I think we can all agree that Roiphe's children don't deserve the intimate love of a nurturing father.

Right?

I mean, that's obviously how she feels about it.

If there is anything that currently oppresses the children, it is the idea of the way families are "supposed to be," an idea pushed -- in picture books and classrooms and in adults' casual conversation -- on American children at a very early age and with surprising aggressiveness.

(In fact, the opposite is true. Kindness and compassion must be nourished by loving parents and others.)

Consider Shermer: One...

...two, and three.

Roiphe has discovered the Drapetomania of our own time... For her own children.

She's a monster.

"Oppressed" and "oppression" are words that get tossed around a lot without much thought as to what they actually mean. When my wife ran a home daycare business, one of her young charges would cry when he heard the song "Dance With My Father." He knew he had a father. He knew where he was, and he knew he couldn't get to him where he was.

It wasn't "the idea of the way families are 'supposed to be,'" that was oppressing that little boy.

Women who truly love children give them loving fathers, often making considerable sacrifices to do so.

"his sister's father".

Sister gets a dad, just not him. Is the sister older? Younger? Just how quick is she cycling through baby-daddies? What incredible level of hubris leads her to say society must change all it's stories and culture to suit her sexual whims?

What the studies don’t show is that longing for a married father at the breakfast table injures children.

She is saying that we should disregard centuries of the cultural norms at her whim. I can agree that things have changed, but how does she account for her 2 year old son wanted a father figure?

> She is saying that we should disregard centuries
> of the cultural norms at her whim.

Fatherhood is not "cultural".

A kid's eating breakfast on a shabby Monday morning, resentful at the week of challenges ahead... Or it's a great Monday morning, and there's delight at all the fulfillments to come. The kid again wonders how the onrushing machinery of this particular life was set in motion... Looks at Mom, then looks at Dad, and remembers: One of each.

Roiphe isn't discounting mere culture: She mocks biology. Well, good luck with that, Katerz.

Glad I'm not alone in thinking it is borderline abusive (or it is completely abusive?) to deny a child the basic necessity of having a mommy and a daddy. Someone I know started dating a girl who has an very young child. That girl was already living with a different dude by the time the kid was 6 months old, so my first snotty question was, "Oh, did the dad die in the war?" No, we all knew he didn't but point made. There's no excuse for that BS. Don't have kids if you don't want to provide for them in the very best way possible.

"That idea of marriage invites couples to actively choose a partner, to build a connection, and plan a life together unlike unmarried parents who seem to stumble into accidental families. The mindful planning seems to help."

If only that were true. Fancy weddings, the dress, honeymoon, etc, seem to be the only thing many couples actively seek. We have a divorce rate that is over 50%. Did all those partners change over night or are people not paying attention to what's walking down the aisle? And yes, I include myself in that.

Marriage isn't always an indicator that a child is going to be raised in the best way. I could give you dozens of examples of kids who are completely fucked because their parents stay together. I have extensive history dealing with the married, two car, white picket fence families that look perfect on the outside but are train wrecks on the inside. Not scientific, I know, but enough to make me realize that marriage isn't always the indicator. Its the love and value placed on kids by their parents.

> Not scientific, I know

Don't feign humility while evading logic. The commitment of a well-composed marriage is a profound indicator for loving, successful family.

There will always be men in hats with no cattle who wanna call themselves cowboys. Meanwhile, the wind-chapped man out on the North Forty who skipped breakfast and missed lunch to bring the herd in needs a way to keep the sun out of his eyes.

You can love your children and feed them and keep them warm and give them toys and teach them all kinds of things, and still they insist on asking about their old stupiddy-stinky father!

Curse you, society! As usual, it's all your fault.

We have a divorce rate that is over 50%.

I question this.

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/d/divorce.htm

In addition, the divorce rate varies widely depending on the demographic a person belongs to.

When I was a teenager it seemed like divorce was all around me. My mom, my sister (twice), my step-dad, many of my friend's folks.

Later I realized I had at least as many stable marriages around me, including my brother's and another sister's marriage.

Seems like it depended on what I was looking for.

> Seems like it depended on what I was looking for.

I see what you're getting at, in terms of studying sources of strength and wisdom (rather than other things) in our own lives as we grow.

But the pain, awkwardness and impoverishment from those divorces was very real, for defenseless children and for others. And it was most often gratuitous; it happened because adults did stupid things.

And I think Monica's right about the numbers. When so many aren't bothering to marry at all, it seems unlikely that divorce itself could be the continuing statistical hazard.

sorry kids, the sound you just heard was me retching...

so what exactly does Ms. R think her son is learning for HIS OWN LIFE?

He's NOT like mommy... so maybe he's like the guy who he can tell isn't around...

Is the kid going to never bond with his own children? Or is he going to think he doesn't have to. "I did without a father and I'm FINE."

Is he going to be attracted to or repulsed by women like his mother?

But that's OK, 'cuz it's all about her and her life, he's just an accessory.

AND FOR THE RECORD, Amy's selection of this final passage —

But then the perfect soul mate may be the biggest myth of all.

— might lead one to believe that her (or her citation's) real problem with marriage has nothing to do with human nature, or psychology, or sexual preference or policy of any kind... But rather, it's about disappointment in unfulfilled Disney romance fantasy.

Who (else), honestly said anything about "soul mates"?

-But the pain, awkwardness and impoverishment from those divorces was very real,..-

Goddam right. When my mom told me they were getting divorced, I freaked out, and she was surprised. I was twelve at the time, and I thought she was finally doing what she'd hinted at in the past, and running away to leave us with him. Because at the time I thought HE was the problem. (Turns out I was totally wrong, but that's a different can of worms.)

Anyway...I really could have used a dad during my teens. I'm glad I reconciled with him before he died, but in another way it makes it worse, because I missed so much, and there's not a damned thing I can do about it.

Happy Monday. Between this and the thing about grief, I think I'll go lay my head on a railroad track.

I think Pricklypear's comment shows how what we most closely surround our children with heavily determines what they seek out.

Also, thanks Crid for this:

"Women who truly love children give them loving fathers, often making considerable sacrifices to do so."

It's nice to hear a man say that.

-If you want the freedom to be more selfish -- like me! -- don't have a kid. Like me.-

Ta Dah!

Maybe if I'd had kids my own crappy memories wouldn't still be so fresh. Maybe they would have faded from all the experiences of raising children of my own, who knows?

But I don't regret not having children. I always figured if I started feeling wistful for children, maybe I could work at a daycare, or be some sort of volunteer working with kids. I'm still waiting for that to happen!

Weird to think I'd be somebody's grandma by now. Would I be sitting in my cottage waiting for my granddaughter to bring me a basket of goodies, or would I be off building a candy house in the woods?

Yeah, I'm kinda fucked up. I blame society.

Well, Jess, we need to be clear. Consider the "soul mate" discussion, above. And review the jungle-animal reflex by which Kristin tried to derail the point:

> Marriage isn't always an indicator that a child is
> going to be raised in the best way.

Every time I make the comment on this blog that What's best for a child is a loving mother with a loving father, some addled person will twist the words into something insane... Minutes later, on the selfsame webpage:

'You said that children who were raised in homes without fathers ALWAYS grow up to be bitter, depressive alcoholic!!!'

'You said that children raised by gays ALWAYS grow up to be rampaging, mouthbleeding ax murderers who take out entire restaurants full of innocent people with each assault!!!'

People know better than to compare the best with something else. So when they want to project their bitterness into social policy, they'll always say 'But what if the father's a lying, cheating drug addict who skinned the family dog out of spite? THAT's not what's best, is it?'

Which makes me wonder why they'd think such a person was loving, and why the woman selected him as the father of her children anyway.

"why the woman selected him as the father of her children anyway." Crid

select? father? Doncha know that the whole babymaking thing is a complete mystery, and after some millions of years we haven't a clue how it works? They were just in it for the whoopy, they would never consider a guy for any sort of long term thing, guys are gross, y'know?

Heh, and guys are no better figuring that stuff out.

"Well, a woman and a man can be together
If they decide to, they'll make little creatures
Watch 'em now!
Little creature of love
With two arms and two legs
From a moment of passion
Now they cover the bed" Creatures of Love, Talking Heads

[Oi, has it been 27! years?!? since Little Creatures?]

This blog is one of the few places that makes me feel sane. Isn't there a term for the kind of argument you're talking about above? It's bad "logic." I don't understand how people aren't just outraged by the stupidity that flies around - and to condemn a person for life, well, you don't get excused for that. My husband put it this way, "aren't fathers their daughter's first crush?" If you can't even be bothered to stick around... then what do you expect. Of course, it's true, I bet there are a lot of men who like that about women these days, that they are damaged. They're probably the same men who didn't have daddies growing up either. I have a lot of questions about people's sexual behavior, whatever happened to condoms? Plan b? Why shouldn't abortion be legal - and how is the alternative better? WHY don't more people consider having children the biggest responsibility you could undertake?? How can people be so blase about it?? It's infuriating. If you're not willing to do it the right way (and we know what that is) then don't do it.

There is no such thing as a soul mate. There's just you and me, and the decisions we make and how we behave. It's called reality.

My mother told us we were better off that she broke up with my dad, selectively forgetting all the trouble the three of us got into, almost immediately after the divorce and move to a new neighborhood. I mean, trouble, almost-killed-someone trouble - even me, the youngest, as a little girl. The shit we did when she was at work! And that was circa 1957.

All my life I regretted we had to leave Eagle Rock, but it was only recently that I realized that Juvenile Hall would have had us taken away if we didn't GTFO. Mom was just overwhelmed, and in denial.

Ok, Jess. I hear you. I wouldn't argue even if I disagreed, because I'm not a Grand Prince of Romance. And I don't disagree.

You're on the team, so I implore you... Watch how often themes of failed 'soul mate' marriages are implicated in discussions of divorce and bad parenting. You see it in books and studies and blog posts and everywhere... And I can't understand it.

There's a reason I talk about Disney so often here. [About 263 results (0.13 seconds).] It's not always just to belittle the Hollywood cartoon company.

Somebody is giving women —including intellectual, studious ones like (perhaps) Amy and (perhaps) Hymowitz— the presumption that marriage is going to to be a continuing source of enthusiasm, and cheery acceptance, and personal affirmation on its own. I don't know what the source is specifically, but I'm ready to hold pop culture responsible for a lot of it... Snow White cartoons and Jennifer Anniston movies and Taylor Whatsername records. I can't imagine these generations are hearing that message from schools, churches, or the harder sciences. (There's a difference between the January-February issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry and Cosmopolitan's "Nine Ways to Make Him Wackazoid with Your Brassiere Cups". )

It's unlikely that women are confused by close observation of their parent's marriages. If those marriages are strong, they'll see that marriage is nothing like a Mariah Carey album. If the parent's marriage is bad, I can imagine they'd seek solace in cheap, pandering amusements.

Because a woman who believes that romantic love is a powerful and personal thing is NOT wrong. If she uses those strong feelings to lash out against the bitterness of divorce, and is thereby sucked back into the pattern for her own life, that would be one thing. It would be a paradox, but at least it would be comprehensible.

But maybe pop culture itself is the problem. The young adults I know who married best, most soberly and most lastingly, with the best examples of loving marriage around them, have often been people who enjoyed music and shows and happy fiction in books... But they usually weren't people who thought that Jagger or Joplin or Bieber or Twilight had anything meaningful to tell them about love, or even hairstyles.

(This discussion concerns only women because, as I trust you will concede, men are curs anyway.)

Look at some of this stuff...

'You said that unless the parents are absolutely perfect, the child is doomed to social, spirtual and economic failure for all time, with a friendless, broken body swollen by cancerous lesions in a dark, roach-infested motel room.'

Sincere best wishes and gratitude for your testimony, Jeanne

And just like that: Goodnight HGB.

"Roiphe isn't discounting mere culture: She mocks biology. "

She's not mocking it. She's actively campaining to eliminate it. Children want fathers? Well, that must be beaten out of them. Preferably by a very expensive government program.

I was wondering (and hoping for) a segway into "that stuff!" Thanks for linking. I have been thinking about it a lot, but I don't have to say anything about it yet. I need to ponder and look about. About that pop culture though, no thanks, it's embarrassing.

it happened because adults did stupid things.

There's this. What irritates me about the 50% stat is that so many people act as though marriage is a crapshoot -- like you can't possibly known your marriage is going to end in divorce until it's suddenly over. Certain kinds of people (for example, people who marry very young) get divorced more frequently. This isn't random dumb luck.

I have a friend who's in the middle of her third divorce (no kids with any of them, thankfully) who insists that marriage is obsolete as an institution, that it doesn't work in a modern world. She didn't like it when I suggested that just because she couldn't make any of hers work doesn't mean everyone else has the same problem.

"And review the jungle-animal reflex by which Kristin tried to derail the point:"

Crid, I can always count on you to purposely misunderstand. Ideally children will live in loving two parent homes. Marriage is not an indicator that it is always a loving home. Just because people are married or have kids does not mean they actively planned out the parent of their child or planned having kids. Many married couples who marry for the wrong reasons or have seriously dysfunction have accidental pregnancies. Marriage is not an indicator that all of the pregnancies or even any were planned. That's all I'm saying.

But please feel free to twist that again. My saying I was an example was not feigning humility. It was simply using my own experience as unscientific proof of what I said.

OK, I read you incorrectly. I feel sincerely bad.

Thing is, there is always someone to read incorrectly about divorce. Someone will always pop up and say 'The kids of well-married couples aren't necessarily happier! Or 'It was definitely better for the kids that we chose to end the union which brought them into the world!'

These shabby protestations, now including—

> I could give you dozens of examples of kids
> who are completely fucked because their
> parents stay together

—have supplanted any sane consideration of what divorce means to the couples who pursue it, to their children and to the rest of the community. Statistically, they're frogwash. And as talking points?

No; there's no way that you could know that they're "completely fucked because their parents stay together." Maybe they'd be fucked up anyway, or maybe not, but that's a Star Trek parallel universe. It's bad fiction. It's certainly not statistics and it's not even intuition. Weak ideas turn weak rhetoric on the popular tongue; Fools take that talk seriously, and we harvest the result.

Read Wallerstein for numerous examples of this pussyfooting. She is not a woman who enjoys wordplay, which makes her review of divorce chatter all the more enlightening. She stopped doing speeches about ten years ago, I think she's too old to be in a YouTube link.

Annnnnd just now I learn that she died, at 90, two months ago.

In a favorite that was taken down about five years ago, she described the adult personalities of children of divorce: Mood-obsessed, cloying women who are blind to their own fulfillments; Nebbish, withdrawn men who are stunned when girlfriends move out after six months of grunting. And that's just the start. Read the book. Every parent should, divorced or not.

So, Kristen, I'm sincerely certain that you're a nice woman, that you mean well, and (just this once) I'll presume sight unseen that you did the right thing for your family. (I like to think my divorce was the good way to go: No children!) But you're not getting a pass on this.

I want that list. I want you to describe TWO DOZEN of those people who are fucked up because their parents are together... Not just because their parents are assholes, but because you know that something better would have happened in their homes, and in their emotional lives, if Dad had done what Dads so often do in these circumstances.

You can change their names and unimportant details if you like... But we want reasonably coherent overviews of their personalities and the effects of the parental deprivation... Not just the bickering and hurt that lead up to it, but the lost consequences of an intact household.

OK, one dozen. I feel bad about twisting your words, and want you to stretch it out and really nail it to the wall.

(I haven't the strength to read closely or investigate further, but I'd guess Roiphe never wanted a man in her life or a father in her children's lives. She seems like the kind who really thinks she can teach a boy how to be a man.... I'd wager she enjoys the sport of the challenge. It ain't HER immortal soul out in the arena, right?)

(If anyone else wants to investigate this and get back to us, that'd be ducky.)

Kids don't care if mom and dad aren't soul mates, still in lust--kids care that their parents are committed to the family as a whole. Yes, it's selfish and unfair, and I don't think anyone should stay in an abusive relationship. But just because your husband doesn't make you tingle every single day is no reason to break up your kid's home. That's not the point. My parents got divorced when I was 35, and frankly I was grateful for the years they did row in unison.

I don't know what it's like for a boy to grow up without a dad--I mentioned Parenthood once and got slammed for referring to movies instead of "real life"--but I can't imagine talking to my mom about nocturnal emissions anymore than I would want to talk to my father about periods.

I know several women who raised sons on their own. Among things I learned was that at some point you can't physically make them obey you any longer, so you better get that respect-your-mother bit hard-wired early, or forget it.

Plus I know one young man who told me personally how he sabotaged his mother's romances. He didn't want another man around. Go figure.

As for the girls, well, apparently they just figured if it was good enough for Mom, it was good enough for them. And they were real quick with that "hypocrite" label when told Mother was mistaken. And the merry-go-round broke down...

Nooooo. I'm not at all sorry I bypassed the fun.

Crid, First...I left my husband after being abused and because I did not want my kids to think abuse was normal or ok. I'm happy to report that I have 3 well adjusted kids who treat people in a way that is respectful and that they also have an expectation of being treated well in all of their relationships. And yes. I am a nice woman.

Now as far as the people who are fucked.....I'll give a short list tonight because in NY its late, I'm tired, and just got home from doing volunteer work in which I come into contact with more than two dozen people who got to live in homes filled with alcohol abuse, drug abuse, affairs, verbal abuse, and even physical abuse, not to mention affairs. Now those people were the afterthought in mommy and daddy's lives although in 95% of the cases, mommy and daddy thought the bigger shame was getting divorced so stayed together to make sure that home was hell.

Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it wasn't the divorce or the lack of it that fucked these people up and either made them think certain behaviors were normal thus repeating destructive patterns or gave them serious trust issues that affected all future relationships, but that mom and dad just didn't give a fuck about anyone but mom and dad. That was who they were in or out of the marriage and staying in it didn't benefit anyone. Maybe divorce would have made them less miserable. Maybe it would have made them more miserable with a new person. I don't know. But I do know that in those cases marriage wasn't the end all that you portray it to be for kids.

Of course in an ideal world when a man and woman marry they do so after seriously contemplating the qualities their partner has and thinks that their partner is someone who deep down is a genuine person who does right in the world and after the lust wears off is someone they wouldn't mind spending at least 18 years with if not longer. But unfortunately in the less than ideal world we live in, not everyone takes that big look into the future or at the things that really matter in a spouse.

I include myself in that because I can look back and see the red flags, but at the time I was young and extremely stupid, and pretty desperate. Unfortunately, I am not an isolated example and you may mock me all you like but I'd much rather you learn from my example.

> But unfortunately in the less than ideal world we
> live in, not everyone takes that big look into
> the future or at the things that really matter
> in a spouse.

They fucking SHOULD, Kristen.

Goddamit, I have put up with that phrasing from lefties and other apologists for the last time.

I don't believe you have some golden insight into human realities, OK? I do not credit you with for some remarkable experience allowing you to see farther than I can see into the human heart. I'd be happy to be condescended to if you had; but you have not. I challenge your platitudes, you offer more.

"But unfortunately in the less than ideal world we live in" is the wording that we hear as ever-more weakness is permitted from people... As if those who'd avoided weakness (or conquered it) didn't realize it existed and needed to told how cold things are out there. Well, yes. Things are fucking cold, and people behave has they're permitted to behave, and we deserve what we accept.

> Of course in an ideal world when a man and woman
> marry they do so after seriously contemplating the
> qualities their partner has

"Of course." THAT'S A NICE TOUCH.

How else is this ever going to work out well for children? Yes! "Serious contemplation." You're just so fucking blasé, as if failure could never be avoided. Christ, you're cynical. You're not weary or wizened.

I gotta gota work. More later.

Here's the thing: I think you move at your present political appreciation of these matters not because of any personal experience, but because of ROTE RHETORIC.

BAD rote rhetoric.

An "ideal world" is where people think about their fucking children?

The things we "learn from your example" are not the things you presume to teach.

(It worked that way in my case, too.)

Humility time, OK?

Wallerstein, slow but strong half-hour.

Help me make a list of all these tropes—

• in the less than ideal world we live in

• My kids want me to be happy; they can't live happily until they know *I'm* OK.

• Marriage isn't always an indicator that a child is going to be raised in the best way.

• It's better for the kids to break up than to live in a loveless lie.

•

•

•

Friends, share your own! I can always add more dots!

Christ, I was so pissed at you, I didn't notice your shameless, naked retreat:

> Maybe divorce would have made them less miserable.
> Maybe it would have made them more miserable with
> a new person. I don't know.

THEN WHAT THE FUCK, Kristen?

Crid, I think you make an important point when you say people should look hard before they have kids to see if they can give the kids a good life.

I also think there is more than one way to give a kid a good life. I think that single people or gay couples or other nontraditional families CAN give kids a good, better-than-most, life, PROVIDED it has been thought through and they have other support mechanisms in place, such as gender-appropriate close relatives to be mentors, financial security, domestic help if needed, etc.

Also, the reason people with kids get annoyed at people who don't have kids who tell them how they should have the perfect family is that we ALL had ideas about the perfect family, perfectly well-behaved child, etc we would have and then we learned that swaddling doesn't work for our particular colicky baby, or that we thought we could get along with the spouse but they really weren't who we thought they were, or someone died, or things generally didn't work out the way we were expecting when we were expecting.

One problem I've seen a lot in my social circle is when job situations make the two parents live in different cities. So the kids see the dad only every other weekend, at which point he's more disruptive to their routine than helpful. I think that is awful. The problem is, no one wants to give up their job, perhaps because they're worried about what would happen if there was a death or divorce. Or because they need both incomes to give the kids a life comparable to the ones they grew up with (good education, good nutrition, access to culture, ability to travel to see family, etc).

On the other hand, I am not working but in case of death or divorce I'm kinda screwed. But I get to live with my husband, follow him around the world when he changes jobs, travel with him when he goes on month-long business trips, etc. People could also say I was not being responsible, though, because I'm not setting a career role model, and I am totally depending on another person.

So who's right? It's kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Nicole makes a contribution, ever'body! Another bullet point!

• Divorcees (Singles / Gays / Violent Alcoholics / Ax Murderers) can, at least conceivably, be good parents, providing loving, stable platforms in which tender souls can learn to love, to sacrifice, and to build nurturing, sheltering homes for their own children. There is, essentially, no gamble that is too risky to take.

So ANY situation for any cluster or single or multiple personalities could be good enough for raising children, as long as there's love. Or something. There was a Beatles song about this. Right? OK!

___________________


No, Nicole, no. You're punishing the topic, and the price of your digression is too high. "Support mechanisms" is Gawd-awful language, absolutely horrible.

What's best for children is a loving mother with a loving father.

Her *want* for a child outweighs the child's *need* for a father.
If that's not pure selfishness, I don't know what is.

"They fucking SHOULD, Kristen."

Crid, they should, but not all do. That's my point. Its not an apology for them or an attempt to say I can see deeper than you. Its the stark reality. What we think people should do isn't always what they do. You can scream all you want that the best thing for a child is two loving parents (I'm purposely not saying mom and dad but the gay parent argument can wait) but the reality is that many people who are married are no better at parenting than those who aren't. I'm just speaking in realistic terms darling. Sorry if that is upsetting to you.

AGAIN with the bromides.

> Its the stark reality.

Things wouldn't be so "stark" if two or three generations of Americans hadn't been robotically programmed to bark out a phone book's worth of trite boilerplate every time a house full of children was brutalized... No matter how many times it happens. ("Stark"!)

No. It's just not possible that you've seen enough of the world to speak down to others, certainly not to a general audience of readers, with such a tone of smug eminence. You've been taught to say these things by roaring repetition, just as you've been taught to think them, on behalf of others just as you'd want them invoked for yourself. Horrors are excused, just as they were for slaves in American history.

People's behavior can be improved. In cleanliness, driving habits, literacy, the treatment of women and in more examples than I can count just in the last century, the lives of hundreds of millions, maybe billions, were enlightened once they understood that better behavior was expected of them.

If you want to press the other way, it's your own beeswax. But if there's a facet of our character you'll be ignoring, I'll call it "reality".

You're "sorry if it's upsetting."

Crid, sometimes its exhausting following where you're going. Can you ever just reduce it down to you think Jane should do A and Jack should do B? Sometimes the circles you speak in leave me dizzy.

I haven't been taught to say anything. I'm speaking from what I've seen. Maybe you've seen something different but I doubt it. I hear Disney is coming out with a new fairy tale. Get your tickets early.

I do have to wonder where people's concern is at... "Oooo look, something shiny!"

Is it really that I'M TOO INTENSE about things, or is it just that people don't care, they are lazy, and they have extremely low standards. No. Thank. You. Oh! And then they get to f**k their kids over and pat themselves on the back while doing it. Fun for everyone.

So ANY situation for any cluster or single or multiple personalities could be good enough for raising children, as long as there's love. Or something. There was a Beatles song about this. Right? OK!

***

This is absolutely not what I said. I do not believe that "love conquers all". I believe that carefully thought out plans involving peoples emotional, physical, and financial well-beings can conquer lots. Not all. Nothing conquers all.

Love is not enough, you need a stronger support system than that in place. It is a necessary ingredient but not the only one.

Crid, you'll love this letter to Dear Amy (Dickinson):

"My ex stopped working and spent almost all of my paychecks on beer and cigarettes. Eventually, the credit cards were maxed out, the utilities were cut off, and I came home for the last time to all the food being eaten, no money in the bank account, and pregnant with child No. 2.

My in-laws helped us out a lot, but my husband refused to change. I finally found the guts to kick him out and I haven't seen him since. It has been the best decision I could have made for my kids."

Amy D's advice was that stability - even in a single-parent home - was better than chaos.

I, on the other hand, wanted to SCREAM at this woman! I don't believe for a minute that the guy she married was a hard-working, dependable guy who miraculously changed upon their wedding night into a complete deadbeat. The LW is just a dumbshit whose judgment really sucked. And THEN she got knocked up by him AGAIN! GAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

NicoleK, you are almost completely wrong.
peoples emotional, physical, and financial well-beings and Love...is a necessary ingredient

Firstly, you state that parental emotional and physical health is necessary to raising healthy children. Then, you imply that the emotional health about which you are speaking is the parents being in love. You don't outright state it, and maybe you'll come back saying I misinterpreted, and that parents need love in their lives, but not necessarily for each other, or that what you meant was that parents needs to love their children, but the fact remains that if that is what you mean, then you need to do a better job of explaining.

Outside of basic emotional health, i.e. not being completely insane, parents emotions should have no bearing on how they raise their children. Whether Mommy is in love, either with Daddy or her new boyfriend, should have nothing to do with her parenting of her children.

Parents need to be loving to their children. They do not need to feel love toward their children, they need to act loving towards them. Feeling love has nothing to do with parenting whatsoever.

Once you realize that, it becomes abundantly clear that two parents who act lovingly toward their children, and the financial ability to care for the child(ren)'s needs, is what is necessary, and nothing more.

Not really the point right now, but I dare you to say that physical health has anything to do with parenting ability to someone who is physically disabled. Extra points if you say it to their face in public while they are with their kids. Go on, do it, I dare you.

Parents need to be loving to their children. They do not need to feel love toward their children, they need to act loving towards them. Feeling love has nothing to do with parenting whatsoever.

I had a dad who stuck around and paid the bills, even though he regretted being a parent and didn't like having us around.

My mom did feel love toward us, although out of desperation. No one else gave a shit about her.

I still agree with Jazzhands' statement.

Kristen, the reason crid spins such dizzying circles is to hid the fact that he really has very little, and often nothing, substantive to say

I agree with Jazzhands and Crid. When I left my husband I put what I wanted before what was best for my child, and I know it. I blocked the knowledge in the moment, but it was always there. You can lie to yourself some of time but you can't lie to yourself all of the time, or forever.

When what I actually said was what's best for children is a loving mother with a loving father.

OK. What if that's not possible?

> its exhausting following where you're going.

Well, don't knock yourself out... You've already apologized to generations of kids for their gratuitously broken homes and impoverishment, right? You're "Sorry if that is upsetting."

> Can you ever just reduce it down to you think
> Jane should do A and Jack should do B?

In the shortest number of words: Children deserve a loving mother with a loving father. There it is; you can put it on your business card if you want. Ancillary themes include the following: Loving parents will struggle mightily and often sacrifice mightily to make sure they get one of each.

Maybe I'm foolish to bother being clear when you think transgressions are "starkly" unavoidable... Though it would be fun to hear you apply your formulations to another issue. Let's review your text, and give it a shot! Minor swapouts only!

I imagine you arriving at the funeral of a child killed by a drunk driver and scolding her parents for their tears: '[U]nfortunately in the less than ideal world we live in, not everyone takes that big look into the future or at the things that really matter in a driver, like sobriety.' Because they shoulda known, right?

If they're receptive, then you can hit 'em with the stark stuff: 'Sobriety isn't always an indicator that a car is going to be driven in the best way.' Because accidents happen anyway, right? (PS- Do not show them this chart, or your point will be lost.)

> I'm speaking from what I've seen.

Nope, I don't buy it. You're not that widely travelled, or so studious of human nature. These are not your conclusions. These are tropes. They're in the air, but you never hear them from someone who doesn't need them.

> I blocked the knowledge in the moment, but it
> was always there.

Props for sincerity. The worst moves in my own life might not have been so momentous for others, but that's exactly how they worked.


> OK. What if that's not possible?

You mean if driving home soberly is not possible? Your glib "OK" betokens distraction... See Lizzie, above.

> This is absolutely not what I said.

No? When people say

> I also think there is more than one way
> to give a kid a good life.

...They're usually winding up to pitch a bad, bad argument. Most often that argument goes like this, and I expect to be forgiven if I've been presumptuous: That some children will grow from 1-parent or 3-parent or zero-parent homes to live productive, rewarding, loving lives, so we should be patient with people who want to experiment.

I don't think we should. And here's the thing!: I said it wrong at 11:43am, which is a shame. And I'd feel bad if Kristen were reading closely, but she almost certainly isn't:

What's best for children is a loving mother with a loving father.

(I happen to think every child deserves what's best, but that's probably going to be its own argument later.)

So there you go. As a matter of policy, we should know what's best and move forward. Fate and shabby hearts will always find children and cheat them. Death and disease and war and poverty and stupid trends and serendipity don't need to be encouraged.

The best is what needs our encouragement.

Hey! I'm reading closely! If it were my ball I'd take it and go home.

Oh, Crid. How you fill my heart with joy. Your hearts and lollipop view of the world makes me want to go out and taste the rainbow. Where is it again?

Corner of discipline and adulthood... You can't miss it.

crid doesnt have a heart and lollypops view of the world, he seek to punish children for no other reason than he doenst like the choices their parents made