7 ms·

Life isn't really that nice and tidy. It would be nice if it were, but generally people are mostly good and sometimes unplanned things happen. Intact families n

Life isn't really that nice and tidy. It would be nice if it were, but generally people are mostly good and sometimes unplanned things happen. Intact families need to be a societal goal. My parents were definitely not financially stable. I grew up in the equivalent of what the US would call "the projects" but a key difference was that it was a community. There was a rec center, a school, groceries, health care all within a couple of enclosed city blocks. Average income was poverty level. All of the services reduced burdens on the parents who often worked two jobs. My mom had two jobs, my dad had two jobs. If you use an iPhone, you are using my code. If you played a Wii game in the last decade, you're using my code. Many more examples. That's how far I came and most of my friends went as far if not farther. One of us manages a global tech organization now. Most kids I know who didn't do well or treaded water were the product of contentious divorces as this was the time when "rah rah women's liberation" was at its height and many men were kicked out of their family. I still remember my friend lamenting to me that the only time he can see is father is during school lunches. That friend did better than he would have because he basically lived at my house as a result of his family situation. Surprisingly, in this area, there were fewer such divorces than the general population. I have looked up the stats. Raising kids is not hard but somehow we went from village to complete independence. We need to go back to a village mindset. We are all in it together or we will all feel the pain one day.

geofft 6y ago
The historic reason many religions/societies looked down on divorce is that it left the woman worse off - the man would be able to work and fend for himself but the woman would have few options. The fact that in out modern world many women (in heterosexual relationships) are the ones who desire to leave, and can reasonably fend for themselves, is pretty novel, and we haven't figured out how to adjust the rest of our social structures to account for it. It is a good thing that women can leave relationships where they're being mistreated and be better off on their own, but it means we need to rethink designs elsewhere in society that were based on the assumption that they wouldn't. I agree with you about the village mindset, and it's kind of the most robust option. Even ignoring divorce, a parent can be emotionally incompetent at caring for children, and certainly can be called to work (or fight) elsewhere, can get sick and/or die, etc. We should be ensuring children have multiple backup options if their own parents are unavailable for whatever reason.
- treeman79 6y ago
  Most, not all, Kids with single moms I know have turned into horrible people. Giving them everything they want, making excuses, and Lack of discipline were primary reasons. The friend I know who did well had a strict non nonsense mom.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- loopz 6y ago
  Many of the laws and rules of societies in the past and most in the present, have always been about domination and control of women. Even women would join in on this, in order to subjugate younger females to societal order. It can be explained to survive hard times and trials, but is also mostly about injustice and inequality for different traits. Though the females are regarded as assets, they're not allowed agency, freedom and inherent value. This is the history and hurt that is behind most of feminism of today, and there are still remnants in Western societies. Not because the laws and rules today are inherently discriminatory, but the cultural expression still inhibits life for half the population in many cases. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader what this may mean for BLM.
  - loopz 6y ago
    I can of course back it up past the HN filter: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=laws+against+women&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=laws+against+women&ia=web
throwaway3699 6y ago
Breakdown of family and community seems to be the big trend of the past few decades. I'm saddened to say that I don't see a real solution, and I expect some kind of cultural collapse to occur as a result. We're already seeing some of the effects of this today.
- rayiner 6y ago
  It was a deliberate choice Americans made as a society. In Bangladesh, we have strong norms in favor of marriage and strong taboos against divorce. There is a whole social infrastructure for helping people enter marriage with realistic notions and expectations, and counseling couples through rough patches. It's not perfect by any means, but strong family and community bonds make life tolerable in a desperately poor country. And of course, unlike the United States, we can't afford to just throw government money at the problems created by out-of-wedlock births, marriages dissolving over solvable problems, etc. It's truly not clear to me that the choice we made in America is the correct one. My wife's family is full of wonderful and loving people, they are suffering from our country's social dissolution (which has hit non-college educated people outside major metro areas especially hard). Nearly everyone is divorced, often several times over. Grandparents raise their grandchildren. Fathers are in some cases are absent entirely. Children grow up without stability. And now folks are getting close to retirement age with divorces having devastated their finances.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    In Ireland, there were strong norms in favor of marriage and strong taboos against divorce, and all those other things. There was also a semi-hidden system of forced labour for those women that did have children out of wedlock. The "mother and baby" homes. The amount of abuse involved was horrific and the country is still untangling and confronting it decades later. Be wary of changing a system where the abuse is borne silently because there is no way out for one that makes it visible and thinking that is worse because just now you can see it. Divorce rates are on their way down in the West. The transition period is definitely rough, but eventually the cultural norms adapt. I would be interested to see if you canvas the views of Bangladeshi women on the comparative systems.
bsanr2 6y ago
I think the important thing to take out of this situation isn't so much, "Every family needs to have a father," as it is, "Every community needs to be able to respond to the realities of its constituent family situations." Women's liberation ends with a net positive for a modern economy, but whenever norms are roiled, you have people caught in the confusion who fall through the cracks. I was a victim of a similar situation, where the leadership and curriculum of my major at my alma mater was in "transition" while I was attending; this meant spending entire courses on outdated technology or learning current standards from older professors who barey understood them themselves. There was nothing wrong with the new paradigms, but getting caught between the old and new was what squandered the potential of a lot of us. Ideally, you forecast these shifts and make preparations, rather than being dragged into the future, as seems to be what happens with institutions responding to these civil rights social movements. But I agree that support systems, rather than "grit" or "personal agency", are almost always the most important aspect of healthy development, in pretty much any arena. Teaching, job training, child rearing, legislation development, entrepreneurship, on an on, the failures happen when people decide or are expected to go it alone.
watwut 6y ago
Kids who grew in foster care don't have dad nor mom. They are not product of divorce as much as lack of any parent at all.
- batch12 6y ago
  The hard part usually is that you do have a Dad or Mom, but for whatever reason can't be with them.
seneca 6y ago
> Raising kids is not hard but somehow we went from village to complete independence. We need to go back to a village mindset. Raising kids IS hard in modern America. Agreed that it doesn't have to be, and that the disintegration of societal structures is a huge part of why. Unfortunately, all signs point to it getting worse, not better. I bring up his research a lot it seems, but Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone, which is about the utter collapse of American Civil Society and social ties, in 2000. The statistics were daunting then, and I doubt many people would disagree that we're worse off today than we were 20 years ago. I'm old enough that I remember living in a US that still had plentiful communities. I worry about the children being raised in our modern transactional society. I take comfort in knowing old men have worried about these things since the dawn of civilization though.
chasd00 6y ago
"Raising kids is not hard.." non-parent typing detected. :)

geofft 6y ago

The historic reason many religions/societies looked down on divorce is that it left the woman worse off - the man would be able to work and fend for himself but the woman would have few options. The fact that in out modern world many women (in heterosexual relationships) are the ones who desire to leave, and can reasonably fend for themselves, is pretty novel, and we haven't figured out how to adjust the rest of our social structures to account for it. It is a good thing that women can leave relationships where they're being mistreated and be better off on their own, but it means we need to rethink designs elsewhere in society that were based on the assumption that they wouldn't. I agree with you about the village mindset, and it's kind of the most robust option. Even ignoring divorce, a parent can be emotionally incompetent at caring for children, and certainly can be called to work (or fight) elsewhere, can get sick and/or die, etc. We should be ensuring children have multiple backup options if their own parents are unavailable for whatever reason.

treeman79 6y ago
Most, not all, Kids with single moms I know have turned into horrible people. Giving them everything they want, making excuses, and Lack of discipline were primary reasons. The friend I know who did well had a strict non nonsense mom.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
loopz 6y ago
Many of the laws and rules of societies in the past and most in the present, have always been about domination and control of women. Even women would join in on this, in order to subjugate younger females to societal order. It can be explained to survive hard times and trials, but is also mostly about injustice and inequality for different traits. Though the females are regarded as assets, they're not allowed agency, freedom and inherent value. This is the history and hurt that is behind most of feminism of today, and there are still remnants in Western societies. Not because the laws and rules today are inherently discriminatory, but the cultural expression still inhibits life for half the population in many cases. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader what this may mean for BLM.
- loopz 6y ago
  I can of course back it up past the HN filter: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=laws+against+women&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=laws+against+women&ia=web

throwaway3699 6y ago

Breakdown of family and community seems to be the big trend of the past few decades. I'm saddened to say that I don't see a real solution, and I expect some kind of cultural collapse to occur as a result. We're already seeing some of the effects of this today.

rayiner 6y ago
It was a deliberate choice Americans made as a society. In Bangladesh, we have strong norms in favor of marriage and strong taboos against divorce. There is a whole social infrastructure for helping people enter marriage with realistic notions and expectations, and counseling couples through rough patches. It's not perfect by any means, but strong family and community bonds make life tolerable in a desperately poor country. And of course, unlike the United States, we can't afford to just throw government money at the problems created by out-of-wedlock births, marriages dissolving over solvable problems, etc. It's truly not clear to me that the choice we made in America is the correct one. My wife's family is full of wonderful and loving people, they are suffering from our country's social dissolution (which has hit non-college educated people outside major metro areas especially hard). Nearly everyone is divorced, often several times over. Grandparents raise their grandchildren. Fathers are in some cases are absent entirely. Children grow up without stability. And now folks are getting close to retirement age with divorces having devastated their finances.
- pjc50 6y ago
  In Ireland, there were strong norms in favor of marriage and strong taboos against divorce, and all those other things. There was also a semi-hidden system of forced labour for those women that did have children out of wedlock. The "mother and baby" homes. The amount of abuse involved was horrific and the country is still untangling and confronting it decades later. Be wary of changing a system where the abuse is borne silently because there is no way out for one that makes it visible and thinking that is worse because just now you can see it. Divorce rates are on their way down in the West. The transition period is definitely rough, but eventually the cultural norms adapt. I would be interested to see if you canvas the views of Bangladeshi women on the comparative systems.

bsanr2 6y ago

I think the important thing to take out of this situation isn't so much, "Every family needs to have a father," as it is, "Every community needs to be able to respond to the realities of its constituent family situations." Women's liberation ends with a net positive for a modern economy, but whenever norms are roiled, you have people caught in the confusion who fall through the cracks. I was a victim of a similar situation, where the leadership and curriculum of my major at my alma mater was in "transition" while I was attending; this meant spending entire courses on outdated technology or learning current standards from older professors who barey understood them themselves. There was nothing wrong with the new paradigms, but getting caught between the old and new was what squandered the potential of a lot of us. Ideally, you forecast these shifts and make preparations, rather than being dragged into the future, as seems to be what happens with institutions responding to these civil rights social movements. But I agree that support systems, rather than "grit" or "personal agency", are almost always the most important aspect of healthy development, in pretty much any arena. Teaching, job training, child rearing, legislation development, entrepreneurship, on an on, the failures happen when people decide or are expected to go it alone.

watwut 6y ago

Kids who grew in foster care don't have dad nor mom. They are not product of divorce as much as lack of any parent at all.

batch12 6y ago
The hard part usually is that you do have a Dad or Mom, but for whatever reason can't be with them.

seneca 6y ago

> Raising kids is not hard but somehow we went from village to complete independence. We need to go back to a village mindset. Raising kids IS hard in modern America. Agreed that it doesn't have to be, and that the disintegration of societal structures is a huge part of why. Unfortunately, all signs point to it getting worse, not better. I bring up his research a lot it seems, but Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone, which is about the utter collapse of American Civil Society and social ties, in 2000. The statistics were daunting then, and I doubt many people would disagree that we're worse off today than we were 20 years ago. I'm old enough that I remember living in a US that still had plentiful communities. I worry about the children being raised in our modern transactional society. I take comfort in knowing old men have worried about these things since the dawn of civilization though.

chasd00 6y ago

"Raising kids is not hard.." non-parent typing detected. :)