Good Parenting

Bob recently ran across an article by Janice Shaw Crouse called, The child bride: Assaulting the innocent written by a feminist misandrist and published on a right wing political newsletter. She blames leftist feminists while supporting the feminist agenda of opposition to marriage. Overall her article is confused about supporting marriage and family as the religious right usually does, while at the same time opposing marriage of marriageable young women as feminists always do. The author defines "child bride" as women under 18, a totally arbitrary and completely political mark. All feminists share her misandry. Dr. Laura ranted recently on her radio talk show to a 17 year old woman (already the mother of a child who had been adopted) who wanted to marry a soldier. Dr. Laura advised the young woman to avoid all men for another 5 years, until she would be 23 years old. Dr. Laura gave as a reason the fact that young women are capable of forming deep emotional bonds with men, an ability that slowly goes away and is less strong by the mid 20s. HELLO? I though that forming a deep and life long emotional bond was supposed to be an important part of marriage. When marriage is postponed until older, more "educated" women no longer are able form strong emotional bonds. They tend to divorce in much higher numbers. Marriage is then a convenience, not a life bond. Serial monogamy is now the standard in America.

Ms. Crouse points to Britney Spears as an example of "child brides" in America. She uses very questionable data from impoverished tribal countries to claim that marriage of young women causes diseases, and that birthing children causes death. Like all feminists she works hard to oppose marriage by encouraging postponement for longer and longer times. Feminists hate families and marriage. Lesbianism is the mythology of feminists of left or right politics. Marriage is "sleeping with the enemy." They begin by forcing young women to postpone marriage in favor of "education" until they are no longer as able to form deep emotional bonds with a man, and until their primary baby making years are declining. Widely published recent studies show that female fertility is at its maximum from about age 14 to age 26. After age 26, for an average woman, her fertility will decline, and it will decline rapidly after age 30. Young women are told by feminists, taught by feminist schoolmarms, and encouraged by feminist trained parents, to eschew marriage in favor of continued years in school and college, then to pursue a career. Year after year her family years go by, her chances for a loving marriage fade. She is trained in anti-men hate, full of "rights" and "empowered" and no longer able to form deep emotional bonds. As a marriage prospect she is strictly second rate. And that is assuming that she doesn't already have a bastard or two, like so many of her feminist sisters.

Young women aren't being allowed to marry, but many of them are bearing their children anyway. Bastards amount to about 40% of the children in the United States, and about 75% of the children of minority and low income families. Feminists can't fool mother nature entirely. Many young women get pregnant and bear children because their bodies know that children are what women are about. All the feminist misandry and anti-marriage propaganda can't fool mother nature. Mother nature gets young women pregnant and creates children whether they have formed a good family or not. The current situation in the US with 40% bastards and the rest from divorced families is a social disaster of monumental proportions.

The trouble is that most people believe the crap that misandrist feminists like Janice Shaw Crouse constantly spew. It’s a restatement of what they have been told for years so it must be right, right? Wrong! To figure out what is right we have to look at the basic assumptions. The lies we have all been taught are in the assumptions behind the lies.

First, we need to look at the purpose and meaning of marriage. In these days when we are told that "gay marriage" is "equal rights" and "domestic partners" are equal to marriage we badly need to remember the purpose and meaning of marriage. Marriage is the social and biological union that creates children and forms a family to raise them. Marriage is about young women forming deep emotional bonds with a man to make a life long family. Its about making babies during the woman's primary baby making years, years when her ability to form an emotional bond is still strong. Marriage is not, as lesbian feminists claim, a bunch of government rights that two perverts are not getting. Marriage is about making a family with children.

Second, we need to revisit the purpose and obligations of parents. Janice Shaw Crouse tells us that young brides suffer, "an abrupt end to childhood," as if that is a serious harm. The opposite is true. The mission of every child is to grow up and become an adult, to take a place with other adults of his or her community. The job of all parents is to help their child to grow up and become an adult as rapidly and as well as possible. Confining children into a prolonged state of childhood is the opposite of being a good parent. Preventing a child from growing into adulthood is harming the child by stopping his or her normal progress. Many philosophers such as Alan W. Watts in Does it Matter point out that confining children for longer and longer time in a state of suspended animation called "adolescence" is seriously wrong. A parent's first duty is to encourage and assist his son or daughter to grow up as easily and as quickly as possible. That is the job and responsibility of parents and of children.

Third, we need to look at the fundamental human need of young women to be making babies and getting on with their lives. Women will make babies whether they are "allowed" to or not. Millions of bastards now growing up in America should be proof for any doubter. The religious right in America advocates "abstinence" until marriage, but then like Janice Shaw Crouse they deny the marriage that is the foundation of that life. The young woman who phoned Dr. Laura had already made one bastard, and still Dr. Laura advised her against forming a loving family. The left advocates free sex and abortions for the babies, but that is a crime against nature on several levels. In real life, young women badly need to be getting married before making their children. We need to do it for the women and for the children. Millions of bastards should have decent families.

Does marriage during her primary baby making years doom a woman to a life of poverty and no education? Not hardly. A woman who makes her babies when her body is ready, about age 16 to 20, will have grown children by her 30s. She will have another several decades to get a Ph.D. if she likes, or a law career, or become a professional. But if she waits until she's 30 something to panic and look for a husband for herself and her bastard she is in for a life of disappointment. Parents need to help their daughters to have a good life as a mother with grandchildren. Your daughter can have it all but she has to do it in the order that nature gives her. A daughter needs to grow up and get married while she is still able to form deep emotional bonds with her husband. She needs a family in which to bear her children that she will bear whether she is married or not. A good father will help to find an older man for her, perhaps someone 10 years older who is old enough to be able to provide for his young bride and his family. That is how good parents have provided for their children since the dawn of humanity, until feminism. That is how good parents need to provide for their daughters today.