Accidentally Insulting my Life Choices
By: Maria Dickmann
Tags: Patriarchy, Social Sector, Moms

#life

I do understand the weird nostalgia of some people for the “nuclear family units” because usually the people saying that either were in or imagine themselves as the humble patriarch, going to work, providing well for their family, then enjoying the benefits of well-mannered children. It sounds great for the person in that role and as a model requires nothing beyond being an individual devoted to their own family and leading a good example for other patriarchs.

Now, even if that all was the case there is an assumption that another person has done all the grunt work to keep the house nice and mentor the kids to be functional children. There might be people who aspire to have that be their lives but even if I was one of them there was a slight problem of me being so miserable that I was looking at ending my life (or wishing for something bad to happen to my kids dad) as the only ways out.

Now, I pointed out in my usual calm and relaxed manner that the “nuclear family” as the GOAT would suggest that I should have stayed married as the “best” thing for my kids and that I did not agree. I was happy to have this conversation though actually, because I really think most bad policy comes from lack of understanding.

I would absolutely love to have a partner that would be an extra layer of support for the kids. I would love it if I didn’t have to threaten and make their dad fear me to get him to step up and take the kids when I’m a puddle but when I was being “nice” asking for extra help was a calculation of how much I could stand being told about his dinner plans or whatever bull shit he had planned with the person he was living with.

When I’m drowning and we are both the parents I don’t care if it’s inconvenient, be a fucking father first. Which brings me to the next point that the idea of the “nuclear family” inherently places blame on the remaining parent (often the mother) and ignores the Asshole who cut out early or only put in half effort.

I would love to get to a point where we don’t have to celebrate fatherhood because it’s just fucking expected but we are very far from that. For one thing, the same people who usually promote “nuclear family” as the ideal also think the solution to crime is more cops. Somehow the fact that cops arrest and take people away does not seem to come up in the line of thought.

I think most cops are earnest people doing a tough job. However, the training they are often given creates strain within the community and increases the risk of harm to them. In general, cops don’t spend the majority of their time actively stopping crime. They investigate and hopefully remove people who have done harm and are likely to do harm but the problem is two fold. First harm had to be done and second, you removed them from society for awhile but what now?

Social services are crime prevention.

I can’t think of a single parent who would turn down help with the every day chores of keeping their kids alive and out of trouble. I’m sure there are a few who have been so alienated by society that they have embraced an outsider narrative and take pride in their behavior that does not conform to norms (or laws) but most would probably be thrilled on so many levels to have extra help or support.

The lack of support is the problem, but blaming single parents for not settling down with whomever they spawned with won’t solve that.

The uncomfortable pill to swallow is that to take care of everyone and prosper all together the “humble” patriarch needs to be devoted to a much larger group and show that devotion by contributing to investment in social services.

That’s right y’all I mean taxes.

I’m not going to pretend governments always get it right, but they do much better when people try to make them better. If you don’t trust the government but hopefully realize that there are problems capitalism will not address then perhaps you could try to make government better instead of trying to invent some new system to deal with a single problem.

No entity will work towards it’s own demise (except inclusion and equity professionals, they would love to not be needed) so the thing that kills many good not profits is a lack of resources and people after in the initial enthusiasm wears off. Then even more effort has to be expended to take care of the things that the entity wanted to address but there are less resources because a bunch of energy was just spent on doing it the way some activist wanted.

I have seen this and the very real harm it causes firsthand.

Don’t blame parents for not attracting enough support for their children. Vote for things that will actually help parents (like more affordable after school care and increased access to affordable quality child care in general) and/or go out and volunteer to help someone who is struggling. Unless what you really wanted to do was complain when a kid inevitably does something stupid and ends up on a path where they see crime and violence as a good tactic to survive.

Thank you for coming to my virtual TED talk, I’m interested in your feedback if it’s constructive and if I have to explain what constructive means then I’m probably not interested in working with you but thank you for your participation.