Parenthood has been publicly trashed over the past half century. 20th century culture portrayed fathers as dolts and dedicated moms as second class women. These ideas, hammered endlessly and over decades, have left behind a trail of damaged lives.
The big drivers of this abuse have been socialism and Freudian beliefs. I’ll explain below, but let’s be clear on the fact that both socialism and Freud’s “it’s your parents’ fault” can and must be thrown aside. We don’t need to waste our time on tired and failed beliefs, regardless of elderly dogmatists in marble buildings.
If you’re not convinced that these twin gods of the 20th century preached ideas that failed at horrifying costs, please be honestly convinced first. But at this point adults understand the truth of this: Socialism was a mass-murdering failure and Freudian ideas have failed at both large and small scales.
And so we should be convinced of something else: People still espousing these ideas are not to be taken as serious thinkers. Be kind to them, help them if you can, but stop wasting your time on them.
A Century of “Not My Fault”
Marx and Freud became the gods of the 20th century for the same reason: They gave people a way to evade responsibility. It was a century when methods of diverting blame to others raced to popularity, especially if they were said to be “scientific.”
This situation came about because, over that same period of time, men and women lost their ability to comprehend the larger world. Briefly (see A Changing of The Gods for deeper coverage), the process went like this:
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- The ways of the 19th century were made impractical by new financial systems.
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- The old mating strategy became impossible. And so young people had either to ridicule it or judge themselves unfit for mating.
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- Farm work was vanishing due to agricultural machinery. Millions of people were left feeling vulnerable.
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- Good jobs were found in factories, where workers became interchangeable parts and their agency was diminished.
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- Mass media was thrust into the minds of millions.
These changes continued until “society” was seen as the true entity and the individual a mere atom in it.
A person’s choices were primarily affected by family, friends and neighbors in the 19th century. These links withered over the 20th, leaving most people unmoored and foundering in cross-currents.
Trashing The Family
Again briefly, here’s how socialism and Freud affected the family:
At first (and I’m dealing mainly with the USSR), the socialists promoted “free love” and open marriage, but then pulled back, seemingly of necessity. The purpose of this was to uproot the traditional family, because isolated, atomized individuals seldom opposed them, while strong families frequently did. (It was always and only about raw power.) Socialist governments continually undercut families.
Freud’s model of laying the blame for almost anything on one’s parents never really healed the troubled people who trusted in it. Freudian therapy is justly noted for keeping people enmeshed with their childhood issues (real or imagined) for decades on end. It’s pretty well abandoned these days, although “blame Mom and Dad” is still hanging on.
These models of seeing life were deeply embedded into 20th century, primarily through government school and Hollywood culture.
Time For Revision
It seems to be time, finally, to revisit parenthood. Blaming your parents for whatever ails you has passed its expiration date; so has the painted envy of socialism.
It’s now clear that productive people are not to blame for all the troubles in the world and that the lords of hierarchies pretty well are. And so if Mom and Dad were essentially productive people, very little of it was actually their fault. Once we pass that point, it’s easy to see that most dads are decent men, laboring to do right for their children. And likewise we see that moms risk not only their bodies to create us, but work endlessly to make us happier and better people.
Moms and dads make mistakes, of course, but no one – and certainly not some political operative – will come close to providing loving, benevolent and enduring service to children better than even an average parent.
Good men and good women are produced by good families, not by government services. Any honest comparison of “bureaucratic solutions” and the average family shows that the family wins, and easily. We should become adamant on this point.
Here, to close, is a quote from the great historian, Will Durant, in his last years. I think it’s worth some of your time:
I felt more keenly than before the need of a philosophy that would do justice to the infinite vitality of nature… in the laughter and play of children, in the love and devotion of youth, in the restless ambition of fathers and the lifelong sacrifice of mothers… in all things I saw the passion of life for growth and greatness, the drama of everlasting creation.
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