Devilish Lifestyle Choices

Man is really stupid, and it takes a lot of brains to be more stupid than beasts.

I say that after reading "Single Mothers, Many Problems" (and I point out right off the bat that I am not out to blame single mothers, ok?) in the Opinion Journal of the Wall Street Journal today.

Princeton Prof. Sara McLanahan directs the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which has begun to track 5,000 single mother who gave birth between 1998 and 2000..... Several years on... and few are wed, and their children often experienced the stress of churning relationships. More and more, Ms. LcLanahan say, "you're beginning to see these households composed of a mother and three children and three different ex-partners . . . and this is turning into a situation where children are being raised in unstable families."

I think her word "fragile" says a lot about families. They're strong, true, like some trees and certain plants that endure. But "fragile" nonetheless. The writer (not named) of the WSJ piece says:

some commentators have chosen to speculate that many of today's single moms are in fact hip, propserous women, perhaps in their 30s or older, who have decided that they don't need a husband to fulfill their dreams. We've even seen the suggestion that the unwed trend reflects America's evolution as a more tolerant, diverse country when it comes to "lifestyle choices."

Now there's a deadly phrase, a stupid one, actually, "lifestyle choices," to cover up the fact that not all the choices are equal, and some are dangerous. The family, and children, are fragile in certain ways and we can't ignore those ways without bad things happening.

So here's where "stupid" comes in. If we respect the delicate balance of eco-systems as we say we do (or should), why should that exclude human beings? In our stupid hubris we imagine that we can create lifestyle choices ranging from unwed parenthood or unwed motherhood or triple parenthood (sperm donor, egg donor, surrogate mom, birth mom, adoptive mom--that's too many, but I can't keep them all straight), single motherhood, gay parenthood of various forms. This gets confusing for me; should kids not be confused? I know, someone will fix it with mandated books for First Graders: "Heather Has One Mommy, And That's All!" and "Billy Has a Donor Dad, an Eggwoman, and an Birth Mommy and a Live-In Daddy."

Fragile. Yes, by nature. A farmer has a few "farmer-style choices": he can plant corn, wheat, soybeans, raise cows, pigs, or chickens. But other choices will undo him: he can't sow seed in November just because he wants to, and he has to sow it at a certain depth. He can't use the soybean field for tractor pulls at the same time. There is an art to his husbandry and doing the wrong things will harm his animals. They will not thrive. Anyone watching him destroy his farm and crow about his "choices" will just say, "Stupid farmer."

Comments

[Joe Long]

Title on bookshelf at a local public library:

"Single Parenting for Complete Idiots".

Laugh bitterly, or cry?

[Gene Godbold]

Joe,
I'm going to anticipate Stuart and say that, in this case the Byzantine Catholic approach is best. Do both.

Stuart,
Now you can tell me how that's wrong. :-)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I think her word "fragile" says a lot about families. They're strong, true, like some trees and certain plants that endure. But "fragile" nonetheless.<<<

A better word is "brittle". Like glass, families are almost infinitely strong when stressed in one way, easily shattered when stressed in the opposite way.

[GL]

A better word is "brittle". Like glass, families are almost infinitely strong when stressed in one way, easily shattered when stressed in the opposite way.

Well said. Families, constructed as God designed, are very strong and can weather severe storms, protecting their individual members as storm shelters (I am in tornado country, so I know about storm shelters) protect those within them. Families constructed using one of our new for this season lifestyle models are like trailer parks when the tornadoes of life come (and they come to everyone). Not only do they not protect their individual members, they themselves become part of the shrapnel that enhances the devastation.

[Francesca Matthews]

It's interesting that researchers are coming full circle and concluding that the (functioning) traditional family unit is the best one for children to grow up in.

On a related note, I read a beautiful post today at http://avirtuouswoman.org/2006/11/26/serving-our-husbands about serving one's family. "Wifely submission" and Ephesians generate a lot of heated debate, but this post suggests serving one's husband has more to do with Matthew 25 than with Ephesians, viz.
“I was hungry and you gave me food;
I was thirsty and you gave me drink;
I was a stranger and you took me in;
I was naked and you clothed me;
I was sick and you visited me;
I was in prison and you came to me.”
Matthew 25:35-36

[Gene Godbold]

I'm sure that my wife has created an addition to Jesus' list that helps her make her life with me more tolerable:

"I was an inconsiderate moron, and you bore with me."

[Gene Godbold]

The last two paragraphs of SMH's post are excellent. The sort of approach advocated by the "any sort of family will do" folks require an ideology that considers human beings to be almost infinitely plastic. Then, to maintain the plausibility of this idea, they must steadfastly avoid all contrary data from the social and biological sciences.

[Gene Godbold]

Well, you'd think I could get who wrote the blog entry right, wouldn't you? Sorry, Mr. Kushiner... (all kudos still apply).

[Art Deco]

I say that after reading "Single Mothers, Many Problems" (and I point out right off the bat that I not out to blame single mothers, ok?),

They did not get to be single mothers without undertaking activity that required conscious decision-making. Go ahead and blame.

[James A. Altena]

"More and more, Ms. LcLanahan says, 'you're beginning to see these households composed of a mother and three children and three different ex-partners . . . and this is turning into a situation where children are being raised in unstable families.'"

Alas, we deal with this in my parish all the time, which still ministers to the ghetto neighborhood that surrounds the parish property we lost in litigation to the Episcopal Church. We have children in our Sunday school who -- at age 8! -- were referring to absent biological fathers as "sperm donors." Another child, a 14-year-old girl, was recently put on birth control pills by her mother "just to be safe." Our battle to bring Christ to these little ones is all the more difficult because their parents and/or adult caretakers do not darken the door of any church at all. They treat us as a glorified baby-sitting service; we take that few precious hours a week when we have them for Sunday school, field trips, after school help with homework, etc., and do what we can with it. Despite the odds, we also have our success stories, thanks be to God.

[Kyle]

An apt phrase: "an art to his husbandry," considering the lack of husbandry intrensic to the topic at hand.

[Bill R]

"Despite the odds, we also have our success stories, thanks be to God."

God bless these efforts, James. May these children associate the House of God with the stability they have otherwise lacked in their lives.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The sort of approach advocated by the "any sort of family will do" folks require an ideology that considers human beings to be almost infinitely plastic.<<<

Well, yes. That would be the fundamental tenet of progressivism and all of its related -isms, which require human nature to be infinitely malleable in order that man might be remade according to the prescriptions of the ideology. Unfortunately, human nature has a high modulus of elasticity--it snaps back to shape no matter how you stretch or bend it. This ticks off the ideologists, who then resort to violence to get their way.

[GL]

Dominic,

Having grown up on a farm, I fully understand why "day job" is in quotes.

Perhaps we could compare a family to a three legged table: mother, father and God. Take away one leg and the whole enterprise keels over in a shambles of broken dishes, broken lives and shattered hearts.

Amen.

Scripture give us plenty examples to learn from as to the consequences of not following God's design for family, not the least of which is the unhappy experience of the family of King David. Being a man after God's own heart and having been cleansed from his sins did not prevent the disaster that accompanied his decisions and acts in the matter of sexuality and family.

I know a man who was at one time as devout and orthodox a Christian as I have known who is now well along in the process of destroying his family. I hope he comes to the point of confessing his sins and repents, but the damage has been done and Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again. God can and will forgive him if he confesses and repents of his sins, but his wife's heart is broken and his children (one legitimate and one on the way because of his infidelity) will have lifelong scars.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Perhaps we could compare a family to a three legged table: mother, father and God. Take away one leg and the whole enterprise keels over in a shambles of broken dishes, broken lives and shattered hearts.<<<

It would help if more Christians rediscovered and took seriously the ancient understanding of the family as a "domestic church", in which husband and wife share in the universal priesthood of Christ (another concept that needs to be rediscovered and taken seriously--and not in the false, self-serving way that some dissident Catholics do).

[Judy O'Neill]

Kushiner writes: "If we respect the delicate balance of eco-systems as we say we do (or should), why should that exclude human beings?"

This is absolutely brilliant. I've never heard that argument used before.

[Francesca Matthews]

<>

It's interesting to see the shift in demographic from unplanned babies out of wedlock in teens to (presumably) planned babies out of wedlock by older women. I have friends who would dearly love to be married, but that plan wasn't working out for them. Faced with living life childless or having a baby out of wedlock, they chose to have a baby. I can understand how painful it must be not to have a child. In that position, I would be strongly tempted to do likewise. Although they're very good mommies, the situation is not ideal for their children, especially the boys. Once their sons get to be about 10, they're desperate for a father figure.

[Gene Godbold]

Kids are commodities. If you can't have one the normal way, but you really, really want one, you just have to take a nonconventional route. (Does that one come with red hair? And hazel eyes? I've always liked hazel.)

Who cares what's best for the kid?

[Bill R]

"Kids are commodities."

Not surprisingly, this attitude stands behind the pro-abortion movement as well. One member of the Wednesday evening Bible study that I lead just became a grandmother for the first time. Her son and daughter-in-law were told that their baby would be born with severe birth defects (I'm sorry that I can't recall the name of the syndrome), and were told in no uncertain terms to abort the child. They turned to Mom, a strong believer, and she (and we) all prayed long and earnestly that the baby would be spared. He was (though he is seriously ill). The parents have suffered greatly at the hands of the medical staff, most of whom simply can't comprehend why the parents would not abort, or as they put it: "After all, you can always try again!" A commodity, you see.

[RMC]

I've seen a lot of this too. What most bothers me is the assumption that if you're having children, you're not married (and somehow an idiot into the bargain). A few weeks ago when I checked in to the hospital to have my first baby (accompanied by my husband), the nurse filling out the admitting paperwork asked what my boyfriend's name was. When I corrected her that I had a husband, not a boyfriend, her response was as close to "Oh well, big difference" as you could get without actually saying it in so many words. I really hope that more women in the labor and delivery ward have husbands than the nurse's attitude let on.

[Nick]

I'm sorry to hear about the problems your running into Mr. Altena. I shudder to think of the world my daughter is going to grow up in. Here's praying its over before she has to see it all.

[o.h.]

Mr. Glisinski,

Thank you for re-thinking your comments (actually I was thinking of the Prodigal Son, whose older brother had similar complaints). Anyway here is one "practical" reason. My (single) mother turned to the church for food and assistance, and while she never embraced belief, the generosity of the church was not lost on my young self, and I became a Christian as a teenager.

The parents may have made bad choices (mine sure did); but the children didn't.

[o.h.]

I should add, even if I had never turned to Christ either, it was a good thing for me as a child to have been fed a hot dinner on a regular basis, and I'm grateful to those who chose to bear the burden of making sure that happened.

[LAbriAlumn]

What church actually comes alongside? What church doesn't function as though it were a country club? :-(

I admit I do not comprehend why so many children are given to those who do not want them or abuse them, and so many of us are single, would really, really want to enact the family church in our lives, and would be good mothers and fathers.

[Bill R]

"I admit I do not comprehend why so many children are given to those who do not want them or abuse them, and so many of us are single, would really, really want to enact the family church in our lives, and would be good mothers and fathers."

Note to James Kushiner and to David Mills: maybe Touchstone can sponsor an ecumenical matchmaking service? Seems like we have a few posters in Labrialumn's position. ;-)

[Ethan Cordray]

Bill,

Far from the first time such a thing's been proposed. I think I'd sign up, as soon as I feel practically prepared to take the leap. Though I'm not sure Touchstone (or, rather, Fellowship of St. James) is necessarily equipped for something like that.

[Bill R]

"Far from the first time such a thing's been proposed."

I know, but by now it seems we've almost reached critical mass....

[Monica]

And then it falls to us - the question - since we will never be able to right the wrong choices of others, what will the church do to sustain and nourish the "inheritance(s) of the Lord" who have no choice about the circumstances of life into which they are born?