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abundance, achievement, contentment, entitlement, feminimity, feminism, fulfillment, gratitude, happiness, keeping up with the Jonses, red pill, success, thankfulness
It seems like an apt time of year to ponder gratitude.
True thankfulness is exceedingly rare in today’s entitled “gimmie, gimme NOW” world.
I find it so ironic that in an era where many have more material and physical abundance than perhaps ever before in all of history, it’s much more common to encounter people thinking they need more than to meet those who appreciate all they’ve got.
And since this blog is for the ladies, I will focus on this from the female perspective from here. (Perhaps a male blogger can tackle a version of this topic for the guys.)
For women, who have for decades been raised to believe there are no limits, they can be or do anything they want to be, that they deserve it all, and that they don’t just deserve it they are OWED it, contentment and gratitude can be viewed as negative, limiting, and outdated.
However I would argue it’s only those rare women who cultivate a true gratitude attitude that ever find the seemingly-ever-elusive happiness, fulfillment, balance, peace, and abundance so many desperately seek.
The answer ironically isn’t having more, it’s not just being OK with — but actually being thankful for — less.
Now before you think I am advising gals need to aim low or give up, give me a chance to explain.
Contentment and gratitude for what *is* truly is the secret to ever having enough. Because everything is relative.
For example, for some people an 800 square foot house is “small.” For others a 2,500 square foot house is “small.” Any house could be viewed as too small, too big, or just right based on one’s perception.
I once read a book by a woman who suddenly realized one day that the problem wasn’t that’s her house was too small, it was her attitude toward it that was. Rather than being thankful for and loving the house she had, she resented it for everything it was not, and spent many disgruntled hours wishing to live anywhere but there.
After that “ah ha moment,” she embarked on a year-long quest to love her home with all she had. She lovingly took stock and then went to work making it as beautiful, comfortable, welcoming, and cozy as it could possibly be.
Soon others began to notice her modest little house. Editors from home and garden magazines that she used to read with envy started calling her, asking to feature her home! Then offering her a regular column! Then encouraging her to write books about how she had created her lovely abode.
That’s the difference gratitude makes. It was the same house. She was the same person. All that had changed was rather than wishing for something else she embraced what she had and poured her heart and soul into loving it just as it was while doing all she could to make it all it could be with the resources she had.
In the end embracing gratitude led to so much more than not doing so ever did. She wasn’t settling. Or aiming low. Or giving up. Or getting less.
In fact had she stayed on the path of wanting more, she would likely still be stuck right there, bitterly hating her little house, wishing for something else, thinking, “if only…”
Instead she was loving her house, living a life beyond her wildest dreams, and embracing the ever growing abundance with a humble and thankful heart.
If you find yourself often thinking about what you wish you had, were, missed, or should be, try looking at what you have right now with gratitude, knowing it’s enough, being thankful for exactly what you’ve got, making the most of it, and embracing the blessings that have been right there all along. At home, at work, at play, and in love.
Happy Thanksgiving! May it be a blessed one.
What do you think? Please share in the comments!
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
Good post this is
Thank you Yoda, that means a lot to me coming from a Jedi such as yourself! 😀
I am thankful for this column! Over the past few months, it has taught me a great deal.
That was a great post, Bloom! Happy Thanksgiving back at ya. 🙂
We’ve been so blessed and fortunate in life, I have no complaints.
But this year is really great now….we can live where we want, stressors are way down. One thing I am very very grateful for is the more difficult times.
I know there’s no way I would appreciate the present as much as I do, if it had all been easy.
Last year I spent my first ever Thanksgiving alone, but it wasn’t depressing. Kinda the first time I’d ever had a break on the holiday. It was actually quite relaxing and introspective.
This year I’m spending the whole week with the kid. I’ve thought a lot over the past year about how fortunate that I am. Not much more that I can ask for in life. If one can eliminate the anger and think about the great things that we have in this world, it’s apparent that most of us have nearly everything that we could ever need. At least, I feel that way.
Life is wonderful. The future is bright. My closest family and friends are still there and always have been, even in the toughest times. I’m thankful for that.
Hope you all are well! Have a nice holiday season!
Happy Thanksgiving, Bloom!
i have worked to instill in my daughters an attitude of thankfulness. life is hard, and they’ve both experienced that more than any kid should, but they’ve learned to work through forgiveness and to see what they have to be grateful for. for that, i’m eternally grateful.
i’m thankful for you, too, Bloom, and all the rest out here 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving to all 🙂
Very nice post. Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving! Turkey coma in 3…2…1…
LOL, Canucks have Thanksgiving a month earlier, but both myself and the Labrador Deceiver would appreciate some turkey…and yes, he does tend to snoozy then ;-D
Gratitude is not generally a concept enshrined in Western law …
If it were, perhaps there would be fewer problems.
Awww, my comment went to spam 😢
Fml I checked the spam folder and don’t see anything but will keep looking. It seems to happen mostly when there are multiple links in one comment… did it have multiple links maybe?
No, it was a fresh response. Doesn’t matter, was just a prefab happy thanksgiving.
Found it! It should show up now 🙂 Thanks for letting me know!
Because….
Nice
Why we should be thankful today.
Because its only going to get worse.
Enjoy every day. Winter is coming.
Every year of my life has gotten better and better.
I’m sure eventually that will change…can’t go on forever, but if it does I’m grateful for the long, long long run of a happy life.
Loved this post, Bloom. ❤
We traveled so not much cooking this past week, but I'll be making 2 pies later today for a second Thanksgiving celebration with more family tomorrow 😀 ❤
….
But I love that, Liz, about how your life has gotten better and better. How amazing and wonderful.
I've noticed as we've added kids, it's gotten harder in some ways logistically, but also more enjoyable in the other ways like getting to see them experience the holidays, or cuddling up with them altogether, and just feeling so blessed to have them!
Today we decorated the Christmas tree together… LOTS of lovey good feelings all around watching all the kids participate!
I am thankful for no-fault divorce.
It made a painful process, less so.
how’r you doin’, FML?
cuddling up with them altogether
brings back sweet, sweet memories 🙂
“I’ve noticed as we’ve added kids, it’s gotten harder in some ways logistically, but also more enjoyable in the other ways like getting to see them experience the holidays, or cuddling up with them altogether, and just feeling so blessed to have them!
Today we decorated the Christmas tree together… LOTS of lovey good feelings all around watching all the kids participate!”
So fun! There’s nothing like Christmas with wee ones. They make the holidays so special.
The boys and I thought about bringing home a tree today, but then there was a small blizzard. Think I’ll just wait until Mike gets back in a few days. 😆
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned Nicole Michelle, a black female dating coach in Atlanta. Last week she invited black male Youtuber Obsidian on to her podcast to answer the following question: Why are black men angry?
Nicole Michelle is a divorced single mother. She is unhappy about her divorce. She feels that her divorce was the result of her having drank the feminist Kool-Aid as a younger woman. She is attempting to help young black women avoid the mistake that she made. As women become increasingly disenchanted with modern relationships and gender equality, they are beginning to call for the return of the hard patriarchy. Now that patriarchy is gone, women have come to realize the extent to which the hard patriarchy benefited them to the detriment of men. Nicole Michelle is offering her services as a dating coach to help young black women avoid “dusty beta males.”
I think that Nicole Michelle’s conception of relationships is alarming and needs to be discussed. To her the beta male to be avoided does two things; i.e., 1) lets a woman disrespect him, and 2) requires the woman to pay half of the mortgage. It is interesting to me that she thinks that respecting her husband and submitting to his authority is the most important thing that a woman can do in a marriage.
I have no interest in being the kind of alpha male that she thinks is marriage material. Youtuber Human warns men that traditional conservative women seem to care more about men than do feminist women. However, Human warns, concern on the part of traditional conservative women has less to do with a genuine concern for the welfare of men and more to do with the concern that the gravy train that traditional conservatism has been for women is ending.
“However, Human warns, concern on the part of traditional conservative women has less to do with a genuine concern for the welfare of men and more to do with the concern that the gravy train that traditional conservatism has been for women is ending.”
If anyone in the world, who doesn’t know you (exception Jesus Christ), tells you they are more concerned for your wellbeing than their own, odds are they are lying. Of course masses of women are going conservative because it is in their own best interest.
Black communities are filled with single mothers and boys of single mothers who have had no positive male role models in life. Results are bad for everyone.
Just thinking further, technically Jesus knows all of us…it was an example to make a point, just in case some theological discussion devolves from that comment I’d like to nip that in the bud.
“…tells you they are more concerned for your wellbeing than their own, odds are they are lying.”
Or maybe they are in love, I will be three score and ten tomorrow, and I know that fortunately love does exist ;-D
They aren’t going to be in love with you if they don’t know you.
People do things in self interest. Understanding this is pretty key to making good decisions and valuing people and relationships correctly. I don’t know anyone with a better relationship than we have, but if tomorrow I stopped valuing Mike, got fat and laid around on the couch all day and bitched at him, he would start thinking differently of me. “My awesome inner selfie” wouldn’t matter. We kinda are what we do.
In a similar vein, motivations only matter so much. “Those women are acting in their own interest” is a pretty empty statement. Without self interest, it’s simply lip serve (no pun intended). All they are doing is looking for validation and increasing their odds of selections. With self interest (if they actually understand what is in their own best interest) they actually mean it.
Understanding you’re doing what’s best for you also takes away ego. Nothing worse than a person acting in their own best interest pretending to be a martyr (even to themselves).
Just to add (really glad I’m able to post with my cat image now….didn’t work a while back so I switched):
So, so many times I’m met with resistance when I say people are motivated by self interest. To answer in advance, just in case:
People aren’t perfect value assessors. Some folks are absolutely terrible at it (feminists, communists, act). Longterm and short term interest aren’t the same things. Most of the time when people seem to be acting against their own interest, they are either incorrectly valuing something, or favoring short term gain over longterm gain.
Small example: It’s in my short term interest to eat a lot of cookies. They taste good. It’s against my longterm interest.
Another short term over longterm example:
Dumbass poseur shows image of model at age 24 and age 34….but very heavily pregnant in the second photo. “See how she looks now?!?”
“Thumbs up bros!!!! Low value hoes!!!”
This is just as disingenuous as the stupid mother fleeing from gas with children at the border photo.
I could just say nothing…and stop reading.
That would be in my longterm best interest.
But, no, I had to explain and show a current photo of her (which showed she looks really really good).
“Boo! You suck! Thumbs down!”
Why did I act against my longterm best interest?
Because I’m a dumbass.
Acting in one’s best interest is a bit like saying, “buy low, sell high”….a work in progress.
Liz – exanding on your points here. No sure if this is what you are getting at:
Acting in their self interest and acting in their best interest are two different activities. It can be argued that not very many people know enough to know what is in their best interest (and who gets to decide what “best” is anyway?). But everybody can know what their self-interest is: “I want this, and I want it now”.
Marketing is aimed squarely at the achilles heel of folks pursuing their self-interest with vigor: “I want this, and I want it now”. People have gotten very wealthy off of exploiting this part of the human condition.
But people pursuing their self-interest is also responsible for wars, small/local and large/international. “I want it, and I want it now” creates problems when what you want belongs to your neighbor and nobody bothers to put a check on your effort to take it just because you can. (See conversations about the US / Mexican border right now.)
If you want a reasonably quiet society as opposed to constant insurrection and open warfare among tribes and clans, then free will / free choice works less well than constrained free will / free choice. Fences make for good neighbors, and all that.
All of these kinds of discussion always quickly devolve to the contrained will / free choice solution, because of the facts mentioned in this post. And “responsible” debaters always quckly get to the point of – it is not a matter of whether we will be governed (because someone stronger will always take over; that is male nature), it is a matter of how we will be governed and how that government will be elected (either by themselves, or by those being governed).
The discussions surrounding Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” argument are a good place to really get into the weeds on this subject;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
The only argument I have with what you stated, Richard, is more a semantics one. Best interest IS self interest….it’s just a longer term self interest.
“I want it now” is short term self interest.
Things that are fun/feel good in the immediate sense aren’t always in one’s longterm interest…often not.
Per the question: Who gets to decide what’s “best”?
I’d say it’s not a who but a what.
Answer is: Results
(IOW, what works over the long term)
OK.
But I want my neighbors wife right now. Having her is in my self interest. But she is full of STDs that I don’t know about, and her gun-toting husband has installed a camera she knows nothing about. In having my way wither (with her permission, of course), I am fulfilling my self interest (short term stuff). But I am collecting all sorts of STDs to myself, as well as the lead from her husband’s gun. I don’t think that is in my best interest, and that is also short term.
Not trying to argue / debate. Just clarifying the distinction between self interest (I want it now) and best interest (I got it now, and it ain’t in my best interest). Within this context, self-interest and best interest are often both short term.
But I also get the point you are making about “momentary gain may equal future pain”.
I was at the store today, cart full of groceries. An elderly man was holding a couple of items, behind me. I let him go ahead of me. Was that in my self interest? Yes. Because I like living in a world where people help each other out, and when I do nice things others tend toward doing nice things too and then the world (particularly the immediate community) is a better place for everyone, to include me and mine.
It’s a longer conversation, but for the moment let me say that we are discussing one of the greatest sources of miscommunication between men and women. Men love ideally while women love pragmatically, which is what I’ve heard Rollo Tomassi say. Men are the romantics. Marriage is not in a man’s best interest. The dirty secret of sexual politics is that fee-for-service prostitution gets a man better sex for less money. Fee-for-service prostitution is in a man’s best interest. That’s why almost all societies attempt to criminalize it. Fee-for-service prostitution lays bare the value of women ($300 per hour).
As Ton has said on here, women have no idea what men sacrifice for them. Women survive because men sacrifice for women. The idea of a woman being free to pursue her naked self-interest reminds me of the previous discussion of Bloom and her daughter assembling an IKEA bookshelf. No, she didn’t “do it herself.” She didn’t chop the tree or drill the oil or drive the freight train. Independence is an illusion for women.
When the veil of romantic love gets pulled, and when men start acting in their own self-interest in the field of sexual politics, things get ugly for women in a hurry.
One of the first real conversations Mike and I had (over physics homework, 26 years ago) pertained to self interest.
We are in 100 percent agreement.
Not sure why impracticality is “romantic” in particular.
Let’s take the self interest versus romantic view of having children, for example:
Self interest- Kids are a gift and a blessing, it’s a risk because you never really know how they will turn out, but over all in the cost to gains equation they enrich one’s life and progeny are kind of what life’s about and give one’s life purpose and meaning.
Self sacrificing (romantic?)- Your vag and body will really never be the same again. You’ll piss yourself when you laugh or do jumping jacks, and there’s a high likelihood they’ll be ungrateful. But it’s your lot in life to sacrifice, struggle and suffer.
Think I’ll stick with my version of things. Results based, it has worked really well for me.
Men are going to have to hammer out a new social contract with women. There are women who are waking up and rejecting feminism and calling for the return of the hard patriarchy. After sixty years of second-wave feminism we have come to learn that the hard patriarchy served women’s hypergamy (alpha fucks/beta bucks) better than women’s liberation.
But wait a second. There is no going back to traditional conservatism. The old social contract is dead. Today’s newly-converted traditional conservative women cannot expect men to resume the terms of the old social contract after sixty years of second-wave feminism. Since the mid-1960s we have had the pill, abortion, no-fault divorce, and worst of all, a toxic gynocentric society that rewards women for bad behavior and punishes men for good behavior. Some newly-converted traditional conservative women think that all of the responsibility of taking care of the family can be heaped back on to men so long as women do some simple things such as the following: fuck him, feed him, avoid getting obese, give him respect, and submit to his authority. Well I am sorry, ladies, but too much as changed. Those days are over forever.
Now women say that they want real men, hard patriarchs. Well, who made American men into beta males? All of us men my age (50 years old) and younger have been beaten to within an inch of our lives to force us to behave like beta males. We were told that women demand that we behave like beta males. Now we are being told that beta males deserve no pussy.
“Another short term over longterm example:
Dumbass poseur shows image of model at age 24 and age 34….but very heavily pregnant in the second photo. “See how she looks now?!?”
“Thumbs up bros!!!! Low value hoes!!!”
This is just as disingenuous as the stupid mother fleeing from gas with children at the border photo.
I could just say nothing…and stop reading.
That would be in my longterm best interest.
But, no, I had to explain and show a current photo of her (which showed she looks really really good).
“Boo! You suck! Thumbs down!”
Why did I act against my longterm best interest?
Because I’m a dumbass.
Acting in one’s best interest is a bit like saying, “buy low, sell high”….a work in progress.”
^^
LOL… any kind of arguing on the internet probably isn’t in anyone’s longterm best interest. Even if it’s tempting 😀
That self-sacrificing vs. self-interest comment is interesting, Liz. I think for me it seems to be a constant balancing act to be honest.
I don’t want to be a martyr, who uses the things or work I accomplish at home (in my self interest to get done or take care of anyway) as a self-sacrificing thing… and yet a lot of motherhood IS self-sacrificing.
LOL… complicated!
This is a good example of mom/wife life and self-interest –
From a facebook group i’m in –
“Take Care of Yourself
Ok gals….I’m gonna get personal – are you neglecting yourself and letting yourself go? What do you generally look like when you’re around your husband? Is your hair unkempt? Are you wearing clothing that you would never wear in anyone else’s presence? Do you neglect brushing your teeth or shaving your legs/underarms? And what about that underwear? How about your diet and exercise….what does that look like? And last, but certainly not least, are you neglecting your time with the Lord?
All these things can affect your relationship with your husband, too. If you don’t care enough about yourself to take care of you, then how do you expect your husband to desire to be around you? I’m definitely not trying to promote superficial beauty. I’m just pointing out that if you swing the other direction of neglect, it will affect the way your husband thinks about being with you. Sure, he’s committed to you. But it would be nice if he didn’t have to overlook the way you’re presenting yourself.”
“any kind of arguing on the internet probably isn’t in anyone’s longterm best interest. Even if it’s tempting 😀”
Heh. Truth. But…sometimes I’m a dumbass.
Kind of a dopamine/OCD thing I guess. 🙂
Self-interest/self sacrifice aren’t ipso facto mutually exclusive.
There’s an inherent self interest in progeny, one’s spouse, family, community, and so on. Our reasons for doing things are always a cost to gains equation.
But at the end of the day, there’s really nothing noble in considering oneself to be a martyr….the sacrifices (or whatever one wants to call them) we make are cost to gains choices based on self interest. Do you want to be a mother? Do you want to do a good job? Wouldn’t it pain you more to not make those sacrifices? And so forth.
I think when one uses that perspective, one is more likely to feel gratitude.
At any rate, that’s been my experience so it’s what I try to do. 🙂
It also keeps me from taking my spouse for granted. It’s in my interest not to take him for granted, and do all those things you described.
But again, I’ve thought this way my entire life. Probably came to this conclusion at age 8 or something. When I met Mike and we started talking, he was the first person who thought exactly the same.
(read Atlas Shrugged a few years later and found it to be a sort version of what I’d thought…though a somewhat different, and comparatively artless and joyless version).
Had some trouble with wordpress again so I’ll try this version of me.
“Heh. Truth. But…sometimes I’m a dumbass”
Me, too, lol… definitely a work in progress.
Roger, at 50 you can have no memory of times prior to the destruction wreaked by Woman’s Lib. There was no social contract, it was a covenant, the ancient covenant between the sexes that allowed our species and possibly our genus to develop. Sixty years is a mere blink of time against those many eons.
Western civilization will rebuild because there is no real alternative short of the horror of submission to Islam. Perhaps find employment in a smaller city or towns where time is slower, where couples still hold hands as they walk during evenings. You might even find another happily willing to go your way ;-D
Eh, b g. There are scores of women in Los Angeles County and Orange County prostituting themselves on the internet every day for chump change.
LOL, well Roger, those aren’t exactly the ones that I am talking about ;-D
These are a few thoughts generated by reading through the last 10 posts or so.
…any kind of arguing on the internet probably isn’t in anyone’s longterm best interest.
First One: “Here is what I think, and why?”
Second One: “Have you ever considered this?”
First One: “No. That never occurred to me. If what you say is true, then that is going to affect the conclusions I’ve been coming to.”
I think the proper term for that is discussing or debating, not arguing. But some might call it arguing. At any rate, conversations on the internet CAN challenge our perceptions. When such conversations bring “what is perceived” closer to “what is”, that can be a good thing.
—–
Life is full of choices that are mutually exclusive. To choose one is to forgo the other. That is just the way life is constructed. To choose one thing you want is to forgo the possibility of having the other thing you want (economists call the forgone choice the “opportunity cost”). Seems silly to call it “self-sacrifice” every time those kinds of choices present themselves, since we actually want whatever it is that is chosen. Seems better to save that phrase for large life events – such as being a passenger on the Titanic and giving up your seat on the lifeboat – knowing that in doing so you are embracing your own death. Behaviors of that sort truely are sacrificing self on behalf of another, with no apparent benefit to self. We’ve discussed before that committing oneself to raising children can be considered a form of layiing down one’s life for another. But, choosing children is giving up one thing we want for another thing we want. Whereas in the Titanic example we are giving up our life for real with no apparent benefit to ourselves.
—–
Marriage (the legality of it) has always been a benefit to men who need worker-bees for the barn and field, and folks they can legally pass title to their land and buildings to. Marriage has historically made both of those things possible for men before the advent of the oil-based society. When it takes more than a barrel of oil to create the energy to get the next barrel of oil out of the ground (so oil production ceases), that benefit of marriage to men will come back into play (they will again need worker-bees for the barn and field)..
—–
Children aren’t born with institutional memories. They are born as bundles of desires and cravings that only get more urgent as hormones come on line. Each generation must learn, all by itself, what it needs to do to survive (eat and breed). With a few exceptions, hormones will always direct the attention of one sex toward the other. And hormones will do this before the youngster is old enough to understand the finer points laid out in the feminist screed from however many years back. So I will never believe it is over for good (the dance between men and women). Particularly as we move back into the world we came from, as oil production starts to slow down.
I agree with most of what you said, but think that this bit is in error:
“Children aren’t born with institutional memories. They are born as bundles of desires and cravings that only get more urgent as hormones come on line. Each generation must learn, all by itself, what it needs to do to survive (eat and breed).”
And why?
Because it describes the underlying reason for social wide cultural values. So that girls and boys don’t reinvent the wheel with every generation….they have a set of guidelines to follow, that many generations before, via trial and error learned worked.
Because cultural values that don’t work result in poorly functioning societies.
Liz – after I wrote this post, it occurred to me that my point of view here might make more sense if you know what is in my next post. I’m condensing a pretty complicated story just to give you the general sense of it.
Liz – I would understand / agree if you said I hadn’t gone far enough in what I said. Because that is the truth. I don’t think you disagree with me, because what I spoke is the truth. The first half of the truth. You provided the second half. It is imperative that the culture provide guidelines for the youth to follow, because they are not born with those guidelines embedded in their minds or natures.
Liz – the comment you quoted was my response to those who are claiming (paraphrased) that the dance between men and women is over for good – because grown men are disgusted. I am disagreeing with that prediction, because every generation starts out fresh, being motivated only by those things I mentioned in my previous post – until they encounter the guidance of community and parents. Even so, a small percentage have always ignored the advice of parents and community and run off to Las Vegas to get married. The young folks generally don’t have the disgust that older men have. We have evidence of that in the stories we see from time to time about the older man trying to share red-pill truths to the younger man – and the younger man is usually not interested in what the older man is saying.
I think hope will always spring eternal in the youth – at least long enough to create the next generation. Maybe not in all of them. But in enough to keep humanity reproducing.
———
So that girls and boys don’t reinvent the wheel with every generation….they have a set of guidelines to follow, that many generations before, via trial and error learned worked.
That would be a good topic sentence to get everbody together for a 4-day weekend convention and talk it through from all of its many angles. The short version is I think there is much evidence to support the idea that many kids learn the value of what mom and dad said by ignoring it and getting into the trouble the parents were trying to warn them away from.
Clarification: Each generation must learn, all by itself, what it needs to do to survive (eat and breed).
I will restate that to this: each young person, growing from infant to young adult, must learn how to keep parents happy so they can stay at the dinner table (the eat part), and how to keep the object of their sexual interest happy (the breed part). You can maybe learn some hints from books, but most of this learning takes place in the doing – process knowledge rather than content knowledge. (To be blunt, Liz I’m sure you and Mike preferred to get to know each other’s bodies in person, process knowledge, rather than through looking at picture books, content knowledge).
I was making that distinction to counteract the argument that men and women won’t get together again ever (paraphrased). I think that is an incorrect viewpoint, because the reasons for avoiding the opposite sex would be transmitted to the kids as content knowledge (books or internet articles), when they are up to their eyeballs in the process, normone driven – and learning from that process. But while they are in the middle of the process, babies get made – the next generation. And then it repeats itself. The content knowledge may get through to some kids, but not enough kids to keep the next generation from being born.
I probably should not have started this particular conversation because it truely is too complicated to adequately cover in the small space of a comment section. But I experienced what I’m trying to convey in writing her in real life this past Monday.
I opened my front door to the knock of a 14-year-old girl, skinny as a rail, bawling her eyes out and shaking violently. “Could we please help her?” She had on very short spandex pants (bare legs), a thin blouse of some sort, and socks (no shoes). It was 70 degrees but she was obviously cold. So we found ill-fitting clothes and put them on her and brought her into the house to warm up. Fortunately daughter (closer to runaway girls age than me) was home, and she and I spent the next three hours working to calm her down – which we did. 14 years old. Had a boyfriend. Over time, he texts her, and she deletes his texts as she reads them. Except one she thought was deleted wasn’t, mom read it, and went ballistic. Verbal fighting, face slapping, banished to room (yes, she said, she knew what sexting was. It wasn’t that she said). Out the window went runaway girl, running away from home not fully dressed, no phone, no money, no thinking it through – just needed to escape “so she could breathe”. Based on her description, we are about six blocks away from where she lived.
Would we please take her to her school, she asked. Everything she wanted us to do for her would be interpreted as aiding her running away from home. I told her this. And behind her back, signaled for my wife to call the police, which she did. Two young police guys eventually showed up. Were amazing in talking with the 14-year-old – obviously well-trained. Made me think of Stephanie’s man. After half an hour or so she left with them.
In truth, there really was no other solution, although she thought so. I expect her to run away again. From talking with her, it is obvious that she does not yet comprehend how life actually works. That you need to know how to get back home when you leave (she didn’t know her own address). That you need to take money with you, and shoes, and clothes. What she does comprehend is that she knows better than her parents. They are wrong and she is right – she and her boyfriend that is. And if she can just get to him, together they can prevail against her parents. Doesn’t know how they will prevail. Just knows that they will. Being on the really skinny side, I don’t know if she could get pregnant. But whenever her body will allow her to get pregnant, I’m sure she will. That next generation being created, in spite of all the old guys being disgusted with women. The lessons of the old men mean nothing to this 14j-year-old girl, and presumably her boyfriend, because they are too involved in the process of “now”. It looks like they won’t start the reading and learning and thinking part until later. After the children are born, the next generation.
14-year-old was well spoken and courteous. Implies good things being taught in her home and social group. Yet, there she was on our couch, in desparate need of help. And I’m convinced she will be somewhere else in desparate need of help in the near future. In spite of what she has been taught. The process (hormones) seem to be in charge here, in spite of the content knowledge provided her.
Forgot to add that the text her mother saw was about girl and her boyfriend smoking pot.
And it puts a different spin on things if you know she left home without her phone – so no way to contact anyone. She spent close to three hours on daughter’s iPhone – which is a whole nother story in itself – that the technology is so ubiquitous that she could take a stranger’s cell phone and just go to town on it.
Good Lord Richard, that was quite an anecdote! 😮
Being the mom of boys isn’t nearly as exciting.
Thank God. 😆
Agree with you on the “eternal dance” between the sexes. I don’t see it ending either.
Richard, just thinking further after sleeping on that story about the 14 year old…
Have to say, I think it’s a fallacy that this type of behavior has been tolerated enough in the past to make a major impact. Maybe the “baby groupies” of Christmases past would be comparable, but that’s modern day. Maybe if I had a daughter I would think differently, but I’m trying to think through all the people I know with daughters and really can’t think of a single one in a traditional intact family that turned out like that.
I’d hazard a guess I’d say she’d from either a single parent home or one where a series of nannies raised her. This goes into the cultural aspects I mentioned above….culture is far beyond “what my parents did”, though that’s part of it. It’s the type of value system that surrounds us. No accident ghetto culture, for example, leads to ghetto style values. Outliers sometimes break free.
I think the culture of the inner cities has been embraced by the mainstream culture almost as a way to compensate…we’re supposed to feel endless guilt for something that happened 200 years ago.
So, rather than strive for a better ideal we (collective we there) embrace it because of guilt. Who is out there in the mainstream saying “young girls in the inner cities should not have multiple children with multiple baby daddies”? If you say it at work, you’re fired for racism.
The culture of the country has descended into “what’s good for the inner city is good for everyone”….when in reality what’s going on in the inner city isn’t even good for the inner city.
There are few influences telling these people that this is a bad choice, people are afraid to say anything. It’s just accepted. This whole thing is a big lie propagated by the media in particular. In the end, it’s very very bad for these women. We, as a part of this culture of acceptance, are doing a great disservice to these young girls, and by extension a great disservice to the young men. This is why we see the dramatic change from “I have the pussy I make the rules” to “OMG, I’m going to die alone”. In the course of only a couple of years. #SAD
Oh, Liz. Just make a Youtube video. OMG, this poor housewife, Love Lu. Up until today she has made a dozen videos viewed by her friends and family, each video getting 100 views at most. Last night she decided to make a video commenting on the phenomenon of MGTOW. It ended up in our feeds. Oh no. At the moment it’s at 2000 views with 350 comments. You can see that at first she was sincerely trying to respond to the comments. She is just being slaughtered, and it’s just getting started.
THE Cautionary tale!!
This woman must have been smoking hot younger. Still a knockout for her age.
But freezing her eggs at 36. Well past peak egg fertility.
Because she has no current man in her life to have a child with.
So..what…two, three years at best finds a guy to get serious with? Tries implantation pushing 40? Odd of carrying to term?
And even if she bests the odds, she will be 60 when the 18 year old graduates high school!!
And keeping a new hubby, assuming he is the same age, 40 ish interested at the five year itch mark when you are a) peri menaupasal b) with a howling 2 year old and c) too tired for sex or paying attention to him.
What guy signs on for that when there are cadres of 30 year olds to chose from if not younger.
Undead is brutal in his commentary but is he wrong??
How did it come to this??
haven’t read all the comments but did read Richard’s 14 year old story. wow. that’s so tragic and sad.
middle school was an interesting experience for us. the zoning for our middle school includes a significant umc area, so most of the kids in our middle school had everything they wanted – latest technology, clothes, lessons for everything and anything, sports, etc. they never fretted over breaking or loosing anything b/c mom and/or dad replaced it immediately. many good kids, but i’m sure there were also quite a few who struggled with life, and i know from the school police officer that most of those who struggled came from homes where both parents worked high career jobs and spent little time with their kids.
still … having a reactive parent during the middle school years is rarely productive.
i never did understand the parents who said, “MY child will never ______ ” … fill in the blank … do drugs, have sex, skip school, cheat, lie, etc. i always wondered how these parents would know and be able to control their kid unless they hovered over them 24/7. kids make their own choices.
i started with the premise that my kids would make their own choices, and when they weren’t with me, i wouldn’t be there to directly influence them. so their choices would be … *their* choices.
so i taught them that. i taught them that truth is constant … that there is Truth and there is lie … that THEY get to choose which they believe, however, what they believe will never change what is Truth and what is lie.
i taught them that when they have to make the big choices in life, they will often be alone and have to make them alone, and i taught them that they would then have to face the consequences of those choices.
i did give them incentives to make the best, right choices though 🙂 … i told them that if i ever found out they’d been drinking or doing drugs or having sex, that they’d come home to an empty room. i’d clean out their whole room and give them nothing but a pillow, a blanket, and 3 changes of clothes. i kept my word enough that they believed me and never wanted to go there. i also told them that if i heard they were at a party doing drugs and getting drunk that i’d call the police myself and let them spend the night in juvie so i could get a good night’s sleep, and then i described juvie to them. i kept my word enough over the years that they believed me.
they weren’t afraid of the police or the kids … they were afraid of me, well, not of me, personally, but of what i’d force their consequences to be if they acted out.
and i never told them they could NOT do drugs, drink, or have sex … i simply told them that it was their choice, and i told them what the consequences would be if they did. and i kept my word enough over the years they believed me. sometimes it even went like this: “Go ahead … do drugs. You’ll come home to an empty room with a blanket, pillow, and three changes of clothes, but if you want to do drugs, go ahead.”
i kept it calm. i did not go all drama on them. i stated it matter-of-factly. and i began from when they were little so it was just a part of their lives … choose to do what you want but face the consequences, both good and bad, of what you choose to do.
i taught them from the beginning that there are some things in life where we get a second chance, and even a third or forth, but there are some things in life for which we never get a second chance. once we’ve made that choice on the latter, our lives are forever altered, and we cannot go back and do it over again for a different result. i let them prove these to be true thru the choices they made all through their life, and i pointed it out to them along the way.
i am EXTREMELY grateful neither of my girls forced me to keep my word on these things. i would have, but it would have broken.my.heart. i’m sure the reality of the consequences kept them making good choices in tough circumstances, but i think that they both knew i loved them completely and would be heart-broken if they ever intentionally screwed up also factored in a lot. They didn’t want to break Mama’s heart.
be the kind of parent where your kids don’t want to break your heart … where they want you to be proud of them.
@ Liz agreed re inner city culture. I think Hollywood crossed this line as well w the glorification of the Bradgelina model, as far as I remember they seemed to be the first to say, “we don’t need marriage.” But of course they had wealth the average person does not. So Angelinas life as a single mom is a lot different than a single mom of average means, much less a mom on welfare. Young women absolutely should be warned against it rather than given the message that “it’s all ok, do whatever feels right at the time.”