Frustrated American needs help

[Lbys]

All--

I don't know what the etiquette is for posting threads from other forums, but I replied to one over at THR that brought my current state of mind to a head (pun, sort of):

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=267011

If I may, I'd like to highlight my own post, just to frame my current problem:

So what's to be done?

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I agree with Robert Hairless:

Quote:
What Levin and his friends seem unable to recognize is that we had better parents and better parenting then.

 
woodcdi is also spot-on:

Quote:
Guns didn't cause these incidents you mentioned, Senator Levin. Bad behavior caused these incidents.

 

The question that has been bothering me of late is this:

What can we do about it?

If we make the following assumptions:

• Collectively, most people had better parents then than they do now
• Current parents are mostly responsible for the bad behavior of their children these days

Then we add this, in some sort of a Libertarian vein:

• The government can't legislate how parents parent

Is there any way to reduce this slide into a morass, a wicked spiral of bad parenting begetting bad behavior begetting bad parenting? Or is our nation, our society, doomed to continue its devolution into one where personal responsibility and accountability are sacrificed on the altar of good feelings, political correctness, gentle or overly-permissive parenting, and state-nannying?

I'm really asking this question. I've done some research, and used to consider myself an optimistic person where the future of our soceity was concerned, but I'm starting to lose a lot of my optimism. Questions for the THR folks:

• What could I read to understand this better?
• Is there hope for our society?
• Do we just live as well-functioning cogs in an otherwise broken machine, making ourselves and our families strong while the building weakens and crumbles around us?
• What does everyone else think?
• Has this topic been done to death ad nauseam?

Just the ramblings of a frustrated American. Any help would be appreciated.

I pose the above post to this esteemed group as well, because while the two communities seem to overlap, I've also appreciated a lot of furious thought, well-considered reason, and a very high level of intelligence on this board.  It's just something that's been on my mind a lot lately, and I feel like I'm trying to make sense of it. 

So, do any of you have any spare optimism?

Lbys

[Standing Wolf]

Collectively, most people had better parents then than they do now

Oh? Do you mean to tell me human nature has undergone some sort of radical transformation in the last X many years?

[Lbys]

Oh? Do you mean to tell me human nature has undergone some sort of radical transformation in the last X many years?

No, I don't suppose that human nature has undergone a massive shift over the last several years.  It could be that I'm being a polyannic revisionist historian, but based on my own admittedly biased experience, informed by a strong nuclear family and a traditional two-parent household, it seems that parenting in the good old days consisted of:

• Clearer definitions and enforcement of the ideas of Wrong and Right
• Stronger enforcement of those ideas (spanking vs. time-out; hard grounding vs. "let's just forget this ever happened")
• A willingess to be a child's parent rather than striving to be his friend

These days, it seems, again in a generalized fashion, that fewer parents are willing to work hard to keep a family together (witness rising divorce rates), which compromises a family's ability somewhat to impart generally accepted norms into a child's value system. 

Just my impressions.  I'm really looking for dialogue and discussion on this, and resources beyond what I can find by Googling "culture war," "families in crisis," "traditional American values," etc.

Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?

[JimMarch]

Human nature HAS undergone a fundamental shift over the last 60 years.  The family structures have taken two major hits:

* The rise of the "consumer culture" post-WW2 has led to two-income families as the norm.  It's driven by unbelievably slick marketing, esp. by TV.  All this originally happened because America needed an outlet for the manufacturing capability gained in WW2, and Madison Avenue made sure the market demand was there, sensible or not.  It came at a damned high price tag.

* Racism helped destroy family structures among minorities.  Welfare laws were rigged to split up or prevent the formation of family structures, until one-parent families became the norm in some subcultures.  Massive restrictions on where minorities could live or work prior to 1964ish didn't help either.  Take one example: across the San Francisco Bay Area are mostly-black ghettos with ridiculous crime rates...about eight or nine in total.  Off the top of my head: Hunter's Point district and the Tenderloin in SF proper, West Oakland, Richmond, Pittsburg, Redwood City has a small one, East Palo Alto, one or two others.  All but two were connected with the shipping industry - blacks were allowed to live and work there as longshoresmen or low-grade industrial workers.  When the shipping industry started to die out in the late '40s to early '50s, the blacks weren't allowed to do anything else or go anywhere else local.  The men moved out in a desperate search for work, the women and kids went on welfare, these places just collapsed - and it can be most clearly seen in the utter collapse of families.

By the time the crack epidemic hit they flat exploded.

(The exceptions: the Tenderloin in SF is mostly a creation of SF city policy.  The saddest was East Palo Alto.  That was the bedroom community for the service workers acting as nannies/housekeepers/butlers/etc at private homes and Stanford University.  Around the mid-60's that wasn't "politically correct" and the damned Liberals fired 'em en mass - with nothing else available.  Plus the EPA business district didn't want to be "in the black town" so they got themselves annexed by Menlo Park in the '50s, leaving EPA without a business tax base to maintain basic services.  It all spiralled to a full-on crapfest by the late '80s - proximity to major freeways made it coke heaven and it made it to the #1 spot on the per-capita murder rate hit parade.)

Anyways. 

Rich families fell apart over the chase for the latest and greatest toys.  Minority families didn't "fall apart", they were shattered and the pieces stepped on repeatedly.

Screwed up families means screwed up people.

The "War On (Some) Drugs" is the second biggest cause of violence in the US.  I believe family collapse is #1.

[Manedwolf]

As to the destruction of the family unit in the consumer culture, read Sinclair Lewis' "Babbit". I think he covered the roots of a lot of our current issues pretty well.

[Lbys]

Manedwolf,

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'm putting it on my list, and since I cut the precious cable TV cable, I have more time to read!

Lbys

[armchair warrior]

Manedwolf,

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'm putting it on my list, and since I cut the precious cable TV cable, I have more time to read!

I just cut the HBO/Showtime package on the satellite.
I'm reading waaay more.
I too shall check it out.

[MechAg94]

It has been a while since I read this, but I saw a while back that black families were much more solid prior to the sixties.  I think the writer was pointing out that the number and percentage of black single parent families were much more prevalent after the changes in the 1960's including Johnson's Great Society that expanded welfare.  It was either Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell.  I don't remember which.  They each write about this every so often.  I think they said those issues were problems before then, but not anywhere near to the extent they are now. 


In general:
1.  Many parents put a higher priority on personal comforts, career, money, etc. rather than raising kids.  They may not think of it that way, but that is the end result of that decision.  They are told they can have careers and have kids and everything will be fine and they believe it.  In many cases, that may be true, but in others, it isn't.  One guys I used to work with; his wife stayed home for the first 10 years or so after having a couple kids.  They had to live in a smaller house and buy used cars, but they got along okay.  He thinks their kids are better off for it.
2.  Many parents have no concept of discipline or proper behavior and the need to teach that to kids.  I see people with kids that run back and forth screaming and carrying on and the parents don't care.  My parents would not have put up with that in public.  You also see those parents who put leashes on their kids, because they can't teach their kids to not run off on a whim.
3.  I certainly don't have all the answers.  I just see things and trends sometimes that make me think people just don't give a damn anymore.  They are wrapped up in themselves and think moment to moment, and as long as nothing disturbs that it must be okay.

[drewtam]

These might be some of the causes. There are other causes as well. Most notably to me is that in the past society was vehemenant against divorce, premarital sex, adultry (sp?), etc but now there is almost indifference. For example, if you found out your neighbor/coworker/friendly associate had an 'affair' and was getting divorced; would you a:) share with your friends as gossip and good laugh but otherwise interact the same or b:) find it depressingly sad and avoid any contact in the future, making them a pariah ?

Most people would say a. We just don't take the falling apart of a family very seriously anymore.

So where does our society go?
The fact is, we don't want or need religious laws to change things. Thats not my point. But as a society we can choose the culture we want and the society we want, without a single written law.

As far as I know, only religious preachers are declaring this need to change. But who listens to those kooks?
This isn't a purely religious issue, though. With out a doubt, it does have large religious overtones. But as a social integrity need, in and of itself, this can be "preached".

Drew

[MechAg94]

Contrary to some popular belief, morals do have value in maintaining a healthy and stable society.  Destruction of moral standards will lead to a change in culture/society for better or worse.  Certainly things happening now are not new, but they are much more accepted as normal than they ever were before (as mentioned above).