THE AIM of public education is an impersonal society. That’s why, in a hundred obvious and hidden ways, mass education stands in the way of childhood friendship. It shifts children around purposefully, so that they never spend time with the same people for long, so that both friendship and feuds are thwarted. It breaks up the school years into unnatural divisions, in elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, to keep people from settling into deep and longstanding bonds, whether of enmity or love. Casual and superficial good will to all is the desired social objective.

To this end, there are now programs explicitly devoted to keeping children from having best friends. According to The New York Times:

[I]ncreasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children are asking a question that might surprise their parents: Should a child really have a best friend?

Most children naturally seek close friends. In a survey of nearly 3,000 Americans ages 8 to 24 conducted last year by Harris Interactive, 94 percent said they had at least one close friend. But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying. Read More »

KIT WRITES:

I was browsing your blog and wow, let me say, I am really blown away by some of your methods of arguing. Is it really fair to attempt to statistically criticize anything that fails to support your worldview Read More »

ON THE FACE of it, maternal desire seems a wholly good thing. The powerful drive to bear and nurture children is basic to our collective survival and elevates the individual above common self-interest. How much good has been accomplished by the loving mother? The sum is incalculable.

But, on closer scrutiny, especially in light of recent developments, maternal desire is like other human desires, such as the drive for sex or money or love. It can be good but it can also be greedy and promiscuous. A woman who wants a child no matter what – even if that child will never know his father and even if she is not married – takes maternal desire to an unreasonable extreme. She may be a nurturing mother for the children she bears. She may sacrifice herself for years to raise them well and her children may praise her for what she has done, but the egotism and maternal lust remain and this negatively affects them, indeed altering their entire existence.

This is hard news because maternal desire can be an overwhelming psychological reality, as intense and ever present as the desire for sex. It can crush a woman. It can rear its head in the dark hours of the night, like a masked phantom tearing at her soul. If she is approaching the end of her fertile years, if she has had no success with men or if she has entered the close-knit subculture of lesbianism, perhaps before she knew what this awful desire was, it may induce irrational panic and desperation. It takes strength of character for a woman to overcome the unrequited yearning for children. Read More »

A READER WRITES:

Going out and finding a boyfriend, getting married, having children are all things that are looked down upon by corporate America. It’s disheartening. I worked in an accounting department for a Fortune 500 company when I became pregnant with my second child and was indirectly told that I should get an abortion if I wanted to keep my job. My manager asked how far along I was and when I told her I was 9 weeks along SHE (yes, SHE) told me that I had some decisions to make. Read More »

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AS GOVERNMENT budgets grow tighter in Europe, and as numerous countries adopt austerity plans, expect to see more angry demonstrations like this recent one in Italy. Women make up as much as two-thirds of the public sector workforce in many countries. 

The figures for female government employment are 54 percent in Italy, 64 percent in Ireland, 60 percent in Australia and 64 percent in Germany.

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IN RESPONSE to a recent Wall Street Journal article, which looks at the psychological difficulties of children of anonymous sperm donors, a woman wrote this letter to the editor: 

Regarding W. Bradford Wilcox’s “Daddy Was Only a Donor” (Taste, June 18): Although I agree that “old-fashioned” parenthood is still the best choice if possible, for many of us that isn’t an option. As a woman who has never found the “perfect mate,” I had the choice of no kids or donor kids, and I chose the donor route. It was the best decision of my life, and I think my boys would agree that they’re happy to be here.  Read More »

THE PORTLAND woman who says Al Gore violently groped her in a hotel room in 2006 also states that she found it unpleasant to tell her friends about the incident. When she told them what had happened, these friends, who had voted for Gore, “didn’t necessarily support her.”

In all likelihood, this story will never be confirmed. But it seems the woman involved had little to gain from coming forward with her account. [Note: This is not true. The New York Daily news reports that she asked the National Enquirer for $1 million to tell her story.]

FROM an Associated Press article today about the unusually high number of young children (18 altogether) who have died so far this year after they were left or trapped in cars:

Safety groups such as Kids and Cars and Safe Kids USA urge parents to check the back seat every time they exit the vehicle and to create a reminder system for themselves.

Some parents leave their cell phone or purse on the floor near the car seat to ensure they retrieve it along with the child. Others remind themselves by placing a stuffed animal in the car seat when the child isn’t using the seat and putting the toy in the front seat when the child is tucked in the car seat.

Imagine being so distracted and busy, so detached from your child, that you have to place a stuffed animal in the car to remind you he is there.

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JOHN E. writes:

In the previous entry, your commenter John wrote: 

The “new feminism” of JPII is destructive of marriages, families, and souls, not so much because of what he said, but of what he didn’t say.

I agree with John, and add that what seems to be lacking in the two documents you referred to by JPII is an even-handed perspective on human relationships. I don’t think there is anything asserted in Mulieris Dignitatem that is blatantly false (it is even difficult to make that assertion of the Letter to Women), but, as John said, the things that are not said hinder one’s perspective in understanding the truth of the good and evil of which all humans, men and women, are capable. Read More »

KATIE COURIC interviews Gloria Steinem on CBS on The Atlantic Monthly’s recent piece “The End of Men.” The women agree that the title of this piece is misleading. Men are still men and women have a long way to go to overcome the evils of patriarchy.

“We’ve been much too nice,” said Steinem.

This is a mind-numbingly boring interview that recounts 50 years of feminist doctrine and grievances. Steinem, who travels around the country still spreading her message and apparently lives in a buried time capsule, found the title of the article offensive and “stupid” because the point of feminism is equality and not female domination. Therefore women should not talk about or celebrate the demise of masculinity. That’s tasteless. Nevertheless, women should work to bring about an end to masculinity. “Men raising children is crucial in every area because it shapes our idea that men can be nurturing and women can be knowledgeable and in authority,” she said. Men “are doing more than their fathers but they’re not doing anywhere near enough.” Read More »

VANESSA writes, as part of the ongoing discussion about Catholicism and feminism:

In response to Kimberly’s statement:

Another traditional priest I used to confess to told me that at times, it’s even okay to lie to your husband! The example he gave was that if my husband hates my mother and says she is not to be allowed in my home, and yet she comes to visit me and I allow her in, that it would be fine to tell him that she was never there if he were to ask. Makes sense to me. But then, I know my own husband,

I can only say that the priest was in grave error.

It is one thing to be disobedient if your husband asks you to commit a grave sin. It is another to be willfully and spitefully disobedient in such a manner. If your husband doesn’t want your mother in his house, that is completely within his rights and should be respected. Read More »

A REAL MAN shares some beers and a few jokes with his friends on the eve of his wedding. The faux guy, who marries on the cusp of middle age, searches out the best and most expensive roasted fennel, as well as potatoes cooked in duck fat.

EXPANDING ON the theme of courtesy, N.W. writes:

I seem to recollect Faulkner once saying that a true gentleman treats every woman like a lady whether she is or not. Given the scarcity of ladies nowadays this is a tall order. On the contrary, many women I’ve dated have been offended when I’ve paid for dinner or held the door or walked on the traffic side of the walk. Hillary Clinton used to bawl out the Marine guards for holding the door for her. 

On the matter of colorful language, it really is a convoluted state of affairs these days. I went to a small, conservative (in the Burkean sense) Catholic liberal arts college, graduated ’06. Most of my class went to Mass regularly and was relatively conservative and most everybody in my class was rather free with their language, men and women alike. I never minded, the girls all carried themselves with a classy and vaguely scandalous sort of style, like a 1930s Hollywood actress, or Brett Ashley in “The Sun Also Rises.” Now, my sister’s class, ’08, had a higher density of sheltered homeschoolers in it and the girls were a bit more restrained in their language. My sister, however, was rather free in her use of certain words, most likely owing to my influence. Read More »

JOHN writes:

I wanted to thank you for your excellent analysis of “John Paul II and the Phony Feminine Genius.” I have spent a bit of time studying these topics, and I believe you are 100 percent correct. 

Those who try to defend JPII by pointing out some remarks that may have resonance to conservatives are missing the bigger picture which you are able to see, perhaps because of your work with this website. What is more important than individual statements of one sort or another is the complete absence of what is most crucially required: the traditional Catholic teaching on marriage. Not one word of traditional Catholic marital teaching has been allowed to escape the complete blackout in place for the past 50 years.  Read More »

KILROY writes:

This is a poster advertising the Australian military which appears on the side of a kiosk at Martin Place in Sydney. It struck me as odd that motherhood and military service were somehow equated as difficult on the same level, as if there is no distinction between the ultimate service to humanity that a women can embrace by giving life, and the ultimate sacrifice of men on the field of battle in defending it. Both are sacrifices, and both are selfless. But there is a difference on a fundamental level that makes posters like this just look ridiculous. Read More »

LYDIA SHERMAN urges Southerners to take their children out of public shools. She writes:

The question is often asked, “How can we help the South to rise again? Where are our Southern folk, ready to take a stand; ready to guide the South back to the old paths, where the good way is?” The answer is: they are in their cribs, talking baby talk, waiting for Southern mothers to teach them the right ways. That will never be accomplished until we get our children out of the public schools. Even if public schools were to suddenly become “good,” they are not safe places for our children. We need to shelter them and teach them ourselves, so that they will grow in the right direction. Farming them out to someone else will not make a great nation.

Read the following quote from “A Nation at Risk,” published in 1983:

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. Read More »

N.W. writes:

After three long months of almost no reading it was nice to come home from boot camp and peruse your blog. The only trouble is that between you and Mr. Auster I’m so far behind I don’t know where to start. (All suggestions welcome.) 

The Marine Corps is strong as ever. One aspect of the Marines which I especially admire is their dedication to defending not only our country and Constitution but also the common courtesies which are the foundation of a great society. Read More »