MATTHEW writes:

If you can spare the time, I would like to ask you a parenting question.

My cousin, B., recently became pregnant. She is not married to the baby’s father. In this day and age, that is unfortunate but not terribly unusual. What is unusual, however, is that B. is 26 years old, not nineteen. She graduated from an Ivy League college and went on to obtain her Ph.D.  She now works in her field (she is a physical therapist) at a retirement home.  The pregnancy was not planned. B. isn’t making an ideologically motivated decision to forgo marriage before motherhood, and she isn’t making a lifestyle statement.  She had been dating her current boyfriend for three to six months when she discovered that she was pregnant. To her credit, she does not want to have an abortion. But she doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with single motherhood either.

B. and the baby’s father have discussed marriage, but the father is reluctant to commit to it because he is “stressed out enough” at the idea of fatherhood.  Right now they are discussing cohabitation, but the baby’s father is uncertain about that too. He claims to be an alcoholic, and “the child of alcoholics.”  He works as an assistant manager at a restaurant and did not graduate from college. He seems like a nice kid, not a cad, but he is extremely immature.  Before she began dating the baby’s father, B. dated a succession of what can only be described as losers. There was a guy who flunked out of the police academy, and another who lived with his parents and was on psychiatric medication because he suffered from “anxiety.”  I realize that many young men are struggling these days, and that economic conditions are not ideal.  However, B.’s ex-boyfriends all struck me as losers. They weren’t underemployed college graduates who were depressed at their inability to find a decent job; B.’s boyfriends were perpetual victims, the sort of guys with lots of drama in their lives who can always be counted on to fail.  And while it’s hard for young men these days, the baby’s father should have offered to marry her. The fact that he didn’t makes him a loser. This obviously isn’t a coincidence, since B. has dated a string of losers.

B.’s younger brother, J.,  is an actuary who recently quit his job for the avowed purpose of playing video games all day.  He’s young, just 24, and has only worked for about a year since graduating from college.

B. and J.’s parents just celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary and made enormous sacrifices to send B. and J. to good schools. Please understand, they aren’t a materialistic yuppie couple, social climbers who are consumed with appearances and having “the best.” They lived in a crummy house, and worked tirelessly at thankless jobs (one is an engineer who worked at a defense contractor until he got downsized in the late 1990’s and now works for a university in the “purchasing” department,  the other is an accountant  who works at a hospital) in order to pay their kids’ private school tuition. The school that both B. and J. attended is extremely expensive; tuition for fourth through sixth grade is currently $25,550 per year, per child, while tuition for the high school is $34,640 per year, per child. (B. and J.’s parents live in an area where public schools are stigmatized and private school is both very important and very expensive.)  It’s always been obvious to me that B. and J.’s parents’  top priority was their children. They seem like an extremely close family and I’m certain that B. and J. had an excellent childhood. B. and J.’s childhoods were positively idyllic  when compared to those of the children of single mothers and the like.  I’ve always admired B. and J.’s parents and looked up to them, and I am still convinced that they love their children very much and did the best they could as parents.

There are only three red flags that I can see in B. and J.’s childhood. The first is that the expensive school they attended appears to be pretty liberal. It’s your quintessential prep school run by New England liberals, its all about “diversity,” inclusion and the environment.   There isn’t much actual diversity there, of course, but I’m sure that B. and J. were thoroughly indoctrinated with the tenets of New England liberalism since kindergarten. The school is completely secular and I’m quite certain that B. and J. were not taught any values at the school other than to do well academically and get along with other children.

Second, B. and J.’s parents have always been regular churchgoers, and B. and J. thus attended church faithfully while growing up. However, the “church” is extremely liberal. Until recently, the head pastor was a gay man who was “married” to another man.   Therefore, I very much doubt that B. and J. got a sound education  in Christian morality at church. Undoubtedly they learned about nonjudgmentalism and diversity.  The fact that B. and J. attended that particular “church”  has always mystified me.   First, I’ve never known anyone who actually attended, much less volunteered at, such a “church.” I always figured that the ultra liberal churches had empty pews. In fairness, though, the church that B. and J.’s parents attended  seems to have a lot of community life and parishioners who are very active. But B. and J.’s parents are not liberals.  They’re the most conventional, straightlaced people you can imagine. I mean, he’s an engineer and she’s an accountant. He  grew up in a small town in Ohio and was a Boy Scout.  She was raised by crotchety old New England WASPs who were ultra-conservative and is the type of 50-something woman who has a short haircut, wears makeup on only special occasions, seldom smiles, and pinches pennies until they scream. I just can’t understand how those two ended up at that crazy church.   My only guess is that they were trying to conform  to the social norms of upper middle class educated New England professionals, and embraced liberal progressivism for that reason.  Also, they are Protestants, and there probably aren’t many ultra conservative Protestant churches left in their part of the country.  Nine out of the ten churches in their area are probably just as liberal,  If they wanted a conservative church they’d have to convert to Catholicism. I know several New England WASPs who have converted to Catholicism, so that definitely was an option for them, but it would’ve required a real commitment because they don’t have any personal connection to the Catholic Church.

Third, B. and J.’s father has always struck me as weak.  His picture might as well be in the dictionary under the heading “beta male.”   He’s a real milquetoast type who hates his job but has suppressed all unpleasant emotions and is determined to carry on like a mule. That’s not entirely his fault. Men his age have an economic incentive to do that, because they have good jobs with benefits, a pension plan, and the like. If they just keep their noses clean and show up at their cubicle every day, their families will do okay. That’s not true for many people in younger generations,  but it is true for him.  B. wasn’t apparently afraid of her father’s reaction to her impending single motherhood, which means that he really is weak.

So there you have it. Two young people raised by excellent parents in idyllic circumstances whose lives have taken very wrong turns. What happened? Any insights you might have would be most appreciated.

 I can think of two  mitigating factors  that do not involve B. and J.’s parents. Again, these are merely MITIGATING factors.  They  are not meant to ABSOLVE B. and J. or excuse them. Here is the first factor. Children are not only influenced by their parents; they are also influenced by their peers. In B.’s case, most of her peers are probably wasting their lives pursuing publishing internships in New York City and living in roach-infested, overpriced apartments. I’m sure that she is the first of her high school and college classmates to have a baby, and that 95 percent of her college classmates aren’t married or engaged, even though they are 26. I’m also sure that this is not likely to change in the very near future. They are leading unsatisfying, pointless lives.  That’s not because B.’s classmates are feminist careerists; they are typical upper-middle-class girls of their generation who are merely doing what is expected of them.  I’m sure that the overwhelming majority of them would like to marry and have families, probably even stay at home,  but in their subculture that just doesn’t happen very often nowadays; if it happens at all, it happens at age 35. B., on the other hand, has a chance to do something that matters  – be a mother.  On some level I actually think that her choice is a positive one.  She instinctively wants something more than the culture is offering her. She’s going about it in the worst possible way, but on some level I think she realizes that motherhood is more important than the empty existence of most upper-middle-class 20-something girls today.

I would be most grateful for any thoughts (however brief) that you may have.  I am trying to figure out what happened here so that I can learn from it. I always looked up to the example set by B and J’s parents  and am trying to figure out what happened here.

 Laura writes:

Just to restate the case:

B. spent about 20 of her 26 years in school.

B. went to an Ivy League college.

B.’s mother was an accountant, not a homemaker.

The family could have lived off the money they spent on tuition.

The parents worked tirelessly. The children worked tirelessly.

She had only one sibling.

Her father had no sense of his own authority.

Her mother was joyless.

The family attended a “church” that was anti-Christian.

She met immature men who faced poor economic prospects.

B.’s friends and her culture believe in free love before marriage.

There is no social stigma against single motherhood, which is even considered heroic.

So there you have it. Judging from what you say, none of B.’s formation gave her a sense of her feminine dignity;  prepared her to be a wife and mother; taught her reverence and submission; impressed upon her the good of virginity before marriage, or helped her know that there is something higher in life than work and niceness. I don’t agree with your assessment of her parents, which includes so many obvious contradictions they speak for themselves. They could have at least refused to pay for her Ivy League miseducation. The whole family is living through some obscenely exaggerated version of the Protestant work ethic, combined with Marxist sexual liberation and cultural self-destruction.

— Comments —

A reader writes:

One thing that I noted is that this person attended an ivy league school and obtained a PhD in physical therapy(which I think is totally unnecessary unless one is considering a life in academia) only to work in an old folks home. I think this person wasted a lot of resources and time for a job that can be performed by a student in the same major in physical therapy from a community college for much less the cost and in a period of  two years!!

James N. writes:

1. Not every act of an adult child is authored by the parents. There are learned tendencies, but contrary examples abound.

2. The exposition of errors by the parents and the child do not deal sufficiently with the woman who yielded to the female attraction to losers. Women who are protected (so they imagine) from pregnancy are free (so they imagine) to act on their lust for “bad boys,” and this case is a perfect example. A woman who had a child with a man unsuitable for fatherhood is 100 percent responsible for the result, and now bears almost no opprobrium.

3. The education which most parent consumers regard as “the best” is almost universally awful, and it requires heroic ambition and strength for a student subjected to it to emerge healthy. The requisite heroic virtues are opposed by the school process, starting in preschool.

Laura writes:

Agreed.

On number two, obviously the man is responsible for the child too. But the stigma of illegitimacy was always heavier for the woman and there were good reasons for that. The stigma was much more charitable to women than today’s freedom. It was not, as feminists would have it, caused by hatred of women. To the contrary.

A reader writes:

I noted that she is pregnant by a “loser.” I read this word a lot only in reference to men. Why can’t she be the “loser?” If she keeps picking “losers” then perhaps she is, like water, seeking her own level? Is she a “winner?” I would like to know why it is that women cannot possibly ever be “losers?”

Laura writes:

The same realities that have made society condemn a woman for being a “slut” have made it condemn a man for being a “loser,” which is not to say either tag is always justified.

James P. writes:

It is unfortunate that B did not acquire a husband during her college years. One has to wonder why.  The men at Ivy League schools can’t all be unattractive weaklings.

I would also note, parenthetically, that working as a physical therapist is a tragic waste of her education, and she undoubtedly denied a spot at her prestigious schools to someone who could have made better use of the education than she did. Not that I am against physical therapists, but they obviously don’t need an Ivy League degree or a PhD to do their job.

The whole situation is a classic example of the problem that if you do not make a strenuous positive effort to instill the proper values in your children, then liberal progressivism will fill the void. They will get liberal progressivism from school, the media, many churches, and their peers — you are all that stands between them and absorption into the liberal hive-mind.

It is entirely possible that J. will shape up. I hope that his parents are not providing him with anything, least of all a basement in which to play video games. “You’re out of the nest, time for you to fly” — that should be the message of the parents to their wayward son. And possibly also to the daughter, now that I think about it.

Matthew writes:

Thanks to everyone for their helpful thoughts.  Here are a couple of minor additional facts:  B attended an all-girls college.  I don’t want to identify it, because I don’t want to identify B, but it a famous all-girls liberal arts college.  It’s not actually in the Ivy League but it’s the same thing, I just used “Ivy League” as a form of shorthand because the phrase “Seven Sisters” isn’t as well-known.  … Physical therapy is a traditional female helping profession, and it seems like a good choice for a young woman who doesn’t want to teach and isn’t interested in making the enormous (and limiting) personal sacrifices necessary to attend medical school and work as a doctor.  If B. had attended a more gender-neutral coed college like Cornell, physical therapy probably would have been an unusual choice, but when you consider that she went to an all-girls school it seems a little more understandable.

Second, there has been a lot of credential inflation during the past 30 years.  The American Physical Therapy Association’s web site (http://www.apta.org/PTEducation/Overview) says that a doctoral degree is now the “entry-level” degree for physical therapists.  When I graduated from college in 1993, the licensing agencies were just staring to physical therapists to have a master’s degree before they could take the licensing exam.  Today all of the colleges which used to award an MPT degree now hand out DPT degrees instead.  Obviously this is nothing but credential inflation, but a young person who wants to work as a physical therapist today has to get one of those spurious “doctoral” degrees, even though 30 years ago physical therapy was an undergraduate major. This is not B.’s fault.

Lastly, B. hasn’t dated bad boys, she has dated losers.  To my mind there is a distinction.  She has dated guys who can’t finish school and can’t hold a job, but I would not refer to them as “losers.”  They don’t strike me as edgy bad boys, they are schlubs, basically.  My guess is that B. wants to “rescue” them, and does not realize that this usually ends in tears.

I realize that B’s parents made some mistakes, but by the standards of the modern age they were excellent parents.  It’s too bad that society has deteriorated to the point that it has, where (as James N. and James P. pointed out) heroic measures are required to protect one’s children from the prevailing decay.

On a constructive note, what do you think is the best way to deal with this situation going forward?  When I see B., I will tell her that (1) she screwed up; and (2) she should try to get married to the father, because her child deserves to have both a mother and a father.  Similarly, I’ll tell the father that although he didn’t plan on this, he is a father now, and he has to make the best of the situation and be there for his child.  We’re all hoping that he succeeds.  The economy is tough today and it’s not going to be easy, but acting as a father to his child is something that does not cost anything.  I am sure that he wants to be a good father, and that isn’t easy, but to do that he has to be there.  Plenty of good, happy marriages have started out in circumstances such as this, and he can be a respected man and a good person if he acts as a good father.   Does anyone have additional advice?

Laura writes:

I don’t think you should tell her that she “screwed up!”

For goodness sake, the woman is pregnant and nothing will come of being harshly critical in that way. I also don’t think it is your place to tell her she should get married. You can pray for her and hope for the best for her. You can offer her help of some kind. You are her cousin and you should extend kindness and charity toward her at this time. She is young and her life is not doomed. At the same time, you should not celebrate or participate in celebrations.

Matthew writes:

I wasn’t trying to be mean when proposing to tell B. that she screwed up, I was just trying to give her some “tough love” and tell her something that her parents evidently didn’t. They are celebrating the pregnancy, they are saddened by the circumstances glad that there is going to be a new baby. B. knows that she screwed up but she is mostly rationalizing it, I just wanted to tell her the truth, not out of spite but so that she will stop rationalizing and do her best to get her life back on track. But since you and your readers think that’s too much, I won’t say that.

Laura writes:

I realize your intention was not to be cruel.

Again, I think it’s wrong to celebrate her pregnancy.

 Paul writes:

I always knew that if I got a girl pregnant, it meant marriage for life.  Because abortion was and is unthinkable (download or rent the emotional Michael Caine hit 60s movie Alfie to feel the evil), I was petrified about what marrying for life as a teenage Catholic would do to my “fun” and career for sixty years.  Adoption was so far out of the question for my baby that the thought, if it occurred, was fleeting; I suppose this particular mindset is based on biology and my parents’ devotion to my brother and me.

As a Catholic, I think the mother and father should consult a Catholic priest.  Probably the advice will not seem to be a piece of cake at first, but ultimately, the two can be saved.  I have a brother to attend to.  So Matt should know this advice is not frivolous armchair quarterbacking.  Not that I am doing the best I could for my brother.

A young male reader writes:

I would like to add a thought to this conversation.

The father of B.’s unborn child may or may not be a loser, but it is unfair to label him as a loser simply on the basis that he has opted to not marry B. Perhaps in 1950 this would have been an accurate characterization of such a man. But the times in which we are living have changed. The fact that they have a child together is no guarantee of B. choosing to stay married to the father.

In fact, the more educated B. is, the more likely she will be to eventually divorce her the father of her child (if they got married). Women initiate something on the order of two thirds of divorces, and women initiate fully 90 percent of divorces among educated couples (see “These Boots Are Made for Walking: Why Most Divorce Filers are Women”).

Divorce is an especially raw deal for men today, and would be for this man who seems to have less in the way of earning-power and education than B. Although most would probably like to ignore this notion, an empowered, highly educated woman like B. who appears to have no qualms about proceeding forth as a single mother poses a real potential threat of infidelity down the line. I am not attacking B.’s character; I do not know her. She may be an exception. But if we combine the facts that a woman, especially in today’s age, is more likely to betray a husband who has less status than her, who is weak, who is underachieving, who makes less money than her, and who has less sexual and professional options than her–if we consider these things within the context of a culture which is increasingly permissive of female infidelity (for a remarkable example see here), then this becomes a significant question for the father of the child, who, by the details provided, fits the bill for the forgoing “beta” characteristics. All of this is magnified in proportion that B. is attractive. I am aware that these are all quite unsentimental remarks, but this is the way things are. The erosion of sex roles and the breakdown of social institutions have created conditions where nothing exists to impede the naked drive of raw self-interest and the natural laws of the sexual marketplace, to borrow an overused term. 

Of course, none of this changes the fact that the child needs two married parents. I only wish to point out that the man’s choice not to marry could be conceived as highly rational, however unfortunate that fact is. Neither is any of this is to imply that moral principles have intrinsically changed; but only that the institutions which exist to reinforce those morals have to a large degree collapsed.

All  that being said, the man may or may not be a loser–my point is not to censure unforgiving labels or judgments, which are often appropriate. Also, the man may be opting not to marry simply because he is lazy or indeed a loser. He may in fact be blissfully ignorant of everything I’ve described above. I can’t comment on any of that, obviously.

 Laura writes:

The institution of divorce is unjust to both men and women, and should be illegal altogether. (Separation is the answer in cases of serious marital breakdown.) But in this case, the potential for divorce is there for any woman this man would marry. Therefore, that alone is not an argument for not marrying; it is perhaps an argument for not having sexual relations with any woman, but he has not gone that way.

That said, I don’t think a man is absolutely obligated to marry a woman with whom he has conceived a child and with whom he had made no previous agreement to marry. It seems that he is obligated to consider marriage to her, to consider it very seriously and to choose to marry unless there are serious impediments, given the child and his own responsibility. And he is also obligated to provide some kind of financial support to the mother and child, and to acknowledge his paternity and suffer his child’s disappointment in him if he does not marry the mother. A normal society would pressure him to marry if he and the woman were basically compatible. But I don’t think that he has the absolute obligation to marry under those circumstances.

James P. writes:

Matthew writes that a DPT is required in order to become a physical therapist. I did not know that! I assumed that B had a useless PhD in something like art history, and was in physical therapy for want of alternatives. The DPT appears to be a reasonably sensible degree, at least in the sense that the job outlook and pay for physical therapists is pretty good from what I can tell. So that is to her credit.

As B is Matthew’s cousin, I think he should tell her to get married, especially if her parents are not doing so. Someone has to stick up for morality, and as he is a family member he is not out of line in doing so.  Probably that shouldn’t be in the same conversation where he tells her she screwed up, if he decides to do that, which I wouldn’t. =)

He also wrote, “acting as a father to his child is something that does not cost anything”. I can’t agree with that. It costs a great deal in time, money, and effort. Happily, it also has great rewards.

Mary writes:

It’s nice that Matthew feels a desire to help but I think in this difficult situation he better well know B.’s opinion of him before offering advice to her or J. I have many cousins, some of whom I might listen to, some of whom I would in no uncertain terms tell to MYOB. Matthew’s state in life is important – he sounds young to me, maybe I’m wrong. If he is older and has some life experience, maybe been through a difficult time or two himself, that joined to a low-key presentation would be helpful. Emotion will not be helpful, nor will stating the obvious. Eager, well-intentioned advice-givers in my extended family have completely lost credibility, to their dismay, and been the cause of much bitterness by stepping over the line of propriety.

B. doesn’t sound like a typical Ivy League-produced feminist; she has chosen a field that doesn’t pay enormous salaries and that requires a level of compassion and hands-on contact with patients. She is not getting an abortion, which speaks legions – she could sweep this problem under the rug very easily and get on with her life if she chose to have an abotion. So credit where credit is due. The devil of this is that of course the baby needs a father but that’s not up to B. She has no recourse if J. doesn’t want to marry. This fellow will feel no pressure by society; everywhere he looks he will find the full spectrum of mutated family situations to justify any decision he makes. This is where young women are lead today, not to a place of “empowerment” but a place of compromise, for it is surely a compromise to raise a baby without a father. And so B. and her baby will pay the price.

Laura writes:

If he is older and has some life experience, maybe been through a difficult time or two himself, that joined to a low-key presentation would be helpful.

Agreed.

James N. writes:

Mary wrote, “the devil of this is that the baby needs a father, but that’s not up to B…”

This fits with your demurrer to my comment that B “was 100% responsible” for the fatherlessness of this child.

OF COURSE “B” is responsible for the fact that her child has no father. Of course it’s “up to B”, or at least it was up to her when she thought it was a good idea to be impregnated by an unreliable man who was not her husband. In B’s case, at least as it was told to us, she had been chancing pregnancy with unreliable men for some time.

We cannot recover a reasonable chance of children having fathers until we relocate the blame for pregnancy outside of wedlock to where it has traditionally rested, and where it belongs – on women making terrible decisions regarding whose semen winds up in their bodies.

Men shouldn’t have sex without a proper understanding of the gravity of the act and the implications for children who may result. This is what I taught my sons, and I hope they listened. But history and biology suggest that men’s stake in the act is dwarfed by that of women, and any woman who believes or can be convinced otherwise is stupid, or, as your title suggests, miseducated.

Laura writes:

Yes, especially to your last paragraph.

Laura adds:

In the past, relatives of an unmarried woman would often raise a child in these circumstances so the child’s upbringing was relatively normal and his mother could eventually marry. There is now the option of adoption, which is not ideal but is preferable sometimes to a child being raised by a woman alone.

 Mary writes:

 James N. wrote:

“OF COURSE “B” is responsible for the fact that her child has no father. Of course it’s “up to B”, or at least it was up to her when she thought it was a good idea to be impregnated by an unreliable man who was not her husband. In B’s case, at least as it was told to us, she had been chancing pregnancy with unreliable men for some time.

We cannot recover a reasonable chance of children having fathers until we relocate the blame for pregnancy outside of wedlock to where it has traditionally rested, and where it belongs – on women making terrible decisions regarding whose semen winds up in their bodies.”

This is a bit overstated. Premarital sex is too widespread and tragic to be flippant about it.

Yes, women have free will and self-discipline. But fathers, brothers, uncles, traditionally looked out for women and protected them for a reason. Women have been taught by feminism to reject that protection. Modesty, shame, and embarrassment held us in check. Both women and men have been taught to throw them off in the name of sexual freedom and pleasure.

We need to recover our understanding of the male/female nature, and this is not to excuse B. or anyone else but to strike at the root. God did not ask women to submit to their husbands and then supply the two with identical natures, leaving them to a lifetime of power struggles; on the contrary, he gave women what they needed to fulfill their role as wives and mothers: maternal strength and great fortitude, but a yielding nature in the bedroom with their husbands. Premarital sex puts the young woman in the position of a wife: the young woman has those same feelings in the arms of her boyfriend, of wanting to please and yield to his advances, and she has been taught that can’t hold back so she gives in, with alcohol often playing a role. Her boyfriend, on the other hand, does not yield but presses forward; since he has been taught that they are of the same nature he is emboldened, with alcohol again playing a role. When things go wrong he acts badly because of his reduced understanding of women and because there are no social stigmas left to shape his reaction. But he has a very grave responsibility just the same. Both are to blame, but she often bears the consequences alone.

Laura writes:

Mary raises an important point about the role of fathers and the entire social setting. The truth is, the responsibility was never just on a woman. Her family and the culture helped her say no and protected her from spending time alone with men before she was married when she would be young and lacking in judgment. A woman today is surrounded by the exact opposite message. Matthew has said what great parents B. has, but I am wondering what role they played in her life in recent years. Did they do anything to try to dissuade her from spending time alone with men? Did they help her find friends that would make it easy to have a social life while not sleeping with men?  Did they talk to her over and over again, in private, with affection and concern, about the absolute necessity to wait for marriage? We know her college did nothing to prepare her for marriage or give her restraint. That’s not on the agenda.

I’m not saying that all this can prevent poor judgment or that women aren’t responsible for their own decisions or that modern life isn’t stressful and demanding for parents, making it difficult to do all this, but it is important. The moral obligations of parents do not end when their children go off to college. As James P. said, it takes a strenuous effort on the part of parents to counter the surrounding culture, but they have a much greater chance of doing this if they actually do something. Again, I suspect B.’s parents cared far more about getting her a fancy education than about preparing her for marriage. I suspect her parents were distracted by their immense financial obligations. How much did their daughter’s education cost them? About $500,00? Wow. That’s one heck of a chunk of change. After all that, the daughter was utterly unprepared to find a mate. Five hundred thousand smack-aroos and their daughter was possibly not taught basic common sense or protected by adults from her own worst tendencies. We can’t say she was stupid by nature. She’s obviously an intelligent woman. The young person, even in her twenties, simply cannot know what it is to raise a child and how difficult it is for a single mother to find a husband or create a real home for a child. By the way, even if she didn’t get pregnant, her sexual life before marriage would have been wrong and damaging to her. It’s not as if something bad happened to her and nothing bad happened to the thousands of young women who slept with men before marriage and didn’t get pregnant.

It makes no sense to say the responsibility is entirely on the woman in the context of a culture that is actively pushing her away from chastity. But I assume James N. agrees about the need for the right education.

James N. writes:

Mary wrote:

“This is a bit overstated. Premarital sex is too widespread and tragic to be flippant about it.”

I hardly think my comments were in any way flippant. They were certainly not meant that way.I meant every word, and in a serious way.

I’m open to correction by your readers.

Mary writes:

Perhaps flippant was the wrong word. I don’t disagree with all of James N.’s points but “to act on their lust for ‘bad boys’  —-   any woman who believes…otherwise is stupid  —- a good idea to be impregnated by an unreliable man  —-  whose semen winds up in their bodies” all strike me as unnecessarily severe.

Laura wrote: “The truth is, the responsibility was never just on a woman. Her family and the culture helped her say no and protected her from spending time alone with men before she was married when she would be young and lacking in judgment. A woman today is surrounded by the exact opposite message…It makes no sense to say the responsibility is entirely on the woman in the context of a culture that is actively pushing her away from chastity.”

Young women are truly on their own once out of the home. It’s supremely difficult to be in the world and hold fast, even to deeply held values. A good-looking, amorous and persistent young man can sway the resolve of a young woman rather easily unless she’s very tough and we used to know this as a culture. Most are not bold feminists making concrete decisions but inexperienced young women floundering their way through and seeing no one around them trying to hold on to something that’s no longer valued. My heart goes out to them.

Laura writes:

Women are also engaging in sexually aggressive behavior, especially in the way they dress. They are picking this up from the culture, which is why parents and adults need to help them resist.

Mary writes:

The modern women drinks deeply at the well of pop culture. Yes, they are imitating what they see on TV, in movies, books, celebrity behavior, etc. This is not to absolve the women but the sad thing is sexual boldness in young women is often an attempt to attract a guy, to please/hold on to a boyfriend, to convince a one-night stand that she’s worthy of a phone call the next day, etc. – they know that in this day and age many men have had other women in their beds (and many men also watch porn) so the woman better make a good show of it, outdo the last girl who got dumped. It goes back to male/female nature: in this scenario, generally speaking, the men seek gratification, the women seek deep down to form attachments. It’s a pathetic and terribly sad state of affairs.

Immodesty is another problem which can be seen as sexually aggressive but it, too, is a learned behavior from the culture. Many women dress to impress/compete with other women, not necessarily just to appeal to men. Immodest fashions are hugely popular right now but the focus of most is to look cute and relevant; the fact that they are immodest goes over the heads of many because everyone around them is dressed the same way.

Mary writes:

I think this disordered understanding of male and female natures is why so many can’t see the evil in homosexuality. If the male nature tends to seek gratification, when confronted by the female nature, which responds to that need by yielding, there is a taming or civilizing affect; the man finds a licit sort of resting place for his drive in life with his wife (also why the denial of the marital debt is so grave). The resolution of these opposites (male/female) is a synthesis that forms the basis of the family and in turn human society (of course this is all very general).

So what I’m thinking is when the male nature is coupled to another male nature it is not two opposite natures complementing and balancing each other but gratification met with more gratification, which doesn’t tame but accelerates the drive. This sheds light on why homosexuals drive for ever more gratification, using drugs, porn, promiscuity, new techniques, etc. Even in the face of fatal disease they don’t like to use protection like condoms, which take the edge off the intensity of the encounter. The need for gratification can never be resolved and therefore can never fully satisfy; it is never enough.

Anne Wingate writes:

In the last three years I have had physical therapy, on both an inpatient and an outpatient basis, and I strongly concur that a doctorate in PT is worth having. It is not wasted, and the same work cannot be done by a graduate of a two-year program. So let’s put that argument to rest.

I consider this important because I think the reason this woman has been sleeping around with losers is because she considers herself a loser. She considers herself a loser because she went to the effort of getting a doctorate (and I have one myself, and I assure you it is an effort) only to be told by too many people that a person with an AA degree could do the same thing.

She needs to recognize her own worth. She should have the courage to give up her child to a mother who can stay home and care for the child, she should recognize the value of the work she does, and she should quit hanging out with losers she meets in bars. If she does these things, she is likely to find a winner who will be able to let her stay home with her next baby. That, too, is the act of a winner. The woman across the street from us is Mensa eligible, but is staying home raising seven Mensa-eligible children. She is NOT wasting her education.

This woman should be proud of her training and ability. Because of people like her, I can walk again and am not confined to a wheelchair. But she should also be proud of being able in the future to stay home and raise her child or children, because she is married to a winner. My stepdaughter and my daughter-in-law both are at home with four children, and my stepdaughter is extremely brilliant. What I see in all of these women is an ability to spend time with their children without feeling that to be wasted time. When they are playing with their children, they are not doing anything else.

So be a PT or be a mother, but recognize your own value and marry a winner. You will then be a winner, and your children will be winners.

Laura writes:

When I spoke of wasted education, I was not referring to B.’s physical therapy training. I was referring to half a million dollars worth of atheistic education in private schools and a “liberal arts” college. B. could have had that physical therapy training very simply and easily after an education that prepared her to be a mother and formed her character and soul.

I entirely agree that physical therapy is a worthy field.

 I also agree that adoption should be a serious consideration in this case. It is something that Matthew might possibly discuss with her if he feels close enough to his cousin to give his opinion.