Research appears to support the conservative talking point that traditional, dual-family setups are important for children and communities. What does this mean for a left wing men's advocate?

Oncefa2 · 2021-07-12T13:40:56+00:00

I can personally see arguments from both sides, and I don't think it's that difficult to say that yes, dual-family setups are important, but that we should still support and accept single moms, single dads, as well as queer and non-standard relationship types.

The traditional family might work for a lot of people, and may even be something like a "bedrock" for society, especially in history. But we shouldn't marginalize the people who it doesn't work for. And it's not like we can't advance society forward when and where that makes sense.

I think we cross a line when conservatives try to hate on single mothers, or gay people. Or where some liberals seem to hate fathers and dual-family setups for whatever reason.

An argument for conservatives might be that a "strong", traditional family should have good morals. And good morals should entail tolerance and acceptance. Which should entail acceptance for families who aren't like them.

You could even turn this around on liberals or leftists who seem to advocate for tolerance and acceptance of everyone except for hard working, traditional family types. Like, shouldn't your tolerance and acceptance extend to those people as well?

Of course both groups seem to hate men who decide to go it alone or make their own choices (like to opt out of fatherhood), but that's another issue entirely. I guess both liberals and conservatives want men to be slaves to some kind of a family unit, they just disagree on what that looks like. Conservatives want involved fathers who work themselves to death both inside and out of the home, and liberals want fathers at arms length because they see them as an existential threat to the safety of women and children. But they still value their financial contributions (of course this paper makes it clear that fathers are important for parenting, not just for money).

YesAmAThrowaway · 2021-07-12T15:58:53+00:00

Scientific fact doesn't care about political affiliation. Only data interpretation does.

LacklustreFriend · 2021-07-12T18:52:58+00:00

I really hate the term "talking point". Ironically, "right/conservative talking point" has become a liberal/left "talking point". The validity of a hypothesis is completely independent from the politics of the people advocating for it. It's really an ad hominem attack, because it is basically attacking an idea or argument not for its merit, but who makes it. (It also doesn't help conservative is a relative term)

There are plenty of political and social issues that have become partisan not because of any intrinsic attribute of the issue, but because different political and ideological groups love to draw lines in the sand about any issues. An example of this might be environmentalism and climate change. There's nothing really intrinsically left or anti-right about environmentalism. You can make a strong conservative case for environmentalism e.g. stewards of God's creation, climate change is change which is not conserving. You can make a left case for anti-environmentalism, a need for material progress, the modernity project (particularly true of early Marxists).

This is also true for the role of family. There is nothing that says support for the family has to be from the right. Indeed, you can make the case that liberal economic (economic right) policies have contributed to the decline of the family. Opinions can vary among leftist or left-leaning individuals. If look at say, working class union members, you would find that many of them are committed fathers who support unions and left ideals in large part because they believe it will help them provide for their families and give them security.

On the whole, I am not concerned with political labels. The focus should come first to establishing good ideas, good reasoning and good policies. A label is always secondary to that.

iainmf · 2021-07-13T00:57:40+00:00

A two-parent family living in the same house is much better than a separated family in two houses. A single house family is more efficient. They will use less power and create less waste. It's less pressure on the housing market. It's expensive to be poor, and single parent families make that worse.

I asked a Green MP from New Zealand about this and IIRC he was reluctant to support anything like 'family values'.

I think the rejection of any kinds of norms because it marginalises people outside those norms prevents us from promoting pro-social norms. I don't really understand how people can declare a climate emergency, but still not want to offend single mums by suggesting that families staying together is a social and environmental good.

BloomingBrains · 2021-07-12T18:49:22+00:00

I don't think we need to align ourselves against everything that conservatives support just because they're conservatives. We should ask if what they're saying makes sense. If it doesn't and it is illiberal, sure. But in this case I don't see how family values contradicts anything we stand for. Haven't read the paper yet but just because you support family values doesn't mean you're against gay people or anything like that. Presumably, whether its 2 women, 2 men, or a man and a woman, one of them takes on the "feminine" role of the "mother" and one takes on the "masculine" role of the "father". I believe the studies support this as well. The biggest difference they found in people being raised was between single parents (either single mom or single dad were both bad) and two parents.

Just about the only thing that traditional family values contradicts is hookup culture, which is supposedly liberal but I actually think it is not. Monogamy creates a more even playing field, so it introduces an element of equality to sex whereas hookup culture has an element of hyper-capitalism to it, you might say. I know this isn't a popular opinion but there it is.

anaIconda69 · 2021-07-12T14:43:37+00:00

What does this mean for a left wing men's advocate?

It means that conservatives don't have a monopoly on efficient social structures.

a-man-from-earth · 2021-07-13T00:22:27+00:00

If it is supported by science, then we should accept it, and make it part of our framework and policies. It is irrelevant that it is a "conservative talking point", because the motivation to support it is different.

Richardsnotmyname · 2021-07-13T12:13:56+00:00

Well Being fatherless has a negative effect on kids for example:

Suicide: 63 percent of youth suicides

Runaways: 90 percent of all homeless and runaway youths

Behavioral Disorders: 85 percent of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders

High School Dropouts: 71 percent of all high school dropouts

Juvenile Detention Rates: 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions

Substance Abuse: 75 percent of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers

Aggression: 75 percent of rapists motivated by displaced anger

source

This could be a major cause of many American societal problems like violence, the decline in mental health, income inequality, political polarization and many more.

This also affects black families and neighborhoods more. Since 64% of black families are fatherless this could potentially or partially be a cause of racial inequality, the higher crime rate and lower income among black communities. This could also be a cause of poor perception of black people, which cause racism and police brutality.

So basically, if we could fix this, we could fix many issues currently affecting America and many other countries.

But no the woke crowd just had to make it about themselves and their gay moms.

Lipshitz3 · 2021-07-12T14:29:11+00:00

I think you should think for yourself. Yeah these might be traditional conservative talking points but, do they make sense to tou? Are you prepared to reject them because of that? I think that's the wrong thing to do.

FinallyReborn · 2021-07-12T14:33:03+00:00

I really do not know how this is at all surprising, a dual-family setup with a masculine/feminine dynamic where both parents are active is obviously the most desirable setup of family and the most healthy for the children.

You have to get to a point though where parents aren't staying with each other because of the children, because in many ways that would be worse for the kids in the long run, living with parents that aren't respectful, don't want to be together, and borderline on abusive isn't good for child development and mental health for obvious reasons - In that case the kids are better off under single care where both parents get custody time. A lot of fathers get trapped into staying with their abusive wife or get stuck in a relationship due to the broken custodial laws and bias family court, as if they leave they may not be able to see their children.

Though single parenthood should still be met with support, it is obviously not as healthy and natural for the kids than a both parent household, you have to get to a point where dual-family setups are actively encouraged and supported so long as the relationship between the parents is mutually consensual and voluntary.

bobbybobsonday · 2021-07-12T15:06:05+00:00

Sexual liberation has absolutely ravaged the lower classes. If you care about lower class then you shouldn't be in favour of it.

Middle and upper class can have casual sex and not get pregnant. Lower class, for whatever reason, don't. Teenage pregnancy , pregnancy out of wedlock is rampant. Raised by a single mother = huge change to do more poorly in practically any metric of wellbeing you can name.

Restoring the family unit is key to lifting up lower class. Until then it will be an endless cycle of single mothers, absent father's, risky stepfather's all producing the next generation of kids to repeat the whole thing again. You can see this is white British underclass, or black American underclass

It's why immigrants can do well for themselves. Even though could be just as poor as the native lowerclass, they have traditional values which keeps the family unit intact.

dr_pepper02 · 2021-07-15T17:03:23+00:00

Well even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Phantombiceps · 2021-07-12T16:30:09+00:00

Being left wing has nothing to do with conservative vs liberal. Lucy Parsons was a conservative too

Xylotophone · 2021-07-14T21:30:14+00:00

Conservatives are great at taking facts and using them to inform completely incorrect conclusions. It means that more adults taking care of kids is better than less parents taking care of kids, which is just... true.

However: The One Man, One Woman, Two Kids A House And A White Picket Fence is still a completely artificial and detrimental capitalist construct, and enforcing it as normal is an excellent way to create the circumstances that lead to a single parent struggling to raise multiple kids by offering absolutely no support structure in the event of death or divorce.

You know what's better than two parents raising a kid? Being raised by their parents, and their grandparents, and their aunts and uncles, alongside their siblings and cousins. The burden of child rearing gets more evenly distributed, allowing the adults more time to be people outside of being parents while still being good parents. The kids gain the benefit of much better social skills.

Reality is, homes used to be a lot more multigenerational, and even if not in the same house, families all tended to live in the same vicinity. In many cultures, they still are. You didn't really have to leave home until you were married because you had no reason to - And sometimes you married into the home and inherited it.

There are downsides to this model too, but, IMO, this sort of structure meets our needs way better, and I think a model similar to this would be a much healthier family environment overall. Our culture is far too individualistic for a species as social as we are.

But there's much less money to be spent in the communal family living, is the thing, so now you gotta kick out your kid by 24 at the absolute latest or they're a failure of an adult. Gotta get married and have kids before your biological clock runs out even if you're not financially prepared. Now you got kids and you're overwhelmed. You barely have any free time or disposable income. You start arguing. You divorce. And the kids are caught in the middle.

I really think a lot of boomers are so fucked up because they were one of the first generations that were really raised in this warped family unit that was structured to give men this complete authority over his wife and kids in the isolation of a house he owned. No matter how much better things are now, I have to remember that my 65 year old father is older than women being able to open bank accounts.

YesAmAThrowaway · 2021-07-12T15:58:59+00:00

Scientific fact doesn't care about political affiliation. Only data interpretation does.

adam-l · 2021-07-12T14:22:01+00:00

This was a profound realization that I had after reading Rollo Tomassi's third book, Positive Masculinity: there is really no other option if you find yourself waking up to the reality of gender relations after getting married, than going the "traditional" way. I put it like that because, for a Leftist, once you realize the true gender dynamics, there is absolutely no reason to get married and have kids. (Right-wingers need kids because of role and identity issues.)

808randomaccount · 2021-07-15T20:29:15+00:00

Dual family does not equal strict rigid gender roles. Research shows same sex couples are just as good at raising children as a hetero couple. Do we think all same sex couples exist with a "father" and "mother" role? Maybe, but I don't think so. I think even if a "father" and "mother" figure must exist they don't need to be static roles strictly placed by gender. Additionally i wonder if money wasn't an issue if single parent raised children would actually be so much less off.

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