Step-family Talk

I want to continue along the lines of yesterday’s subject. The purpose of the topics this week is to show the importance of a stable father figure in a child’s life. This figure can be in the form of a mentor, a stepfather, or a biological father. Later this week, I will show significant numbers and studies that address the importance of the impact a father has on the life of a child. Today I want to return to the idea Lewis proposed in the Abolition of Man that society must teach its children right from wrong. Teaching right from wrong also means teaching children how to discern popular opinion from the right belief.

I had a couple of days off earlier this year and was blown away by what passes as daytime entertainment. The majority of shows were either courtroom television or sensational talk shows. Apparently watching someone get sued or watching a woman parade five men across the stage as the possible father of their child is what we value today. Shows like The Simple Life teach us that its okay to have no work ethic, no knowledge, and no responsibility. Either I missed the boat and the wisdom of thousands of years has really been teaching us that it is better to get money from by taking it from others rather than earning it, that committed relationships are a waste of time and the virtuous are those that let others pick up there slack, or we’ve had a serious breakdown in standing up for what is right.

Sick of the day time television I turned on the radio. I quickly learned that the more bling in your grill the more likely you are to find yourself some bitches or hoes. Apparently if you’re a guy this is the ultimate goal in life and if there aren’t any women any more, their either bitches or hoes. I wonder how a musical ‘artist’ would react if you asked him to which category his mother belongs.

Tired of all the media palaver I decided to take my son to the zoo. So, I loaded up the wagon, the baby bags, and my son into the van (Which pimps everywhere would recognize as disappointingly absent of any spinners, chrome or low profile 22’s—if you don’t know what I’m talking about turn on MTV for about 30 seconds.) and we headed off. I turned on some talk radio along the way. I thought here I will find something stimulating–turns out that the general consensus among the various discussions is that we are still so rooted in traditional values decreed by crusty old white men that society can’t advance. We aren’t recognizing equality of the races or the genders. Have they turned on a radio or television or looked at a magazine lately? I’m not quite a crusty old man yet, but I am getting there and I can certainly say that nothing I’ve come across lately has anything to do with those nasty old traditional values.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against any person getting equal pay for equal quality of work. I have nothing against equal voting rights. I have nothing against equal representation under the law. I have issues with anything that gives a societal advantage to a person because they happen to be a particular color or gender. What I am saying is that I have to disagree with their conclusion that society is failing because we want to persist with traditional values. A big issue I have with the break down of values is a homogenizing of the genders. It is one thing to give equality to status, but it is another to try and neuter everyone. Men ought to be men and women ought to be women. I learned this at the zoo. Everywhere I looked there were differences between the males and females of the species. Each had an important role to play for their species. The male animals in the zoo weren’t trying to be females and the females weren’t trying to be males. I could look at the peacocks with their extravagant feathers and tell my son that that was a male. I could look at the peahen and tell my son it was female. And when each plays the part particular to its gender the species continues.

In our society men and women ought to recognize the different roles they play in raising our children. There is no “more important” role. In this we are equal. But, there is definitely a male role and a female role. And I’m not talking about petty little things, like who should do the cooking, the cleaning, the housework and such. I do the cooking at our house and I would love nothing more than to be the stay –at-home parent. I am talking about the real gender differences.

Men are typically more aggressive and have a different style of play with children. When our children are infants we carry them differently, which gives the infant a different perspective on the world-this may seem trivial, but it’s not. We have deeper voices that have a profound effect when it comes to reading to our children. (More on this later) Men reason differently from women, entirely different areas of the brain are used when men and women are given a particular problem to solve. Fathers teach their daughters what to expect from relationships with men in a way that mothers cannot. Men connect with their son’s in ways women cannot. The same is true in the other way. Women teach our son’s things, husband’s can’t. Women have connections with their daughters that men can’t have. Men and women ought to have different responsibilities within a household.

When we neuter our society we only make it more convenient for men to shuffle off their responsibilities. If anyone can do it, then let someone else do it will be the mentality. It is the mentality. Many men are feeling their obligation is complete once they’ve achieved conception. And we are getting more and more baby’s momma’s and less emphasis is being placed on husband and wife. And why should there be an emphasis if we are no longer going to be men and women, but neuter and neuter?