can, and she will be homeschooling our kids. A homeschooling mother has a hell of a lot more responsibility and grief that she potentially than many men working in an office environment.
You are correct for saying that there are a lot of women whose behavior is parasitic, and she would agree with you. In fact, she would probably buy a round of beer for everybody to have while ragging on these women because she has some of the harshest opinions of these women. Again, several times she has looked on Facebook, seen some of the women she knew who lived like this and remarked how much they are acting as leeches on their husbands.
It does men no service to act like women are all one monolithic block. That is the same bovine excrement that gender feminists engage in. That is my main grievance with many men's rights activists. They are to men what feminists are.
The main reason why men get in the positions that they often end up getting into that get highlighted here is that they cannot think with their big heads viz-a-vis women. All they see is a hot little thing and they ignore the fact that she's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Men caused a lot of this by not being fathers who guided their families and blocked out the wrong memes and influences from their families. We may be paying for our fathers' sins, but it is still men who made a lot of this possible by not being fathers, heads of household and setting the standards for their children. That is why my wife and I believe in the biblical model of patriarchy, and it is our goal to set that standard for our family once we have one.
Men caused a lot of this by not being fathers who guided their families and blocked out the wrong memes and influences from their families. We may be paying for our fathers' sins, but it is still men who made a lot of this possible by not being fathers, heads of household and setting the standards for their children. That is why my wife and I believe in the biblical model of patriarchy, and it is our goal to set that standard for our family once we have one.
And what do you do, act like a little Hitler? Seriously, unless you are constantly checking up on things, you're at work. How are you "blocking" things? Apparently she's on the computer. She's at work. Such messages, the proverbial "lies repeated often enough they come to be seen as truth" are bombarding her daily.
You leave one thing out of your equation - this continues only as long as she goes along with it. If it ever comes that she gets influenced by the culture and changes her mind, you are hosed.
If she does, do you really think she's going to give you warning?
You have no legal protection. In fact, you are one of those evil and emotionally abusive controlling Xtians. (Or so you will be easily portrayed in our secular and hostile to religion system) There was one not too long ago with a similar wife who wound up with a shotgun blast to the back while he slept, a phone ripped out of the wall, and later his "widow" was on the stand holding up a pair of high heels talking about how sexually abusive he was for making her wear those in bed.
She served sixty days for murdering him and now has custody of the kids.
He was a pastor. How much you want to bet that a year before he was gunned down he'd have written similar words to yours?
In my work with fathers post divorce I have seen so many men like you that their faces blur. Same pious pronouncements, sitting in shock wondering how it happened, how it could have happened, how careful they were in picking a mate, what a good Christian woman they thought their wife was, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum.
Your remedy is as shallow, painfully oversimplistic, parochial, and ancedotal as anything you rail against. Fact is, in the big picture from a legal standpoint you are living your life on her sufferance and rolling the dice.
You're trusting her? Good for you Hope it works out. Because there are far to many men who were in your position who are now statistics of the Family Court System, and as much as it would open your eyes, I really don't wish you to join them.
What you do need to do, sir, is to open your Concordance and look up a few passages in the scriptures dealing with "compassion."
Twenty years ago this March I was in your shoes and could have written exactly what you have written. A year later, I was in divorce court, with my head spinning, and found no such compassion from people such as you.
Your statement of "men who made a lot of this possible by not being fathers, heads of household and setting the standards for their children" is a much of a blanket assumption of such men as a monolithic block as you condemn; the word is "hypocrisy." Many such men are now divorced fathers, with their lives and children torn from them, and their name is Legion.
It can happen to you, and your prescription for it is mere placebo. So long as society remains a divorce at whim culture, you run that risk daily.
Well, some of the many technological changes MB alluded to are great advances in mass media and the ability to manipulate the public through propaganda. I think that has enabled a great deal if not most of what has happened. It wasn't men not being good Christian heads of household. It can't have been. Why did they stop doing that? Yeah, at some point that became unpopular, and it allowed for other things to happen, perhaps. But, to blame it on that just begs the question.
Really, what drives it all is quite simple. It is just the factions Madison spoke of 200 years ago or the special interests as we talk about them today. Small groups of people that want to make life a little better for themselves go forth and change laws, manipulate popular opinions and so on. Normally all that happens at any one given point in time is just some obviously outrageous scam (like this stimulus package which was never anything more than a way for politicians to enrich themselves). In fact, nowadays, propaganda has managed to convince the public that there is no propaganda -- that that is some sort of nazi or stalinist tactic that just doesn't happen here in the Land of the Free. So a lot of people don't even see it as such, now, from the get go, and even if they do at the time, it still accumulates over time. And, that is what we are living through today -- the accumulation of bullshit.
That is all this is -- mothers raising their daughters to be narcissistic bitches because at some point decades or even a century or more ago women got in the game of using the democratic process to legislate themselves some benefits. At the time, it was probably little more than politics as usual. But, now after generations of bullshit, we have a generation of clinically insane women suffering from extreme personality disorders because they were literally raised to believe the lies compounded over several generations. (Actually that was the baby boomers. I think the gen x is starting to receive the backlash, and eventually it will correct itself.)
Some women screw men over. Some men screw women over. Neither case constitutes an "all". Those who project horrid characteristics upon all of the opposite gender because of some must sit back and accept the projection of horrid characteristics upon them because of some. Anyone who says there are no wife-beater, deadbeat husbands is a liar. Anyone who says there are no shrewish, digging wives is a liar. Same for those who say there are no good examples of either sex.
Umm ... Oligonicella (or Captain Obvious?) ... the problem is not that there are also bad men, it's that the current justice system and societal climate lean towards not only giving the bad women a break, but actively helping them. A woman who is destroying what used to be a hard-working husband is doing it with the help of the state. The golddigger who rips off a man is doing so with the help of the state. A woman who shoots her husband in the back while he is sleeping and then lies about it (the urine in his bladder indicated that he had not yet gotten up like she said) and only gets 60 days is being assisted in the murder by the state in a way. A man may have gotten the death penalty.
So to spell it out for you:
Some men bad, some women bad. State help bad women, not help bad men.
Pete:
I agree with what you are saying. Sometimes that's a function of someone just being young and not understanding that life also applies to him, or it is someone who is just arrogant by nature.
What is funny about Christians is that I think Jesus DID preach compassion and understanding and love of your neighbor. A lot of Christians I run into have this "better-than-you" attitude (or "holier-than-thou" attitude?).
I read that some of the stricter Christian denominations (like Southern Baptists) actually have a higher divorce rate than the general public. I'm not absolutely sure of that, and I welcome any precise information on that.
But if so, it's quite a joke - the people who are pushing it in your face that they choose their partners better, and they will never get divorced, unlike other people who are scum, may get divorced at a higher rate.
It's kind of like Marie Osmond: She also had that uppity "I'm more pure and better than you, and will never get divorced from my Steven" attitude - or at least she had it two husbands ago.
I guess the solution is to sit back with a beer and marvel at society.
JG, the Baptists may have a higher divorce rate simply because they have a higher marriage rate. I would guess that the less religious a person is, the more willing he is to live with someone without being married. The breakups of those relationships do not count in the divorce stats.
And what do you do, act like a little Hitler? Seriously, unless you are constantly checking up on things, you're at work. How are you "blocking" things? Apparently she's on the computer. She's at work. Such messages, the proverbial "lies repeated often enough they come to be seen as truth" are bombarding her daily.
I don't have to block things because I know from experience that my wife will occupy her time with more productive things than listening to feminist garbage. Furthermore she has a deep-seated lack of respect for almost every feminist she's ever encountered because as far as she is concerned they are losers who justify their failures as human beings with hatred for men.
But if so, it's quite a joke - the people who are pushing it in your face that they choose their partners better, and they will never get divorced, unlike other people who are scum, may get divorced at a higher rate.
90 some percent of America self-identifies as some form of Christian. Only 11% of America actually practices an orthodox version of Christianity. If there is one thing I've learned about Baptists from being raised in Baptist-filled communities, it is that there are only two real types of Baptists: cultural (the first category) and serious converts who have turned their lives around.
I don't have to block things because I know from experience that my wife will occupy her time with more productive things than listening to feminist garbage. Furthermore she has a deep-seated lack of respect for almost every feminist she's ever encountered because as far as she is concerned they are losers who justify their failures as human beings with hatred for men.
IOW, she says so and you take her at her word.
Much like the endless stream of men formerly married to "Good Christian Women" that they also trusted and believed in.
But that's right. You're "different." Never happen to you. Keep telling yourself that. It might even be true.
But I'm a betting man, and even I wouldn't take that bet.
Something else I've always wondered:
Are these women really WORTH being treated like queens or goddesses, where you (the worker bee) work your butt off to insulate them from the mean old world?
I've always just thought women were people. Human beings. I wouldn't "serve" Heidi Klum like that, let alone the typical housewife.
They don't even start out as Heidi Klum when they're young, but housewives invariably get fat, stupid and extremely bossy over the years. I guess I would too if I had a servant working for me.
I absolutely can't understand men who do that.
And to the women who will invariably pop up and say, "well, a lot of men get fat too when they get older":
Men and women (or at least the housewife variety of women) are not looking for the same things. The housewife wants "security" (read: money that's there permanently). The man usually makes more as time goes on.
Heh, Does this sum it all up?
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