In the long list of things being exposed in the Chinese virus crisis, like our cultic devotion to the fake “free market” system, is the absolutely wretched state of “parenting” in America. With schools and day care centers (but I repeat myself) shutting down, far too many parents are horrified at the idea of their children being home. What could be worse than parents confined to their home with their own children?!
I am a little snarky about this. We have 8 children so for the better part of a quarter of a century we have had at least one kid at home. Since we homeschool, for many years we had 8 children at home, all day, every day. Sure it can be trying at times but they are our children and we have this weird notion that they are our responsibility and we actually kind of like having them around. Weird, I know.
Young parents in America are trained that the first thing they should do when finding out the mom-to-be is pregnant is to start thinking about who can care for their baby after their paid leave ends. I have watched my wife with our newborns eight times and I can’t imagine the anguish and guilt of a young mom handing off her 8-12 week old infant to someone else to care for during the day.
People with a modicum of common sense already know that mothers are happiest at home with their kids. Sure they have been ruthlessly conditioned to say the opposite and yammer incessantly about how fulfilling their “career” is, even when that career is some meaningless bureaucratic paper-pushing job. Women don’t really think it is somehow noble to be a wage-slave, working your ass off at some dumb job in order to afford to pay for daycare for your kids. I often use them as an example but again it is true that Amish women absolutely love having their kids at home. Of course they sometimes have bad days and kids can be naughty. Unattended little Amish boys turn feral in a hurry and cause mischief and mayhem but boys always did that before we started to drug them, tranquilize them with entertainment and surround them with feminine authority figures all day.
I hope the Zman is right in his post Springtime In The Pandemic. Maybe women will rediscover the ancient love of hearth and home that is natural in most women. He writes:
Something I thought about as I was leaving is that suddenly the status hierarchy for women has changed. The mom I was chatting with was feeling really good about taking control of her household. Suddenly, the women taking care of their kids, taking over their schooling and being a stabilizing force are cool. Those career women sheltering in place with their box wine and social media account can no longer kid themselves about their real status in society.
There’s been a lot of wishful thinking about a baby boom coming from this lock-down, but what may follow is a marriage boom. Millions of single women now have no reason to exist, because they are stuck at home. They can’t cause drama at work and they can’t cruise the bars with their friends. Meanwhile, the women they made sport of at the office are having the time of her life at home with the family. There’s some chance this panic opens some pretty young eyes to the reality of their existence.
That is just excellent. There is nothing more useless to the welfare of humanity than an early 30s single woman with three cats, hopping from one empty sexual relationship to the next, and working in a cubicle doing nothing worthwhile. These women get old, hit menopause and realize that they will never have children. No one to read to or cuddle to sleep. No one will visit them as they grow feeble and old in some nursing home being abused by immigrant workers who hate them. Little wonder they turn into shrill 40-50 year old harpies who hoarsely screech at everyone and anyone in impotent rage at their wasted lives.
So yeah, maybe women being home with their kids and families discovering what we discovered a long time ago, that you can make some financial sacrifices to have a parent stay home with your kids, will happen and it will lead to a great re-ordering of our society. We don’t need any more women doing menial office work in America but we have a desperate need for moms caring for their own kids.
Maybe a silver lining to an otherwise grim situation?
Well, with "non-essential" services being discontinued in a service economy… many of those jobs probably aren't coming back on the other side. I suspect the single girls are still going to keep beating the single boys out for the jobs that do come back, the girls are easier to manage.
Maybe there's a silver lining here, but it could be a ways out on the other side.
I have generally found boys to be way easier to manage, the female employees (and bosses) I have death with are usually a volatile emotional mess on the good days.
Dealt not death although in some cases….
Well, are we talking about socially female boys or socially male boys on their way to becoming men? There's reasons most commercially raised herds are females and steers rather than something at all close to a 50/50 split between cows and bulls.
Somehow, I think its going to take more than a six month period of isolation and boredom to turn modern Superchicks into June Cleaver. Sounds great, but young females have it too damned good today to be willing to give anything back. Yeah, they lead largely empty, meaningless lives, but they fail to see that what is lacking most is belonging in a traditional relationship and finding fulfillment in the traditional roles of wife and mother. Traditions exist for a reason, but the brainwashing on their vulnerable, gullible minds has convinced them of the exact opposite.
I have not known too many young women to be sufficiently introspective that they would take a hard look at their own lives and conclude that perhaps they might have made better choices. Lord knows my daughters-in-law never entertain any such notions. Why should they, when they have the men in their lives to blame for everything that has ever not gone their way?
Sad to say, but modern women remind me of another demographic that can famously do no wrong, and from whom I believe they have taken a lot of their cues. I work for an enormous defense contractor that is committed (as are they all) to diversity, inclusion and the goal of a 50% female workforce. It is virtually impossible for a woman to be fired, demoted or even censured at the job for anything she feels like doing at any moment she feels like doing it. So many of my "fellow" engineers are foul-mouthed 20- and 30-something "girls", drunk on their own power and only too willing to flaunt it. And just like their 13 year old namesakes, the only thing these "girls" manage to engineer is drama.