Your Responsibility To Your Children
Those of you who donât have kids and literally never want any kids can take the day off today. This article is for the other 95% of you who either have kids or will want kids when you get older.
Having children is such an important topic that itâs the only topic in my book where I devote two entire chapters to it. I have (with the help of their mother of course) raised two kids. My son is 25 and my daughter is 19. Both of them are happy and healthy, and neither of them have ever had any problems with things like drugs, alcohol, pregnancies, or any other behavioral issues. So while I donât consider myself a parenting expert, I do consider myself a reasonably successful father.
In the fatherhood section of my Alpha Male 2.0 lifestyle book, I describe how the Alpha 2.0 should have two primary goals when it comes to raising children:
1. Demonstrating unconditional love, meaning that your kids know with 100% certainty that you love them even if they make choices in their lives (particularly their adult lives) that you disagree with. Indeed, the only forms of unconditional love a human being can have are for his children and perhaps a pet. (Romantic love is never unconditional. Neither is familial love like the love you have for a sibling or parent.) Failure to instill a feeling of unconditional love will create children that will spend the rest of their lives fearful and/or angry, requiring to undo the damage you did via therapy.
2. Teaching them the law of cause and effect, meaning that your kids need to fully understand that if they do something bad, painful things will happen to them, and if they do something good, happy things will happen to them. Failure to do this creates kids who will grow up as pampered, lazy, pussified, entitled princes and princesses who sit on their asses and wait around for other people to make them happy, and get furious when this doesnât happen (coughmillennialscough).
Beta males have a tough time with item number 2.
Women, particularly single mothers, have a really hard time with item 2 to the point where itâs almost impossible for them.
Alpha Male 1.0âs are great with item 2, but have a really tough time with item 1.
Itâs your job as an Alpha Male 2.0 father to instill both items 1 and 2 within your children during the 18 years you are responsible for them. Do that, and your kids will grow up to become happy, fulfilled adults.
I talk about how to do these things at length in my book, but I donât talk about your actual responsibilities to your kids beyond these two required goals. Are you indeed âresponsibleâ for your kids? What exactly are you responsible for? When do these responsibilities end, if ever?
Your Children As They Age
Iâve said many times that everything in your life is your fault. Itâs true. However, this only applies to adults. Kids are not adults. They hold neither responsibility nor freedom (which are required for each other). This means that you are responsible for your kids while they are kids and not adults.
For the purposes of this article, I will assume that the age of 18 is where a âkidâ becomes an âadult.â I donât agree with that age, and believe strongly that in the modern, high-tech era of the Western world, the age of legal adulthood should be 16, not 18. That means at age 16, youâre an adult and can legally own property, sign contracts, have sex, get married, drive or rent cars, drink alcohol, go to war, vote, and everything else. However, since society clearly canât think rationally about teenagers, Societal Programming has stupidly chose the ages of 18 and 21 for these things, so I will defer to that. At age 18, youâre an adult. Okay.
This means that from age zero to age 18, that kid is your responsibility. Every time I see a child or teenager act completely inappropriately, I place 100% blame on the parents. I strongly believe there is no such thing as bad kids, only bad parents, and the more kids and parents I meet and know, the more evidence I see backing this up.
My kids never screamed inappropriately in public, never did drugs, never got into fights, never broke the law, etc. This is because my kids had good parents. If their mother or I sucked as parents, this would not have been the case. Either way, it would have been our fault as parents, not the kidsâ.
(However, as Iâve said many times, this changes once the kids are 18. If youâre 25, 30, or 35, and youâre a complete screw-up, you canât blame your parents. Thatâs your fault. Youâre not a kid anymore; youâre an adult, thus responsible for your own life.)
This means that yes, you are responsible for those little bastards until they turn 18, regardless of if you want to be responsible or not. This is why you need to do some strong thinking before you ever make the decision to have kids. Remember that having kids will make you less overall happy for about 20 years, so be very careful.
Every year a kid ages, he or she takes on a little more self-responsibility. A five year-old has zero self-responsibility, but a 15 year-old has some; not 100% yet, but some. When that 15 year-old finally becomes 18, he now is 100% self-responsible, even if he doesnât want to be (and most 18 year-olds donât want to be; most 18 year-olds are complete pussies who still want to suck at their mommaâs tit, especially today). When I was 18, I moved out of my parentâs house as fast as I could. I couldnât wait to be an adult, be free, live my life, and make money. This was impossible for me to do as a child.
So when a kid turns 18, your responsibly as a parent is over. I said your responsibility is over; I didnât say your relationship or your love is over, just your responsibility. Since both my kids are now adults (over 18), I donât feel responsible for them anymore. I still love them, I still want the best for them, I will still advise them if they ask for advice, I will still help them if/when they need help (within reason), but their lives are their own now. Theyâre not my responsibility. Since I (hopefully) instilled within them the law of cause and effect and my unconditional love, theyâre now equipped to go out into the world and live their own lives.
Your Responsibility To Your Son
It is your responsibility to your son to not raise him to be a pussy. This is difficult, since both Societal Programming and his own mother will be teaching him the exact opposite, even if his mother is living with you and youâre both getting along.
Your son needs to understand that once heâs an adult, no one will take care of him. Unlike his sister, he doesnât have the option of someday getting a wife or girlfriend who will take care of him financially, pay his bills, and/or pay his debts for him. Nope, heâs going to have to actually go to work to do all of that himself.
Your son needs to fully understand concepts of self-discipline, objectivity, goal setting, hard work, individualism, and perseverance. These are good concepts for your daughter as well, but theyâre doubly, if not triply important for your son.
Your son also needs to understand the two greatest killers of men in the modern era: oneitis and debt. He needs to understand the ridiculously powerful, magical power women have over men, and how to avoid it while still getting what he wants and needs from women (namely sex, and possibly companionship). He also needs to know how destructive debt is, and how to stay away from it, particularly if you’re an American.
Your Responsibility To Your Daughter
Itâs your responsibility to your daughter to instill in her realistic expectations of the world, particularly men and finances. Both her mother and Societal Programming are going to fill your daughterâs head with towering amounts of bullshit Disney; namely about how great everything will be when she finds the right guy, how men are supposed to behave, how great college is, and various aspects of left-wing politics.
Your job is to combat all of this. Your role as a father is to show your daughter the real truths about men, life, and money, even if it seems wrong or painful. You can see an example of how I did this with my daughter here. Your daughter needs to understand that there is no perfect man, and that making her own money to some degree will likely be necessary at various points in her life. She also needs to understand that her desirability as a woman has a time limit to it, and that she needs to financially prepare for that time in her life when sheâs old enough that she canât rely on a man to take care of her or to not dump her for a younger woman.
Your daughter needs to fully understand the concepts of self-reliance, investing, the failure of monogamy and marriage, fitness, false Societal Programming, and critical thinking. She needs to know that society is constantly lying to her about most important issues, and how to sift through the bullshit.
I have a lot more to say about all this, but that will have to do for today. As you can see, raising kids is a monumental task, and one of the biggest, longest-term projects you will ever take on as a man. As always, before you have kids, you need to make sure that A) you want them badly, and for the right reasons, and B) you wait until you have achieved most of your big goals in life before you do it. For most men, that means age 40 or beyond.
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Nice post, now I hate my father even more for being the most beta person on earth, for not teaching himself the things he should have teached me that I had to learn myself while countering the useless SP crap he tried to instill in me ! Lol
Thank you for this post/reminder BD.
BD,
This is an outstanding post. It encompasses the true meaning of fatherhood in an era bent on creating as many enervated drones as possible.
It is incomprehensibly difficult raising a son in this decaying cesspool. I have worked very hard to provide my boy with the tools to see through the intense societal programming he is exposed to…it’s like giving him the special glasses from the movie “They Live”
It’s also equally important to keep the messaging light-hearted and filled with as many bonding moments as possible so you don’t come across as always cynical or pessimistic (since you are pretty much living your best life BD, I doubt this is a problem for you).
Anyway, that was a great thing to read as I start my day. One of two blogs that changed my life…always thankful for that.
JohnnySixpack:Â what’s the other blog?
BD how often and for what duration/in what format do you interact with your son (and daughter) and what do you talk about?
I find many young adults don’t really want to talk to parents except when they need advice, as there are not many common topics for discussion, yet parents (esp mother) miss their son and want to talk about smth over skype
“like drugs, alcohol, pregnancies, or any other behavioral issues.”
!! Really !! You put pregnancy, the natural process we all owe our lifes, in the same line as drugs or alcohol?
Now this is very sick mate. One of the biggest problems of our time is the fact that we are heading for idiocracy as a society. The western/white nations that is. Our women get fewer and fewer babies and later and later in life each generation.
The best breeders are the IQ 80 bimbos from north africa or the lowest IQ prols of our own race. All the while our top women delay pregnancy or have no children at all. Am i the only one who sees the problem? This is a one-way trip into desaster and ruin, and we should do the exact opposite; that is encourage our young and quality daughters to have children (plural). Starting young instead of wasting their best years in shool or with useless jobs.
To be fair, the other points are all good. In particular single mothers raising male pussies and the dangers of debt.
Hey BD,
I know this may come off as a dumb or rather short-sighted question, but how do you know if you want kids? Obviously I’m a younger reader, 24, but most of my friend’s have known that they want kids and I’ve never really had that urge. Is it one of those situations where if you don’t know that means you don’t? Or is it something that develops later in life once you’re more accomplished.
Any input would be appreciated, even though I accept that’s a tough issue to tackle.
I’m torn between this opinion and the reverse: that people in their late teens are (on average) WAY too uninformed, hotheaded, and vulnerable to dogma to be ready for voting. 22 seems like a more reasonable minimum age for voting. I’m not saying everyone else doesn’t have those problems too, but 18-21 year olds have them more.
Depending on what you mean by “bad”, this might actually be incorrect. Steven Pinker addressed the subject of parenting in The Blank Slate and according to him, the influence of parenting on a child’s overall personality may have been grossly overestimated; seems to me that “personality” will include behavioral tendencies perceived as “bad”. Obviously it doesn’t mean parenting doesn’t still have a huge impact on children, but when it comes to their key personality traits, preferences, etc, including those their parents might hate, there in fact isn’t much they could do about them.
BTW there’s a typo here:
@Izzy
I have a theory that people are either “Yes” “No” or “Maybe” when it comes to having kids.
“Yes” people want to be/are parents. They often know they want kids when they are a kid or a teen.
“No” people don’t want to be parents ever.
“Maybe” people don’t know either way. Maybe they’ll have kids when they meet the right partner. Maybe they’ll have kids when their biological clocks start ticking louder and they want to settle down. Maybe they have an unplanned pregnancy and keep the baby. Maybe they feel like it’s the right thing to do and so they have them eventually. Maybe their in a long term relationship with a “Yes” and so it’s part of staying with that person. etc. etc.
Society leans heavily on the “Maybe” people to turn into “Yes” people and most do.
Sounds like you’re a “Maybe”. Not a bad thing, just means you’re going to need to put more consideration into having kids than the other groups. When you get a bit older, you might have a clearer picture, or you might not. I’d say at this point in human evolution, either way is fine. The world isn’t hurting for more people, but we could always use decent, intelligent humans deciding to procreate and be responsible parents.
I know you are being sarcastic but just remember that hating anyone is unproductive, especially hating your father. Instead of “my father sucks!” your attitude should be, “Oh well, my father screwed up, guess I’d better get to work to do what he didn’t.”
Thanks man. Glad I could help.
I take him out to lunch sporadically. We usually talk for a few hours. I’ve been busy lately and haven’t spent as much time with him as I like, so going forward I told him that starting when I get back from Florida in a few weeks, I’m going to take him out to lunch once a month on a regular schedule, for as long as he wants.
I’ve never had that problem with my kids. I can talk to both of them for hours about all kinds of stuff, and have.
Yes, those are needy parents who have either lost their individuality to raising their kids (i.e. women) or parents who have no lives or shitty lives (men and women).
If you’re a man, and you ever find yourself always wanting to call your grown kids, you need to come to a complete stop and ask yourself what’s missing in your life. (This is true with women too, but women will never listen to that kind of advice.)
No, I consider teen pregnancy worse than drugs or alcohol. At least drugs and alcohol can be fixed.
But if you want your teenage daughters to get pregnant, have at it. It will ruin their lives, but you seem to care more about society and your race than your own children, so go ahead. I feel sorry for your kids though.
If you have to ask that question, then you don’t. At least right now.
Every young man needs to assume that there is a 90-95% chance that later in life he will want kids. The need to procreate is biological and not easily resisted forever. The man who lives from age 20 to age 70 NEVER wanting kids AT ALL is extremely rare.
I’ll also repeat that like having a live-in OLTR or OLTR marriage, you should NOT have kids unless you’ve sat down with yourself and determined that you really, really want them for many different reasons, rather than doing it on a whim, or because you’re lazy, or because your GF/wife wants them.
You’ve just described the typical American and European voter of any age. Let me remind you that Donald Trump is president, Obama was re-elected, and Europe is gleefully importing millions of third-world rapists, terrorists, and criminals into their countries. As I’ve demonstrated many times at my other blog, the typical Western voter went insane quite a while ago. Adding 16 and 17 year-old’s to the voting rolls won’t change a thing (the vast majority of them won’t bother to vote anyway, so it’s not big deal).
Then Pinker is wrong (or you’re misquoting him). If you have a kid with “bad” personality traits due to genetics, a good father and/or mother can mitigate and offset all or most of those traits though loving punishment and reward systems. Failure to do this will allow those negative qualities to grow and fester. Parenting is indeed the answer; something Western society (having gone insane long ago) has forgotten.
Fixed; thanks!
Correct, and…
1. “Maybe” people should NOT have kids.
2. Most “yes” people are actually lazy “maybe” people.
3. Most young “no” men will eventually become “yes” or “maybe” men when they climb into their late 30’s and beyond.
Generally, I agree with you BD, but I think 18 is just an age.
An age that we relate to as the age of being responsible for one’s actions.
yes, I agree that *some* teenagers have that sense at age 16, but *some* have it at age 22.
you cannot seriously make a point that because BD in year of 19** wanted to be free from his parents and owned a house – and that goes for everybody.
some live 18 years in fear with daddy AM 1.0 that terrorise and weakens that child since age 0. that makes him scared for his life and the child start his life not with a house but from a minus in money, in believing in himself and all the money that you saved for the house he saved for a therapy.
so, in conclusion, *some* teenagers will be responsible in age 16, but some have those defects and scars that only heal several years after they actually resist the deep down will to suicide. that will be a several years after all the crap and self-developing if they can survive it all.
so no, it is not a white or black.
but you make a good point that blaming is unproductive.
good post
That’s not the point I’m making. I was very clear in saying that most 18 year-old’s are not anything like I was when I was 18.
I know, but unfortunately, for purposes of society, we are forced to draw the line somewhere. I’m saying that if we have to draw that line, in the modern era that line is better drawn at 16 than at 18, though I realize both those ages are bad.
Ideally the line should be drawn at age 25 when the brain is done forming, but in the real world that would never work. So given a choice between 16 and 18, 16 makes a little more sense and is a little less bad (though still very bad).
I’m one of those minority guys I guess that’s a “no” on kids even though I’m turning 40 this year. If anything, my decision is reinforced by friends that now have kids and the struggles they have on a daily basis. Not every person is meant to breed. It’s a valid choice for some and I don’t pass any judgement if you truly want kids. I just ask for the same respect for not having kids. Although SP is very strong in this regard since most people just assume we all want to breed.
On the topic of being a “no” on kids, I’m still on the young end at 26, but I still felt confident enough to get a vasectomy at 22. The reasons why are a little off topic, but a couple months later my dad and I were out to dinner and, without knowing I had gotten one, told me that if I didn’t want kids I should get a vasectomy. He also confided that he would have been perfectly happy never having kids (which he hesitated a bit to say, for obvious reasons, but I know it had nothing to do with me or my sister specifically). The fact that I’m somewhat similar to him in personality and that he got to 50 thinking he would have been perfectly happy not having kids makes me think I made the right choice.
I’d draw the line earlier than 16. The later you draw the line and force responsibility the longer people act like kids…because they can. But earlier is just as problematic as later for actually getting it passed, so 16-18 strikes me as a reasonable compromise.
Re the point about it all being parenting, you’re ignoring kids with serious mental problems. You’ll probably file it under ‘that’s an exception and I don’t care about it because it’s rare’. And it is rare. But it’s also real that there are some kids where it’s actually not the parent’s fault and there really is nothing they can do. Of course that doesn’t excuse them from trying. And in the absence of a real problem with the kid’s brain it’s unlikely to be anything except the parent.
Correct.
I don’t form my opinions or statements based on the rare and unusual exceptions to the rule. You shouldn’t either.
I’ve repeatedly seen some figures that point to something like 50% Genetics, 5% Parenting and 45% Other (peers, teachers, experiences, etc.). Not sure if those are the numbers Pinker references, but…
Even if we’re comfortable ignoring the obvious connection between Genetics & Parents, it seems like a big leap to assume that parents don’t have a massive influence over that vaguely defined 45%-Other. I’m not a parent, but I can only imagine that good parents ensure that their kids are in better school districts, spending time with the “right” peers, having positive experiences, being healthy, etc.
How they tease apart Parenting and Other in any meaningful way is a mystery to me.
Even if we take the 50/5/45 split at face value, parents could easily be making something like a 35%-40% difference in the “outcome” between the 5% plus their further influencing of the environment.
That’s huge. And it reflects the common sense of what you see in the real world.
@Chuck: I don’t disagree. My comment *and* Pinker’s book acknowledge the importance of parenting, it isn’t a black-and-white endorsement of determinism. What it says is that parents’ influence on many key patterns of their kids’ personality is very much finite, and that putting ALL the blame on parents for everything a child does before turning 16-18 would be mistaken.
AFAIKÂ the book is available free in pdf and the part about children is Chapter 19. Incidentally, I’d say the entire book is necessary reading for the typical SJW or sociologist or posmodernist (or really anyone from the sphere of European colleges, smh). I don’t have to agree with everything in it to say that it’s pure dynamite.
Monogamy and marriage are failures? Teaching women to embrace feminism? Male side of this I agree with but it’s ridiculous to say that being with one person and finding a successful marriage (like traditional marriage and roles) is doomed to fail. Kids these days get knocked up at 16 at a party by some frat dude who sleeps with 10 chicks a week but it’s not your responsibility because your 16 year old daughter is a grown up? I can say I hate that men these days act like total push overs and wusses but I also hate that women now think they are better than men and that you can’t call a slut a slut. I’m sorry but if your little 16 year old is sleeping around she is a slut. Women need to go back to caring more about their family life and their children than the almighty paycheck. Nothing is ever perfect but without order there is chaos and what you have described for a girl (16 is not a woman) is chaos.
Yes.
No. Where did I say that? Modern-day feminism is a crock of shit.
You really need to do some reading and research regarding the facts and stats. I suggest you start with the following articles:
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2014/07/13/divorce-statistics/
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2016/08/15/often-people-cheat-real-stats/
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2015/11/16/what-life-long-marriage-really-looks-like/
No, if she’s 18, not 16. And if I did my job well, she won’t get knocked up. My daughter is 19 and she never got knocked up. Thus my point.
Women aren’t better than men, but slut shaming is false societal programming. Some more reading to show this:
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2015/06/08/slut-shaming-revisited/
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2012/12/23/slut-shaming-how-society-justifies-it-incorrectly/
That will never happen in the western world in your lifetime, so hoping for that will accomplish nothing, other than making you upset.
What I described is what is already happening. And yes, it’s chaos. That’s why I’m getting the hell out of this collapsing country.
I disagree. I had neither unconditional love or limits as a child and I still managed to turn out pretty well. I could say the same of many others. Yet there are plenty of kids who have both who are still hellions. I have 5 children. Only one of them is difficult. They all have the same parents and circumstances and level of discipline. Almost any parent with several children has that one that gives them grief. Parents of only 2 kids really don’t have the experience to claim it was something they did personally or didn’t do. They don’t have a large enough sample size to know what they are talking about. Lol
To be clear, Im not disagreeing that those are everyone’s responsibilities to their children. I’m disagreeing that we can assess whether or not a parent has or is doing those things solely by a child’s behavior.
Make sure first. ‘You really want kids badly.’
My guess today is that this will be reflected in all your behaviors and actions around them. Â And should your kid be an accidental unprotected sex, or you don’t really want them it could possibly show very visibly for the next 18 yrs of their lives.
Being surrounded by neighborhood blocks where there’s a lot of single mom, grandmas and grandpas taking care of kids while the mom runs off to ‘have a life doing kid free things’, kids raised by foster parents till 18, moms and dads who continue to party hard through the week till early mornings. Â It would do the ‘adults’ living on the blocks of small houses surrounding me to heed this advice.
What are the right reasons, exactly? I count myself very fortunate for having no internal desire or biological urge towards procreation, but I have never, ever heard anyone give a good reason for having children. I’m very very curious if you really have thought of some.
Lovergirl, there is no way for me to respond to your first comment without really hurting your feelings on multiple levels and getting into a stupid argument with you, so I’ll just leave that comment alone and other commenters can address it they wish.
What other benchmark could we possibly use to assess good parenting skills then?
Yep, as I showed here. It’s now the norm in all middle and lower class neighborhoods, not just yours. (Mine included.)
It would, but they won’t. Both the culture and the welfare state tells shows them otherwise.
The typical, average American / European has no incentive to behave responsibly. Government will just force taxpayers to clean up their messes for them.
I should have instead said, “and not for the wrong reasons.” Examples of wrong reasons would be:
1. You’re lazy and don’t really think about it, and just “end up” having kids. (This describes LOTS of fathers.)
2. You get someone pregnant by accident.
3. You never really thought about having kids, but your GF or wife pressures you and you finally agree to it just to satisfy her and/or shut her up.
4. Your parents pressure you to do it. “I want grandkids!” blah blah blah “You need to carry on the family name!” blah blah blah.
5. Your religion pressures you to do it.
6. Your political beliefs and/or other false Societal Programming biases pressure you to do it. “Be a real man,” “Grow up,” “Save the white race,” and other crap like that.
If you want kids, you need to be 100% sure you want them badly and are doing so for multiple strong reasons that are your own reasons, not reasons sourced from anywhere outside of you.
Great post BD!
I’m approaching 30 and sometimes I have those “having a children” thoughts.
But then I see my male friends with children having their life completely turned upside down. Work, taking care of kids, sleep. Rinse and repeat. For them one hour alone a week is a luxury.
The badass spark in their eyes is gone. I know that I would regret not seeing that spark when looking into the mirror. At least not before finding more reasons in favour as you say.
Thanks to your blog and books I don’t feel guilty about it!
34 entrepreneur here. I cant stand even having the same woman around for more than a couple months. The only reason I marriage crosses my mind is I know that older women and some older men are happier with children and grandchildren to give their lives meaning.
Right now I have a lot of fun, but most everyone in my life is just temporary. My sisters and mom are feminazis who dont want any contact. The only relationships I have are my phone calls with my dad, random barflies , and my work. Im fine with that for now. When Im 54 or 64, living in Asia or Latam, who knows.
I may want someone to mentor, or take care of me imstead of a nursing home.
@David: can you give some details about *what point* your feminazis sisters and mom considered that you “crossed the line” and started avoiding contact with you ? In other words, I’d like to know which degree of (alleged) “misogyny” people like these will consider so offensive to them that they will break even their family ties ?
I’ll probably need that info at some point to decide how much I should reveal about my life to my family and friends, or which people I must expect to “lose” if I decide to go 100% Alpha 2.0 and be upfront about everything I do and think.
Correct. HAVING CHILDREN MAKES YOU LESS OVERALL HAPPY, NOT MORE HAPPY. This is a very difficult concept for people to swallow, since it flies in the face of both Societal Programming and hard-wired biology, but it’s still factually the case.
I’ve addressed that in past threads before. If you’re relying on future kids or grandkids to “give you meaning” when you’re older, you really lack a long-term life plan and are really in trouble. YOU give yourself meaning, now and when you’re old, not your kids!
At best you should consider kids/grandkids icing on the cake when you’re older, not the entire cake.
What other benchmark could we possibly use to assess good parenting skills then?
You can assess parenting skills by what parents do- do they love their kids unconditionally? Do they set appropriate limits? But you can’t use results to “prove” anything. A kid can have fantastic, loving but strict, parents, and still turn into a drug addict and commit suicide.
I had a cousin who did exactly that. My aunt and uncle were like the best parents any kid could ever have. They have been married almost 50 years and from everything I have ever seen had a great loving relationship with each other and with their kids. They were strict, financially set, and my aunt always kept a clean house and made the kids do chores, yet she spent lots of time baking with them, working on school projects, etc. My uncle owns his own business but always had time to do things like build a treehouse with his kids or take us all to the beach and throw us into the water, etc. Their other 4 kids did pretty well in life, one even graduated from Harvard. Yet one got addicted to drugs in his late teens and as an adult he shot himself- right in front of his dad. Horrific. Human beings, from birth, have their own will and it can’t always be controlled the way people want to believe it should be. Otherwise all kids in the same family would be either successful in life or not, but that’s just not how it works.
I agree with this btw. The way my parents raised me was flawed, but the suicidal thoughts I had some years ago had scarcely anything to do with their parenting, and more importantly, I turned out way, way different than they would’ve wanted, even though I’m actually pretty admirative of how they did educate me in a way that was conducive to their hopes (and my younger siblings, for now, are still more or less “by the book”, unlike me). Not admirative in a moral sense, but the sense that objectively it was close to as effective as you might get – but failed.
Over and above what nurture can do, your adult personality is an unfolding, preprogrammed algorithm, and like puberty but at the psychological level, it’s still partly innate even though it is revealed long after birth. Your very reaction to outside influence and the way that shapes you – usually viewed as “nurture par excellence” – , is partly an “if-then” innate program.
Lovergirl, there is no way for me to respond to your first comment without really hurting your feelings on multiple levels and getting into a stupid argument with you, so Iâll just leave that comment alone and other commenters can address it they wish
Anything you have to say to hurt my feelings regarding what I said would be based almost entirely on your imagination and assumptions, since you have never met me or my children and can only make guesses about my parenting skills. It’s very presumptuous to make judgments about others parenting if you haven’t watched them in action or even been in their home.
Sure, you can use those as well as how the kids end up.
Sometimes not, but it shows a very strong indication.
Exception to the rule. See above what I said to Parade.
Seriously, you guys really need to learn to not use the exceptions to the rule in order to make a point. It makes you look stupid.
And human beings, generally and usually, turn out in accordance with how good or bad their parents were. Not every time, but most of the time.
As always, I’m talking about what is usually the case, not always the case.
No, it would be based on past statements you’ve made on blogs and forums about yourself, your ex-husband, and your children that directly contradict what you said in your first comment here.
Unlike others I could name, I don’t use my imagination in order to prove my points.
Impeccable timing BD!
I’m about to impregnate my girlfriend in about a week or so. I wanted to do it two months ago when she moved in with me, but she, being a Wiccan, wants our children to have the “correct zodiac signs” as a form of “spiritual personality engineering.” She wants her first child to be an Aries, her second to be a Scorpio, and her third to be a Libra. So I still have to wait about a week before even attempting to start the 9 month countdown. LOL!
I agree with both of your rules. I don’t think I’ll have a problem showing my children unconditional love or teaching them the concept of cause and effect. Of course, I will want to teach them other values as well (indeed, very specific ones which I have hammered out with her, as per our parenting contract), but the two basics that you spoke about I consider elementary commonsense, so I think I’m good here.
Oh yeah, and I obviously agree with your statements on sons and daughters as well. There is no way my son will be raised as a PC pussy, or ashamed of his own manhood. Watching the Simpsons in my home will be a groundable offense. I have a plan of putting him on a steady diet of James Bond movies and, when he’s old enough, South Park. He will have good male role models and be taught to look up to strong, competent, alpha men. I will try my best to instill in him alpha values and a sense of pride in his manhood and heterosexuality. When he encounters PC heterophobia, anti-male sexism (or anti-white racism), thanks to our social justice culture, he’ll know exactly how to handle it.
As for my future daughter, well, as Milo Yiannapolous said, the best way to make sure she doesn’t end up as a social justice cat lady is to make sure she stays physically beautiful. So I will zealously guard my daughter’s physical health. Nutrition, exercise, and healthy living I will do my best to make a priority for her even as a little girl. No daughter of mine is going to end up fat, and therefore, a PC sexual market “all sex is rape anyway” loser. Never happen!
I will also teach her sex-positivism and to love men. So when she encounters SJW man-hating or heterophobia, conservative slut shaming, or “check your privilege” white bashing, she’ll know exactly how to handle it. And obviously her mother and I will not expose her to any Disney movies or anything else which will deeply harm her later in life. Neither me nor her mother will ever call her “princess” or anything of that disgusting nature.
Truth be told, even though I’m excited about being a father, as the “Day of Impregnation” approaches, I find myself more and more nervous. Obviously, once my girl is pregnant, it cannot be undone. And I will be responsible for another human being. The gravity of this is truly breathtaking. I went through this before, of course, with my last mono girl when I still believed in mono (where the baby turned out to not be mine), but for some reason, the previous experience does nothing to alleviate my current nervousness. This is a tremendous spiritual duty that I’m undertaking and I must remember this.
Any advice on quelling my nerves, BD?
I hope you’ve had her sign a parenting plan.
Jesus.
Religion.
Ugh.
All that matters is:
1. You’re old enough to have accomplished all or most of your big goals in life. (I know this is not true with you, and you’ll probably ignore this advice like most other men.)
2. You’ve done a detailed budget and know for 100% certainty that you can afford the worst-case child support for when you two break up.
You’re very Alpha 1.0 regarding all that other shit about raising her a certain way, so I can’t help you with that. You’ll just have to stress out about it for the next 20 years like most Alpha 1.0 fathers.
Exception to the rule. See above what I said to Parade.
Being more interested in facts than imagination here…I was doing some research and I couldn’t find anything that mentioned exactly what you were talking about, however I did find sources saying almost 10% of kids have ‘callous emotional traits’ which are a very high predictor of not bad behavior. Callous traits being ‘not responding at all to another person who is in stress / upset.’ Further, the are the studies that claim 1% of people are psychopaths, and 1 in 68 kids are autistic.
Unless you have a study of some source other than your two kids I’m going to have to go with the actual studies and say that uncorrectable bad behavior in kids might be more common than I originally thought. Not a ‘very rare exception to the rule’ but ‘1 in 50’ level which means you’re highly likely to run into one at some point.
The one flaw here is ‘uncorrectable’ I’m unsure and I’ve seen no studies that try to correct bad behavior and measure success. Callous emotional behavior ends with kids who grow up as psychopaths but we don’t have 10% of the population as that (1% from studies I’ve seen) so there must be a way to train people out of it, or at least train them to hide it. (This behavior type can actually be predicted by brain scans and as early as 2 or 3 years old)
At any rate, if you’re not having a kid because you might have a bad one, well, the risk of something bad happening to your kid is pretty high. This one shouldn’t stop you.
Of course. Signed and notarized.
We actually have two – one for a son and one for a daughter. We did what you once told me is “too logical for a woman to follow.” We essentially listed every possible parenting subject – from toilet training to putting a condom on a banana, to unwanted teenage pregnancy – and wrote next to it an M (mother) or an F (father). This delineates who will be the primary parent on that specific subject (depending on the child’s gender). The secondary parent can be just as involved in the subject in question, but if there’s a disagreement, the primary parent’s word on that issue is final.
I know, I know. But it’s an extremely horny religion and poly by default. Sexually speaking, her religious views have only helped me without me even needing to join the cult. Her Wiccan circle is one big fuck fest, so I’m keeping my mouth shut.
Ha ha! Replicating myself and having a genetic legacy after I’m gone is actually a part of my mission. There are certain specific goals that I have which will have to be either delayed or take a temporary backseat to raising, and dealing with, my kids, but her and I are way ahead of most other parents when it comes to the logistics of it all. We have already picked a babysitter (from her Wiccan circle, of course, whom we’re both having sex with) who will assist us in balancing our own lives and our children’s lives. This has all been planned out over the course of the last year.
Oh definitely. Money is not an obstacle. At all.
LOL! Thanks a lot! Luckily, she’ll help me with that. She has very strict rules about what values to instill in the kids as well, and thanks to many long discussions, I have been able to square them with my own.
Slut shaming detected! Initiating red pill countermeasures now:
Yes. Utterly and completely.
No. Feminism is heterophobia. This blog is sex-positive and very anti-Puritan.
No it’s not ridiculous. It is precisely your belief in Disney garbage that is turning our women into spoiled gold diggers who think they’re princesses and hold men to royal standards of servitude and humiliation. The chivalry enthusiasts, the prudes, the Puritans, and everything that creates an obstacle for men like us has its source in your traditional conservative beliefs.
If you were a responsible parent up to that point, your daughter is not going to have unprotected sex.
You can thank traditional conservatism for women thinking they are better than men. All that Disney garbage about being a “princess” and expecting men to be the humble servants/providers are all chivalrous values that have been mixed with toxic sex-negative feminism to create a highly combustible mix of man-hating.
Oh here we go. There is nothing wrong with women liking sex. In fact, there is something very right about that.
And what is wrong with her sleeping around? I want my 14 year old sleeping around too. That’s a good thing, not a bad one (as long as she’s responsible and knows how to use birth control). Sex is not the enemy.
False either/or dilemma. Women can both have kids (in their 20s) and enjoy their sex lives.
So you want men to financially take care of women? Jesus! Not only does being financially dependent on one man make a woman’s sexual liberation impossible, but it also turns the man into a slave. No woman of mine is going to be my parasite. She needs to have her own money, and for that, she may need to go to school and establish a career. But again, that’s the only way for her to lead a sexually liberated lifestyle. I know you’re against that, but you’re on the wrong blog.
And you want to go back to the 1611 Massachusetts Bay Colony when sex was condemned as EVIL and women were non-sexual baby makers, as sexuality was just a rote exercise in procreation with zero pleasure, zero enjoyment, and nothing but responsibilities and necessities guiding every decision, instead of making decisions from a position of psychological strength based on our true personalities so we can really get to know our true selves and each other and have true spiritual connections.
People like you genuinely scare me!
1 in 50 is an exception to the rule.
When you do this argue-just-to-argue thing, do you even read what you write?
Good.
And I was right. That is far too logical for a woman to stick with. Not understand, but stick with. The odds are pretty much 100% that she will not stick to that precise, guy-logical plan once the kids come. Just watch.
I just love guys who’ve never raised kids and have never lived with a female for more than three years trying to develop logical parenting systems. You’re in for a very rude awakening. (Most new fathers are.)
Still a religion, still ridiculous. She’s forcing you to conceive a baby on certain calendar dates for fuck’s sake. Just remember your OLTR‘s stupid religion the next time you want to complain about Pink Firefly’s Disney. We all have to accept the negatives of our OLTR‘s, or we should not have one.
Fine, then it should be one of the final phases of your Mission, not one of the first ones. Getting a woman pregnant is literally one of the easiest things a man can do, and you can do it at literally any age. To put all of your bigger, more difficult goals in the back seat behind a stupidly easy goal like “have babies” makes no sense (even if you think having babies is harder than I do).
But as I said, this advice will usually fall upon deaf ears, so you’re not the only one making these kinds of excuses.
@Jack: I’m curious, do you have a just as detailed parenting plan for if, say, your son turns out gay ? I actually agree on the bit about raising one’s son to be alpha if possible, but with a gay son it’s trickier. “Top” gay guys may tend to gravitate toward alpha, but “bottom” ones (I know I’m oversimplifying) will tend to be on the feminine side, and making such a kid “alpha” may be as hard as using guy-logic on a girl.
If I ever have kids, I’m much more likely to have them at an advanced age from sperm frozen in my thirties or forties, lol.
Great advice, as always, Blackdragon. I’m curious, when will you host your next open debate, and can you give us a hint about what the topic may be?
1 in 50 is an exception to the rule.
When you do this argue-just-to-argue thing, do you even read what you write?
Yes, of course.
If we take 1 in 50 as the realistic chances if it’s rare or not depends how many kids you have, I suppose. With 5 kids there’s a roughly 8% chance that one of the kid’s problems are the kid’s and you as a parent are screwed. Though I suppose that doesn’t excuse you from trying…and unless the problems are bad enough to get your kid committed, you don’t have many options but to accept it.
BD, wouldn’t your children turning out well fall under this “exception to the rule”? You’ve stated before that your ex wife had custody and you didn’t agree with her parenting choices but that you didn’t talk with her about it in order to avoid drama. So either she raised them well as a single mom or they did well despite the odds. Even if you were involved in their lives she still had the primary responsibility of raising them, no?
It will be somewhat related to the topic of marriage. Coming soon.
Correct, but that doesn’t mean she was a bad mother. Though I had my complaints (most of them minor), she was a good and decently responsible mother, generally speaking. I’ve said that before.
She was a single mom with a very involved ex-husband who really loved his kids, spent a lot of time with them (because he actually wanted to), was a good father, and literally never argued with her. She was not the typical single mom where dad is either long gone, mentally distant from the kids, or arguing with her regularly. In no way was she in the typical single mother scenario (luckily for her). Alpha Male 2.0‘s make great ex-husbands.
Add that to the fact she was generally good mom, and the odds were always good my kids would turn out well. Honestly, I would have been surprised if either of them had turned out badly (though of course anything is possible).
Just want to agree with Lovergirl and Gil (now there’s a weird combo, they don’t usually agree) that parenting matter much less than people think. Parents do matter very much, but mostly bc of their genetic contributions. Not their parenting.
I think people have been fostered in their delusions about their levels of influence by their small family sizes. When people had bigger families it was more obvious how much personality differs among siblings and how hard-wired temperament is from a young age. The studies are pretty clear that peers, culture, and adult partners are much, much, much more influential than parents. This is shown in Twin and adoptive studies…for instance, parents endow a genetic heritage that relates to political beliefs but adult politics shows basically zero relationship to parents outside of the genetic contribution, with close peers and partners in adulthood accounting for much influence. In other words, it will. Basicslly it does not really matter what you teach your kids as far as politics and values once they are adults. How many people do you know who hold the same beliefs as their parents? Very few. But everyone thinks they will be the exception.
There are huge in borne temperament variations in things like anxiety or aggression level, whether you’re talking about a kid or a dog. Sure you can mitigate and train somewhat, but it will take about 100 times as much effort to train certain behaviors into/out of a person or animal without the right genetic temperament, or it can be quite easy. Many parents with one kid congratulate themselves for having a kid with an easygoing temperament until they later have a hellion and realize how much the first kid luck. Those who get hellions with the first kid don’t usually have a second. đ
I think the idea that parenting is the be-all end-all of how a kid turns out is mostly societal programming bs. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be good parents to the best of our ability but kids are not blank slates. Also, some of the most successful people are who they are because they overcame difficulties in life. Throughout most of history “parenting” wasn’t even a thing. It’s modern societal programming that has parents at blame for everything a child does and has adults blaming their parents for their own shortcomings and not taking responsibility on themselves.
Benjamin Franklin was like child #17 and they couldn’t afford to keep him in school, Thomas Edison was the rebel child from hell as a kid and his mom ended up having to teach him herself because the school refused to deal with him, Oprah got pregnant at 14 and ran away from home, J.K Rowling was getting by on benefits as a single mother while writing books, Tyler Perry was horribly abused as a child, Walt Disney and Colonel Sanders were both very unsuccessful as young adults but changed that later in life. We could write a book on all the “exceptions” but a lot of books have already been written. Overcoming adversity strengthens people and sometimes people who have had it the worst are the ones with the determination to be the most successful. Societal programming says your kids will only be successful if they have had a cushy life but that’s really a myth.
and
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
I’m not worried about measuring my kids against my parenting. Why are you?
No need to answer. I already know the answer.
Maybe not your kids against your parenting, but generally you do seem to enjoy measuring and quantifying an above-standard number of life aspects, BD đ (I understand it works well for you.)
Your two primary goals presented in this article are refreshingly simple and for me virtually impossible to dispute, nevermind the nature vs. nurture problem that has not been successfully resolved by science (yet).
One thing I didn’t get – on what exactly do you disagree with Lovergirl?
That the quality of the parenting kids receive is a very strong factor (though obviously not the only factor) in children’s happiness and well being, or lack thereof, both as children and as adults. That shitty parents tend to raise shitty kids (though not always) and that good parents tend to raise good kids (though not always).
This thread is a great example of when people don’t have a real argument so they embrace the exceptions to the rule in order to make a point. It’s sad.
1 – Demonstrating unconditional love
2 – Teaching them the law of cause and effect
I love how BD is able to boil these seemingly complex things down to such simplicity.
This is brilliant! I have recently turned 40. Three kids 16(F), 14(F) and 11(M). My marriage is currently turning to shit too! I wish someone had took me to one side when I was under 16 and at least taught me some of the lessons you extol on your site. For anybody considering children you definitely need to reaslise the huge amount of time and resources you will spend on them. Particularly having 2 or more children. Which seems to increase exponentially. The way having a child changes you and the feeling of seeing them grow up is probably not something that can be replicated in any other area of life. It does come at tremendous cost though! I will say there is no special relationship like the one you have with your children..
Peace
I agree with having a strong male role model. Especially the solo mother thing, I’m kind of a victim of that, messed me up a bit.
Though I disagree with monogamous marriage & cohabitation. I support a balanced family, especially where one parent takes care of the children while they are young. Too many parents these days are chasing money, and spoiling their children with it, when what they really need is parental attention & interaction.
No, there are plenty of sociopaths, I’ve seen good parents with good kids, then one pops out that is the devil incarnate. Absolutely no fault of the parents. As a society we need to identify them and take them into treatment early.
I wonder what BD’s thoughts are on hitting your kids? I personally am a pretty big proponent of it, and its one of quite a few reasons I don’t want to raise a family. I know if I had kids I would probably hit them if they did something that I repeatedly told them not to do (not something I don’t like or “approve” of, I think every kid under 18 should break the law at some point just to get the stupid shit out of their system).
Also when I mean “hit your kids” I don’t mean bludgeon them or crack their skull open or make sure they can barely walk for the rest of their lives or pin their hands to a stove giving them third degree burns. I mean a love tap like slapping them or something. Discipline “techniques” have gotten so out of hand to where the solution is either beat the kid into submission or don’t discipline them at all. Its pretty dumb.
I would also not be able to resist the temptation to live vicariously through my kids if I were to have them. This is what many a parent does and IMO its worse than physically hitting your kids because the pressure you put on them is insane. I’ve been arguing for the last 5 or so years that parents are just as childish as the kids they want to raise.
So do I. I talk about that in detail in my book. That setup requires long-term pair-bonding, but does not require sexual monogamy.
Exceptions to the rule, as I explained in the comments above multiple times.
I am absolutely, 100% opposed to hitting children with any degree of force, light or hard, for a myriad of reasons. I describe why in my book.
I never hit my kids and I forbade their mom from hitting them (who wanted to).
I’m 100% sure that I am just as good a parent as you, BD, or your ex wife, if not a better one. I’ve had much different circumstances in life but if anything it’s made me work 10x harder at parenting. One of my teenage children is schizophrenic. This isn’t something that can be predicted at an early age or that I would have ever expected to see happen and I have another one with an adolescent onset disorder (bipolar- which unfortunately tends to run right alongside schizophrenia in families and both are genetic). My ex husband sucks at being involved with his kids, but again that wasn’t something I would have predicted from someone who is a former children’s pastor and youth worker. He’s gone downhill and I’m now wondering if he doesn’t have a milder form of schizophrenia or a similar disorder himself. We married in our early 20’s and he was seemingly fine then but for many it starts later into their 20’s. In any case I’ve always put a lot of effort into parenting my children and doubled down my efforts without having someone else to depend on to help, but that doesn’t guarantee success. I shake my head at people who think because they had easy children to raise that they deserve a pat on the back. I have a couple of easy children too. They are easy kids and probably would have been great regardless of how they were raised. When people congratulate me on how well behaved they are and how amazed they are at my children, I’m like yeah but you haven’t met my oldest. I know better than to take all the credit OR all the blame.
@BD: I think your judgement is being clouded by “everything in life is your fault” biases here. You’ve been repeatedly taking the easy way of classifying all contrarian data as “exceptions to the rule”; well exceptions aren’t a rigid category and they become an unignorable statistical reality when they exceed a certain frequency. A child doesn’t need to be an infinitesimally unlikely case of mental illness in order to overpower his parents’ ability to steer what is ultimately his own agency.
Your view seems to imply a black-and-white division between a child with “zero agency and therefore 100% his parents’ responsibility” and then the adult he suddenly becomes at 16-18.
In short, you’re trying to shoehorn into your 2% rule what is probably more like a 5 or 10% rule, if not more.
5% or even 10% is still the exception to the rule. If it were 40% or something like that, then you guys would have an argument.
The exception to the rule is the exception to the rule. If it bothers some of you that exceptions to the rule exist, that’s fine, but you can’t say 1 out of 50, or 5%, or even 10% isn’t the exception to the rule. It is.
I’ll say it one last time in this thread and then I’m moving on: If using the exception to the rule is a basis for any argument you make, you don’t have a valid argument, and the other side has won.
In this case I only still disagree insofar as this part of your article,
…seems more extreme than what you said in your later comments. “there is no such thing as…” is not a statement that’s gonna be read as implying some non-negligible exceptions, even for people accustomed to your articles and to your usual disclaimer about exceptions to the rule.
Incorrect premises in the 2 goals:
A human can also unconditionally love themselves, other people’s kids, vulnerable innocent adults, and wildlife.
There is no good reason for making kids these days. It’s bad for your happiness, everyone else’s happiness (including the kids), and a waste of your money and the planet’s health.
See if you can find a good reason, in this handy table: whybreed.pdf (VHEMT)
For the same experience, only much more worthy: foster (you get paid), adopt, mentor, care, or just be uncle/auntie.
As for teaching the law of cause and effect: the best thing you can teach a child is the bad effect of causing yet more humans. And do you also want your kids to CAUSE you to have to play grandparent some random day when you are finally ready to retire?
Even though I’m a single dad, i’ve always been responsible for my child. Sometimes it’s not always the way around that girls are great. There are some people like me who are doing the job of both mom and a dad.