Do the Work

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Dan--

More children are abandoned by fathers than created by thoughtless mothers. By far. I expressed my open, clear contempt for men who do this. I don't feel contempt for women who make this mistake. I consider it emotional damage more than laziness and irresponsibility. Are such women "bad"? Welll...no. The ones I know worked their asses off to try to be good mothers. I think that they made incredibly poor decisions, though, and that their children paid for it.

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How does a boy with a bad father/absent father find male energy to push against? Coaches, martial arts instructors, teachers, bosses with a heart...priests and ministers, neighborhood Real Men who you can ingratiate yourself to by offering services or trade...there are many ways. And how are they supposed to know to even try to do this?

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Because people like me say things like this, openly and publicly, and take the heat for it. And the more people who say it, the easier it will be to rail against the images in popular culture.

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What are things like outside the U.S.? I've traveled a fair amount, and I think some things are pretty universal. The more a child's survival is influenced by memes rather than genes, when those memes must be (or are optimally) passed from both mother and father, the more likely that child is to survive if the father sticks around. Further, if the child is relatively helpless for a long period, then either the father sticks around to provide, or the mother must have strong family support, or the child's probability of survival diminishes.

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So, even in the animal kingdom, IF a child's survival is enhanced by the presence of the father, the genetic or memetic propensity to raise one's children enhances chances of successful reproduction.

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Now, then, what do you say about the fact that, rather clearly, one sterling reproductive strategy is to simply have all the kids you can, and with as many different mothers as possible? I think this works in the short term. What I see in American communities where this has happened is that the communities are no longer self-sustaining. They do not produce goods and services that can be healthfully exchanged to provide the food, water, power, education etc., and become pus-pockets that drive out the most responsible and hardest-working and capable members of the community. They collapse within a few generations. Short-term gain, long term pain.

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Do I hold women more responsible for the welfare of the children? Yes, because they are uniquely biologically suited for that position. Do I hold men more responsible for the physical security of the community? Yes, because they are uniquely biologically suited for that position. Yes, this is men judging women. What of it? Women judge men whenever they want. In fact, human beings judge human beings. It's what we do. If I had a baby-machine in my tummy, I would have been MUCH more careful about who I had sex with, I promise you. It wasn't until I was in my late thirties that it even occurred to me that women might have a different set of imperatives about sex, and that led to my realization that I'd been an irresponsible ass.

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The truth is that if the problem is in our back-yards, we all pay more attention to it. Trying to pretend that men and women have equivilent priorities with non-equivilent biologies seems self-defeating. You can make it work on paper, but you can't make it work in the real world.

I've never known a single person who was MORE strict with their sons, sexually speaking, than with their daughters. Not one. Many who tried to make the rules the same for both, but frankly, the majority, men and women, in any culture in the world I've ever studied, are far stricter with their girls than with their boys. Pure practicality, and we can rail against that, and call it bullshit, or whatever you want, but you can't get past the fact that boys don't get pregnant, and if your son gets a girl pregnant, it simply doesn't impact you the same way it does if your own daughter gets pregnant.

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Maybe we SHOULD react that way. We'd be better, more spiritual people if we did. But we're not. We're just people. And as tragic as it may be if your neighbor's house burns down, we breathe a secret sigh of relief that it wasn't ours.

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So, yes, I give women more responsibility, because nature did. But I will do my level best to make my son live by the same rules his sister did.

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No, fat doesn't equal sick. Obesity is a medical problem, however, so...how fat is fat?

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In an agrarian society, having lots of kids can make you wealthy. But in our society, the way to life yourself from poverty is most certainly NOT to have lots of kids. So poor people who waited ten years to have kids, using that time to complete their educations, get a trade, learn how to manage their money and so forth...will build a better foundation for their future generations, if they can postpone the "fun" of 3am feedings. Remember: your hind brain wants to make babies. Boy, does it ever. You have to learn to say "not this time" and roll on a freakin' rubber, o.k?

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Yes, it is genetic suicide not to reproduce. But I know too many people without children who live happy, healthy lives to think it's the end of the world. I'm sure they feel regrets at times, but so do parents.

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I stick with the position that healthy people can find and maintain healthy relationships. I'm sure exceptions to this rule exist, but I haven't seen them yet. People say "I know a man who is apparently healthy, who keeps getting his heart broken..."

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And the first thing that comes to me is that he has poor judgement in women. And that means, to me, that he doesn't know himself, or his own feminine side, very well at all. That doesn't sound like health to me.

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Am I saying women who deliberately get pregnant out of wedlock are man-haters? No. I think they are confused, damaged, and overestimate their own state of health/balance. In my mind, you can't hate the outside world without hating yourself. This is one of the reasons that you have to start with self-love, the ability to look in the mirror and see the little boy or girl you once were, and love that child without reservation. To realize that every choice you've made your entire life was an attempt to feel loved, safe, and closer to the Divine. To forgive yourself, and others.

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That is a path of healing. And as long as you would be attracted to yourself, really, truely...you should be able to find a partner. The only problem I've ever seen is that people don't want to do the work necessary to heal.

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Again, (by the way) I don't mean this is true in 100% of cases. But I'd be willing to bet on better than 95% of cases, and considering that most of the people I know who are alone either

1) say there are no good men or women or

2) Beat themselves up unmercifully and consider themselves worthless

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I'll maintain my point of view. Love yourself. Take responsibility for your results. Do the work.