The Big Answer

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White deals with the art of raising kids in a two-career family. She looks at the idea of stay-at-home mothers, citing studies that show that these women suffer the highest rate of depression of any segment of our society. They often have low self-esteem, doubt about their worth, and a negative self-image. And all this has serious negative effects on the kids they watch over, who feel guilty and also question their self-worth. “The fact that Freud and Freudian analysts find so many women who exhibit ‘hysteric’ or ‘neurotic’ tendencies is a strong testimony of the refusal of the human psyche to accept its own oppression.”

Freud

The fact that Freud and Freudian analysts find so many women who exhibit "hysteric" or "neurotic" tendencies is a strong testimony of the refusal of the human psyche to accept its own oppression

Shared parenting lets kids have more time with their fathers

Shared parenting, where husband and wife share childcare duties, has had good reviews since the trend began. Parents seem unanimous in their opinions, so White found summarizing easy. The effects are beneficial to all. Kids get far more time with their fathers. Mothers—who have other interests and activities beyond mothering—don’t feel trapped or depressed, so are more available to the kids and happier to be with them. Kids see adults in a variety of roles, which gives them a dynamic view of family life rather than a role-stereotyped one. The kids seem independent and yet affectionate.

Of course, the author also feels compelled to throw in some liberal nonsense about reform proposals for a guaranteed national income and individuals having a ‘right’ to a minimum subsistence level. And she seems to think that the reason such things won’t pass—beside the fact that the “L” word (liberal) is in probably permanent disfavor in our country—is that the society believes that “it’s your own fault if you are poor.”

The rich are shaking down the poor and middle class via tax breaks and loopholes and bailouts and such, and the gap between rich incomes and poor incomes is increasing

Ouch! In truth, people aren’t really feeling that it’s the “fault” of the poor. They are feeling that it’s the responsibility of the poor to do everything possible to correct their condition. Many do not, and the more you give them entitlements, the less inclined they are to be self-responsible.

Work? Hell no—I've got food stamps!

And all this was precipitated by liberal welfare state social engineers in the first place, albeit accidentally. The idea of a “right” to a minimum subsistence level is particularly foolish, since if it were enacted, natural consequences—which are the basis of human learning—would be so seriously undermined that within a generation our country would be an absolute nightmare of crime, irresponsibility, corruption and degeneracy. We can thank our lucky stars that such bleeding-heart proposals haven’t the slightest chance of passing because the nation as a whole has seen these ideas for what they are: The type of thinking that got our country into the mess it's in now in the first place!

People feel it’s the responsibility of the poor to do everything possible to correct their condition, but not that it's their 'fault'

Wouldn’t it be great if a “liberal education”—such as that experienced by White and most other academics and professionals—no longer biased people in naïve, unrealistic, anachronistic, liberal directions because of the liberal textbooks and teachers that administer it, but instead instilled the very latest Third Wave knowledge about life, lifestyles and society, and taught us to think and to navigate the knowledge wave with wisdom and a scientific perspective rather than a neurotically dogmatic, either/or Culture War perspective?

Our liberal education should teach us to really think, not view all matters from neurotic Culture War perspectives—as in most talk shows

Such knowledge would include the profound importance of natural consequences, responsibility, self-esteem, the horrors and track record of social engineering—sans non-sugar-coating, the advantages of grassroots movements, the huge flaws in socialistic thinking, the importance of neighborhood and community connectedness to maintain freedom and democracy and security and safety and moral standards, the best parenting methods known (P.E.T. and Winning Family Lifeskills), and the need for the replacement of the other-directed desire for being saved by reactive political salvationism by the autonomously-directed desire for proactive self-responsibility.

In short, our liberal education system produces other-directed conformists looking for others to save them, pay their way, lead them, and take responsibility for them, but it ought to be revamped so that it produces autonomous entrepreneurs, thinkers and self-made people looking to pay their own way, create their own lives, lead themselves toward success, and take full responsibility for themselves, their families, their communities and their world. The healthiest and most effective shared caring anywhere is—of course—MCs. See Why Register for an MC?.

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