Posted on 10/29/2004 7:47:22 AM PDT by gobucks
Why are our boys failing to grow up? One reason is the incredible impact of the birth control pill on society, especially in how women are deceived by its so-called benefits.
These days fertility clinics are overflowing with shell-shocked middle aged men and women. Of course, most of them spent years not questioning those 'benefits'. If you have ever sat in one, you'll know the mood of the waiting room is unlike any other doctor's office. The eyes of many of the women look like caged rabbits in a research lab, waiting for that next unexpected jab. The dutiful husbands frequently look tired, really tired. And they don't usually look forward to the visit to that room where they have to provide, ah, the 'sample'.
It's usually a really clean room, except for the well thumbed stack of magazines. Those, of course, are helpfully provided to the men such that they can shorten the time required to collect the 'sample'.
Frequently the doc comes back w/ the results and says to him, 'things are swimmingly great for you'. Then he intones softly to her, 'but you, ah, sorry. You have some ovulation issues. But the drugs we have today, and even the IVF options ... there's a lot of hope left'.
Hope. That is what the fertility clinics peddle. Lots of hope. A goodly number of folks spin the wheel and score of course. But a huge number of women and men experience these office visits as something far worse than what any dentist could inflict. Imagine getting a root canal over and over, and the dentist clucking gently, 'well, we'll try again next month'. Ever notice that success rates at fertility clinics are not discussed that much?
Crazy, our world is just crazy. In 1904, though things were not necessarily 'better' in many ways, they were not crazy in this regard. Little boys and girls witnessed during their youth a great reality about sex: it was powerful. A boy, long before puberty, usually watched how when a woman entered the sexual world, married or not, she usually got pregnant. A girl even more so recognized that sex would forever change her existence.
As a result, both witnessed a reality regarding what happened in a boy's life once he went through puberty and was faced with that need to fulfill the daily (hourly?) sex requirement. He simply knew that getting a woman to provide relief for that issue wasn't going to come without a cost: feeding a new mouth.
Women recognized their role, thus, in the matter of translating boys to men. They knew that on the wedding day, a new birth took place when the man took her hand and renamed her, in just the same way as when she would first hold the hand of her new baby he would also name, and shortly thereafter whisper that same last name into her newborn child's ear.
In 1904, men routinely handled the naming responsibility with ease. Not anymore, given how even the act of naming has become so politicized. However, that doesn't change the fact that naming is an act undertaken by men, not boys. Women used to understand that, until the Pill came along. Within a few weeks of that watershed event, boys and girls suddenly learned that sex could be separated from children. What was not announced was the deliberate effort to inject in their minds that the sex act was henceforth to be forever separated from the act of naming.
Boys now could work, but as they pleased. The idea that they would have to work sufficiently hard enough to support a family became optional. And women allowed them to buy into this ridiculous idea, because of the clap trap they were being sold. Manhood, the responsiblity kind of manhood, therefore became optional, and boys learned that they could sell their sperm on the open market for about 50 dollars a shot. Recently it's gotten a lot worse ... young women are being told they can sell their eggs at about 3000 bucks per egg - especially if they have the 'right' genes. Crazy.
In 1904, a woman would look at her suitor, and state that no matter how much he sweet talked her, he better first be able to provide. The woman's Dad, usually a supervisory type (because in 1904, that was a smart way to be if you had a daughter), would give him the same message. That was the reality in 1904 ... sex created kids. Thus, there was a built in incentive for boys to cast off the downsides of boyhood and assume the role of 'man'. They got the reward of regular sex, but attached was the reality of regular work.
And so a woman had a built in incentive to encourage boys to become men in 1904. But today, the Pill deceives them into thinking that 'role' is optional. Oh, some girls wise up at a young age, and get off the pill. They continue to date, but soon enough the guy hears, 'no sex bub, I'm not on the pill'. The 'guy', is suddenly repositioned, by her, to decide if he is really interested, thus marking a step out of guyhood into manhood. Women out there frequently 'get' this is actually good for society.
But too many other girls wise up around 32 or 33 years of age, and way to many wise up even later. That tick-tock sound eventually gets to be deafening, awake or asleep. Suddenly, what seemed to be no big deal was a really big deal - and the one resource that could help them 'relax' and feel secure about getting pregnant ... a man who will be around to protect and provide ... is missing.
The fertility docs all say, hey, you are going to need a low stress environment to get pregnant. Why is that? Well, it turns out stress hormones really do negatively impact the ability to conceive, and carry, a child. And when a woman is alone, guess what? She is stressed, big time.
The marriage that started out so egalitarian at first, with the hyphenated name and all that .... now, he should step up to the plate, and make her feel secure. But instead, he, the guy 'husband' has had lots of practice making her feel lonely.
It just goes on and on, this craziness. But before the Pill, it was simple: sex almost always resulted in a little crying 24/7 bundle of demands and time. The grinding force was always available to help boys put away the boyhood as they struggled into the suit of a man.
In other words, we need our kids, our babies, to help boys grow into men. Our babies are NOT optional. We need our women to understand that they play a central role in the matter of boys becoming men. Selling women on this idea is tough if their Dad was a wreck who never was trustworthy. But that sell must happen, that Dad's failures notwithstanding.
We also need, we conservatives, to understand this: liberals fully understand all this stuff above, in their typical cold calculating ways. They fully understand the key to creating new liberal voters is first and foremost to guard the 'acceptibility' of the pill. It all starts there. Abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage ... all of it a big trojan horse to an extent. It starts with the 'acceptibility' of the Pill, a 'gift of the Greeks'. All the agony currently being experienced in fertility clinics - to a liberal, it's an acceptable Darwinian consequence in the larger fight against what being a Man stands for.
I have told my son, who is a middle schooler, 'stay away from women who take the pill'. I made it clear to him that such a woman will have no interest, ever, in seeing him get rid of his boyhood. Such a woman will be forever content to accept that he would always be a boy trapped in a man's body.
I told him a woman who doesn't take the Pill is a far more interesting creature to pay attention to ... because ultimately, she is capable of loving him more, by seeking to help him grow up.
The next time you are in a plane, and you have the good fortune to be sitting next to a young, pretty woman who is single, snappily dressed in her business consultant blue suit, ask her this question: 'what responsibilities do young women today have in the task of translating boys into men'.
At minimum, I promise you this: the plane ride will seem pretty short. Young pretty women usually love to talk.
And what exactly would a 'real' man do? Tell that little woman she's going to take his name and like it or else he'll have a little correction for her?
That said, I intend to take my future husband's name and not hyphenate. I just noticed your use of the word 'lets' being used almost as 'allow' would be used.
It is unconscionable to produce children in the hopes that they will serve as some sort of medication to the adults who brought them into the world. Children do not exist to save shaky marriages, to help overgrown adolescents grow up, or any other such purpose that selfish irresponsible parents may have in mind for them.
I can't say enough good things about our parish and the programs they have for teens and for grownups, too.
Me too! (Chaste geek that I was, it didn't make any difference to my sex life or lack thereof.) And since the alternative was a hysterectomy . . .
But I don't think gobucks is talking about the medical exceptions to the rule, but about the change in general attitude that the Pill introduced. I know from talking to my friends in high school that far too many of them viewed the advent of the Pill as a license to engage in risky sexual behavior. Which of course changes the parameters of courtship and marriage in a fundamental way.
C.S. Lewis commented on much the same thing 50 years or so ago, both in articles and in his novel That Hideous Strength.
But it's not something that many post-Sexual Revolutionaries want to address.
I told him that women tend to be overt about this subject once a certain stage in the relationship is reached. Few women will lie outright about NOT being on the pill; and those that are not are more likely to say they are not. I did tell him that he would have to take initiative and ask outright for this kind of info before he let his heart get too involved.
(fwiw, BCPs are obviously useful for certain women who suffer from endo or other problems - and endo is a particular vicious curse; my wife too was on BCPs for years b/c of similar reasons; my article was basically to those who believe there is no consequence for using BCPs just willy nilly during these sexually freedom salad days when boys are everywhere and men a rare item ...)
I agree. You're incorrect if you think I'm implying in any way that children should be produced for that reason. I am implying that deliberately avoiding the production of children is a pretty good recipe for extending that avoider's adolescence.
Children do not exist to save shaky marriages, to help overgrown adolescents grow up, or any other such purpose that selfish irresponsible parents may have in mind for them.
No argument with you there either. Again, the intent of the article was to show how the irresponsible and unquestioning attitudes toward the Pill today are harming boys (especially when its conservatives who are not questioning this). I think anything that encourages boys to translate into men is a pretty good idea for society.
Given you have strong feelings about children, that is what they are NOT for, what in your view IS the purpose of children? Not trying to be combative here .. just curious. Too many attack and say what is wrong without offering a 'this is the right way' rejoinder...
Indeed, whether they be liberal or otherwise ...
I think people should have children if and when their primary reason is to GIVE to the children. Give them the best upbringing, education, values, love, etc. that you possibly can, in the hopes that they will have wonderful lives, and that they will live their lives in a way that benefits society as a whole.
Too many people are having children for the wrong reasons, for the parents' reasons -- to save a marriage, to grow the parents up, to have something to love (a popular reason with teenage 3-4th generation welfare moms), etc. Your post seemed (perhaps inadvertently) to validate one of these reasons.
There are a lot of messed up children and adults out there, and most of them were raised by parents who had them either for the wrong reasons, or by accident, and were unprepared to raise them effectively, lovingly, and selflessly. I think we need to be pushing the idea that one needs to have one's own act thoroughly together, before taking on the huge responsibility of raising children.
"I think we need to be pushing the idea that one needs to have one's own act thoroughly together, before taking on the huge responsibility of raising children."
I think we need to push for that too .... its a good ideal.
I also think that if we push TEENS to that idea, bringing up kids such that by the time we release them, they pursue unions already equipped to raise kids, then that's the better ideal. There is this idea out there that you have to be over 30 or 40 years old before you are 'mature' enough to raise a kid. And its the Liberals who are selling that falsehood.
My dad made it pretty clear that we were born to work on the farm. Period.
Love was something you didn't give your children.
I'm one of the waiters. I'm 43, have a bunch of embryos in the freezer, and expect to start putting them in the oven in 3-4 years. I know I would have been a lousy parent 10 years ago, and an even lousier one 20 years ago.
"Maturity" isn't the only factor. Life experience, in our extremely complex society, is an important factor as well. You just can't have as much perspective on things in your mid-20s as you do in your mid-30s or mid-40s. I think I'll be much better equipped to raise children a little further down the road. And finances matter too. I want to be absolutely sure that my children will never see the inside of a daycare center or a government-run school.
There certainly are some people who are fully prepared to raise children in their 20s, but I really think they're a minority, and I don't necessarily see that as a problem. What's the big rush?
These articles are inevitably written by a guy. I wonder why that is?
Did you see An American Mother's post?
ping ... not pro life exactly. But, very much in the same spirit, and I thought you'd be interested...
ping to two pro lifers ; suspect you may find it worthwhile...
thanks.
" These articles are inevitably written by a guy. I wonder why that is?"
I don't know about 'these articles', but I know about mine. It was written by a man, not a guy. What's wrong with you? You think the world needs MORE guys?
I actually have five children. Trying to do more natural birth control I have noticed a pattern with my last for children. They are almost exactly 2 years, 2 months apart from each other. Every time ovulation starts again I wind up pregnant again. I have actually been considering the Pill, since I don't want to have a new baby every year until I hit menopause.
Thanks for the ping!
A distinction without a difference.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.