Family Values: Divorce

[Rebiu]

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

The sacrifces I am refering to ehre concern parenting. If, for instance, a mother prefers her career over rearing her children

Consider stay at home dads, part time work for both parents instead of full time for one, working out of the home, working while kids are at school.

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

, then she should make the sacrfice and do the right thing

It is a bit arrogant to call you perspective the right thing.

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

- or run the risk of having hers and the kid's life destroyed by deliquincy.

I suppose we all run that risk. You view of a families options seems a bit inflexible.

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

I have listed family values on another thread But here they are again.
Sharing and caring ethic, chore-based work ethic; courage ethic. conscientious craftsmanship ethic, creative vision ethic, intellectual ethic.

These are not family values, as they all apply to all individuals.

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

All of these are innate within the human psyche from birth and need to be encouraged to express themselves in everyday behavior inside the home as the child grows to maturity, via careful parental guidance.

You concepts are too vague to even have consensus let alone an agreed upon standard value. What you consider an appropriate sharing I may see as inappropriate and therefore you may interpret this disagreement as deterioration and I see it as an appropriate change.

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

These values support the Confucian principle of filial piety (parental veneration). When these ethics are properly evoked we have a valuable family member and a creatively productive, self-policed, citizen. If family values decline, so does the culture.

The modern American culture is far better than it has ever been in the past. The sum of changes that have occurred between any two eras has been positive.

[Rebiu]

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

As you say, education is the key. There are two marital issues that we need to recognize here. Our specie is naturally polygamous. Modern males get married far too young. Females are ready for motherhood at puberty. Males generally only reach self-mastery at 42 (too many never do) That is when he wants to pass on his learning to his own progeny and is naturally ready for husbandry and fatherhood. Divorce can be avoided if a young woman seeks out a mature male to father her children. If she opts for a younger male, she has to be prepared to deal with (mother) and tolerate the trepasses of her immature mate, as he struggles to develop self-mastery.

These are bold and interesting theories. I do not agree with you assumptions though.

My perspective on these issues is that children are taught, even forced to learn to be irresponsible, immature children. Being a father of three children I have found that children can handle a great deal of complexity. They are sincere and deserve sincerity. They will be responsible if it is expected and modeled for them. I was ready to be a father at age 21 but did not manage to put together a stable enough relationship until I was 27.

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

...she should make the sacrfice and do the right thing - or run the risk of having hers and the kid's life destroyed by deliquincy.

A bit sexist, don't you think? This mentality would've worked fine in the fifties, but, hey, brother man, things have changed. Daddy could equally well give up his career to care for his offspring. He also had a hand in it, after all.

[Buffy]

The number of completely unsubstantiated and subjective assumptions you've made in this thread is positively breathtaking:

• Family values under-pin our cultural values. No, religion and government do, and we have ample evidence of "group" families, especially in more primitive cultures, where parents take the lead with their own children, but the entire village fills in whenever necessary.
• Over the past three generations or so, divorce has become pandemic. Divorce is a modern term, and the amusing assumption here is actually that *divorce* is somehow fundamentally different than the age-old problem of people rarely living beyond the age of 30 up until the last couple hundred years. The only evidence that's usually provided is the "single parenting is bad" which seems to have been pretty common throughout human history.
• There is no evolutionary precedent for this massive inroad into our traditional social structure. This one is just plain false. Most animals are *not* monogamous, and all you have to do is look around at some of our own MCPs around here to see that that evolutionary trait is well ingrained. In fact the only real difference today is that extra-marital affairs happen *less often* because divorce is available. You want to argue that its healthy for kids to grow up *knowing* that dad's off bonking his best friend's wife and he and mom find a way to have no relationship because there's no alternative?
• Thus we have no way of evaluating the long term effect divorce will have on the collective psyche. Only if you assume that its unprecedented, which its not...
• If [family values] continue to deteriorate then ideas will gradually no longer ensue. Again, only if you assume that they're the *only* source of culture, which there is no evidence that they are. You might want to try to present some evidence for this argument. Indeed, you'll need to justify this statement by showing why *no other* social dynamic might replace it, like the return of societal-group support.
• If we do not protect the child by making adult scarifices that uphold the vows we made when we married, and make the best of it, then where does it end? Its the old slippery-slope argument, Chief. You are making a huge assumption that "vows" are the only important issue, why is that? Can you show why maintaining vows while allowing the children to suffer the more severe parental conflict as has been the case throughout cultures where divorce or separation is discouraged?
• These values support the Confucian principle of filial piety. Nice values, but how is filial piety hurt more when parents deal with each other honestly and rationally through separation versus the subterfuge and hidden or open hatred that is fostered without it?
• If, for instance, a mother prefers her career over rearing her children, then she should make the sacrfice and do the right thing - or run the risk of having hers and the kid's life destroyed by deliquincy. So many assumptions for one sentance! Preference has nothing to do with career choices. Women pursuing careers can occur within a happy marriage. Conservative women would rail at your description of their choice as "sacrifice". Single motherhood does not lead to delinquency. After being called on this point you've tried to push it into "societal dysfunction", but then you're contradicting your thesis that its individual actions that cause the problem. Unless you start to divide the world between those who "had bad things happen" versus "willful, selfish scorning of family values" in which case its definitely not a societal problem.
• Modern males get married far too young. Females are ready for motherhood at puberty.... And this leads to a strong argument for polygamy too, but even where there are strong societal norms to avoid this, the question becomes, do you allow them to procreate while young? Or should all men wait until their 42 to have sex with 12 year-old girls? The "perfect world" you're describing here is something that we have been evolving away from since the dawn of history, and is only seen in very primitive societies or those with very lopsided patriarchal mores. It seems though that you're trying to say that going away from what many consider extreme is the problem. Can you provide any arguments to support this?

Your argument is popular among some very conservative groups in our society, but it really requires an odd view of history to try to claim that the 50's style nuclear family is the *norm* or that somehow families today are far more disrupted than they have been in the past, either in the short or long view of human history. All you've done here is to drag out the dogma of certain religious sects--which in my estimation are really only twisting some relatively recent arguments, and making them "morally based" in order to log roll a susceptible group in to gaining political power.

You've got to try a bit harder if you're going to engage people in honest debate about issues that I *agree* are important ones to discuss. Pejoritively dismissing views that are not aligned with your specific viewpoint--which your polite exposition hardly masks--will not be conducive to rational discussion.

For the record: I'm a child of divorce and am divorced myself (with a non-deliquent kid!) and strongly feel that the institution of marriage is good, strong, and hardly "threatened" by "recent history." So, yes, I expect to get married again.

Oh the wife! Oh the kids! Oh the waitress!
Buffy

[MagnetMan]

Originally Posted by Buffy

• Family values under-pin our cultural values. No, religion and government do, and we have ample evidence of "group" families, especially in more primitive cultures, where parents take the lead with their own children, but the entire village fills in whenever necessary.

Religion and government are the result of family values. If we all indoctrinated our children to become atheists and a communists tomorrow, we will have an entirely different culture within 20 years.

With due respect, having got this base fact wrong, and by not acknowledging the fundamental effect parents have on cultivating the future behavior of society as a whole. the rest of your argument does not, in my opinion, hold any water.

[pgrmdave]

If we all indoctrinated our children to become atheists and a communists tomorrow, we will have an entirely different culture within 20 years.

It is interesting that you agree that the basis of the culture is the religion and government, yet you say that it's not true. If it is only family values that create our culture, then the religion and government shouldn't matter as long as the family stays the same. By saying that if you change the religion and government then the culture changes, you agree with Buffy.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

Religion and government are the result of family values.

You state this as a given, but the evidence appears to indicate otherwise. If anything religion and government direct "family values" almost entirely in today's society. But from an evolutionary and anthropological standpoint, the nuclear family is an extremely recent phenomenon. Both animals and early humans and early human societies show a multitude of evidence that the fundamental social grouping is the "tribe" or "hive" or "pod", and that social grouping is manifested in modern society by religion and government. Many different "family units" are represented from bee hives where the hive *is* the family, to traditional hunter-gatherer societies where child rearing and relationships are communal (often with chiefs having the privilege of non-monogomy).

What evidence can you show that June and Ward Cleaver with no extended family and picket fences to the world represent the fundamental defining nature of society?

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

having got this base fact wrong ... the rest of your argument does not, in my opinion, hold any water.

Still up to you to show that this "base fact" is or is not correct. I'm showing evidence, you're simply saying its obvious... Why is it obvious?

Sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids,
Buffy

[MagnetMan]

Originally Posted by pgrmdave

It is interesting that you agree that the basis of the culture is the religion and government, yet you say that it's not true. If it is only family values that create our culture, then the religion and government shouldn't matter as long as the family stays the same. By saying that if you change the religion and government then the culture changes, you agree with Buffy.

That is not what I am saying. Buffy could not be more wrong. Family is the base of culture - what we do there with each indiovidual psyche, determines the character of the collective culture. If I am reared in a noble family, then I am expected to behave as a nobeleman. Our family values are handed down to us from our ancestors - who gradually developed the culture we enjoy today - by the values they instilled in their kids.

If family begins to hand down divorce and abortion as acceptible values at the huge scale we are doing right now - then that is evolutionary unprecedented and I am concerned with what that will eventually do to our basic psyche and how that will affect our future national values. If we cannot honor our relationship as parents and the personal challenges that represents, then what else will become dishonored when our personal integrity is challenged in other ways? I do not pretend to know the final answer. I am simply concerned. My wife and I have eight children of our own and we worry about the charactor of the society they will be forced to deal with. Most moderns seem to think that divorce is no big deal with no long-term side-effects.

I respectfully disagree. I have been there and done that and it did me and 200 hundred other boys from broken homes who lived in the same government imnstitution, no good. I have a step brother who, in a moment of extreme distress, thinking she was going to divorce him, murdered his wife and child and ended up in an insane asylum. I also ended up divorcing a perfectly good wife myself and abandoned a beautiful child, who hates me to this day - mainly because it was a common thing to do if one fell for another woman. I never stopped loving my first wife even though I loved the second, and regret my action to this day. These personal episodes are not my only motivation. I am a humanist a professional docyumentary film maker, who has been observing human behavior around the globe for most of my adult life. I was brought up in apartheid South Afrioca and have observed the strengths and aberations of our specie, both as individuals and as a collective, for longer and closer and more dramatically than most.

[Tormod]

Your argumentation skills are a bit lacking. You are extremely arrogant but miss obvious flaws in your own logic.

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

That is not what I am saying. Buffy could not be more wrong. Family is the base of culture - what we do there with each indiovidual psyche, determines the character of the collective culture. If I am reared in a noble family, then I am expected to behave as a nobeleman. Our family values are handed down to us from our ancestors - who gradually developed the culture we enjoy today - by the values they instilled in their kids.

So you are saying, basically, that what is going on today is brought upon us by history and that's to be expected (however I disagree that a "noble upbringing" creates many noble men).

But now the fun begins:

If family begins to hand down divorce and abortion as acceptible values at the huge scale we are doing right now

How can it "begin" if we are doing it at a huge scale right now?

- then that is evolutionary unprecedented

And your proof for this extraordinary claim is?

and I am concerned with what that will eventually do to our basic psyche and how that will affect our future national values.

Fair enough.

If we cannot honor our relationship as parents and the personal challenges that represents, then what else will become dishonored when our personal integrity is challenged in other ways?

I disagree. In many cases, divorce is a good solution for children as well as for parents (I have first hand experience with this). Nobody is saying divorce is a Good Thing in general, but it's not the evil you portray it as.

What is being dishonored today? Am I dishonored because I have divorced parents? Or because my wife has? Or because my wife's grandparent's are divorced, and my own grandparents' are as well? (Most of the latter are dead, but they divorced long before their lives ended).

My personal integrity is not challenged by this at all, except for well-meaning welldoers who think they know what "honor" and "responsibility" is (usually their own standards).

Most moderns seem to think that divorce is no big deal with no long-term side-effects.

Do you have any statistics to back this up or are yuo just going by your gut feeling?

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

(Personal history stuff, see his post above)

So you have a sad history to tell. Why does this have to mean that we need a crusade to save people from divorce? I am in complete disagreement with you. To be married is to honor your spouse and children, to love them and take care of them. When you divorce, that role does not diminish, although many breaks are no amicable (which is a sad thing but frankly people are different and who can say that the marriage was better?).

[Jay-qu]

ok as a first hand witness of divorce (my parents not me) I can say that is a truely terrible thing to go through. I was 13, so for the most part I didnt understand the full reasons for it and so it just ripped me apart. But it does get better and now I am older I have come to understand why it happened(which I will not go into) - although I may not agree and there could have been a way around it what it comes down to is I respect and love both of them whatever happens.

I can also see that in some cases divorce would actually benefit the situation, eg if there is violence, but this doesnt mean I disagree with it for all other reasons. People change, you may marry someone and realise that you dont want to spend the rest of your life with them, this could happen years down the track and take even longer for you to muster up the courage to tell them! anyway I better get off to uni later