What percentage of middle/upper class families are dysfunctional and/or unhappy?

thrownaway_MGTOW · 2015-09-15T17:36:42+00:00

Is there any way to know for sure? I'm going to assume that almost all poor/trailer trash/ghetto families are dysfunctional and unhappy. Like 90%.

Oh, don't kid yourself the middle/upper classes are often just as (if not more) "dysfunctional" in terms of both spousal AND parental behavior.

It's just often a lot easier for them to hide it/pretend that it's about "enriching" the children's lives, and/or because they are "busy" (with work, volunteer causes, etc). Consider:

1) Various "homemaking" duties -- wife (and/or hubby) doesn't want to do these? Well, you hire a maid, a cleaning service, and possibly even a "cook"; same with the yard, you hire landscapers, a pool service, etc. (This is dysfunctional in more than just the lack of the parents themselves doing these things, it means the kids are also fundamentally "not involved" in maintaining their own/family home.)

2) Mothering/Parenting? Like the above, there are several options here: including a "nanny" (or "au pair"), plus of course there is the local daycare/childcare centre, schools --- and especially among the upper classes, as the kids get older things like boarding schools (a socially acceptable way to make the kid virtually "disappear" for nearly 9 months out of the year) -- and then various summer camps; as well as a host of other "supervised activities" (i.e. basically handing the kids off to other people, with the parents themselves generally AVOIDING being directly involved).

3) Spousal "alienation" from each other -- not all dysfunctional marriages end up in divorce (certainly not immediate divorce while the kids are still young) -- it's rather easy, and not at all uncommon, for a "richer" (at least ostensibly) couple to maintain multiple houses, and/or for one (or both) partners to spend a lot of time apart on business travel, etc. (If you're gone "on business" 6+ months out of the year, especially as it tends to be a month over there, then 1 week home, then 2 weeks gone, then 2 weeks home, etc -- with the lions share of the "home" time being around holidays -- well, its not always that difficult to maintain the appearance/facade of "functionality".) Often these kinds of couples will eventually divorce at around the 20 year mark... once the kids are essentially "grown"; but the reality is that the relationship/family was probably never all that functional to begin with.

I remember reading a survey in "Time Magazine" of parents with grown children. 50% of them said they had little to no relationship with their grown kids. Many people I know have at least one alcoholic/criminal/crazy sibling or parent. Divorce is rampant, as we know.

And even that is probably a bit of an underestimate. Of course the definition of "little" in terms of a relationship is entirely subjective.

Nor is that the only indicator of "dysfunctional". I would argue that in many cases the opposite is increasingly true -- there is a very UNHEALTHY codependent parent/child relationship in a lot of "helicopter parent" families -- constant "texting" throughout the day, and (literal) GPS "tracking" of the child's every move (all the way up through teens and into their mid-20's and beyond).

That's not "functional" (nor actually "happy") either.

I think it's relatively RARE -- say maybe 10% -- for families to be truly "functional" in the sense of both raising the kids to be essentially independent adults (successfully leading their own lives), AND yet also creating/maintaining a HEALTHY relationship with them throughout their adult years.

In part I think that's rare because it requires virtually everyone involved -- generally we're talking a minimum of 3 people (father, mother, child) if not 4+ (child's spouse) -- to be "mentally healthy" and "secure" in their own persons, their own identity, their own lives, etc. Even if you posit a 50/50 chance for each individual there, you're down to either a 12.5% chance or (with spouse) something like a 6.25% chance. Add in the effect of additional siblings, divorce/remarriage (and thus step parents, step-siblings) and the chances become even lower for their to be a "functional" family (note that doesn't necessarily mean each of the individuals -- especially each of the kids -- will be "dysfunctional"... but OTOH, growing up in a dysfunctional family isn't exactly conducive to being fully functional yourself).

Then toss in the fact that a significant number of "families" are not exactly purposefully much less intentionally formed in anything like a thoughtful, "planned" manner (i.e. one where the marriage/family was literally a co-equal choice, including fully talking out issues around the husband-wife relationship as well as children, etc) -- in other words, the family was neither "accidental", nor forced / pressured / tricked / manipulated (and that latter group also includes a lot of so called "accidental" families) into being.

Then of course there are the kids themselves...

Back in the day (early 90's) I remember having more than one discussion with a couple of men in my church (with kids in the youth group I was a leader of) who had large families (i.e. 3, 4, 5 or in one case 8 kids) -- and noting that as the numbers increased, and despite how "healthy/functional" the family itself was (or seemed to be), that it was almost a CERTAINTY that one (or more) of those kids was going to "go off the rails" in one way or another: addiction, jail, out-of-wedlock child, etc.

And the ensuing decades have proved that to be correct. Even the guy with only 3 kids (all boys) well one of his sons got a girl pregnant at just past age 16... he's had a "rocky" life ever since; and the whole thing obviously put significant strains on the marriage AND on the rest of the family (both good AND bad).

Same with the others -- even though they were all arguably middle/upper-middle class and white -- nevertheless more than one of the other familys' sons ended up spending time in jail/prison (various offenses); and a couple of the daughters have had problems as well (single moms, divorces, etc).

Often in trying to care for/about/assist THOSE siblings, well it drives the more responsible kids away and thus impacts the "relationship" between them and their parents as well (very often they see the misbehavior as being "rewarded" whereas they are then held to an even higher standard and/or as a natural result receive LESS assistance because more attention/resources are being spent on the wayward child(ren) instead). Nor is this anything new, cf the parable of the "prodigal son" which normally includes a side of the story about the NON-prodigal son as well.

2015-09-15T01:29:05+00:00

My parents seem pretty happy.. But they are not very modern people and don't spend much time watching TV or playing on the internet..

Other then that it depends, I live in the move part of town and people here seem happy. Not working about money plays a pretty big factor.

Dronelisk · 2015-09-15T15:43:12+00:00

My dad remarried 3 times now, and lets the women run his life. he's a little beta bitch, and she nags and picks at him and then thought she could do the same to me. This was the end of my visits, and holidays are finally off the table. Such a relief not to need to split my time because of divorced parents. middle class

2015-09-15T17:45:55+00:00

Almost all of them.

2015-09-16T06:01:59+00:00

More often than not, that's for sure.

fredg7 · 2015-09-16T15:20:24+00:00

all of them.

Title	What percentage of middle/upper class families are dysfunctional and/or unhappy?
Author	BrianW1999
Upvotes	6
Comments	12
Date	September 15, 2015 1:19 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MGTOW
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MGTOW/comments/3kzhx7/what_percentage_of_middleupper_class_families_are/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MGTOW/what-percentage-of-middleupper-class-families-are.623631 https://theredarchive.com/post/623631

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