gorge
11mo ago
Maybe you and them are right, that family is something "higher" that makes everything else seem small in comparison. But from my perspective, it's more like all of my friends are being brainwashed by a cult that forces them to drop connections to anyone outside the cult. They can now only socialize in approved "play dates" with other parents of children the exact same age as their own. And that's, like, 2 hours a week. Most of their time is spent in "family time" which I strongly suspect is just them sitting on the couch watching inane g-rated cartoons with the kids.
I think it's a combination of things:
- the fun things we did in our 20s have gotten old and seem much less appealing or interesting once we are older and have kids.
- there is new friction in organizing get-togethers because you must always check with your spouse to make sure they can handle pick-up from childcare and watching the kids for the evening
- most modern women seem to give their husbands small guilt-trips every time they want to take a night out. This adds friction. Worse, if the kids end up being rotten that night and wifey is stressed out, then the husband comes home to a very cranky wife and a big guilt trip. Fear of this adds even more friction.
- Home entertainment has become much better. I can have more interesting conversations over the internet than I can have with most of my neighbors. The insights and jokes about the local sportsball team I get from listening to podcasts as I do the dishes are actually better than the jokes and insights I get from friends and neighbors at the bar.
- All of these are multiplicative -- if you want to meet-up with three other guys they are all facing these same frictions and so you end up with long, multi-day text threads just to get dinner or something.
gorge
11mo ago
When mothers express woe, it is difficult to discern ...
- what is just complain-bragging and they actually do really enjoy being mothers
- what is real pain, but not inherent to motherhood, but rather a result of modern parents and especially mothers being terrible at discipline.
- what is real pain and unavoidable even with better parenting know-how
gorge
11mo ago
It's blatantly obvious that parenting is full of unpleasantness,
A lot of parenting issues that look very unpleasant from the outside are far more rewarding when actually experienced as the parent, because it is your child. Even holding my two-year old in my arms while he throws a tantrum is rewarding for me, even if unpleasant to the person passing me in the store.
gorge
11mo ago
The author, a woman, makes a reasonably well-articulated case about why women don’t want to have babies, and it amounts to “pregnancy and childbirth are just an absolutely brutal experience for most women, and it’s totally natural and inevitable that they should wish to avoid going through it.”
This is true and definitely under-discussed by both men and women. Men don't appreciate it, and women prefer to blame external factors (lack of male support, housing prices, etc.) then admit that they simply don't want to endure the same struggle their female ancestors endured.
But -- this explanation has its limits. Modern women endure many painful undertakings at a high-rate, from training for marathons, to grinding for grades, to getting ACL tears from competitive sports, to climbing the corporate ladder, to pulling all-nighters for law school, etc, and they do this because they are told this is what good girls do and this is what gives them status. Even something like, "travel" is often unpleasant but considered worthwhile because of the benefits of the experience.
We shouldn't underestimate just how much modern schooling and culture is careerist. From the moment girls enter kindergarten its, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" Thus they are encouraged to struggle for the status of career, whereas motherhood is treated as an optional hobby. If treated as an optional hobby, and not a worthy struggle that is an essential part of a life well-lived, then of course many women are going to pass. Not going to college is an unthinkable failure -- but not becoming a mother is a "choice" that must be respected and no one has the right to pressure or shame women about this very personal choice.
His ability to hang out with us, to do any activity or attend any venue that is not friendly to small children, is massively constrained by access to childcare.
Perhaps this is cope on my part, as I have kids and don't get out much any more -- but kids also completely reset what one thinks as important. Much of the "going out" I did in my 20s, from trivia nights at the pub to going to the movies to trying out the new exotic restaurant now seems frivolous and uninteresting. At a deeper level, a lot of young adult socialization is about forming networks that allow us to access status and ultimately money and sex. Having reached a stable level of both, socialization becomes a lot less interesting, and most of my socialization is now with fellow parents, since we have more common goals.
It's also nigh impossible to convey the wonderful parts of being a parent to a non-parent. Think of how much people used to look forward to the new Pixar movie. Now imagine having the cutest thing imaginable -- the thing that the cute character in the movie is only a pale imitation of -- and this cute creature is doing new and interesting things in your own home every single night. Why go "out"?
His oldest daughter is at an age where she constantly demands and monopolizes attention, such that any gathering which includes her inevitably requires at least one person to be fully attentive to entertaining and indulging her, lest she become a terror.
Part of the problem here is that modern parents absolutely suck at discipline. Most parents never learn or never feel empowered to tell their kid "Go play by yourself and if you interrupt me or pester me you will get a punishment." Modern parents are grudgingly allowed to punish kids for blatant infractions like hitting or stealing. But it has become unthinkable to punish kids for pestering or interrupting. This really needs to change. With proper discipline, most four year olds are perfectly capable of playing by themselves and not interrupting for an hour.
I don’t know, but honestly I just don’t see a viable path forward for forcing a critical mass of women to do something that’s manifestly going to wreck the lives of so many of them.
Well certainly in the confines of existing American democratic politics, no, nothing can be done. But the existing political situation is not long-term stable, and under a new paradigm many things could be possible. The question is whether returning to above replacement fertility is a regime-complete problem -- or a civilization-complete problem.
From the linked substack:
women did not have the information and/or power to do anything about it. Now they do, so that’s that...So right-leaning men should stop being in denial about this fact, and more specifically, about the source of their feelings....What you do with that information is another question, but please at least admit that is is a biologically wired-in divergence, and not something that's strange or confusing or a symptom of cultural malaise. It's merely exactly what we should expect to see, even if one was an alien who knew nothing whatsoever about humans other than how their reproduction works....This will happen in every culture and community where women have access to facts, and enough options and agency to make decisions about their own lives. All over the world. Yes, even the mormons. So stop trying to find a magical cultural or memetic solution. There isn’t one.
This is an interesting instance of "woke more correct" or of horse-shoe theory. She is making the same argument that ultra-rightist Dread Jim makes -- women are not hard-wired to preserve civilization or to choose reproduction. Every historical instance of women's liberation has led to cratering fertility and the destruction of that society. Therefore the rightist must go all the way: either women's emancipation gets rolled back or Western civilization will die.
More from the substack
I’ve set forth below the sex-based risks and costs that are fairly standard, and relative risk level. I haven’t included the rare, freakish things that happen to some women, nor all the risks. ...I did not intentionally try to get this to come out at a million dollars. I was just putting in guesstimates about what I thought was a reasonable amount an average man would need to be paid to accept the risks, and only tallied it up after the fact.
One million dollars? Your offer is acceptable.
gorge
11mo ago
It's kind of sad because it means I can't get any of the sacraments, but what can you do.
Have you inquired into a radical sanation?
A lot of people online will say stuff like "you don't have a valid marriage so leave",
That kind of rules-lawyering makes me furious. This shows the downside about having a lot of explicit rules, people think that the explicit rules in canon law or the catechism matter more than basic moral law of keeping sacred vows.
gorge
11mo ago
He did a podcast interview with Adin Ross, but that was a friendly interview. So that makes two, one friendly, one tough. But more importantly, Trump has also been campaigning a long time as being top of the ticket, and has done many interviews, both hostile and friendly. Kamala has an obligation to now speak for herself and represent herself to the American public, now that she is not under the obligation of supporting Biden.
Also, has far as I can tell, Kamala has never done a tough or hostile interview during her entire time running for VP, as VP, or running for president. (If you can find an example, I'd like to see it.)
Isn't this the status quo? Does any school's sex ed actually teach that birth control is 100%? I'd bet it's a very small percentage of women who are getting abortions who are educatable but uneducated about birth control.
The basic problem is that sex is fun, and not only are all forms of birth control less than 100% effective, all forms have significant downsides. Also couples in a sexual relationship want different things, or feel very different in the moment than a few weeks later when a pregnancy test has returned positive and their life has changed forever.
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