The traditional family

[Paidiske]

But we cannot disregard the importance and unique role of what a father and a mother plays in a child's life. Otherwise what is the use and need for being a father or mother. This is the concern about what is happening today where some are wanting to dismantle the roles of men and women and completely destroy them. Mention the word traditional family or a mother or father role and all hell breaks loose like it is against the law to mention these things. It is not right wing or pseudoscience to want to support traditional families but based on scientific fact. It seems some want to disregard and ignore the science in favor of their ideologies.

I think that people who want more flexibility in parental roles are a far cry from wanting to "dismantle" or "completely destroy" them.

And the reason all hell breaks loose is - at least in part - because the "traditional family" was so terrible for women. If you want to go back to a society where women are financially dependent, unable to participate to the full in the workplace or in society, and so on, because they're trapped at home being stay at home mothers and full time homemakers, and of course the women who would be harmed by that are going to take it as an attack.

There's nothing in science which would require that kind of regressive and repressive approach, but lots of people gleefully try to use the science that way anyway.

 

[Cross Over the Lake]

I work at my local community centre and see a lot of disadvantaged people. Many are single parents with young children who have experienced domestic violence. I think of the young children and the effect this has on them. Many single parents come in struggling to cope often in financial hardship and have problems with child behavior.

It got me thinking about the importance of the traditional family and how this is the basis for a healthy and happy society. The importance of a mother and father figure and how this influences child development especially for a secure attachment in the early years which research shows can determine how a child will turn out as an adult.

Since around the 50's and 60's governments have supported easy divorce along with a lack of support for helping couples to stay together which has led to many family breakdowns. Statistics show that children from broken families do worse across a range of measures such as education, physical and mental health and employment and are more likely to be associated with substance abuse and crime.

Economic policies in western societies has gradually undermined families where both parents have to work denying quality time with children and adding stress which leads to family breakups. Feminism was a reaction to male dominance but things have gone from one extreme to another where men are confused and demeaned and women have become preoccupied with careers and believe they don't need a man to have children and raise them.

This has resulted in a war of sexes undermining what are male and female roles. Modern society has seen a raft of measures associated with artificial child birth and non traditional child upbringing such as state run child care centres which has implications for the future well-being of children.

Some say that today's young people are less resilient and prepared for life. Many boys have missed the influence of a positive father figure and are open to be easily influenced. Many girls miss a loving father that helps them navigate relationships in life. They both miss the bonding of a loving care giver like a mother which is so vital for emotional development. It makes me wonder are we seeing the result of decades of policies that have undermined the family with the attitudes of young people and the way some children are behaving.

Some try to rationalize and justify that there is no problem and no such thing as a traditional family and that families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes to support their political agendas. For some a father or mothers role is irrelevant which could see these roles superseded in the near future. They use comparisons and stats which show how single parents, mixed families or same sex parents can do just as good a job if not better.

But I say that these examples while good are second best. There is no substitute for the traditional family and the roles of a father and mother in ensuring healthy and happy children, families and societies. It is no coincident that the breakdown of the traditional family coincides with the breakdown of our societies.

Father’s and Mother’s Roles and Their Particularities in Raising Children
It is not right to say that one parent is more important than another one, while the mother certainly has the most important role in children’s lives in the prenatal period, later on the fathers and the mother’s roles gradually balance. The particularity of both roles consist in the fact that a father with his highest effort is not able to provide what needs to be provided by a mother and vice versa. Each one of them has their own characteristics. "The father´s behaviour towards the mother is an open book of life experiences for both, a son and a daughter. He is a source of their thoughts about men. A good father is an ideal for his daughter and an example for his son." (Štrbová, 2004, p. 18). "A mother plays one of the most social roles and expressions of human towards human.
https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/atd.2015.5.issue-1/atd-2015-0032/atd-2015-0032.pdf

Making The Case For Traditional Parenting
Making The Case For Traditional Parenting
It’s scientific: kids need not just two parents but a mother and father.
It’s scientific: kids need not just two parents but a mother and father.

This was a good read, thank you!!

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

As long as we're talking about "Traditional Families" what about a "Non-Traditional Family" like ours?

My wife is in the last stages of Alzheimer's. Rather than sending her off to a memory care facility where she would sit with a bunch of people 20 years her senior, watch TV and die of boredom and a broken heart rather than the disease. I made her a promise that I'd care for her at home, even if it would mean higher costs for a live-in nurse.
At her suggestion, after losing all her friends, we reached out on a dating site and found our partner who lost her mother to Alzheimer's. (Ann, my wife, is in red)

We are a family of three loving hearts committed to making Ann's last years the best possible. We do everything together, shop, they go to a spa for a day. Hit the theme parks or go on a cruise. The people at hospice say she's the happiest person with Alzheimer's they've ever seen and that I'm the best caregiver they've ever met.

Accepted by our families, neighbors and, now, we no longer even raise eyebrows at our church.
(we're on fb as Bruce N Ann Williams)

You aren't a non-traditional "family". You are a husband with an impaired wife, who has brought in an employee, a third person to care for your wife. I remember you.

Instead of keeping her as the employee she is, you began an affair with the third person and vehemently justify it as good and right, and obviously surround yourselves with those who also justify it as well.

Your friend sounds like a great employee. I hired a great one to help me care for my mom. God blessed her with a husband out of that deal - she met someone who actually was available while taking Mom to the grocery store.

 

[mama2one]

redundant

 

[Quartermaine]

So how would a good cop force someone to comply with the law?

They do it all the time

 

[MoreQuestions]

As for IQ in the workforce, IQ might play a role ...

Wonder no longer. I hope the attached helps. I would be interested in your thoughts.

 

[Paidiske]

I've never heard of the "glass basement" before. Is that a well-defined term?

My comment from which you quoted stands, I think. IQ might play a role but is far from the only factor in determining workplace success.

 

[Ken-1122]

They do it all the time

Care to answer my question? If a good cop will never resort to violence, how would a good cop force someone to comply with the law?

 

[MoreQuestions]

I've never heard of the "glass basement" before. Is that a well-defined term?
My comment from which you quoted stands, I think. IQ might play a role but is far from the only factor in determining workplace success.

Lots of factors, yes, but this seems to be the biggest impact and people almost never acknowledge it.
At the bottom end it helps explain why prisoners and rough sleepers are mostly men. At the top end it helps explain why most directors are men and why the best chess players are mostly men.
This doesn't fit some people's belief that all jobs should be 50:50. It also helps explain the existence of what people have defined as the gender pay gap. Our society has developed such that the most valued jobs tend to be the ones that men tend to be best at. I think addressing that issue would be much better than artificially forcing 50:50 in each industry type and job which is what's happening. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be any fuss over the fact that 60% of GPs under age 30 are female.
Equal opportunties don't result in equal outcomes. Can't have both.
I had never heard the phrase "glass basement" either but it seems appropriate to me.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

 

[Paidiske]

Well, I'm not going to pretend I have a good systematic grip on all of the issues involved, but here are some thoughts:

- The "glass basement" section of the graph doesn't seem to take into account unpaid labour. When we consider the unpaid work done in raising children, caring for the elderly and others who need it, and so on, that section of the "glass basement" is overcrowded with women. And they're by no means all of low IQ.

- I suspect that women work in areas, by and large, which they can combine with family/household responsibilities (see the above point about unpaid labour). That means they tend to avoid the most dangerous jobs when those are jobs which would keep them away from home (I note that in Australia, the job with the highest rate of workplace fatalities is long-haul truck driving; which also means being on the road away from home for significant stretches of time. Not exactly easy to combine with the school run etc!) I suspect that, in a similar fashion, women end up either avoiding or burning out of the very highest-paying jobs because those jobs also are not compatible with family responsibilities. We might well see the graph shift if we have a shift in workplace culture to be more open to being family-friendly, flexible and conscious of the importance of work-life balance (for men as well as women). (What I'm saying there is that it's not that men are better at the best-paying jobs, it's that our society structurally does more to enable them to be there).

I don't believe that all jobs should be 50:50, but I also know even just from my own lived experience that there are still many barriers to women participating to the full, or to the extent that we would like to, across a range of areas in society.

At any rate, the idea that women are, in general, closer to the average in IQ than men certainly does not, to me, provide any support for the idea that women should "provide value" through childbirth and childcare, as a poster suggested.

 

[stevevw]

I think that people who want more flexibility in parental roles are a far cry from wanting to "dismantle" or "completely destroy" them.

I agree that flexibility is good in parenting especially when there is pressure to find time to work, look after the kids and find time to relax. But the dismantling of the family I am talking about comes from a concerted agenda and gender roles that are destroying the idea of father and mother, husband and wife and man and woman regardless of the roles of parents.

And the reason all hell breaks loose is - at least in part - because the "traditional family" was so terrible for women. If you want to go back to a society where women are financially dependent, unable to participate to the full in the workplace or in society, and so on, because they're trapped at home being stay at home mothers and full time homemakers, and of course the women who would be harmed by that are going to take it as an attack.

Was it really all that terrible. I don't think the traditional family itself was the blame for the denial of women's rights. It was more about a general attitude across all society that men were the ones who should control things and not just the family. A traditional family structure can work just as well with the women being the worker and the man staying at home.

There's nothing in science which would require that kind of regressive and repressive approach, but lots of people gleefully try to use the science that way anyway.

I cannot see how anyone could justify the science to support oppression of anyone. But I think the science is clear on what is working and what is not working with families. We know that if both parents want to have a career and work then this is likely to come at a cost to child development. Women are putting off starting families perhaps missing their prime years for motherhood. We know that a mother plays a significant role in development a secure attachment with their child and this can be compromised if they are not available.

We know the absence of fathers which seems to be common today influences child behavior and development. We know that single parents have higher rates of poor child behavior and development. We also know that what ever we are doing today it is not working as there is a very high rate of family breakup.

So, logic tells us that two parents are better than one, kids need both a mother and a father in their lives and an infant need to bond with a caregiver (especially the mother). If anything, some are ignoring the science in favor of supporting their own ideas about parenthood and the family and this is what is compromising families.

 

[stevevw]

Lots of factors, yes, but this seems to be the biggest impact and people almost never acknowledge it.
At the bottom end it helps explain why prisoners and rough sleepers are mostly men. At the top end it helps explain why most directors are men and why the best chess players are mostly men.
This doesn't fit some people's belief that all jobs should be 50:50. It also helps explain the existence of what people have defined as the gender pay gap. Our society has developed such that the most valued jobs tend to be the ones that men tend to be best at. I think addressing that issue would be much better than artificially forcing 50:50 in each industry type and job which is what's happening. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be any fuss over the fact that 60% of GPs under age 30 are female.
Equal opportunties don't result in equal outcomes. Can't have both.
I had never heard the phrase "glass basement" either but it seems appropriate to me.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Jordan Petersen has a good series of lectures on this topic about the idea that society is dominated by men. In one video he replies to the claim that men own the vast majority of wealth and capital and women do more unpaid labor. Petersen mentions that the proportion of men who own more wealth is very small and that this is usually then applied to all men.

But when you factor in that more men are affected and dominated in other areas it balances things out. Most people in prison are men, most homeless people and victims of violent crime are men, most people with mental illness, commit suicide and die in war are men and most men do worse in school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4OXOXDcNM

He also speaks about equality between men and women. The idea is often brought up that society needs to make all areas of life a 50/50 equality between men and women. Petersen uses examples of how in Scandinavian countries where there is more gender equality the personality difference have increase rather than decreased and the proportion of women choosing stem fields has decreased rather than increased.

As cultures become gender neutral the number of women choosing stem fields decreases. Yet some claim that men are dominating the stem fields purely because of gender inequality. What Petersen is saying is that the research shows the opposite outcomes that gender ideology claimed. When societies become more egalitarian and people are left to make their own choices differences between men and women become more pronounced rather than equal.

By only measuring equality in terms of pay and job types by gender we are overlooking a range of reasons where men may do certain jobs like brick laying or dangerous jobs that women don't choose to do or go into stem field jobs that pay more that women don't choose and that 60% of university places are taken by women in the Humanities that men don't choose to do.

So we can never really equal out these factors and make men and women's pay and job type equal unless we want to deny the best person for the job and people being able to choose what they like and are good at.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy4vq8RdPGU

 

[pleinmont]

I am glad the idea of traditional families is being put in the rubbish bin. Gay or straight, single, married or unmarried, as long as the children are well cared for that is all that matters.

 

[Paidiske]

But the dismantling of the family I am talking about comes from a concerted agenda and gender roles that are destroying the idea of father and mother, husband and wife and man and woman regardless of the roles of parents.

I don't really believe that's what's happening, though. It comes across as a sort of scaremongering out of fear of social change.

Was it really all that terrible.

In many cases, yes.

I don't think the traditional family itself was the blame for the denial of women's rights. It was more about a general attitude across all society that men were the ones who should control things and not just the family. A traditional family structure can work just as well with the women being the worker and the man staying at home.

It was part of a package; most people who advocate for the "traditional family" want women at home having babies and keeping house, as part of that package.

We know that if both parents want to have a career and work then this is likely to come at a cost to child development.

Again, it depends how you do things. For example, for a couple of years when my daughter was small, my husband and I each worked three days a week. No cost to child development (rather a great bond with both parents), both parents having a career and working. Now, if only more workplaces allowed for that kind of part-time role...

Women are putting off starting families perhaps missing their prime years for motherhood. We know that a mother plays a significant role in development a secure attachment with their child and this can be compromised if they are not available.

So, again, let's make it easier for a woman to have babies without having to drop out of the world of work altogether.

We also know that what ever we are doing today it is not working as there is a very high rate of family breakup.

Well, maybe ideally people would have to demonstrate higher levels of maturity before starting a family, but since there's no really non-tyrannical way to do that...

 

[MoreQuestions]

Jordan Petersen has a good series of lectures on this topic about the idea that society is dominated by men. In one video he replies to the claim that men own the vast majority of wealth and capital and women do more unpaid labor. Petersen mentions that the proportion of men who own more wealth is very small and that this is usually then applied to all men.

But when you factor in that more men are affected and dominated in other areas it balances things out. Most people in prison are men, most homeless people and victims of violent crime are men, most people with mental illness, commit suicide and die in war are men and most men do worse in school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4OXOXDcNM

He also speaks about equality between men and women. The idea is often brought up that society needs to make all areas of life a 50/50 equality between men and women. Petersen uses examples of how in Scandinavian countries where there is more gender equality the personality difference have increase rather than decreased and the proportion of women choosing stem fields has decreased rather than increased.

As cultures become gender neutral the number of women choosing stem fields decreases. Yet some claim that men are dominating the stem fields purely because of gender inequality. What Petersen is saying is that the research shows the opposite outcomes that gender ideology claimed. When societies become more egalitarian and people are left to make their own choices differences between men and women become more pronounced rather than equal.

By only measuring equality in terms of pay and job types by gender we are overlooking a range of reasons where men may do certain jobs like brick laying or dangerous jobs that women don't choose to do or go into stem field jobs that pay more that women don't choose and that 60% of university places are taken by women in the Humanities that men don't choose to do.

So we can never really equal out these factors and make men and women's pay and job type equal unless we want to deny the best person for the job and people being able to choose what they like and are good at.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy4vq8RdPGU

Great summary, Stevevw. I hope tons of people read this and take on board the analysis, meaning and implications.
As an example of what companies are doing to close the gender pay gap, one company I worked for noted that women are not as good as men in building networks of contacts. So on the graduate scheme instead of identifying the men and women who had networking as a weakness and supporting them they set up contacts for all the women to access senior staff up to and including director level. In other words they are favouring women, some of whom are excellent at networking, over men, some of whom have networking as a weakness. Small example, but I feel very sorry for male graduates who are not being treated equally.
I had a long conversation with someone heavily involved in the civic service graduate development scheme and similar things are going on.

 

[MoreQuestions]

I am glad the idea of traditional families is being put in the rubbish bin. Gay or straight, single, married or unmarried, as long as the children are well cared for that is all that matters.

Agree completely, but there seems to be a clear pattern of youngsters who commit crime coming from fatherless households.

 

[MoreQuestions]

Well, I'm not going to pretend I have a good systematic grip on all of the issues involved, but here are some thoughts:

- The "glass basement" section of the graph doesn't seem to take into account unpaid labour. When we consider the unpaid work done in raising children, caring for the elderly and others who need it, and so on, that section of the "glass basement" is overcrowded with women. And they're by no means all of low IQ.

- I suspect that women work in areas, by and large, which they can combine with family/household responsibilities (see the above point about unpaid labour). That means they tend to avoid the most dangerous jobs when those are jobs which would keep them away from home (I note that in Australia, the job with the highest rate of workplace fatalities is long-haul truck driving; which also means being on the road away from home for significant stretches of time. Not exactly easy to combine with the school run etc!) I suspect that, in a similar fashion, women end up either avoiding or burning out of the very highest-paying jobs because those jobs also are not compatible with family responsibilities. We might well see the graph shift if we have a shift in workplace culture to be more open to being family-friendly, flexible and conscious of the importance of work-life balance (for men as well as women). (What I'm saying there is that it's not that men are better at the best-paying jobs, it's that our society structurally does more to enable them to be there).

I don't believe that all jobs should be 50:50, but I also know even just from my own lived experience that there are still many barriers to women participating to the full, or to the extent that we would like to, across a range of areas in society.

At any rate, the idea that women are, in general, closer to the average in IQ than men certainly does not, to me, provide any support for the idea that women should "provide value" through childbirth and childcare, as a poster suggested.

You have misunderstood the glass basement. In the same way that the graph shows a high proportion of men at the top end, there is also a high proportion of men at the bottom end (not women as you describe). It helps explain for example why most prisoners and rough sleepers are men.

 

[MoreQuestions]

Well, I'm not going to pretend I have a good systematic grip on all of the issues involved, but here are some thoughts:

- The "glass basement" section of the graph doesn't seem to take into account unpaid labour. When we consider the unpaid work done in raising children, caring for the elderly and others who need it, and so on, that section of the "glass basement" is overcrowded with women. And they're by no means all of low IQ.

- I suspect that women work in areas, by and large, which they can combine with family/household responsibilities (see the above point about unpaid labour). That means they tend to avoid the most dangerous jobs when those are jobs which would keep them away from home (I note that in Australia, the job with the highest rate of workplace fatalities is long-haul truck driving; which also means being on the road away from home for significant stretches of time. Not exactly easy to combine with the school run etc!) I suspect that, in a similar fashion, women end up either avoiding or burning out of the very highest-paying jobs because those jobs also are not compatible with family responsibilities. We might well see the graph shift if we have a shift in workplace culture to be more open to being family-friendly, flexible and conscious of the importance of work-life balance (for men as well as women). (What I'm saying there is that it's not that men are better at the best-paying jobs, it's that our society structurally does more to enable them to be there).

I don't believe that all jobs should be 50:50, but I also know even just from my own lived experience that there are still many barriers to women participating to the full, or to the extent that we would like to, across a range of areas in society.

At any rate, the idea that women are, in general, closer to the average in IQ than men certainly does not, to me, provide any support for the idea that women should "provide value" through childbirth and childcare, as a poster suggested.

I am please to hear you point out the men and women make different choices. This is why forcing everything in the workplace to be 50:50 is wrong.
It's also why the gender pay gap as defined is a natural outcome and shouldn't be closed artificially.

 

[MoreQuestions]

Well, I'm not going to pretend I have a good systematic grip on all of the issues involved, but here are some thoughts:

- The "glass basement" section of the graph doesn't seem to take into account unpaid labour. When we consider the unpaid work done in raising children, caring for the elderly and others who need it, and so on, that section of the "glass basement" is overcrowded with women. And they're by no means all of low IQ.

- I suspect that women work in areas, by and large, which they can combine with family/household responsibilities (see the above point about unpaid labour). That means they tend to avoid the most dangerous jobs when those are jobs which would keep them away from home (I note that in Australia, the job with the highest rate of workplace fatalities is long-haul truck driving; which also means being on the road away from home for significant stretches of time. Not exactly easy to combine with the school run etc!) I suspect that, in a similar fashion, women end up either avoiding or burning out of the very highest-paying jobs because those jobs also are not compatible with family responsibilities. We might well see the graph shift if we have a shift in workplace culture to be more open to being family-friendly, flexible and conscious of the importance of work-life balance (for men as well as women). (What I'm saying there is that it's not that men are better at the best-paying jobs, it's that our society structurally does more to enable them to be there).

I don't believe that all jobs should be 50:50, but I also know even just from my own lived experience that there are still many barriers to women participating to the full, or to the extent that we would like to, across a range of areas in society.

At any rate, the idea that women are, in general, closer to the average in IQ than men certainly does not, to me, provide any support for the idea that women should "provide value" through childbirth and childcare, as a poster suggested.

You say the graph will change if workplace culture changes. I'm afraid that a misunderstanding of the graph. It's purely a graph of IQ. It doesn't show the workplace success of men and women. It's a possible (I would say likely) explanation of why we see differences. The only wat the graph will change is if patterns of IQ change.
Does that help?

 

[Paidiske]

You have misunderstood the glass basement. In the same way that the graph shows a high proportion of men at the top end, there is also a high proportion of men at the bottom end (not women as you describe). It helps explain for example why most prisoners and rough sleepers are men.

I'm not sure it does explain all of those things. Are prisoners in prison simply because they are - to put it bluntly - stupid? Or are there other factors - aggression, poor impulse control, propensity to risk-taking behaviour - which ought to be taken into account?

And when I read about the "glass basement" it was described as "The phenomenon wherein women are absent from the lowest, most difficult or most dangerous jobs." I was just pointing out that if we include unpaid labour in that metric, we might find that in fact, women are not absent from the "lowest" jobs at all.

It's also why the gender pay gap as defined is a natural outcome and shouldn't be closed artificially.

Well, I certainly don't find it just when my male peers, doing exactly the same work, with equivalent or less qualification or experience, are paid more than me. I would certainly like that gap closed, by any means necessary.

You say the graph will change if workplace culture changes. I'm afraid that a misunderstanding of the graph. It's purely a graph of IQ. It doesn't show the workplace success of men and women. It's a possible (I would say likely) explanation of why we see differences. The only wat the graph will change is if patterns of IQ change.
Does that help?

The graph highlights the "glass ceiling" and the "glass basement," which both have to do with workplace success. It may, in fact, do so inaccurately or misleadingly (I think it does), but I am arguing that whether one inhabits the glass basement or cracks the glass ceiling is about a heck of a lot more than IQ.