In my earlier post, lolz commented:
In my humble opinion, the tradcon exchange between husband and wife that you advocate is not really all that equitable – and certainly not what one sees in ancient societies.
He also posted a link (read it all, it’s pretty good, except the conclusion which is too egalitarian and hedonistic for my taste):
In other words, people we call “tradcons” are frequently hewing to a “tradition” that is mostly a recent invention. Throughout virtually all of history, up to and including much of the world still today, “the family” or even “the nuclear family” meant something very different: what it usually was was father+mother+the kids as part of an extended family, with grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles and/or cousins frequently living under one roof, or in very close proximity to each other, in a mutually supportive environment. “The family” was all these people, usually dedicated to helping each other, often forming alliances with other families to their mutual benefit. Even in societies where it was the norm for the youngsters to move away, they usually moved in mutually supportive groups together only a day or two away from the rest of the extended family, whom they would often get back together with in times of trouble. Even in societies when young men struck out on their own, they usually did so in mutually supportive groups, not alone against the world.
The ancient idea of “the family” was not “we get together and have dinner at holidays and provide each other some emotional support.” It was much more a matter of, “we work together during the day, we make our meals together, we live in one house or adjacent houses, we fight off enemies together, when one of us is sick we all get together to help. Two of our young’uns are getting hitched? We may need to build them a house because we can’t fit them in here right now so let’s give ‘em a new place over on that hill up yonder.”
First, I’ll answer the ‘equitable’ thing. lolz is right, it’s not equitable. Having to work 40-60 hours a week away from your home and family is definitely the shorter end of the stick to raising your own family, as I’ve written before, women definitely benefited from the ‘traditional’ nuclear family. The problem is, unless you’re willing to abandon your kids as latchkey children to daycare and the public schools or you have family that’s willing to take care of them most of the week, you need someone to take care of the kids, and given biological differences between the sexes, the man staying home will result in marital problems and divorce. It makes sense to have the woman stay home.
Which brings us to the next point: both lolz and Esmay are right.
The nuclear family is not ‘traditional’ or the way things were, it was an adaptation to modern industrial society. What the article above failed to mention, is that ‘work’ as we know it today, is a recent invention. Until the industrial revolution, most people’s ‘work’ was either the family farm or or the family home business (or in tribal societies, men hunted, women gathered). There was no real separation between work and home life, they were the same. Sadly, we do not exist in that society. To not starve, most people have to work outside the home. The nuclear family is the best adaptation to that economic reality we have.
Ideally, we’d be able to get back to that tribal, extended family structure. One of my hopes, if that someday I will be able to be able to create a tribal structure among my family, and maybe with my friends as well. We’ll live on a mostly self-sustaining farm subsidized by some small income from a couple projects I’m working on. That will take a lot of work, and will be a lifelong project, but hopefully I’ll get there.
But for now, the realities of modern society constrain me, constrain us. We can try to build a traditional, tribal structure, but that is not going to happen right away. Before that, I have to get a wife, then keep my children from having their souls devoured by the progressive school system, that means the nuclear, breadwinning family is a necessity for now.
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As an aside, I would actually not mind being a stay-at home dad. A commenter at Vox’s site has described his adventures as such:
Hey man… we don’t JUST play video games all day. I mean sometimes its almost 8am before they finish with their school work for the day. And sometimes we go down to the lake and shoot turtles with the 10/22s… or fish… or have great glorious nerf wars in the tree forts. and there is a swimming pool out there for the really nice days… about 300 of them a year.
Ok well… its mostly video games…
He’s also described the risk of it:
Look the truth is if I wasn’t such a stupendous badass my wife would’ve lost interest years ago. Happens all the time. The stay at home dad thing is basically betting your family’s future on your ability to maintain your badass man credibility with practically the whole deck stacked against you. The risks are huge. Of course.. if you pull it off you get to spend all day with your kids shooting turtles, fishing, playing Black Ops II, and watching Sportcenter. so I mean… its not entirely irrational.
Honestly, that sounds like a lot of fun, and would be much better life than going to the office every day.
Even the risk of the family being destroyed, while much higher, is not as brutally punishing, as you won’t be the one paying child support and alimony, and you’ll probably have a decent chance of getting custody.
The question is, could you find a girl okay with the arrangement and could you stay badass. I figure, if you ran a little hobby farm in the country, fished, and hunted, your odds wouldn’t be too bad. You’d still get the provider rep if the meat on the table was something you slaughtered or hunted yourself.
It would take a lot of work to set up, but I’d be okay with the arrangement of staying home on the acreage with the kids while the wife worked.
Indeed, the only way to return to that kind of family is to do what Wiebo Ludwig did.
BTW, they’re still there…
This still exists in places like where I live. Mostly in large farms where they have a second house on the property, or adjoining farms or ranches. My own father had this arrangement (at least for awhile) with one his stepsons and his family. I actually toyed with the idea of suggesting to my sister that we should buy a house together, since she travels constantly for work, as does her fiancee, they be there only a fraction of the time.
It’s a good system, if everyone is willing to take on their role. The problem with reestablishing this sort of thing is our “me me me” culture. It makes it hard to work together as one unit. Laziness is unacceptable in the larger family unit, and laziness is practically the mark of our times.
That said, I’d love to establish such a family. I long for a tight knit, extended family. Maybe not within the same house, but within a stone’s throw of one another.
That’s funny about your long term goal. I have been talking about “the compound” I’m going to build since college. Most people (wife included) regarded it as a joke when I first brought it up, now wife is 100% on board and several close friends are interested. In 6 years will be done with military commitment, debt free, and with likely enough money to buy a good piece of land to start it.
Wiebo Ludwig’s people, mentioned above, aren’t the only ones to live this way, of course. Old-Order Anabaptists of various stripes – Mennonite, Hutterite, Amish – still do it, of course…
It can be done.
What it does mean, of course, is virtually complete disengagement with modern society, in both directions – except, if the family maintains an internet presence, they can encourage others to do the ‘The Village‘ thing…
It could spread! Maybe this could save our civilization…
Hi F.N.,
I am happy to advise when I see a Christian about to, putting it colourfully, tie himself in knots worrying about how to finesse the future…With too much anxiety about future situations, catalysing your knowledge of the particular ways in which marriage has been weakened in white, European civilisation, you could likely be enervating yourself and de-meaning your future actions by over worry.
Remember what Our Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount : Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” and “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” Meaning – don’t worry yourself sick, have some faith in yourself and in God. Take care of the things you are facing today.
Remember also that the LORD said through his prophet Hosea: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. This one commands a Christian to explore and gather his intellectual resources to himself. However, he must still remember God’s law and what he wants for his own.
God’s law is for people to be married. So, when we put ourselves into a marriage we are also following his law and the structure that he intends both ourselves and the institution to be. If you give thought to the way you could be a leader in your household even while wifey is putting in some hours at work, then you’ve used your ability to make your knowledge work for you. If a wife wants to be sinful and to break the marriage vows, it is ultimately on her. Of course, the husband should at the same time be doing what he can to take care of the evil thereof. But, the blame of sin would fall on the divorcing wife and those who were complicit in helping her with her sin. You can’t really flinch in anticipation of that conflict that has some chance, but not every chance, to affect you years down the road. That’s not the Christian way.
Best regards,
A.J.P.
Wonderful article. I have to say though building an extended family/clan is pretty doable even in the modern era.
What is required is commitment to staying in one place and owning one’s own businesses. Since at least in the US many neighborhoods with one or more for sale houses, over time just have relatives buy them or in new developments. buy several. Given a long game, your clan owns basically the whole block even in the burbs
Even being in the same town helps and not living too close for less sociable but still functional members is a big help with sharing, babysitting and the other labor intensive tasks of raising a family . Now this only works well if most kinsmen are honorable but teaching firth is just a matter of patience and time
Even employment for kin is manageable, when people are need for a family business, just call a cousin first and hire them. Jobs don’t get advertised unless you are out of relatives and if the extended family is doing well there will be some.
The god thing about a clan system too is that it can beat the three generations rule and retain its wealth.
Now there are downsides, you have to avoid the State to some degree (they fear this arrangement) and build good practices. Not easy but doable.,
Also there will be economic consequences in the broader scale since atomization is good for consumption but that is a small matter. The extended family is a robust survival tool and can work even in modernity
I really appreciate this. Now that my children are relatively self sufficient (meaning they can manage to prepare their own meals without burning the place down) I would love if my husband would take on the more full time parenting role – the learning cool things and and loud noises coursework – and I could work more. My dad is a jerk, but I learned more from him over his summers off – things that I use now even w regards to home keeping – than all the day in day out w my mother. I don’t know that either of mine would win any parenting prizes, but it was a privilege to be in my fathers company when he was at his best. I learned. Every minute.
As for the trad soc thing. We asked my husbands parents if they would like to build on a property with us, they’re retiring and downsizing, and they looked at us like we were bonkers. I think we’re going to have a. Hard time convincing the super boomers that returning to family community life is anything other than a nightmare. They hate their own parents for their simplicity and – you know – crazy idea that families might hang out and take care of each other – they’re not likely to think much about anything other than what they’ll get for mamas house after they check her into the nursing home.
Tradition is not a cafeteria. You can find a new way, your own, but it won’t be traditional, nor be approved by what Chesterton called “the democracy of the dead”. Exceptions sometimes work inside a normal framework (when all families were nuclear, the occasional single parent had and caused no trouble). Kept bad-asses are still kept. Prepper-H.
You can find traditional if you look. And by that I mean the true traditional; family, extended family, and all working off the same piece of property. I found one out hour outside of where I live. I know whole clans of 3 generations (won’t be too long before 4) that decided that kind of life was for them. They’re experimenting in self built, off the grid homes among the younger generation, with the older being in more comfortable, modern construction style, on the grid homes.
But they’re all traditional Catholic, and likely all going to have 10 kids if they’re blessed by God with that gift. From that one clan, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s 130 individuals born to the next generation. When you’re striving for that, have a great deal of determination with the drive to do what you need to do, and your soul sings in joy at the thought, it’s not too hard to accomplish. Sacrifices are made, but through love.
Hey FN
I’m not going to be able to really write a response this weekend (family visiting and stuff) so I will be very quick – I really appreciate your having read my link and giving it fair consideration.
I gotta log off now but I will say that in terms of actions to be taken based off that article and your observations – i think the posters AB Prosper and Chad have the right idea.
One thing I would like to note on my way out is that AB notes that governments fear this type of arrangement – now why would that be? :-) I would like to note that the success of cultural marxism, and disenfranchisement of men, the rise of corporations and crony capitalism, and the breakdown of the extended family are all very strongly correlated.
In short order we went from extended families -> nuclear families -> atomized individuals – this transformation happening in a feedback loop with the long march.
Anyway I have to go so have a great weekend and God bless!
– Lozozlo
Will S, large numbers of hillfolk live that way witb no particular thought to it. The govt is something to exploit (welfare/ disability fraud and the like) or ignore, growing weed, making corn liquor, working cash only jobs, running cash only business etc. Not as romantic as the Anabaptist but they are doing it.
The guy who is taking his kids to fish and shoot turtles is living a very masculine life. Much more so then any slick living in a city. No doubt that helps him pull it off.
As for the stay at home dad dream, I know a man who is pulling it off like a boss. If you didn’t know better what you would see is a much older man hanging out and goofing off with his kids while living off his much younger wife’s paycheck(16 hears his junior). Now comes the reality check.
He is a retired Speical Forces Warrant Officer. His home was paid off with re-enlistment bonuses before he meet his current wife ( about year 23 of his 30 year career) and isn’t a risk. The dated a few years, got married before he got out, she dropped two kids and went back to work. She gave up her army carer for him. She works, he raises the kids, homeschools them and all that. He is getting 75% of his CW5 paycheck every month plus disability. He is a living legend in the SF community. It’s basically a house he restored and refurbished. He’s a master carpenter, a decent mechanic, an outstanding woodsman, an expert in american history, speaks two lauange fluently (besides English), better then me with a rifle and most folks would love to hate him if he wasn’t such a good man to have a beer with.
How many of us compare to that?
I could, if I thought I could pull it off take a lieutenant up on her offer, be a stay at home dad and follow her where ever the air force sent. I past on the offer, not the least of which is, I doubt I could pull it off. The dynamics of the poly home I lead is simple in comparison.
I remember when I left thing in God’s hand. He elected not to show up. That’s cop-out from actually making a plan, dealing with risk and making life work. Once again Christians prove incapable of offering practical advice.
A.B. has some damn fine advice, but once again nothing new for country folk
Once again Christians prove incapable of offering practical advice.
What’s with this commenter “S.F.C. Ton” who offers advise in such a backhanded manner?
“The Practical Man is a fool. He is a fool because he forgets the word YET.
The Practical Man in 1800 could have given you an endless number of reasons why the idea of sending pictures through the air with electricity would be an absurd idea, all based on his careful reading of The Latest News From Science.
First of all, he’d say, you would need several billion leyden jars, even the new improved ones..
The Practical Man, like the social science professor, is not not only wrong, he is incurably wrong.
If a social scientist didn’t have a PhD he would be committed to a mental institution. But with a PhD he can say things that are less rational than casual conversation in the ding-a-ling ward and get paid for it.
In history and science, the Practical Man is ALWAYS wrong. But he has a reputation as a Practical man, so everybody knows that the practical Man is always wrong — just as the social science professor is, and everybody reveres him more than they do a Holy Professor.
In the ding-a-ling ward, some people get better.
No professor will ever get better.
No Practical Man will ever get better.”
— Whitaker http://www.whitakeronline.org/blog/2005/11/08/the-practical-man-is-an-incurable-fool/
Also, hope is a Christian value
LOL divorce rate is what it is, millions of those men prayed, fasted, trusted etc an followed the various Christain advice. It fails time and time again. Way more often then it succeeds apparently. You could actually address what I say or continue to spew large volumes of meaningless words.
I may be an incurable fool, but my life is better now then when I listened to Christian advice ( which is never advice but re-warmed platitudes). And I am only one man out of who knows how many who’s life is better post church etc
“One of my hopes, if that someday I will be able to be able to create a tribal structure among my family, and maybe with my friends as well. We’ll live on a mostly self-sustaining farm subsidized by some small income from a couple projects I’m working on. That will take a lot of work, and will be a lifelong project, but hopefully I’ll get there.”
Are you in on the Idaho project, or is this going to be something else?
@ sfcton: That’s encouraging, that there already are lots others more or less living that way.
@FN
This thread is old so you may not even see this comment – I just want to say that while I understand your reasoning behind the support of the tradcon lifestyle – please do recall what I said earlier about the tradcon/1950’s marriage lifestyle being a stop down the road towards modern progressivism – as we progress from extended family -> tradcon marriage 1950’s style -> marriage 2.0, in each step we witness the further removal of men from the community, the further disenfranchisement of men, and the further increase in male responsibility relative to the prior step in the road *without any corresponding increase in male privilege or authority* – aka a reduction in the status of men.
If you want to defeat progessivism, simply moving back to an earlier step in the plan they created and following the road ahead will lead back to the same spot – if you want to change directions entirely then you need to back up before the road split off towards progressive-ville and take another direction entirely towards real traditionalism. It may be hard to make work, but there are ways to do it. We can’t play by their rules – including an earlier edition of their rulebook.
May I respectfully suggest that perhaps this is a discussion that you and the other talented dark enlightenment / reactionary bloggers need to consider.
@ lozozlo: I don’t think any of us reactionary bloggers would disagree in the slightest with what you said above – BUT, FN is talking about going back to a more agrarian lifestyle, far beyond merely going back to the 1950s; where did he or anyone other than stupid overly sentimental neo-cons advocate such?
Going back essentially to a pre-modern, pre-industrial, agrarian mode of living is a very radical change, not a minor one that will automatically lead back to where we are today; with care, doing that kind of change can prevent such…
Old Order Amish and Mennonites have prevented their communities from going modern, even as they’ve modernized their agriculture, and have a phone, fax, and internet connection in the barn for work purposes, and use tractors in their fields, while their homes stay free of electricity, and all that comes with that…
That’s one way to do it.
@WIll
You said “where did he or anyone other than stupid overly sentimental neo-cons advocate such?”
here:
“The nuclear family is the best adaptation to that economic reality we have.”
He is not so much advocating it as an ideal as stating that it is a necessity in modern times.
However, I don’t think he is correct, not only because there are ways to work around the current system, but also because in any event, the 50’s is just an earlier step in the long march, and thus a guaranteed defeat. Better to attempt (and fail) to work around the alleged necessity of the tradcon lifestyle then to submit to it and guarantee failure.
As a good starting point, check out anti democracy activists latest post.
@ Piano: I am not part of the Idaho project, but I do support the ideas behind it.
@ lolz: I agree, but if I do want kids, there is no other way around it, at least in the short term. If I get married, I don’t see a way around it, at least until the long-term plans come to fruition, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to raise my kids such that they can avoid it.
@FN
If you feel that way then I wish you the best – I will simply point out (as I did before) that there are ways around it – they are admittedly mostly still at their beginnings – but ways out of the matrix are being explored, and I believe that it is incumbent on Christian reactionaries to look into them.
If you do end up following a tradcon lifestyle, maybe you will be on the statistically improbable ones that don’t end up right back on the chopping block of the long march.
Who knows.
@FN
If you are inventive and perceptive there is nearly *always* another way – by assuming right off the bat that there isn’t you lock yourself in, right where the progs want ya! ;-)