The modern feminist movement has been fixated on overturning what they incorrectly believe is the “oppressive ideal of the nuclear family.” Many feminists are convinced that the traditional nuclear family structure is one of the main arenas of “male privilege.” They look at the single mother as the epitome of the “strong independent woman.”
This, of course, is one of the reasons why the political left attacked Moynihan’s report on the state of the black family so vehemently back in the 1960’s, because, among other things, they looked at his argument in support of bettering the black family as sexist, male chauvinist, and anti-woman, and so they would have nothing to do with it. They thought that the single black woman was “superior in her ability to function in a healthy way in our society.” They even looked at the fact that single mothers were usually poor as “proof of patriarchal oppression.” The nuclear family, to them, was an effort to deny women their independence and sexuality.
All of this is so deeply, deeply incorrect, as you will soon see. So, it makes sense, based on this deeply incorrect analysis, for them to think of the traditional nuclear family as “patriarchal” and “fascist.”
If you think the traditional family is anti-woman, I’m going to give you several reasons why it’s not. If you are in opposition to the traditional nuclear family structure, you are supporting a scheme that, in reality, hurts women, their well-being, and their ability to thrive and prosper and succeed at whatever their personal endeavors are. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s those of you who oppose the traditional nuclear family, not me, that are being anti-woman.
With that in mind, I want you to consider the following two general points:
1. Girls and young women who come from intact traditional nuclear families have a distinct advantage over their counterparts who are being raised by single mothers, when it comes to all sorts of things, including doing well in school, graduating, going on to college, and finishing that, and other aspects that give them an economic leg up, and make them more likely to succeed at their goals.
2. Women who are married, and are in healthy relationships with a significant other, have a higher standard of living and quality of life, than their single counterparts who have abandoned the desire for those deep, meaningful relationships for the sake of achieving their goals. Married women in healthy relationships with a life partner, usually a husband, have those emotional, social, and financial support mechanisms in place that greatly increase and enable their chances of success and fulfilling whatever their goals are.
Let’s take the data points from other articles in this series on the traditional family, when talking about the benefits of the nuclear family structure, and tweak those data points to focus on young women, shall we?
• Young women born to a single mother and raised by her are more likely to become juvenile offenders, and eventually adult criminals, whereas young women born and raised in intact two-adult families are much less likely to have a criminal record.
• There is a much higher likelihood of parental involvement in a young woman’s life if she is raised in a household with two adults – that increased parental involvement in her life translates into more encouragement, more moral support, more financial support, etc., all things which increase a woman’s likelihood to thrive and succeed in life.
• Girls and young women that come from single-parent homes are more likely to suffer from child abuse, whose emotional scarring can be detrimental to their well-being and their ability to achieve their personal goals throughout the entirety of their lives.
• Girls and young women who don’t come from traditional nuclear family structures are much more likely to have behavioral disorders which can effect them detrimentally throughout their lifetime.
• Young ladies from nontraditional homes are much more likely to run away from home.
Young women who don’t come from traditional homes, but are raised by single parents in nontraditional environments, usually by single mothers, are:
• More likely to commit suicide
• More likely to drop out of high school
• More likely to abuse chemical substances
• More likely to end up in mental institutions
• More likely to end up in prison
All of these things don’t just whisper or speak, but scream, that the traditional nuclear family structure is the way to go for women, and greatly helps to maximize their potential, and aide them in their quest to achieve their goals.
Economic Benefit of Traditional Two-Parent Families to Women
Traditional nuclear families tend to have a higher household income, which translates into young women growing up in homes with a higher standard of living, a higher quality of life, and that live in better and safer neighborhoods. It means she is much less likely to grow up in childhood poverty. It also translates into more ability for that household to afford to allow their daughter to be involved in extracurricular activities, such as sports, the arts, debating, etc.
They’re more likely to travel, see the world, and have a better understanding of the world around them. They’re more likely to get into better schools, afford college, and enter the adult working world with a higher likelihood of upward economic mobility. The traditional nuclear family structure gives young women a leg up in the world compared to their counterparts, that is, young women, who come from some nontraditional household or family structure, such as a household with a single mother.
The better financial place of the traditional family, with the traditional marriage structure at its core, means that women are more likely to succeed at whatever endeavors they seek out. For example, if she wants to go back to college and get her Master’s degree or finish her doctorate, she has a husband behind her who can work while she’s going to school to sustain her, and the family – she gets financial, moral, and emotional support from her husband and family that can make all the difference in finishing that goal or not.
The same can be said for the woman wanting to start her own business – her and her husband can save up faster to get that startup fund built up than she can alone, and her husband can work to pay the bills and get health insurance for both of them during those first couple years while she’s working hard on getting her business off the ground. Once her business takes off, she, her husband, and the rest of the family, benefits from the financial rewards that finally come over time from that risk she took.
All of these things are altogether lacking in single women who have forsaken having a marriage and family relationship for the singular purpose of pursuing their goals, whether it be that graduate degree, that career, or business venture, etc. It is possible for this single woman to succeed, but she’ll have to work doubly hard because she doesn’t have that support network behind her. She’s less likely to accomplish her goals, but she can still get there; she has a distinct disadvantage compared to the woman who is in a happy, healthy marriage relationship with a family support structure behind her, which you find in the traditional nuclear family structure.
And, of course, there’s another thing altogether lacking as well with this single woman – once she succeeds at accomplishing her goals, she has no one to celebrate and share her successes with, because she has forsaken those deep and meaningful relationships which make life better and more pleasant and fulfilling, including that one special relationship with a significant other, which causes her, at the moment of her triumph, to be in a place of aloneness, which can lead to depression, and make all those successes meaningless.
Could it be that this drive, by the feminist movement, to attempt to succeed without a man, a marriage, and a nuclear family, is at its core responsible for the increasing suicide rate among women? We’re telling women to be strong, independent, and single, while taking away much of the meaningfulness of life, and wealth of relationships, leaving just an empty shell of success, one that glistens and shines brightly in the sun, but is hallow inside.
My Story
My story is similar. My wife would like to go back to college and get a master’s degree. When she does so, I’m going to be right beside her and encourage and support her every step of the way. And I believe our relationship makes her much more likely to succeed than if she didn’t have me beside her, and the support, from many facets, that I can give her. Could she go back to college on her own? Of course she could! But she’d have to work harder, go through more hurdles, and she’d have more setbacks. My being there helps her to maximize her potential as a woman, and helps her to be much more likely to achieve her life goals.
It works the other way, too, you know. The support and love she gives me (and kisses…) allows me to have a distinct advantage that makes me, as a man, more likely to achieve my goals also. So the traditional nuclear family structure makes things better for all of us – the man, the woman, and the children, both boys and girls.
Conclusion
So, when the feminists on the political left attack the traditional family as being anti-woman, they’re sadly mistaken, and they’re, in reality, working against the well-being and successes of women. They’re doing some things that make women less likely to achieve their goals and dreams. They’re taking away some of the loving relationships in life that make life more meaningful.
There’s something else that needs to be understood here. All of these ideas about women’s – and men’s for that matter – successes, are nothing more than modern cultural ideas, and many of them seem capitalist in nature, not that there’s anything wrong with capitalism. In the end, after all is said and done, it’s our relationships with other people that “make life go ’round,” and make life more meaningful. Life is really about building relationships and connecting with people, and any financial or career successes are nothing but secondary things compared to the deep and meaningful relationships we build.
But we seem to have forgotten all of this. We make secondary things of primary importance, and that makes things worse for all of us. We keep our relationships shallow so that we can forsake them at the “drop of a hat” and move on when they get in our way of our selfish dreams, our making a name for ourselves, based on our cultural-driven concepts of what we think we need to do with our lives.
And the end results are sad. We get depressed more. We commit more suicide. We struggle with loneliness. We end up feeling empty and like everything is meaningless, like Solomon of old seemed to understand millennia ago, but which we can’t seem to figure out ages later. What’s wrong with us? Can’t we figure out what’s really important?
