I watched my single mom neighbor race down the sidewalk to meet her two boys at the school bus stop, holding her umbrella so they wouldn’t get wet after their half a block walk home. This same mom was yelling at one of them last week because she caught him riding his bicycle without a helmet. She made him get off and walk it home.
Growing up, I got wet, never wore a helmet, usually didn’t wear a seat belt, rode in the back of a pickup truck, drank from the garden hose, threw my pocket knife at tree stumps, and other things that would make single moms all over the place cringe.
Where to go from here? Might as well just spit it out. I imagine someone will misinterpret what I’m getting at. If you’re upset by this post, reach out to me. You may think I’m anti-women, but I’m actually pro-family while being anti-feminist. Feminists don’t deserve to be called ‘women’ in our definition-fluid society.
My generation looks at kids these days like they’re just a bunch of wussies. As if they are solely responsible for their sheltered, helicopter parented, lives. And that just isn’t the case. They are the product of a few factors.
1. My generation was defined by our struggles. Most of us would get home to an empty house and have to fend for ourselves for an hour or so before a parent got home from work. We learned to be resilient, to prioritize duties, to entertain ourselves. Later generations have not been allowed to struggle. They have before and after school care. They have parents who idolize their children, and I do mean that in the biblical sense. I am not saying that the conditions my generations were raised in are ideal either. I am only saying that these conditions shaped who we, the Gen-Xers are today.
2. Divorce was not a common thing among my friends. It was actually quite rare. Two-parent households were the clear majority, and those parents were one man and one woman. The woman nurtured the children. The man allowed them to seek adventures within the boundaries of the neighborhood. Boys were allowed to be boys. Now, divorce is incredibly common. Children are often raised in broken households. Which leads to…
3. In these broken households, there are statistics and data. More often than not it is the mother who files for divorce, and she has incentives to do so. Most of the time, mothers are given primary custody of the children along with the financial aid that goes with it. If the results of a divorce were more equitable, and if mothers had to face the reality that they might become a minor whisper in the lives of her children, and have to PAY the father for raising her children without her input, I believe many of these women would reconsider divorce. Men are not without fault here, but the benefits of divorce are weighted heavily toward the mothers. And as one who has seen the wildfire of divorce at work, nobody truly benefits from it. They may think they do. They may say that they “won” the divorce. But there are only losers. And the losers of divorce include the children of the “momma bears” who instigated the divorce in the first place.
4. Still on this topic, we have a LOT of children being raised primarily by the mother, whose God-given role is that of a nurturer. This “momma bear” frequently refuses to allow them to take risks or to be discomforted. She takes great pride in the sacrifices she makes for her children, and if you don’t believe me you can ask her. She will talk your ear off about it. The dad, for his two weeks every summer, has precious little time to make memories with his children. So he splurges and takes them to Disneyland, which the mom can no longer afford, so she resents him, and usually complains about it in earshot of her cubs.
Is all this sounding familiar? All of this was true Pre-COVID and it is only being magnified by an aerosol virus that can get around the cloth mask that the pre-school teacher will force on your child. The child has been raised to value safety above all else, rather than rub dirt on that skinned up knee, so they are quick to comply. Many of the young parents now grew up in broken households and the scent of testosterone is hard to detect, whether there is a man in the home or not. Nobody wants to think. It’s easier to just comply.
We did this to ourselves. We did it with no-fault divorce. We did it by allowing feminists equal standing without first vetting their claims. We did it by accepting that men weren’t really all that necessary in a home, in a school board, in the church, in dialogue. Both femininity and masculinity have been redefined away from their biblical meanings and we’ve allowed that to stand. The ones orchestrating this (or I should say The One) are champions of chaos and haters of God-given order. They mean for this society, which has done more for the good of the world than any other society, to crumble. It is not perfect, but our society was built on biblical standards. This is why it is under attack, and has been from the start.
Foolishness (the biblical definition) cannot build. It can only tear down. This whole thing will fail and it will fail spectacularly. The only question is how much damage will be done on the way to the darkening of hearts being exposed. Much has been, and will be, deconstructed. Who better to reconstruct it than those of wisdom? And again, I am using a biblical definition for wisdom. It is the applying of ultimate truths to your life. Something that is only available to one in a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
What do we do to prepare for this clean up effort, followed by reconstruction? Visit this fantastic post by Douglas Wilson for some great ideas that you can implement starting today.
