Two Parent Privilege

[prisonchaplain]

I toyed with starting this topic in current events but realized that family is a central gospel theme. LDS families are forever. Further, I recall as a young teenager, watching the film (just dated myself, didn't I?) series: Focus on the Family.  Google the phrase "two parent privilege," and you will find that several articles pop up. Rather than admitting that our faith is right--that intact families provide the best upbringing, modern culture is framing this as privilege. The conservative backlash is that every child has a right to a two-parent home. It's not privilege--it's God's intended order. :::Sigh:::  Here we are! How do we respond when society admits we're right and then wants to punish our children for us being so?

[mordorbund]

38 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

The conservative backlash is that every child has a right to a two-parent home.

You forgot to include quotation marks.

”Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.”

This backlash comes with prophetic warning:

Quote

Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.

We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.

 

[mordorbund]

39 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

:::Sigh:::  Here we are! How do we respond when society admits we're right and then wants to punish our children for us being so?

And then there’s this 

[Ironhold]

On 9/25/2023 at 12:10 PM, prisonchaplain said:

I toyed with starting this topic in current events but realized that family is a central gospel theme. LDS families are forever. Further, I recall as a young teenager, watching the film (just dated myself, didn't I?) series: Focus on the Family.  Google the phrase "two parent privilege," and you will find that several articles pop up. Rather than admitting that our faith is right--that intact families provide the best upbringing, modern culture is framing this as privilege. The conservative backlash is that every child has a right to a two-parent home. It's not privilege--it's God's intended order. :::Sigh:::  Here we are! How do we respond when society admits we're right and then wants to punish our children for us being so?

It's not just conservatives. 

One of the syndicated radio shows I listen to is "The House of Hair With Dee Snider", a 2 - 3 hour (there's two versions) weekly syndicated number in which musician Dee Snider looks back at classic rock and metal bands from the 1960s - 1990s. 

On the episode that aired the weekend of 17 September 2023 (that is, two weeks ago as I type this), he got a request in from someone who was hoping that the song in question would save his relationship. The requester and his girlfriend were starting to drift apart despite having a child on the way, and the requester was wanting to signal that he was willing to put in the effort. 

Cue Dee, who is pretty open about being left-wing at times, going on a monologue about how children need both parents and ultimately encouraging the couple to work it out. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Ironhold

[NeuroTypical]

I've been hanging out with woke millennials at work for a while now.  They absolutely speak a separate dialect of English.  I've learned it, and consider myself fluent in it now.

The dialect is at war with itself in some aspects.  The woke activist notion of 'privilege' (especially 'white privilege' or 'male privilege') sort of crashes into a more woke educated notion of 'headwinds and tailwinds'.   The woke educated notion acknowledges that every individual has various forces in their lives, some of which make life easier, some of which make life harder. 

Something I've been trying to do on occasion with these folks, is talk about how much privilege rocks.  The correct activist take on things shouldn't be to destroy privilege for those that have it, but find ways to expand privilege so everyone has equal access to it.  

I'm mostly on board with equality of opportunity.  Our institutions should provide everyone the same chance in life.   Where the woke fall down, is they've never considered how horrible "equality of outcome" measures can turn out. 

[Traveler]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

I've been hanging out with woke millennials at work for a while now.  They absolutely speak a separate dialect of English.  I've learned it, and consider myself fluent in it now.

The dialect is at war with itself in some aspects.  The woke activist notion of 'privilege' (especially 'white privilege' or 'male privilege') sort of crashes into a more woke educated notion of 'headwinds and tailwinds'.   The woke educated notion acknowledges that every individual has various forces in their lives, some of which make life easier, some of which make life harder. 

Something I've been trying to do on occasion with these folks, is talk about how much privilege rocks.  The correct activist take on things shouldn't be to destroy privilege for those that have it, but find ways to expand privilege so everyone has equal access to it.  

I'm mostly on board with equality of opportunity.  Our institutions should provide everyone the same chance in life.   Where the woke fall down, is they've never considered how horrible "equality of outcome" measures can turn out. 

Do your woke millennials consider having privileges a good thing or a bad thing?

 

The Traveler

[Just_A_Guy]

9 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

How do we respond when society admits we're right and then wants to punish our children for us being so?

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  Marry yourself another wife, and your kids won’t be in a two-parent family anymore.  

[mordorbund]

@prisonchaplain When gay marriage was in the courts, the Church of Jesus Christ filed an amicus with the Family Proclamation to show our interest in the decision. I know Assemblies of God has official faith statements, do you have one on the family? Or is there a body of statements from National Councils on the topic?

[NeuroTypical]

15 hours ago, Traveler said:

Do your woke millennials consider having privileges a good thing or a bad thing?

It's interesting.  I know maybe 7-8 of them well enough.  The more activist "we've got to dismantle racist institutions and replace capitalism" ones haven't said it out loud, but there's enough body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and word choice to indicate they resent privilege and see it as part of the problem.   The progressive millennials who are not so activist-minded seem understand that everyone has 'headwinds and tailwinds'.  Both groups are all about doing things to help 'historically marginalized communities', but the first group sees opinionated white males in a more hostile light than the second group. 

It's interesting to note that on a couple occasions they have encountered a 'hostile right winger challenging them via the comments section' (for lack of a better description) . They are all quite quick to urge me to go interact with the person, and they seem very happy when I do so.  Even though all I've done is explain some of their woke beliefs and motivations, and maybe provide a link or two to a relevant news story on the topic.   

[Traveler]

42 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

It's interesting.  I know maybe 7-8 of them well enough.  The more activist "we've got to dismantle racist institutions and replace capitalism" ones haven't said it out loud, but there's enough body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and word choice to indicate they resent privilege and see it as part of the problem.   The progressive millennials who are not so activist-minded seem understand that everyone has 'headwinds and tailwinds'.  Both groups are all about doing things to help 'historically marginalized communities', but the first group sees opinionated white males in a more hostile light than the second group. 

It's interesting to note that on a couple occasions they have encountered a 'hostile right winger challenging them via the comments section' (for lack of a better description) . They are all quite quick to urge me to go interact with the person, and they seem very happy when I do so.  Even though all I've done is explain some of their woke beliefs and motivations, and maybe provide a link or two to a relevant news story on the topic.   

I assume that any advantage that one demographic has over another – by definition, such an advantage is therefore a privilege?  Since blacks have an advantage (privilege) over whites (and Asians) in sports – we should therefore do away with all sports especially where blacks have the advantage? 

This would mean that anyone that participates in or watches sports is a racist.

 

The Traveler

[Carborendum]

Two-parent certainly is a privilege that everyone should and can have access to. 

When we recognize that this is something that is lacking in many people's lives, we can do one of two things:

• Do everything we can to allow all children that same privilege.
• Do everything we can to condemn any children who have that privilege at all.

One of these is a reasonable and celestial choice.  The other is... not...

 

[prisonchaplain]

14 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  Marry yourself another wife, and your kids won’t be in a two-parent family anymore.  

Which is more difficult an Evangelical or someone who converts to a polygamous LDS off-shoot? 😉

[prisonchaplain]

3 hours ago, mordorbund said:

@prisonchaplain When gay marriage was in the courts, the Church of Jesus Christ filed an amicus with the Family Proclamation to show our interest in the decision. I know Assemblies of God has official faith statements, do you have one on the family? Or is there a body of statements from National Councils on the topic?

Not exactly. However, we have two papers that cover most of the issues: one on sexuality (homosexuality, gender identity, purity, etc.) and another on domestic violence. You may be aware that most Evangelicals (including AoG) believe that in the life to come we will love all of our brothers and sisters more than we currently love our family members but that we will not marry or give in marriage.

[prisonchaplain]

On the political side (and this issue is older than I am), we could do away with the marriage penalty. 

[NeuroTypical]

3 hours ago, Traveler said:

I assume that any advantage that one demographic has over another – by definition, such an advantage is therefore a privilege?  Since blacks have an advantage (privilege) over whites (and Asians) in sports – we should therefore do away with all sports especially where blacks have the advantage? 

This would mean that anyone that participates in or watches sports is a racist.

If you are looking for logical or intellectual consistency with the woke activist folks, you will go away disappointed. They also speak out against the concepts of "truth" and "right or wrong".  In their minds, such concepts are little more than control mechanisms used by the racist patriarchy to preserve it's power base.  

One of their sets of scripture is Kendi's "How to be an Anti-racist" book.  One of his founding principles is that absolutely everything you do is either racist or not racist.  There is no middle ground.  I told them I played catch with my dog the other day, and asked them if doing so meant that I was being racist, because I was not being antiracist.  It took them a few moments of fumbling around to answer the question with a half-hearted 'no, but that's not what he meant, and the important thing to remember is...'

 

[Backroads]

On 9/25/2023 at 3:13 PM, Ironhold said:

It's not just conservatives. 

One of the syndicated radio shows I listen to is "The House of Hair With Dee Snider", a 2 - 3 episode (there's two versions) weekly syndicated number in which musician Dee Snider looks back at classic rock and metal bands from the 1960s - 1990s. 

On the episode that aired the weekend of 17 September 2023 (that is, two weeks ago as I type this), he got a request in from someone who was hoping that the song in question would save his relationship. The requester and his girlfriend were starting to drift apart despite having a child on the way, and the requester was wanting to signal that he was willing to put in the effort. 

Cue Dee, who is pretty open about being left-wing at times, going on a monologue about how children need both parents and ultimately encouraging the couple to work it out. 

I've yet to meet anyone in real life or even on most of the internet who is truly against the two-parent home and a stable family.

I think where the generalized left wing is struggling here is trying to defend the situations without two-parents. Some years ago I read an article about a study where they were trying to prove that single mothers are raising boys than married mothers are. Apparently some journalist dared to ask the person over the study about her happy stable marriage to her children's father and it didn't go over very well.

I think people want the single parent to be "just as good". And I know some excellent single parents who give it their all and do a fine job. 

I just don't think that cry needs to be louder than "two-parent families are a good norm and goal". 

[Carborendum]

On 9/26/2023 at 4:25 PM, Backroads said:

I've yet to meet anyone in real life or even on most of the internet who is truly against the two-parent home and a stable family.

I think where the generalized left wing is struggling here is trying to defend the situations without two-parents. Some years ago I read an article about a study where they were trying to prove that single mothers are raising boys than married mothers are. Apparently some journalist dared to ask the person over the study about her happy stable marriage to her children's father and it didn't go over very well.

I think people want the single parent to be "just as good". And I know some excellent single parents who give it their all and do a fine job. 

I just don't think that cry needs to be louder than "two-parent families are a good norm and goal". 

The idea is that the "ideal" would be to have children raised in a stable two-parent home.  Where that isn't possible, we do the best we can.  That is a simple enough position.  And I don't see any reason why some people would object to it.

It would be incorrect to say that people are saying "It is less desireable to have a stable two-parent home over a single parent home."  I've never heard anyone say that.

What I have heard people in real life say is, "You need to keep your stable two-parent home away from my family because it is making my children feel inferior.  And that is all your fault for lording it over us.  You should be ashamed of your two-parent home."

While people haven't used these precise words, that is the underlying message that I have heard IRL.

[NeuroTypical]

On 9/26/2023 at 3:25 PM, Backroads said:

I've yet to meet anyone in real life or even on most of the internet who is truly against the two-parent home and a stable family.

The black lives matter organization had, in it's 'about' section, a blurb about this.  I forget how it was worded, but it was basically "we need to reorganize government and society to properly support the other options besides the nuclear two parent family structure pushed by patriarchichal white-supremacy colonizers and racist institutions."

That particular blurb disappeared somewhere in 2020 as the whole world was stuck at home watching the riots and desperate to send money to whoever would make things better. 

[LDSGator]

On 9/26/2023 at 5:25 PM, Backroads said:

I've yet to meet anyone in real life or even on most of the internet who is truly against the two-parent home and a stable family

I was once called a “right winger” because I’m generally against divorce and think kids do better with two parents. Granted it was just one time and probably 10 years ago. So it does happen. 

[Backroads]

1 minute ago, LDSGator said:

I was once called a “right winger” because I’m generally against divorce and think kids do better with two parents. Granted it was just one time and probably 10 years ago. So it does happen. 

Everyone brings up "toxic marriages" and how they're worse for the kids than if you just divorced.

But there are quite a few studies that suggest if the couple can more or less get along, the kids do it better.

[estradling75]

24 minutes ago, Backroads said:

Everyone brings up "toxic marriages" and how they're worse for the kids than if you just divorced.

But there are quite a few studies that suggest if the couple can more or less get along, the kids do it better.

I always considered that a false argument.   You got to compare best with best and worse with worse.

The best two parent home will be better then the best single parent home.

The worse two parent home will be better then the worse single parent home.

But a bad two parent home versus a really good single parent.... okay yeah the single parent probably wins that one depending on the details of how bad and how good.

 

[Backroads]

2 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

I always considered that a false argument.   You got to compare best with best and worse with worse.

The best two parent home will be better then the best single parent home.

The worse two parent home will be better then the worse single parent home.

But a bad two parent home versus a really good single parent.... okay yeah the single parent probably wins that one depending on the details of how bad and how good.

 

It's definitely all relative. But it does seem a stable two-parent home is good, even if the parents don't necessarily like each other. 

[LDSGator]

44 minutes ago, Backroads said:

Everyone brings up "toxic marriages" and how they're worse for the kids than if you just divorced.

But there are quite a few studies that suggest if the couple can more or less get along, the kids do it better.

Agree 1000%. 

[NeuroTypical]

41 minutes ago, Backroads said:

But there are quite a few studies that suggest if the couple can more or less get along, the kids do it better.

Random sources:

Melissa Kearney’s new book, “The Two-Parent Privilege" is the latest.  George Gilder wrote about the importance of the nuclear family in “Sexual Suicide” (1973) and “Men and Marriage” (1986). Charles Murray, who had touched on it in his landmark study, “Losing Ground” (1984), made similar arguments in “Coming Apart” (2012). In 1994 David Blankenhorn published “Fatherless America,” and 1996 brought David Popenoe’s “Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society.”

Other books that cover the same ground as Ms. Kearney include Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher’s “The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially”; James Q. Wilson’s “The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families”; Kay Hymowitz’s “Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age”; and Ralph Richard Banks’s “Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone.”

A forthcoming volume from University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox is called “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization.” 

 

Ya know what?  Imma cut and paste the entire article.  

Quote

 

On Marriage, an Economist Bravely States the Obvious

Melissa Kearney worried about being pigeonholed as she wrote ‘The Two-Parent Privilege.’
By 
Jason L. Riley
Sept. 26, 2023 6:04 pm ET

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

Melissa Kearney’s new book, “The Two-Parent Privilege,” is an attempt to explain the importance of marriage to her fellow liberal intellectuals. Sadly, she has her work cut out.

The author is an MIT-trained economist, and as the book jacket explains, she makes “a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable.” Her argument is solid, and she makes it using minimal academic jargon in an impressively brisk 200 pages.

I’m not sure how “provocative” it is, however. When Ms. Kearney writes that “the absence of a father from a child’s home appears to have direct effects on children’s outcomes—and not only because of the loss of parental income,” or that we need to “restore and foster a norm of two-parent homes for children,” it not only makes perfect sense to me but also sounds very familiar. Then again, I’m not the reader she’s targeting. I hardly need convincing that there are strong links between family structure, the well-being of children and outcomes later in life. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said as much in his 1965 report on the black family, and Moynihan relied on research conducted much earlier by black sociologists such as E. Franklin Frazier.

George Gilder wrote about the importance of the nuclear family in “Sexual Suicide” (1973) and “Men and Marriage” (1986). Charles Murray, who had touched on it in his landmark study, “Losing Ground” (1984), made similar arguments in “Coming Apart” (2012). In 1994 David Blankenhorn published “Fatherless America,” and 1996 brought David Popenoe’s “Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society.”

Other books that cover the same ground as Ms. Kearney include Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher’s “The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially”; James Q. Wilson’s “The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families”; Kay Hymowitz’s “Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age”; and Ralph Richard Banks’s “Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone.”

A forthcoming volume from University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox is called “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization.” Mr. Wilcox’s subtitle neatly encapsulates Ms. Kearney’s dilemma. Conservatives likely are familiar with at least a few of the aforementioned titles, yet those books in many cases have been denounced or simply ignored by the same left-wing intellectuals Ms. Kearney is trying to win over.

In a recent podcast interview with fellow economist Stephen Dubner, Ms. Kearney said that writing the book felt like taking “a big risk” professionally because her peers tend to avoid addressing the role of family structure in discussions of social inequality and look down on those who do. “My saying it’s not discussed is probably more reflective of the circles I run in, which is, you know, higher ed, academia, which of course skews liberal,” she said. “And progressive, left-leaning conversations about kids’ well-being and concerns about social mobility—in those circles, in those conversations, I often find that this topic is met with discomfort.”

The author recalled being asked by Mr. Dubner while still researching the book if she was concerned about being labeled as a social conservative if she published her findings. “I took that to heart,” Ms. Kearney said, “because I knew what you were saying, which is, really, ‘Do you worry that academics aren’t going to take you seriously if you sound socially conservative?’ ”

If Ms. Kearney can reach a readership that is lost to George Gilder or James Q. Wilson or Brad Wilcox, bully for her. The author reports that in 1960 only 5% of babies were born to unwed mothers in the U.S. In 2019 it was almost 50%. U.S. children are the most likely in the world to live with only one parent. This is an enormous problem, and there’s no such thing as too many books being written about it.

Still, it’s unfortunate that we’ve reached a point where scaredy-cat social scientists are more interested in being popular than in following the facts, weighing the evidence and reporting the findings. Worse, what keeps you in good standing in academic circles seemingly has more to do with the political correctness of your research and less to do with its rigor or usefulness.

Whether the topic is family structure, climate change or the New York Times’s “1619 Project,” the intellectual cowardice on display in recent years has been stunning. It’s clear that our intellectual class, like every other special-interest group, has its own agenda and its own blind spots. For too many academic scholars, integrity has become a secondary concern.

 

[Just_A_Guy]

49 minutes ago, Backroads said:

Everyone brings up "toxic marriages" and how they're worse for the kids than if you just divorced.

But there are quite a few studies that suggest if the couple can more or less get along, the kids do it better.

Well, and toxic marriages come from toxic people; and divorce doesn’t stop the toxicity.  To the contrary, it tends to morph the relationship from one of detente to open warfare—which doesn’t do the kids a heckuva lot of good, either.

And really, the more you think about the argument, the worse it sounds—its proponents basically justify putting kids in a hostage situation.  “I’m dissatisfied with my marriage partner and I WILL MAKE MY KID’S LIFE A LIVING HEck UNTIL YOU LET ME PICK A NEW PARTNER, after which time I’ll start acting like a decent human being again!”

I mean—what?!?