14/12/02

Fairness, Kids, Cars and Paint

Charles Cushing

Suppose that our totalitarian government were to implement a program whereby each person who drove a car was to be evaluated as to their right to drive that car. I'm not talking about your local department of motor vehicles, which generally uses the pulse test (i.e. do you have one?), but using the legal system to determine a person's fitness to own and drive a particular automobile. Now suppose that you and, say, Mrs. Burke (the feminist from the National Council of Women's Organizations who believes that the Augusta National Golf Club should admit women) each made a claim on her car. So you and Mrs. Burke and a judge were to go down to Mrs. Burke's car and the judge was to decide who should own this car based on driving skill, knowledge of maintenance and past driving history. Now let's assume that after evaluating all of these factors, the judge awards the car to you, since he considers you to be the better driver and you seem to know more about automotive mechanics.

What would Mrs. Burke's reaction likely be? She probably would scream that the judge can't do that, because it's HER car, she owns it; the car is legally registered in her name! Now let's further suppose that in addition to that, the judge also says that Mrs. Burke must pay for the operation and maintenance of the car and that she only gets to see it when you decide. Mrs. Burke would undoubtedly consider that a grave miscarriage of justice had just occurred (and would probably forget all about Augusta National) and that what just happened wasn't fair.

This is exactly what happens to men when they almost always lose custody of their own children to women. Children are "registered" with the man's name; they are his, not only by custom, but by nature. A woman takes the man's name when she marries him not because she is his property, which the feminists would have you believe, but because the man is the head of the household and any offspring that result are HIS offspring (Mr. John Jones produces little Joneses). But aren't children a woman's offspring too? Yes, of course, but if you look at nature for a moment, you can see, especially among mammals, which many people think what humans are, all females become pregnant and have offspring, but only the bravest, strongest and fastest males father the next generation. It is accepted that when you see a lion with his pride, for example, all of the cubs are referred to as HIS offspring. They may also be offspring to particular females within the pride, but there seems to be something very special, very defining, very identifying with the males genetic contribution that make them unique. The male gives the offspring their identity, which is why they carry his name. In nature, females seem to be more generic, more fungible.

The best example I can think of to explain this in a non-scientific way is paint. If you want to paint your bedroom a certain light blue color that you have a sample of, you go to your hardware store and the technician optically examines the sample and determines how best to make your paint. He takes a gallon of stark white base and adds a squirt of this dye or that dye, puts the lid back on, shakes it up and viola, light blue paint. The name of the paint is blue, not white, but blue, because the dye's names were blue. While the white base paint is quite necessary and one can't produce the blue paint without it, it's not the defining ingredient in giving the paint its identity.

Feminists like to point out that all a man makes to the child's genetic contribution is a squirt here or there. But like the paint, this makes all the difference in the world as to establishing the identity of the child. The responsibility that men must shoulder regarding children is consistent with our long history of men taking care of THEIR children, because they belong to them. Like the lion, he protects the offspring in the pride because they are his, not another lions. This probably explains why when a new male lion vanquishes a former lion protecting the pride, his first grizzly task is to kill the offspring of the former lion. He will be responsible only for his progeny. Although with more "civilized" species, such as human beings, we require in some cases, men to care (support) offspring that aren't even his. After all, what do poor "dumb" animals know, anyway?

Getting back to Mrs. Burke's car, the judge assumed that you were the better driver and knew more about cars. While this may be true of cars, but what of children? It seems to be assumed that women are better parents and know more about children than men. Granted, girls play with dolls in the early part of their life (actually, my ex- STILL collects dolls, but that's another issue) and they earn money by babysitting. But does this make them better parents? Would that make the determining factor on whether a child grows up to be a responsible, productive adult? Or is it something more? If you want to see the failure of a matriarchy look into any ghetto, particularly a black ghetto. You see women raising kids alone, without fathers. The results of this are that mothers can't control their sons, who usually run afoul of the law and many end up in prison or drop out of school thereby facing a lifetime of unemployment. The daughters yearn for the support and approval of a father, so they try and obtain this through the other young men in their neighborhood. Unfortunately, these young men have only sex on their minds, and without a father in their life, they don't respect women and ultimately the result is more illegitimate children. Then the whole cycle repeats itself. It's interesting that many in the black community like to blame this phenomenon on racist white people, but the truth is, this problem is caused by lack of fathers.

We can see the unfortunate results of a woman raising her kids alone. While some women do a very good job and are to be commended, most are overwhelmed by their sons and simply cannot provide to their daughters the male influence that they need. Could men do a better job of raising children alone than women? There is some evidence that they can (e.g. see the article Why Dads Matter by Warren Farrell) but, unfortunately, we don't really know, since there are not enough statistics on this to draw any useful conclusions. But, if one were to simply look around and observe life, I would think that a normal, good father (most fathers are normal, good fathers) would give his sons the example they need to be a man and would be there to bop his son's heads together like Moe did to Curly and Larry if they thought about getting out of line. He would be there for his daughters to provide counsel, emotional support and just be a big guy that they can hug. With only a father raising his kids alone, I believe they have a much better chance of becoming useful, well-adjusted, law biding mature adults than if they were raised only by their mother. The evidence is out there staring us in the face, but we don't see it. Why? Because our society doesn't really care about the welfare of its children (ever hear of abortion on demand?), but cares very much that women must get what they want.

Isn't it interesting how our culture will take a man's children (who are "registered" in his name and biologically his) and give them to another who isn't even as qualified to see that they can become responsible adults? In the case of the car, at least the system was smart enough to give the car to the best driver. In the case of child custody, the system gives control to the party that isn't the rightful "owner" and on top of it, is the least able to raise the children into successful adulthood. While women are generally better at nurturing (i.e. playing with dolls and babysitting), which is an advantage for small children, it's the men who are better able to relate to and see to it that the children successfully reach adulthood, which should be the ultimate objective in the first place.

But if we started giving custody of children to men, even on an equal basis, I can see women screaming like Mrs. Burke that this would all be very "unfair". And if we decided to practice a little affirmative action here (like it's been inflicted upon men for years) by giving custody of ALL children to men who are good fathers and who want their kids, until men have caught up with the numbers of women who already have custody, I imagine the scream from women would shatter glass.

The idea of "fair" in America is an interesting concept. Males and females have radically different ideas what constitutes fairness. If you see a group of young boys playing together, they're usually doing some kind of sport. This can be football, basketball, baseball or anything of a competitive nature with rules. Boys learn at an early age to follow the rules and that the rules work both ways, even though they may not always be fair, they are necessary and work for the betterment of all. Boys learn and men understand and accept this as part of the natural world. In fact, many sports are considered to be a metaphor for life (golf and football come immediately to mind) which rewards hard work and preparation, but also that sometimes you win when you shouldn't and sometimes you lose when you shouldn't, but that's life. The situation is radically different for little girls, though. Girls rarely play sports (how many times do you see a bunch of little girls getting together to shoot baskets over at Mary's house or play flag football?), which makes the whole concept of Title IX in college sports where men lose their sport so women can play something like Tiddly Winks absurd. But little girls usually relate to each other on a personal level, e.g. playing with dolls, talking endlessly, playing house or dressing each other to look like mom. That's why women are so good at relationships and understand their feelings better than men. However, they don't have to learn to play by the rules, because for them, there are no rules.

This is glaringly evident when kids reach puberty. One year kids consider each other as yucky and stupid, while the next year they can't think of anything else except each other. Girls see all of the things boys are now doing for them, e.g. opening doors, paying for things and all of the numerous kissy kissy things men usually do for women. They probably don't immediately understand WHY this is happening (even the boys may not know), but they eventually convince themselves that they must be entitled to this special treatment, otherwise boys wouldn't do it. They come to the realization that all of these perks and privileges that they are receiving are.........fair. They learn very quickly that the standards of fairness that boys understand don't relate to them because they're "special". To make matters even worse, American culture seems to agree with this idea also, treating women quite differently, with less accountability if things go wrong, than men. Judges bend over backwards in being "fair" to women, while men can fend for themselves. Many a man has gone into a divorce situation and is mystified how the legal system can treat him so differently than it treats her. His idea of fairness is based on equality, while a woman's idea of fairness is based on privilege.

I believe that men are charitable enough (most of the great acts of charity throughout human history have been performed by men), compassionate enough (ditto) and, yes, fair enough to equally share THEIR children with women 50-50 in a custody fight. I don't believe that the average man would insist on his biological right to be the sole custodial parent to his children at the exclusion of women. Most men don't think this way, because their idea of fairness is based on equality. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of women. Women have no problem in taking a man's children through false abuse charges and then, with a straight face, expecting him to support them, even in cases where she KNOWS they may actually not be his own biological children! They see no problem with this, because in their own minds, this is perfectly fair.

Ask yourself simply, which is more likely to cause you to be a responsible, happy, successful, well adjusted adult: (1) having a mother in your life to mother you, wipe your nose, etc., or (2) having a father in your life to teach you the straight and narrow and give you the emotional security you need? Ideally, both are needed, this is why God gave us two parents, but which one has a greater chance for success? The jury has already returned on the mothers and the verdict is NO! Look around, it's very easy to see the results of mothers only parenting. Can we really do any worse with the fathers?