Role Model
Before I become too busy, I wanted to share a passing thought with anyone who is curious to read it.
There are many reasons for why we as Americans have lost a sense of purpose. However, I am looking at today's children, and I notice that they are missing something in particular, in a way that is more dire than we have ever seen.
War, industry, prejudice, and poverty have taken many young American men away from their children in the past several dozen years, and the sons can only accept a sense of identity from commanding officers, bosses, bigots, and indifferent passersby. The women provided perspective to these sons as a mother and surrogate father, but this is not sufficient for a man to grow up whole. Mothers who cared provided these sons with enough male influences to make up for the stark loss a father creates when he is gone. However, a multitude of often contradictory male figures with limited understanding of a particular young boy's life creates a man with intelligence sans discernment.
It is an education wasted.
Nonetheless, these men can still do wonders for their children, if they recognize their own fractured intellect and allow the sons to develop their own identity. This is something that a man cannot do when he is battling the expectations of a world that isn't truly his. The Fractured Man has the stability and self-reliance of a broken glass freshly glued together. Thus, these men are not often terribly reliable, and it usually puts them in perpetual self-loathing. Along with new wars, faster industry, more elusive prejudice, and even more despicable poverty, this psychological problem results in more men taken from their sons. Though some men are able to do wonders despite it, they leave the future generation somewhat more confused than the one that preceded it.
The cycle continues.
However, the current generation of young adults are missing something else: the mother. Women have been judged unfairly in far more ways than I can relate on a simple page, but through it all, the majority of American women have shared their views and their intellect with their daughters through generations, and the daughters have, more often than not, outdone their male counterparts in the job of parenthood for quite some time. Even when mothers began to work and become equal in the eyes of society, there could still be time for at least one parent to be a part of the children's lives at a time. However, due partly to the new belief that two parents working full-time is always necessary and customary, the wisdom imparted to the future mothers of the world is, in my humble opinion, depleting. Prepubescent teen girls seem clueless about the effect that makeup and partial nudity truly have when they dress as their favorite pop star. Young men are just as ignorant as they have been doomed to be for a few generations, but the staggering level of overstimulation and inexplicable sexual information is far too much for the adolescent male mind. We have neglected our youth in a way that has scarcely been seen in the country's brief history.
And we do nothing.
Today, we have no excuse to continue our dependence and allegiance to the specters that have consistently stolen the souls of our mothers and fathers. Our technology and understanding of the world and its cultures provide us with a medium that could bring even simple morals a new light, yet we keep them in the dark. We allow the materialistic idolatry that plagued the dead nations of forgotten pasts to envelop our children's hearts before they even realize who they are.
Role models are not a solution. They are a supplement. They are put in place in appropriate times. But we have allowed _them_ to become the parents, not us.
Those of you who continue to do the best you can to help your children might agree that something has changed here. Those of you who cannot find time to be parents are forgiven, and warned:
Be the role model, before someone else replaces you.
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(If this offends anyone, or sounds untrue, please let me know. I'd love to be wrong about this.)
There are many reasons for why we as Americans have lost a sense of purpose. However, I am looking at today's children, and I notice that they are missing something in particular, in a way that is more dire than we have ever seen.
War, industry, prejudice, and poverty have taken many young American men away from their children in the past several dozen years, and the sons can only accept a sense of identity from commanding officers, bosses, bigots, and indifferent passersby. The women provided perspective to these sons as a mother and surrogate father, but this is not sufficient for a man to grow up whole. Mothers who cared provided these sons with enough male influences to make up for the stark loss a father creates when he is gone. However, a multitude of often contradictory male figures with limited understanding of a particular young boy's life creates a man with intelligence sans discernment.
It is an education wasted.
Nonetheless, these men can still do wonders for their children, if they recognize their own fractured intellect and allow the sons to develop their own identity. This is something that a man cannot do when he is battling the expectations of a world that isn't truly his. The Fractured Man has the stability and self-reliance of a broken glass freshly glued together. Thus, these men are not often terribly reliable, and it usually puts them in perpetual self-loathing. Along with new wars, faster industry, more elusive prejudice, and even more despicable poverty, this psychological problem results in more men taken from their sons. Though some men are able to do wonders despite it, they leave the future generation somewhat more confused than the one that preceded it.
The cycle continues.
However, the current generation of young adults are missing something else: the mother. Women have been judged unfairly in far more ways than I can relate on a simple page, but through it all, the majority of American women have shared their views and their intellect with their daughters through generations, and the daughters have, more often than not, outdone their male counterparts in the job of parenthood for quite some time. Even when mothers began to work and become equal in the eyes of society, there could still be time for at least one parent to be a part of the children's lives at a time. However, due partly to the new belief that two parents working full-time is always necessary and customary, the wisdom imparted to the future mothers of the world is, in my humble opinion, depleting. Prepubescent teen girls seem clueless about the effect that makeup and partial nudity truly have when they dress as their favorite pop star. Young men are just as ignorant as they have been doomed to be for a few generations, but the staggering level of overstimulation and inexplicable sexual information is far too much for the adolescent male mind. We have neglected our youth in a way that has scarcely been seen in the country's brief history.
And we do nothing.
Today, we have no excuse to continue our dependence and allegiance to the specters that have consistently stolen the souls of our mothers and fathers. Our technology and understanding of the world and its cultures provide us with a medium that could bring even simple morals a new light, yet we keep them in the dark. We allow the materialistic idolatry that plagued the dead nations of forgotten pasts to envelop our children's hearts before they even realize who they are.
Role models are not a solution. They are a supplement. They are put in place in appropriate times. But we have allowed _them_ to become the parents, not us.
Those of you who continue to do the best you can to help your children might agree that something has changed here. Those of you who cannot find time to be parents are forgiven, and warned:
Be the role model, before someone else replaces you.
--------
(If this offends anyone, or sounds untrue, please let me know. I'd love to be wrong about this.)