Tag Archives: Family

Choose a Spouse Who Would Resemble the Children you Want

I’m currently reading Bryan Caplan’s Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. The book is a pro-natalist argument for why you should have more kids for your own benefit. I’m not reviewing it now, maybe next week when I finish it, but I came across something I’d like to highlight.

After thoroughly dismantling the nurture assumption in Chapter 2, he concludes that how your kids turn out has almost nothing to do with your parenting and is heavily dependent on the genes your pass to your children. In Chapter 3, he then talks of the implications of this, where he wrote this:

The most effective way to get the kind of kids you want is to pick a spouse who has the traits you want your kids to have. Genes have the largest effect on almost everything on the Parental Wish List. The right spouse is like a genie who grants wishes you are powerless to achieve through your own efforts.

Often when choosing spouses young men look for love, sexiness, compatibility, and/or motherhood qualities; all things of how a women would relate to her husband and children.

What is often overlooked is that your wife’s genes will have a heavy impact on the type of child you will have.

Even good advice given on the matter of choosing a wife can neglect this matter. Dalrock has a good post on choosing your wife, as does Athol, but both focus on the potential wife’s qualities and the way she relates to others, not on the genes she will pass down to your children.

Now, if you choose a beautiful women, she likely has a base level of healthiness, and most are naturally inclined to screen out unhealthy (ie. fat, ugly, or sickly) women from being bearers of their children, but think about other traits, personality traits.

Is she stupid or slow? Your kid will probably turn out less intelligent. Is she irresponsible or ditzy? Your kid may be more likely to be less responsible. Is she prone to emotionalism or anger? Your children will likely be as well. Is she generally unhappy? Lazy? Immature? Disloyal?

On the other hand, if she’s a responsible, intelligent, self-disciplined women, your mutual children are far more likely to have those traits.

Also, look at traits that may not be as cut and dried. Do you want your children to be devout or traditional? Family oriented? Success oriented? Artsy? Liberal? Etc.

Choose a wife that is and increase your chances they will be, not because of parenting methods, but simply because the genes she will meld with yours will be more likely to cause your children to be predisposed to those attitudes.

Anyway, something to think about for budding young patriarchs.

In the same section, he then goes onto to say:

Another implication: The macho, irresponsible “bad boy” is an even worse deal for women than he’s reputed to be. Not only will he be emotionally and financially AWOL; the children he fathers will probably give a great deal of grief to any mother who struggles to raise them right.

So for women, when trying to convince the irresponsible but charming alpha to settle down (or simply having sex with him, accidents happen), think about your future children. Not only will he likely be a bad father, but even if you can convince him to stick around and take of your kid, do you really want to raise an asshole?

Your child’s alpha genes may potentially have some benefits, but your son of an alpha will be much more likely to break your heart. I’ve seen the emotional turmoil an irresponsible alpha can wreak upon his mother, do you really want that?

Think long term.

Feminism: Contributing Factor to Obesity

It looks like it’s fat day over at In Mala Fide with two posts on obesity today.

The first is on the feminists’ contradictory positions on two unhealthy body types: fat and anorexic skinny. Manuel questions ‘why the contradiction?’

My answer: in our modern prosperity, it’s much easier to be unhealthily fat than unhealthily skinny, so people will justify their lack of discipline and condemn those who judge their laziness. Not much different from his.

The second by Frost argues that obesity is a spiritual problem. People eat to fill the spiritual gap in their lives left by consumerist culture.

I’d agree with him on this, but I think there’s more to it.

Everywhere you see discussion of the obesity crisis and everybody decries this, that, and the other thing.

Fast food is often blamed, even though fast food in itself doesn’t make you fat. Consumerism, advertising, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, pop, etc.

One thing that is never discussed is feminism, even though I think it is one of the most self-evident contributing factors of the obesity epidemic.

At one time, mother would be at home: in the morning, she’d make a good breakfast for her children and husband, and send them to school/work with a healthy bagged lunch. She’d cook in the afternoon so a healthy supper was waiting for when everybody in the evening. When the kids got home from school, there’d be some baked goods or fruit for snacks.

The mother would provide healthy, home-cooked food for the family. She would make sure her family ate well (“finish all your peas”) and that her children would develop good eating habits. She’d make sure here kids got enough outdoor play (ie. physical activity) to stay healthy.

Now women work, and mother no longer has the time to bake, to cook meals, and to supervise her children’s eating and play habits.

Breakfasts of bacon & eggs, home-baked bread, or oatmeal have been replaced by sugary cereal. Lunches of sandwiches, fruit, and milk or leftovers have been replaced by cafeteria food (burgers, fries, and pizza) and lunchables. Home-cooked dinners have been replaced by microwavable meals, fast food, restaurants, and easy cook dinners. Snacks of home-baked goods have been replaced with chips and candy.

Mom is no longer home, so kids are unsupervised. Instead of “no snacks until after dinner”, kids come home to an empty house filled with junk food. Instead of mother teaching good eating habits to her children, they learn eating habits from peers (chug! chug! chug!) and TV. Instead of mother yelling at kids to turn off the TV (or video games, radio, books, etc.) and go outside to play, kids lounge around supervised by Mario & Luigi.

Now, obviously feminism isn’t the only factor in obesity, others would include spiritual gaps, easy entertainment, laziness, an overabundance of food due to prosperity, etc, but it is still a factor.

Feminism is likely a leading contributor to obesity; it is hard to see how any discussion of obesity can occur without at least some consideration of this.