Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Incentives have consequences

It's remarkable that women find it so difficult to understand that feminism combined with an anti-male legal system have rendered marriage increasingly unpalatable to men:
So last night I bated my breath and asked my three eldest sons, all over 21, the following outright: if a girl in her 20s wanted to get married, have kids and give up work, would it put you off dating her?

Tom, as the eldest, probably the one who should be most immediately considering family life, baulked at the very question. He’s been with his Spanish girlfriend, Estephania, for four years, and children aren’t even on their radar.
Olivia's son Will, 27, who is an author, has no immediate plans to get married and have children

Olivia's son Will, 27, who is an author, has no immediate plans to get married and have children

‘I hate that word “marriage”,’ he told me. ‘Marriage belongs to another era. I prefer the word “partnership” because that’s what it should be, a partnership of equals right from the start. Both man and woman should contribute financially to the home, and both should do domestic work.

‘What really annoys me is when the woman has children and somehow thinks it’s all right to skive and stay at home with them.

‘The baby should be sent to a nursery as soon as possible and the woman should get back to work. Aren’t women supposed to have the same aspirations in their careers as men? Then they should prove it and not expect a whole year’s maternity leave. It’s scandalous!’

His brother, Will, an author, had an even more pragmatic view. Yes, he would be put off dating a woman sprinting towards marriage and children.

He’s written a book, The Romantic Economist, about the correlation between love and market forces, which, he says, shows the gulf between the sexes on this issue

‘When you’re 30 and you’re female, your biological clock is ticking loudly and you will settle for less than perfect. That decreases your value in the market place. Unfortunately, there are simply more of you about.

‘But a man of 30 doesn’t even have to think of getting married. He’s still looking for his ideal.’

Will was clearly referring to himself. With no biological clock ticking, he’s taking his time to settle down. And while he is dating again, he declared that a family is not even on his horizon. Thankfully, my middle son, Ben, 26, is more of a romantic. He is setting up a gallery with his partner of a year, Karina, 29. ‘If you love someone, and they want children, even if it turns your life upside down, isn’t it worth it?’ he said.

But Ben is very much the exception. His friends tease him remorselessly for being so in love. ‘He’s not done his maths,’ they tell me. ‘We can’t even look after ourselves, let alone a family. We’ve got student debts to pay off. Some of us are still living with our parents!’
Paging Dr. Helen... The young men are not scared, they are on strike. Trying to browbeat them out of their perfectly rational position is unlikely to be effective. This is the consequence of systemic changes, and the solution must be systemic as well.

46 comments:

Athor Pel said...

What I love about the rationalizations used by those guys to justify not getting married and having kids, most of them are feminist talking points.

What these guys are doing is in effect black knighting.

Too funny.

Dexter said...

What really annoys me is when the woman has children and somehow thinks it’s all right to skive and stay at home with them.

Sorry dude, you are utterly ignorant. Staying home with kids isn't "skiving". It is HARD FUCKING WORK.

Also, essential work.

Anonymous said...

His body, his choice.

No?

Revelation Means Hope said...

I'd say it is black knighting except their words betray that they hold feminist views.
Or, the feminist author is reinterpreting what they said, and paraphrasing it into proper fem-speak.
Or....

They are still in a blue pill state. Blue pill meaning that they really DO think women are equal to men, and that those who stay home with the children are slackers. They've managed to at least acknowledge the realities of the state of marriage in 21st Century in the West, however.

Isn't it amusing that the only gamma among them, is considering marrying and older woman? Come on, that's funny right there. Bets on the father either being absent or is a gamma himself?

1sexistpig2another said...

I'd say it is black knighting except their words betray that they hold feminist views... they really DO think women are equal to men

Yep. They've been indoctrinated. It's practically in the air we breathe.

Anonymous said...

I'd say it is black knighting except their words betray that they hold feminist views.

All the better. I can see an epic novel now, Accidental Black Knights: The Adventures of Tom, Will, Olivia, Estephania, Karina and Ben as They Blunder Through Life.

Anonymous said...

What I love about the rationalizations used by those guys to justify not getting married and having kids, most of them are feminist talking points.

Exactly. This generation of men is in complete agreement with feminism: marriage is unimportant, perhaps even harmful; men and woman are equal and interchangeable; women should work and contribute financially just like men; babies and children should be raised by state-certified experts.

They've gotten young men entirely on their side. What are they bitching about?

Anonymous said...

While men don't have a biological clock it takes a degree of youthfulness to fully appreciate children. In my eldest son's class I am probably the youngest dad by 8 years. I have a neighbor who is 54 with a 4 year old, I think that is madness. The kid could be changing his diapers before they graduate high school. Assuming we don't have a 4th my kids will be through college (if they go that route) by the time I am 55.

---
Sorry dude, you are utterly ignorant. Staying home with kids isn't "skiving". It is HARD FUCKING WORK.

Only if you are homeschooling, otherwise its trivial unless you are managing 4 or more. I don't disagree it is essential though. The best behaved kids are the ones watched by their own family.

Weouro said...

Oh those poor poor 20-something feminist women who conveniently forget everything they believe in and just want to be good wives and mothers. That's all they ever wanted or ever will want! What is wrong with these men that they can't see that? And why won't that poor lady's sons just give her some grandchildren to play with?

Anonymous said...

When I was still married, I would take leave to spend time with my kids. It is not hard work. Its a fucking vacation

Guitar Man said...

sfcton said...
When I was still married, I would take leave to spend time with my kids. It is not hard work. Its a fucking vacation


Something tells me that you plopped the kids in front of the TV all day. I have a gem of a lady (the last few ladies in this nation, as she stays at homes, cares for the kids, homeschools them, and keeps the house), and she is exhausted by the day's end. She worked in corporate for a few years, and to her, corporate work was far easier, but less rewarding and pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Marissa said...

She refers to her son's girlfriend as "partner" and is surprised that none of them want to marry? She can't even use normal, sexual terminology. I too find it funny that the one with the nigh-30-year-old girlfriend wants to marry, something tells me that his brother Will's thoughts on biological clocks have something to do with it (she is pushing for marriage).

Marissa said...

From the comments: I still contribute towards everything as I still have money left in my company - but my partner is not impressed that I am not working. He has complained about housework etc. Suddenly I am getting a glimpse of what it will be like if I choose to stay at home. I'm sure I will be looking for work in a year or two just because I don't like being made to feel this way. I'm definitely not alone in this either - all my friends have the same issue. Where have the decent men gone?

She could just...do the housework.

Peregrine John said...

sfcton is right. You don't take leave to put kids in front of a TV. This is Vox's place. You don't get away with that level of illogic. I too take time off work specifically to spend with the kids, and from the time they were out of diapers it has been the easiest, most enjoyable time imaginable, even if the reason I'm using vacation time is that someone needs to tend to them while the missus has to be somewhere else. And yes, they're homeschooled. If that's slavery, chain me to the wall.

In related news, one picker-and-grinner is quite possibly being a bit had.

Yohami said...

"middle son, Ben, 26, is more of a romantic. He is setting up a gallery with his partner of a year, Karina, 29. "

Guess who's screwed.

‘If you love someone, and THEY want children, even if it turns YOUR life upside down, isn’t it worth it?’ - emphasis mine

Very screwed.

Bob Loblaw said...

This generation of men is in complete agreement with feminism: marriage is unimportant, perhaps even harmful; men and woman are equal and interchangeable; women should work and contribute financially just like men...

That last part is just adjusting to reality. Marriage is no longer seen as permanent. If your wife is a SAHM and then decides she needs to go "find herself", you're going to take a much bigger financial hit than you would if she had a career. From what I can tell men who've been taken to the cleaners in divorce court have no interest in women who don't work.

Anonymous said...

Maybe find has failed me, but I couldn't find "father" or "husband" in her article. She references "wife" twice, but it's never clear that she's actually a wife. Does she have a husband? Did she just go on the dole when she had her brood?

Anonymous said...

So, this is the same Olivia Fane who modeled an open marriage to her sons and it ended in divorce?

Funny how her mother is a traditionalist in this latest article but was quite avant garde libertine when necessary:

'But after you've married and had your children, take lovers if you want them. But you must do so with absolute discretion. No one must ever know.'

Notably, Ben is the son of the "traditional marriage" father. Perhaps Will learned too much from watching his parents' "open marriage" crumble.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2323466/The-cruel-reality-living-open-marriage-Novelist-mother-Olivia-Fane-loved-Bohemian-lifestyle--beloved-husband-Adam-Nicolson-fell-love-mistress.html

Anonymous said...

Stopping here my Bond Villain monologue, but it tells you all you need to know when you look at which things she claims to have done and which ones happened to her:

From her agency web page:

"OLIVIA FANE has endured one divorce, married two husbands, been awarded three M.A.s in Classics, Social Work and Theology, written four novels, and given birth to five sons. "

From the original article cited:

"And I can’t claim to have had a ‘career’ at all, despite qualifying as a probation officer before I fell pregnant."

Just another woman who has convinced herself she's not responsible for the bad things.

hadley said...

Re: Olivia Fane. One doesn't "fall pregnant". One fornicates--deliberately--and impregnates oneself. This reminds me of the defendant in a car accident who declaimed that "a tree jumped out of the woods and hit my car", or the murderer, recounting her crime, finishing her story: " ... and then the gun went off."

Trust said...

Women also confuse consequences with punishment. I watched Tyler Perry's Temptation and then looked up comments knowing women would be nonplussed. They bitched about the ending (don't want to spoil it) saying it was wrong to punish the women who cheated on her husband and did drugs with another man. It was a consequence, not a punishment.

Matt said...

Welp, personality and many of our personal inclinations are strongly heritable and likely have some genetic basis. Feminism is evolutionarily maladaptive, whether espoused by men or women. It'll get bred out, eventually.

Now, we just have to hope that the k-selected non-feminists can outpace the r-selected. I'm doing my part - just welcomed #1 into the world a couple days ago.

The Original Hermit said...

I too take vacation to spend time with my kids, even if it is nothing but spending time around the house. My wife is a SAHM, but our youngest has autism and we homeschool our other two, so she usually can use a hand around the house. SAHM can be super cushy if you send your kids off to daycare/school. But it is a busy job, if not necessarily difficult, if you intend to be actively engaged with your children and raise them properly.

The Original Hermit said...

@Matt Congrats on the baby. We just found out we're expecting #4

Brad Andrews said...

Comparing a vacation with children to the day-to-day work of taking care of them is idiotic. I enjoyed my vacation time with my children, but I was not enough of a fool to think that represented all that must be done with them throughout the year.

Ron said...

There is a special place in hell for the architects of this nightmare.

Anonymous said...

I'm curious--how are young Christian men dealing with this situation? Are they willing to marry if they can find Christian wives? (I mean real Christians, not the feminized sort.) I'm asking in general; I'm sure individual cases are all over the map.

While I'm not Christian, the question interests me because my brother and his kids are. My oldest two nephews are 25 and 23, and I've heard nothing to indicate that either of them is anywhere near to marrying. (I'm not close to them on a day-to-day basis, but I'd be told about major developments like that.)

PVW said...

She was in an open marriage with her first husband; this was modeled not only by her mother, but by her husband's family himself. The first three sons were by the first husband, her college boyfriend. He was the gregarious alpha type she had to be around. After the divorce, she married her second husband, someone more stable, whom she also knew from college. Perhaps he didn't have the type of charisma she found in the first. Nonetheless, he was more stable and more attractive than the first one. If anything, she was not as attractive in the pictures from her second marriage, compared to the ones from her first. The second marriage is a traditional one; the two younger boys are from this marriage.

Keef said...

I'm curious--how are young Christian men dealing with this situation?

Not very well. You see, one thing that modern culture has brought is a situation where it is really really difficult to have a wife as a SAHM. I'm not saying it's impossible but really really tough. The norm in the '50s and '60s was to have a large family with 1 income.

That is no longer the case with crazy inflation, infiltration of women into corporate America, and really really expensive schools. As a Christian, I would love to get married to a quality woman who could do the majority of the child-rearing and still be able to contribute something to the financial bottom line of the family.

Problem is that I currently make enough money for me to live and save a little. Not raise a family of 4-5. The 'Great Society' social programs and dollar printing have made living extraordinarily expensive.

All of that is before the risk of a frivorce, cold sexless marriage, rationalization hamsters, and girls around my age (27) who refuse to give their best years to a husband. I expect to be single even though if I had it my way it would not be nearly optimal.

I'm not going to hate on the men in the article awash with fem-centric thinking. The indoctrination started for my gen at an early age. It takes a purposeful attitude to break through it.

PhantomZodak said...

i love that the sons are arguing feminist ideals just like Athor Pel said & it turns out to be detrimental to what girls want. they didn't think things all the way through & when their idiotic ideals are put into practice they start whining about it. the sweet sweet schadenfreude.

Trust said...

@: " they didn't think things all the way through & when their idiotic ideals are put into practice they start whining about it. the sweet sweet schadenfreude."
_____

It is amazing to me how women are almost incapable of seeing things from a man's perspective.

Women respond to changes. Give them an alimony option, they divorce more. Give then birth control and.abortion, they are less choosy about their partners. Give them child support, they have kids more. Give them the welfare state, they marry less.

Yet, they can't seem to grasp similar or related incentives will change how men behave too.

It's like a baseball team getting sick of striking out so they advocate a smaller strike zone.... then are baffled when the other team changes their strategy.

Natalie said...

Part of the singleness issue is, I believe, that the church has normalized singleness. Instead of putting in your 40-50 years learning and serving in lower key capacities before stepping up and leading from wisdom and experience you see lots of twenty somethings finding their "calling" and doing a fair bit of the leading and serving. Now, the Bible does say that single people can have more focus on their church/spiritual work, however I think that despite the apparent fetishism of motherhood there are a lot of younger people running around seeing their younger years as the time to get stuff done. The problem is that the boomer generation by and large doesn't seem to have modeled that sort of leadership in their later years. Even my beloved in-laws don't seem to really "get" this the way I think earlier generations did. There's not as much discipleship and mentoring going on, and younger people really, really need this. That's why with one kid and 30 years old I'm wanting to become a postpartum doula - not because I think I have so much wisdom and experience to share but because I'm seeing young/new moms who just aren't getting the support they need to make them successful mothers. Hopefully I'll still be doing this in another 30 years and won't cringe too badly at how ill-qualified I was to help anyone. (But at least I can wash some dishes and keep an eye out for PPD.)

Markku said...

Teh Funneh is precisely in the fact that these are blue pill men. If they were red pill, then this kind of thinking would be in the minority, and not much of a problem for feminism. But now, it is the overwhelming majority that is susceptible to it, just due to the internal logic of feminism. And THAT means trouble.

swiftfoxmark2 said...

They've gotten young men entirely on their side. What are they bitching about?

"Three things are never satisfied;
four never say, “Enough”:
Sheol, the barren womb,
the land never satisfied with water,
and the fire that never says, “Enough.”"
-Proverbs 30:15-16

Anonymous said...

You get the men feminism created.

I would agree with the blackknighting assessment except that these guys aren't deliberately 'sticking it to women (partners) with their own medicine', they honestly believe the programming they've been installed with. It's not retribution they're exhibiting, it's simple pragmatism within the social (feminine primary 'equalism') framework they've been taught everyone should conform to.

RT

Dexter said...

Sorry dude, you are utterly ignorant. Staying home with kids isn't "skiving". It is HARD FUCKING WORK.

Only if you are homeschooling, otherwise its trivial unless you are managing 4 or more.


Bullshit.

Homeschooling is easy. At that point they are old enough to accept direction and understand the consequences of disobedience. Dealing with babies and toddlers is another thing entirely.

Anonymous said...

Lmao, staying at home with kids is only hard work if you raise them to be wild chimps. I remember when I was 14 and had toddler little siblings, and my mom would have me watch them for hours whenever she went out on errands, like that. It wasn't hard at all, and I was a teenager.

Maybe it's hard work if you're comparing it to a security guard job where you do nothing all day. Compare raising kids to working at some crummy fast food joint? It's a walk in the park.

And the poor lawyer girlfriend was just hilarious, lol. She got her merit badge for working hard, going through law school, and getting a career, but no one's coming along to draft her to the mother/wife exercise, as Dalrock put it. How is she going to get all her feminist merit badges if weak men won't wife her up? haha.

There's a Daughtry song that has the oh so true line, "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it all! You just might get it all--and then some you don't want!"

Anonymous said...

Women need to realize, they want careers, they got them, haha. Welcome to the real world, ain't it fun! You want equality? Have fun. Just as no one comes along so a man can retire from an oh-so stressful career at age 30, there won't be any for women soon, either. They can work for decades like men! Because after all, they're equal.

Retrenched said...

They are 'scared' of marriage, in the same sense that I am 'scared' of taking everything out of my bank account and putting it into a $25 slot machine.

Retrenched said...

@ RT

You get the men feminism created

Women thought they could abandon their traditional roles and responsibilities, and yet still expect men to be bound to theirs.

BUT. You can't change the rules of any game without changing the way that people play it.

In the end it must be said that feminism freed men far more than it freed women.

http://no-maam.blogspot.com/2002/12/zenpriest-now-please-explain-to-me-what.html

Tommy Hass said...

"‘Marriage belongs to another era. I prefer the word “partnership” because that’s what it should be, a partnership of equals right from the start. Both man and woman should contribute financially to the home, and both should do domestic work."

Ugh.

Guitar Man said...

I'm only a single example, but my wife and I are doing it in the NY metro on a single income. We have four kids, 8 years of age and under (and a fifth on the way), she HS's the two oldest ones while caring for the two toddlers, and keeps the house. We made some decisions years ago to homeschool, the primary one to be out of debt before we had children. It isn't always easy, but dumping the kids off for institutionalized care seemed a lot harder for us.

It is only recently that my salary has taken off. I'm not filthy rich, but we're comfortable enough. Both of us in our mid-30s now.

Point being, it can be done, and should be done for those who want to raise a family. One of them should be at home with the kids.

Anonymous said...

In a recent comment at Dalrock's I talked about all the hard work my great-grandmother did as a farm wife and mother of seven, before innovations like indoor plumbing and kitchen and laundry appliances. That was hard work. Most of that physical work has been eliminated or made much easier, and most people have fewer kids.

Think about your own job. Now imagine that you only had a third as many responsibilities, and machines started doing about 80% of your work for you. Think that might qualify as "easy"?

Sure, raising kids and housekeeping can still be tough at times, and it can certainly be frustrating, but "hard work" the way people talk about it? Not really. I know women who are doing it, even with several homeschooling kids, and they still have time for hobbies, home businesses, and church activities. The ones I know who are unhappy are unhappy for the same reasons as other women: boredom and vague feelings of frustration they can't define, not excess work. If anything, they need more work to leave them less time and energy for over-analyzing their happiness level.

Sologamer said...

These young "men" remind me of domesticated animals. They are proud of their fatness and sleek pelts, because they please the twin masters of government and corporations. To whom they will sacrifice all, including their offspring. With tails wagging.

Robert What? said...

Unless you have a boatload of kids, are home schooling, or have truly special needs kids (not phony special needs) being a stay at home mother is a breeze in this day and age except for the first 2-3 years. Just look at all the stay-at-home moms hanging out at Starbucks all day.

Guitar Man said...

Unless you have a boatload of kids, are home schooling, or have truly special needs kids (not phony special needs) being a stay at home mother is a breeze in this day and age except for the first 2-3 years. Just look at all the stay-at-home moms hanging out at Starbucks all day.

Well yeah, that's a fairly obvious point. I tend to only think of stay at home parenting as the parent is homeschooling. I guess I forgot about the multitudes who dump their children at the local school for free babysitting as we're not associated with many of those types.

Post a Comment

NO ANONYMOUS COMMENTS.