Nuclear family gets nuked by the Gen-Xers

The Australian ^ | 9/15/05 | Bernard Salt

[LWalk18]

My only problem with your proposal is the idea that boys don't need mothers and girls don't need fathers. I think that a presumption of shared custody would be better- there would be less of using children as pawns to hurt your soon-to-be ex-spouse.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

I dispute the assertion that the average person is more wealthy. Last time I checked, America's saving rate is negative.

Yes, but why? Do people not save because they spend money on things they want or things they need? America is a very consumerist society. Frivolous spending is an issue of wealth management, not wealth ownership.

[LWalk18]

My great uncle lived in a nursing home for the last year of his life after suffering a stroke. He had never married nor had children, yet he had by far the most visitors. Many of the others with children had few or no visitors at all.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

its only been the last few generations where we began shuttling parents off to old folks homes

It's the last few generations that have seen great increases in lifespan. I would argue that the nursing homes are a function of the number of extremely old people in a society, wherein physical deterioration is most severe.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Most women can get pregnant in their early forties with high-tech help, and if they've been working at something productive all those years, they shouldn't have any trouble affording it. And reproductive technology is galloping forwards so fast that this will be a non-issue by the time today's adolescent girls are old enough to think about having children. Very soon, anyone will be able to have children that are genetically their own, at any age they choose. As it is now, any woman who doesn't have serious health problems, can bear a child that is not genetically her own, well into her 50s, and some are even doing it in their 60s. And IMO, the day when no woman is choosing when and whom to marry "because I'm running out of time to have a baby" can't come soon enough.

[Antoninus]

In 1991, 41 per cent of all Australian households featured a traditional nuclear family. This proportion would have exceeded 50 per cent in the 1960s. In this early manifestation of the traditional family, "the kids" numbered four and upwards. Not like today: families have slimmed to two kids at best; a single child is common.

I think if I lived in Australia, I'd be learning to speak Chinese...

[AdamSelene235]

However, I refuse to broadbrush either with the same brush, because as was said earlier - it happens both ways.

It happens a hell of alot more one way than it does the other. Women, standing the most to gain, initiate divorces at a rate far higher than men and they are granted custody in the overwhelming majority of cases. Hell, in California, boys statutorily raped by women are forced to pay child support. Show me an example of a teenage girl paying child support to an adult male rapist.

[Antoninus]

Those who are constantly wailing about how awful it is that the "nuclear family" is increasingly scarce, are conveniently forgetting that most of the people who are now choosing NOT to participate in such arrangements, did grow up in a "nuclear family" household.

Actually, I'd be willing to bet that most people choosing NOT to participate in a nuclear family were the products of dysfunctional nuclear families themselves. I would argue that many of these families were missing one vital component--an active religious life.

The traditional nuclear family by itself is not a panecea for all of society's ills. A nuclear family without God is just as likely to fail as any other random household unit.

[AdamSelene235]

I quite agree, and I'm female.

Are you single and do you like warm fires in rustic mountain cabins?

8-)_~~

[Antoninus]

A lot of people have also seen first hand how marriage can destroy lives, and are determined not to make that mistake.

Marriage has also rescued a lot of men from lives of dissipation and degradation. Myself included. I thank God for my wife and kids at least once per day.

[AdamSelene235]

Yes, but why?

Prolly has to do with interest rates being below the rate of inflation and FDR's decision to make stimulating consumption a high government priority.

[GovernmentShrinker]

One of his big expenses is that he's having a lot of his money confiscated by the government to pay for raising your children. Take a hard look at all the goods and services your family uses, starting with public schools, and you'll quickly see that YOU aren't supporting them on the budget you describe. Public school districts are fond of concealing the true per student costs of their operations (often by omitting the substantial cost of purchasing and maintaining land and buildings), but most are spending at least $15,000/year per student, and quite a few are spending over $20,000. And most of that is NOT being paid by the parents of the students who attend those schools. And if your children attend a private or church-affiliated school, their tuition and/or scholarships are similarly subsidized, just by private contributions rather than tax money.

[Antoninus]

But I have never, and I mean never, wanted children.

Quotes from Teddy Roosevelt on the subject:

On motherhood as the true source of progress, Teddy Roosevelt said:

"A more supreme instance of unselfishness than is afforded by motherhood cannot be imagined."

Before an audience of liberal Christian theologians in 1911, he said:

"If you do not believe in your own stock enough to see the stock kept up, then you are not good Americans, you are not patriots, and ... I for one shall not mourn your extinction; and in such event I shall welcome the advent of a new race that will take your place, because you wil have shown that you are not fit to cumber the ground."

On the centrality of the child-rich family to the very existence of the American nation:

"It is in the life of the family, upon which in the last analysis the whole welfare of the nation rests....The nation is nothing but the aggregate of the families within its borders."

On parenthood:

"No other success in life, not being President, or being wealthy, or going to college, or anything else, comes up to the success of the man and woman who can feel that they have done their duty and that their children and grandchildren rise up to call them blessed."

On out-of-wedlock birth versus practiced sterility:

"After all, such a vice may be compatible with a nation's continuing to live, and while there is life, even a life marred by wrong practices, there is a chance of reform.

In another place, on the same subject:

"...[W]hile there is life, there is hope, whereas nothing can be done with the dead."

On the behavior of 90% of those who practice birth control:

"[It is derived] from viciousness, coldness, shallow-heartedness, self-indulgence, or mere failure to appreciate aright the difference between the all-important and the unimportant."

[Shazolene]

Adam, your posts are saddening, but true. I'm afraid there IS a financial disincentive for marriage, and especially for men. But what is the remedy?

I believe that government and society do have an obligation to do what they can to encourage the furtherance of the species and the country by encouraging families. The only means they have to do this is through monetary and tax policy. Would you support a movement to change those policies in ways that would support families? Would that change your mind about marriage?

Or, maybe it's too late for you, but future generations of men could be reached before it's too late.

I truly believe that the future of mankind lies with building on what we have learned and done in Western civilization. If we do not have children, all of what has been built over the centuries will be lost.

Paying women to have illegitimate children has worked - we now have LOTS of them. The sexes are perpetually angry at each other. Far too many people would rather have casual or paid sex than a true relationship.

It is sad, bad and dangerous. I would like to see it changed. Would you?

[GovernmentShrinker]

Parents can share custody if they want to, but if they don't want to and it has to be enforced by courts, the children usually are harmed more than benefitted. And more and more children are comfortable with their custodial parents subsequent significant others, so they aren't necessarily without a parent figure of the opposite sex.

[Antoninus]

I wonder how many who opine that the nuclear family is overrated will still feel that way years down the road,

I reckon none. We've got a couple of these in my extended family and they all cling to their nieces and nephews like grim death. Too many people don't realize the preeminent importance of family until it's way too late.

[AdamSelene235]

One of his big expenses is that he's having a lot of his money confiscated by the government to pay for raising your children.

Testify !!! More little blood sucking brainwashed commies.

The trick is, of course, to buy up enough tax liens so that you have no net exposure to property taxes.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

Women, standing the most to gain, initiate divorces at a rate far higher than men and they are granted custody in the overwhelming majority of cases.

An article posted on FR the other day said this was due to men having a higher probabilty of behaving badly - more drunkeness, drug abuse, physical abuse, cheating, etc ..

[Antoninus]

Not really. They could room with each other, like the Golden Girls.

And Lord knows how often life immitates Hollyweird.

[Antoninus]

As goes marriage, so goes the nuclear family.

As goes the nuclear family, so goes the nation.