Gaashk
13d ago
The guys I know who can’t seem to find a single woman to date… you can tell why from like a 5 min conversation.
One such man I know IRL, who I was friends with at the time, said something like "I would ask Gaashk out, but she would probably stab me," in front of me. He did not in fact ask me out), and is still single and complaining about it on Facebook.
Gaashk
10d ago
The key in the southwest is sunshine and rainbows -- sun showers. Especially the kind where there's rain on one side of the house, but not the other. A key to sunshine with rainbows weather is that the rainbows happen when the light is low and the storms are dense, say 7pm when it's lovely out and smells like creosote, ozone, and petrichor.
Gaashk
14d ago
Now to broaden this outside of just Christianity, I'm curious what the Motte thinks of symbolism as a whole?
I remember really liking "Being as Communion" by Fr Alexander Schmemann, though it's been a while, so I don't remember it in any detail. Also "The Universe as Sign and Symbol" by Fr. Nikolai Velimirovich, though in general his poetry compilation "Prayers by the Lake" is better. In general things like holy water and blessing more things, not only Communion, is good -- we should bless things more. There's a grape blessing, blessed oil, blessed basil, and so on. This is good! I don't have a strong opinion on whether anointing people with oil from a shrine does something in particular or not, but still think that kind of thing is a good tradition.
Last night I was listening to Jonathan Pageau talk about art and stories and Orthodox art and so on, and it was mostly what everyone has known and talked about most of my whole life, but still good. (My example, not his) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was an excellent book because it relied heavily on Christian symbolism, to the point of being basically about that, with also some sailing involved. The movie of the same was not very good because it stripped out most of the symbolism and replaced it with a video game style quest plot. If the entertainment industry were replaced by deists comfortable with Christian symbolism, that would be an improvement. His example was Snow White, both on account of the new movie, and because his small publishing company has made their own storybook version of the tale, and the illustrations do look very nice. I'm still not going to buy it, I don't like Snow White much, but would recommend it to anyone interested.
Gaashk
13d ago
I'm Orthodox, because of their Liturgy. Husband, who grew up Catholic, is heading more my direction. But the children are unbaptized, because we are not good at making it through the (profound! beautiful! sublime! long!) Liturgy. Unfortunately.
Apparently my whole feed is late 30s bloggers writing about child rearing now, even the ones I subscribed to for the AI news.
Today it's Zvi, continuing last week's discussion from ACX about free range kids, with a side of Aella's very odd childhood and perspective on allowing children agency.
Zvi, as usual, has dozens of somewhat interesting links, and is worth checking out. A lot of it is related to the issue that reporting parents for potential abuse or neglect is costless and sometimes mandatory, but being investigated imposes fairly high costs, and so even among families that are not especially worried about their kids getting hurt walking to a friend's house or a local store, they might be worried about them being picked up by the police, and that can affect their ability to do things other than stare at screens or bicker with their parents. I have some sympathy for this. When I was growing up, inside the city limits, there weren't any kids I knew or wanted to play with in the immediate neighborhood, or any shops I wanted to go to, and my mother was also a bit worried about getting in trouble with the law, so I mostly played in the yard. But perhaps there would have been, if wandering were more normalized? I asked my parents about this, and they said that when they were younger, they also didn't necessarily have neighborhood friends they wanted to visit, and also mostly played in their own yards and houses, but they could have wandered around more if they'd wanted. That was in the 60s, and I'm not sure it's heading in the same direction as the ratosphere zeitgeist or not. My dad does remember picking up beer for his grandma as a kid, which is also mixed.
My impression of the past is mostly formed by British and Scottish novels, where lower class children would rove around in packs, causing trouble (a la Oliver Twist), and upper class children would have governesses, tutors, or go to boarding school, where they were supervised a bit less than now, or about the same amount, and the boys would oppress each other a bit. Upper class girls could go for a walk in the garden with their governess. The police probably have an interest in stopping children from forming spontaneous gangs, which the suburban families were seeking to avoid. The not firmly classed rural children (educated, able to become teachers, but not able to enter high society) are represented as roving the countryside a bit (Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, George Macdonald novels), and get into a bit of trouble, but there were only a few families around, and everyone knew who everyone was. My grandmother grew up in such a place, then divorced before it was cool, and taught in the South Pacific. I can't tell if wandering through the heather or prairie a lot is better or worse than reading lots of books and playing in the backyard.
The free range stuff, while it may be important for some people, seems a bit orthogonal to the Everything is Childcare problem (probably more about lack of extended family), since the age at which a child could feasibly be wandering the countryside or neighborhood (8? 10?) is the same age when they can be quietly reading novels or playing with their siblings or being dropped off at events while their parents drink a coffee or visit a bookstore or something. Unless that's also not a thing anymore?
Anyway, I don't necessarily have a firm conclusion to present, other than that that people are talking about it. @Southkraut gave me a bit of pushback for writing on screens in my daughter's presence, which I felt a bit bad about, but also not. I do agree with Zvi and Scott that it's probably bad if Everything is Childcare, and parents aren't allowed to read an article and post about it because the children might be infected by the proximity to a screen. (The children are painting. They have used their agency to decide that they want to paint, asked for the paints and supplies they need, and the older one has made a little notebook full of concept sketches)
Gaashk
9d ago
I have a friend who's an apprentice electrician, but he already has a bachelors from a good college and is happy to be taking trigonometry again, so it's more of a "same academic skills, better personal fit" when compared with white collar positions.
Gaashk
25d ago
The first fear is having a child who is not, ah, as fortunate as the preceding three.
I was worried about that with my third as well, since I was around some of the kids who had lost the genetic lottery, and it really sucks. I think the odds of having an unbearably bad condition that isn't detected in early scans, and isn't caused by bad behavior on the mother's part is pretty low, though. (I did not personally get the tests done other than ultrasounds). I'm going on a road trip this week on a busy freeway, which is also not risk free, there are plenty of somewhat small risks that are worth taking.
I don't think I'll have a fourth child, especially since I'm closer to 40. My pregnancies were pretty easy, I was eight months pregnant, starting long road trips in the middle of the night and carrying around my toddler in the summer heat. The births were basically alright. It's both age and finances that would prevent me from having another. We need to be able to both work sooner rather than later, and get our finances in order, our current situation isn't long term sustainable even without an additional car payment for an expanded vehicle.
Gaashk
11d ago
Yeah, multiple people going no contact is very weird, even by friend in a cult standards. Perhaps they tried declaring "this seems like a cult," and everyone's feelings were hurt or something?
Gaashk
12d ago
I don't necessarily have any specific suggestions.
If the teen needs to leave the culty environment sooner rather than later, a lot of the other options are also not great, especially if she doesn't have very strong adult skills and is not yet at least 16.
Perhaps it will become more obvious what's going on after visiting the workshop?
Gaashk
13d ago
I truly truly do not understand why these people don't just go be Catholic.
You actually don't?
I did briefly consider becoming Catholic, went to Mass for a while, went to some events read a lot, and so on, so I'll bite.
The face of Catholicism probably varies pretty widely by region, some of the churches I visited included:
- Pretty oldish church with a nice facade where they were strumming guitars and talking about the evils of abortion. Nothing wrong with it, necessarily, sure. But not attractive.
- San Xavier. Went there for a candlelight concert with my athiest grandmother. Stunning! Went there for Holy Week mass with a friend, guitars, roaming dogs, Spanish. Fine, sure, they can do what they want.
- "Theology on tap" conversation and social time with a priest. Nice, I liked it.
- Latin weekday Mass at a famous and beautiful church. Was in Latin. Was read. It's what's on the label, I can't judge.
- Chimayo. Love Chimayo! Will return. I probably have some blessed sand somewhere.
- Lived down the street from a convent, and would walk there for prayers. It was lovely.
- Worked at a Catholic school. It was fine, though their senior year retreat was kind of weird and seemed to be fostering sleep deprivation on purpose.
These are all reasons to hang out with Catholics and visit historic missions, which I certainly still do. I would consider sending my kids to Catholic school (my husband did).
None of them are reasons to actually become Catholic if you don't believe its teachings, which is very, very common. I don't like the rosary, but if I did I wouldn't let not being Catholic stop me from saying it.
Gaashk
6d ago
I figured people were mostly driving to their friend's house, or a bar (or other location, such as fishing), drinking there, and driving home sooner than is a good idea. I've never actually heard of an American drinking in the car. There are lots of signs at parks about not bringing glass bottles, but I don't think I even disapprove of them buying a pack of cold beers, driving to a park, drinking it with their friends, then driving home -- just that they shouldn't be drinking the whole pack by themselves. Authorities clearly don't care about it, since they allow bars to serve not only beer, but hard liquor, in places that clearly need to be driven to, full of people who very obviously drove by themselves, and are not carpooling with a designated driver (nor is there public transport available).
Gaashk
1mo ago
The whole thing seems very weird, probably fake, and not primarily about "agency." What kind of weather situation were they in where he was actually cold, not just making idle chatter, and a "nice scarf" was going to fix that? And then he just went around wearing some random woman's scarf the rest of the evening? It sounds funny, I guess they could have a good laugh over it? Definitely manic pixie dream girl vibes.
But, also, I've been confused about how "agency" is being used lately. Assertiveness? Willingness to take action? It seems kind of new to hear that discussed in terms of agency, but seems to have become a thing lately.
Gaashk
14d ago
Because if half the country wants them here, and can leverage the courts to ensure free education and healthcare, then they will. The US system allows cultural trench warfare, the current term of art appears to be "No Kings."
Gaashk
12d ago
Yeah, most of the married people I know met their husband in a fairly small cohorts, such as a church or volunteer group (not rotating volunteers, a specific stable cohort), where that sort of thing is more likely to work out, and both parties will experience negative repercussions if they act badly.
As far as the homeschool prom goes, before making any galaxy brained pronouncements about the sexes, one might want to enquire: have they taught the kids to dance? Did they teach them dances that are compatible with the songs they are playing? Do the boys know how to play the role of lead in a partner dance?
One prom I witnessed as chaperone, many of the kids had learned folklorico as kids, and maybe line dancing or something, but the DJ was mostly playing R&B. So they mostly didn't dance, or very badly, or by themselves, until some Mexican folk came on every great once in a while, and then they danced.
Once, I went to a Baptist ball for college students. They had three practice sessions before hand, where they taught the dances and organized the pairings if necessary, since everyone was expected to learn and dance every dance. It was polkas and waltzes and such. They were very explicit that the men were expected to dance at least half the time. Most people danced.
Another dance I went to was Greek Orthodox, with an emphasis on the Greek. They were circle dances, and the priest's wife taught them for a couple of weeks before hand at coffee hour. Everyone danced.
There was a quirky Alaskan group I knew that all sang and played music, and liked to dance things like the Virginia Reel. It was very clear that no one was making any kind of long lasting commitment by asking for a dance, and that the lame thing was to stand around while a girl looked around hopefully. Another Alaskan group I knew decided to play rap music at their school dances, but actually taught the kids fan dances to accompany a drum circle. They did not dance at the school dances -- it's really very difficult to dance to rap without looking a fool, and requires a high skill level.
In general, most people will dance the two or three folk dances they know and are comfortable with, and will not dance the ones they don't know, or especially lead when they don't know what they're doing.
The DJ is largely to blame in playing music intended for couples dancing when the kids were clearly not comfortable with that.
It probably is related to the larger social scene, where it's unclear how someone should go about asking for a date -- that the social script has become largely illegible.
Gaashk
9d ago
I hadn't heard that, but unless the baby is born in late spring or summer, a woman in America is expected to return to work within three months of giving birth. If she breaks her contract by resigning mid year, that isn't great for her record, though teaching tends towards chronic shortage, so she's likely to find another job sometime anyway.
Gaashk
7d ago
Thanks for the update! I don't necessarily have anything useful to say about it, other than that it does, indeed, sound cultish and destructive.
Gaashk
13d ago
They can certainly start exploring it. But that's different from "just go be Catholic." They can, of course, go to Catholic services and festivals, read Catholic books, talk to people, attend classes, and so on without believing. In historically Catholic regions they very often do, in fact.
Gaashk
13d ago
Haha, I'm now married with children. Because he kept asking me out, more than once, to interesting places, even though I turned down the initial invitation and even gift.
Gaashk
13d ago
We had a baby in a 500 sq ft apartment, didn't want to continue that way, threw out and gave away a bunch of our possessions, and moved across the country in a single vehicle to a place where we could afford a 2400 sq ft house on one income for five years (though we're going to have to make some changes soon). This is fine, because we aren't working white collar finance jobs that require a city. Also, we like that kind of thing. There are real industries as well, several of the fathers in my homeschool group growing up worked for the missile company, for instance.
Inconveniently, trading kids is just not a thing in American culture, even church culture, even with cousins (or when I was a kid, actually. My introverted parents were responsible for all childcare despite living in the same area as grandparents and siblings). If the kids are invited to something, I have to stay there and supervise them the entire time, and do nothing else. Everything is Childcare, including church, and hanging out with mother friends, and going out to restaurants. C'est la vie.
Gaashk
10d ago
Lol.
The highlight of my social life was going to people's houses for Bible studies where they recounted their dreams, a funeral wake, and "Slavicing" (visiting everyone's houses for Russian Christmas, where people exchange silverware and eat moose stew and Crisco with berries).
Inconveniently, babies are one of the big things that leads women to not want sex over long periods of time.
Oxytocin comes up medically in the context of childbirth and lactation, and is heavily involved in breast feeding. So, if you stimulate a breast feeding mother's nipples, her body will produce oxytocin... and milk. She will likely then think of the baby. Doctors give oxytocin during delivery to make contractions stronger (or, if they only need them a bit stronger, can use a breast pump).
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