My Family
I often receive questions about my family and my upbringing. I also think it may be helpful for you to know what my family makeup is and was, to put everything into context. I’ve mentioned my kids, parents, and siblings various times before, but I’ve never laid out my family in detail. I will do so today.
My wife is Pink Firefly, whom I’ve discussed in great detail at this blog before, so I’m not going into detail about her today. We’re in an OLTR marriage and she’s been living with me for almost six months now. She’s 38 years old (I’m 46). I will regularly update you on how we’re doing here at this blog. If you want more info on her and our relationship, here are some of the links (look at the archive for more):
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2018/03/15/living-together-oltr-update-march-2018/
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2018/01/15/objectives-expectations-live-oltr/
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2017/09/04/qa-today-ask-blackdragons-girlfriend-anything/
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2016/12/08/details-girlfriend-oltr/
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2017/03/20/9-different-marriage-legal-structures/
I have two children. Neither of my children have fully adopted Alpha Male 2.0 lives, though my son has certainly embraced many of the business aspects of it. I’ve told my kids many times that I want them to follow their path, not copy mine. As I talk about in my book, the Alpha 2.0 father encourages his children to be individuals, not clones of himself.
My son is 26 years old and lives with his girlfriend. He is an entrepreneur who has worked in various industries, including online and real estate. He’s outgoing, intelligent, and hard-working and I’m very proud of him. He is a very mild Alpha Male 1.0 and a libertarian.
My daughter is 20 years old. She currently lives with her mom but will probably move out this year or next. She’s an intelligent introvert who is extremely gifted artistically and we share a lot of nerdy interests. She is a Type Two VYW Dominant and has a long-distance boyfriend in his thirties. She is a left-winger though with some libertarian leanings.
Both of my kids currently live in the same region as I do, but both have expressed strong desires to move to other countries at some point; my son to Thailand, my daughter to Australia or New Zealand. Obviously I love both of my children very much.
My parents are both retired and in their mid to late seventies. They live about 45 minutes away from me, still living in the same neighborhood that they lived in when I was a small child. I see them both on a regular basis and we have a close relationship. They are still married after 47 years of marriage (though they’ve had all the usual trouble you’d expect of such a long-term relationship). Politically, they are both left-wingers, since that’s what most people in Oregon are.
My dad is a retired psychologist. As I wrote about in my book, decades ago when he was younger he was a short-tempered Alpha Male 1.0, today he’s a retired, chill beta male. He worked for the state of Oregon when I was very young, though when I was a little older he started a mental health practice and it eventually became successful. He sold it about 15 years ago and retired. We have lunch on a semi-regular basis. He is a big Bernie Sanders supporter.
My dad has been married twice. My mom is his second wife. His first wife has passed away, though one of my brothers is from this marriage. I’ll talk about my siblings in a minute.
My mom is an extremely high-energy woman who runs around all day and wears everyone else out despite the fact she’s 75 years old. She’s extremely emotional and very happy; much of my “happy” genes I get from her. When we were kids, she was a housewife, though when the kids grew up she became a teacher, and was so for about 30 years before she retired just a few years ago. She was a Catholic nun in the 1960s, and was so for eight years before she married my dad, in what was a very interesting story that I may tell later. This is why most of us kids spent at least some time in Catholic schools. Today she’s not very religious and is left-wing in her political views (she absolutely worshiped Obama).
I grew up with four other siblings, of which I was the oldest. I have one additional sibling, my older brother from another mother (literally) who grew up in Mexico and California with his mom while we were raised with my mom and dad in Portland. He would spend several weeks a year with us in the summer. I love him and I consider him my brother the same as my other brothers, so let’s start with him.
My older brother is in his early fifties, married to his second wife, and has two grown children from a prior marriage. He’s an intelligent, dynamic, fun, extreme Alpha Male 1.0 who “likes drama” (his words) and is (not surprisingly) a hardcore Donald Trump supporter. He travels often with his wife and they do a lot of fun things together. However, like most men of his personality type, he tends to have a lot of drama in his marriage and family life.
Then there’s me, the oldest of the kids from my mom and dad.
Sister #1 is the next child. She’s two years younger than me. She is the typical Dominant, married and with three kids. She runs her own business, two daycare centers. She is very emotional, very busy, very disorganized, and very charismatic and likeable. She lives in the Portland area and is a mild left-winger, I think mostly because her husband is black and her kids are thus bi-racial. Her husband is a very nice, chill beta.
Sister #2 is also a Dominant, also married, and has four kids, though she is very different from her sister. Sister #2 is organized, authoritarian, and meticulous; more on the extreme Dominant side of the scale. She is a nice person but is also usually very stressed out (having four kids will do that to you). She’s a housewife, married to a very hard-working, high-income beta who works in the corporate world. They live in the Phoenix area and are mild left-wingers.
Brother #1 is an emotional, chill, artistic, free-love type of guy who has never been married and has never had kids. He’s been a DJ, a video game designer, and all kinds of other things. He currently lives in Thailand, living off of his modest investments. His typical day is sleeping in, doing yoga and meditation, hiking, and enjoying young Thai girls. He’s a confident beta with no strong political views.
Brother #2, my youngest sibling, is a hard-working, intense, blue collar beta who lives with his girlfriend in the Denver area. He’s very smart and anal and can easily stress himself out. He works in the I.T. industry. He has no kids and never wants any; instead he and his girlfriend are “dog people” and have three giant dogs who are their “kids.”
My siblings are interesting in that you can see how five different people with the same two parents and same upbringing can end up as radically different. None of my siblings are similar to me, except for certain aspects of my older brother (who I wasn’t even raised with), and frankly, none of them are very similar to each other.
Only my parents and sister #1 live near me; all the rest of my siblings are far away.
If you’re curious about my extended family, I have only a tiny handful of relatives on my dad’s side and a gigantic mountain of relatives on my mom’s side, since my mom is Italian. My mom had eight brothers, and I’m literally the oldest of over 30 cousins. I’m not close to anyone in my extended family.
Anyway, that’s about it. As you can imagine, our family reunions are always colorful. 🙂
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I remember you were saying that guys in their 20s shouldn’t even think about living with a woman. Have you had discussions about that with your son?
Dang. Lots of left wingers there.
Why do you think all the younger women in your family are Dominant?
Was the mother of your older brother (Alpha 1.0) a Submissive?
Was your mother during your formative years Submissive or Dominant?
Was the mother of your children Submissive or Dominant?
Thank you BD.
Of the few Alpha 2 that you know (if any), are they the eldest sibling in their families as well?
Oh I’m more emphatic than that; men under 30 shouldn’t even have a girlfriend.
Have I mentioned it? Sure. Have I “discussed” it with him? No.
I’m Alpha 2.0 so I don’t lecture my children. That’s Alpha 1.0 shit. Trust me, my kids are well aware of all my opinions and, as adults, are free to follow them or dismiss them if they wish.
Yup. In terms of numbers, the left dominates the entire Western world. Get used to it, because it’s going to get worse.
Because most modern-day women are Dominants, at least 60% if not more, as I explained here.
Just like with the left-wing thing, my family is statistically normal.
Yes.
Submissive. Today she’s a Dominant.
Dominant.
I don’t know the family makeup of most of the A2.0s I know, but of the few that I do know, none of them are the eldest in their familes (one is an only child though). There doesn’t seem to be a pattern.
Being the eldest sibling in your family is more likely to make you an Alpha 1.0 than a 2.0 in my view, but that’s only an educated guess.
Pretty nice to see BD’s family comprised of successful people.
I’m an only child and compared to BD’s family, I’m a complete loser. I still get chicks and stuff but when it comes to success I have done virtually nothing. Slept through a bunch of college classes and worked as a server, a bouncer, and as a retail clerk on and off for about a decade.
Kinda wish I had siblings, I felt a LOT of pressure growing up because of being an only child, so much so that when I got older and my folks stopped caring about what I was doing with my life, I just gave up on everything. Kinda weak, but that’s how it goes.
I’m glad I discovered BD’s blog two years ago. I need to turn things around. BD’s materials will help me do that.
When I read about BD’s brother who lives in Thailand I was like “that’s what I want to do lol”
Colourful, but not actively unpleasant, I’d guess (unlike the reunions of some people’s families that I know. My own family on my father’s side generally get on very well when we see each other, and they tend to be fun, engaging, interesting people. On my mother’s side they are more inclined to be prescriptive and full of advice/ideas about what one ought to be doing with one’s life, and I see less of them. My mother herself is very much the exception there (she seems to have taken after her grandmother in that regard), and she doesn’t see much of them either.
It’s very different how people can be.
–o–o–o–
Quick typo alert! I presume your brother in Thailand does “meditation”, not “mediation”. 😛
Didn’t you say before that one of your brothers was gay?
Fun to read this BD, thanks! 😊
Very interesting post, BD!
What do your brothers and your son think of the Alpha 2.0 lifestyle? I think the women in your family just roll their eyes about it since as dominants they don’t like the concept of a man taking away their power.
But what do the guys in your family think? Are they inspired to do the same? You describe them as betas so I think they’re not really interested in changing their lives into an Alpha 2.0 direction. Why is that? Are they not yet fed up with relationship problems or do you think it comes down to personality?
I used to be a beta with women and only embraced your stuff when I was fed up with drama. And your development from a beta to an Alpha 2.0 was also because of you reaching your drama limit in your TMM.
And why is your dad a Bernie Sanders supporter considering his entrepreneur background? This doesn’t make any sense to me. (To you neither I assume)
This post is also a great reminder for all the guys who want to have kids and who argue that they want to create and raise like-minded people to spread their worldview. The possibility of your kids having a completely different, often times opposite worldview from yours is quite high.
You said that your son adopted a lot of business stuff of the Alpha 2.0 philosophy. Did your son went to college? how successful is he?
What about your nephews? For me uncles gives the best advices. Did any of them adopted some ideas of the alpha 2.0 model?
Fixed; thanks.
No, though brother #1 is very effeminate and may have some gay tendencies so I was probably talking about him.
Correct. The men (son and brothers) think it’s interesting, the women hate it.
They think it’s interesting and see some if its merits but aren’t interested in doing it themselves.
No. Most beta males and Alpha 1.0s don’t want to be Alpha 2.0 even if their brother is one. The beta desire for safety and the Alpha 1.0 desire for control is usually too strong.
Fear.
No, it comes down to fear and Societal Programming. As I’ve said many times, in a contest between logic or happiness and SP, SP usually wins.
You’d have to ask him.
It makes sense in that he’s a well-off retired 78 year-old beta who doesn’t need to worry about survival anymore; it’s easy for some of those people to say, “Sure, give everyone free stuff. Why not? It’s the nice thing to do.” My dad is a very nice man.
Correct.
Some, yes.
Yes. He went to college over my objections. Got a 3.8 GPA with a dual major. Then after graduation told me I was right all along and that he shouldn’t have gone.
Far more successful than the typical Millennial 25-year-old, that’s for damn sure (though that’s a pretty low bar these days). I can’t give you any more data than that.
I’m not close to any of my nephews, and they’re all very young (little boys), and most of them live in distant cities. (Two of them will be in my wedding though.)
It is very unlikely any of my nephews will adopt the Alpha 2.0 model, but you never know.
What’s your viewpoint on financially supporting your kids? My parents didnt give me (or have) any money for college, and kicked me out at 18. I felt irritated, but this was great for me! I went to technical school while working two jobs and playing in a band. Instantly I became my own man, learned how to cook, clean, had some parties, etc. My only regret is not traveling and learning languages until my 30s. At 31, I moved in with a family in Guatemala and it was really eye-opening to different gender dynamics, cultural differences, etc.
BD
i am watching some of my neighbors and relatives in their mid 70 and early 80
be forgetful, unable to plan ,get frustrated easily , be frail what would have been called “normal” aging
this not an alpha 2.0 life
will science and tech help us avoid this we we get to this age?
Once they’re 18, they’re on their own. When you die you can give them some inheritance if you want, but as soon they turn 18 they’re adults and you shouldn’t support them.
They can live with you past age 18 as long as they are actively involved in earning income. They can’t just live at home forever while sitting around and playing video games. If that’s what they want, boot their asses out.
Yup. I wrote about that here. Normal people do not age well.
Yup, if you choose to take advantage of it. Read this.
Was wondering why you did not have Thailand in your list. I’m seeing many westerners living the 2.0 business lifestyle, moving up there.
Do your family members and friends share your opinion about the collapsing West? Are they planning on moving out too?
Hi,BD, in an old post you said that the best a women can hope is a live in,discreet OLTR with an alpha male 2.0,and in another post you said that you talked to your daughter the difference between beta males and alpha males,and your daughter said that better are alpha males.Because she is a dominant,it is possible for her to get an alpha male,in a helathy open relationships,the alpha being her OLTR, or for Dominant Women the 2.0 lifestyle is only possible if the guy is a beta,for the relationship to be healthy?
“Being the eldest sibling in your family is more likely to make you an Alpha 1.0 than a 2.0 in my view, but that’s only an educated guess.”
Being the eldest in my own family, I agree.
Guess it’s mostly due to biology : you’re older, so you gotta “show them the way”. My nephew is the eldest too and he’s a damn control freak at the age of 3 and a half.
1. Way too hot / too humid.
2. I prefer high tech first-world surroundings. Not big on the third or second world, other than visiting it for vacation. (Note how upset I was at New Zealand’s shitty internet, as just one example.)
Yes, Thailand is a great place for most Alpha 2.0s. Just not for me.
Some of them do, some don’t.
Many, yes. Big brother will leave the country as soon as he retires (he actually wants to go now but he’s getting resistance from his wife). Brother #1 is already in Thailand. Brother #2 wants to move to S. America. Three of my five best business buddies have either already left the country or are seriously planning on doing so.
As I’ve said at my other blog, the insane election of 2016 actually woke up a number of normal, SP-ridden Americans to the reality that whatever is wrong with the USA is probably going to get much worse, not better. (And they’re right.) Like most of history’s formerly prosperous collapsing empires, the best people are slowly leaving, one at a time.
That being said, my sisters and parents and many other people in my life subscribe to the usual left-wing “oh, it’s no big deal, we’ll be fine, we have plenty of money” belief. And a few have the right-wing thing of “we must stay and fight!!!” too.
As broad generalities, yes.
Neither. A Dominant woman can’t be with an Alpha (1.0 or 2.0) unless she’s an extremely mild dominant with very strong Submissive or Independent leanings in her day-to-day behavioral structure. This means a Dominant must choose a beta male as a long-term partner. But she could still have an OLTR with him; I personally know couples like this; open marriage, Dominant high-sex-drive wife, average-sex drive submissive beta husband, and it sort of works. Sort of (there’s drama). One of these women was an FB of mine for a long time.
The Dominant will never be truly happy because, just like the Alpha Male 1.0, happiness is not her primary objective. So she’ll never be truly happy but she probably won’t “mind” the way you and I would.
Yes, and there is science behind this as well. Birth order can explain a lot of aspects of your personality, particularly if you had lots of siblings like I did. (Birth order is less intense when there is only two children.)
Very interesting BD, thanks for the input.
Why do you say that your brother #1 is beta? His lifestyle seems 2.0ish from the little you said about it.
You’re right; much of his lifestyle is Alpha 2.0 that I probably didn’t give him credit for in my article.
He’s about 40 years old, never gotten married, never had kids, and always kept his debt low. He was able to build up enough equity in real estate that he’s now able to live on modest real estate rental payments that support his modest, kid-free, debt-free lifestyle in low-cost Thailand. All of that is Alpha 2.0, absolutely, and he deserves a lot of credit for this.
He’s also a beta. He always gets horrible oneitis for whomever he’s dating, always leaps into monogamy (and way too fast), and always get burned by it (either by the girls cheating on him, dumping him, or by him getting bored and ending the relationship in a very high-drama way). He’s had an extremely rough relationship life, for his entire life, because of all this.
He also has no Mission and no goals and probably never will. He just sort of floats around from one experience to the next with no plan. Sometimes this is nice for him. Other times it really blows up in his face and causes him major life problems.
So financially and logistically he’s quite 2.0. In terms of temperament, life management, and with women, he’s pure beta, and likely always will be.
My dad is super alpha at 66. But he’s divorced and fat, with no energy , so he hasn’t had a woman in 23 years. My sisters don’t talk to him or me because we’re sexist lol. To be an alpha dude without money or power at that age just gets you written off to die alone. And the best way to be BROKE in your senior years is to get divorced at that time. Guys who get divorced young swallow the red pill with still enough time and energy to start over correctly. My dad was totally spent after his divorce and it ruined his zeal for anything unfortunately.
In fact , the closest I can come to having a “mission” is to help him whenever I can. If you don’t care about society’s expectations of you, and you research the TRUE impact of most charities… finding a mission is tough.
Thanks for the clarifications BD!
I was asking because I feel like I’m relatively close to him in terms of life, except for the women part (never had oneitis or got burned in a relationship, have a constant rotation of fbs and mltrs etc.). But thinking about your brother, I feel like it’s high time for me (at 31) to slow down on the cool and crazy experiences and work on my financial life and mission. These are definitely my weak points, as women, health and overall social life comes pretty easy to me. I am from a western European country but currently live and work in South America, so at least there is that!
That has been my experience. I got some very good advice from some of my uncles, one in particular, when I was a teenager, about women, sex, career, and life in general. Other friends have said the same thing. Presumably it must be because an uncle is close but more removed than a father, rather than being something inherently “avuncular”, since most uncles are fathers too. Would be interesting to look into this further.
TMI
Stick to what you do best.
Many of us are just starting out in business or simply want to stay in the US for a while before establishing a 5 flags plan like you suggest. Is this going to make it much harder to make money? Should someone just starting attempt to move away as well?
Also, you’ve suggested disconnecting from the government as much as legally possible while still living in the US. Do you have any suggestions/resources on how to do this? Like unregistering to vote?
No. You’ll just pay a lot more taxes.
No one should move out of their country just because I’m doing it. You should move away if such a thing will make you more long-term happy. Every man needs to make his own decision on that. (And it’s not required for an Alpha 2.0 life. It just helps.)
Yep. Buy this book and do exactly what it says: http://www.alphamalebook.com
I am Eastern European who moved to Australia more than 10 years ago and I visited US. I don’t understand at all why do you want to stay in this crappy country at all? It is getting worse than the Soviet Union at its worst.
I’m not an apologist for the United States particularly, but this comment is surely an exaggeration?
Its not that bad yet but yeah the US is gonna be very similar to the USSR at its worst in about 10-15 years or so. The “socialism” that everyone wants is gonna bite them in the ass, we’ll have martial law and curfews etc along with the “free” education and healthcare etc, and it will lead to a bloody revolution at some point. Along with Coups and other crazy stuff which will make life really horrible for Americans. Its just a matter of time really.
In most of Europe this is already kinda happening, but in the US it will happen (and it will suuuuuuck) probably by the late 2020s or so.
I plan to move to somewhere in SEA by the mid 2020s. I feel like by the 2020s, the third world is gonna be some kind of lost paradise where yes, there is still statism, but its not as bad as the west.
You know around half of the country supports Sanders right? Several polls had him defeating Trump. You think there are no entrepeneurs among them?
As BD says, America is very left wing now.
Must………..avoid………….ad hominem………….must…….avoid…………ad hominem…………GRRRRR!!!!!!!
Goddammit BD, why do you gotta be so strict? It’s not always easy to follow your rules man. I was so close to ripping this dude a new asshole, old school style!
What a completely retarded, nonsensical, and flat out backwards comment!
The Soviet Union at its worst had gulags. Do you even know what those are?
It also had mass graves, death camps, the secret police assigning you a wife or husband to keep tabs on you, the death penalty for “counter-revolutionary speech,” mass confiscation of food from peasants in order to “share the wealth,” thus resulting in straight up cannibalism, mandatory nationalism under penalty of death, dissenters locked in mental institutions on the grounds that opposing the State meant that they were lacking “fundamental self-preservation, and thus self esteem,” regular book burnings, absolute cultural conformity enforced by military tanks, etc…
By contrast, just last June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that hate speech (read: counter-revolutionary speech) is indeed protected Free Speech, in a unanimous decision. I’d be fucking dead by now if this were the Soviet Union!
Cheer up, sunshine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwQuuvKMsWU
Jack is full of contradictions.
One day there are government conspiracies everywhere.
Another day the benevolent government defends his “freedoms”.
Looks like the propaganda works really well in the land of “free” just like in… you know…
Oh well…
Where Anonymous sees contradictions, I see only balance. He seems bipolar.
I have never said this. This represents all or nothing thinking (everywhere or nowhere).
Which aspect of government? There are benevolent and malevolent aspects.
Again, he seems to be an “all or nothing” type of person, a symptom of a bipolar personality. He must live in a very miserable world if only 0 and 100 exists and 99 counts as 0. Sad.
What propaganda? Referencing legal cases is propaganda? How?
Anonymous can’t show me the American gulags, or refute (or even address) a single point I made!
Can he name me one country that is better? Or is he just a typical social justice warrior comparing America to a fictional utopia? Oh well…
BD I’m shocked your daughter’s 20 already. I think the last time you talked about her on here she was only 15, they grow up so fast.
The US is bit of a ways away from a full-on Stalinist police state. The Reds and the Whites are still fighting it out via the electoral system and the courts, though periodic street violence breaks out (e.g., Charlottesville last summer).
But already prominent public figures in the government, media, and entertainment industry are being denounced and disappearing literally overnight and being made Orwellian “Unpersons” – #MeToo
It’s all OK and necessary to maintain civil order, until the Social Media Checka knocks on YOUR door one night.
I never thought I’d live to say this, but young readers of this blog should seriously *consider* a multi-country residency plan like BD’s. (I’m over 50 so thinking the US won’t take its final total dump before I die.)