While I agree with much of what Jeffrey Tucker says in the Sept. 8–12 issue [“Public Resistance Might Stop the Next Lockdown”], I totally disagree about the total mess our national culture is now in.
Our problem is almost entirely the failure of the traditional “nuclear family,” and that got its start with the total disruption of U.S. society by World War II. I am not saying that what was done to produce the war effort was bad or wrong, but the effects on society were the most profound in our history.
To put in perspective, one has to realize the vast negative effects of the Great Depression. I have studied the causes and effects of that for most of my life, and this is not the place to discuss that, but to acknowledge that much of the results of the deprivation of much of our society for eight or so years distorted much understanding of what was to happen. It is very clear that with the ending of the Depression by the beginning of War in Europe, (not the New Deal or anything politicians did) started us along a much different path.
Suddenly, good wages were available to any willing-to-work adult. People flocked to cities for defense plant jobs, abandoning farming as a way of life. To shorten my comments, I fully believe that this change of emphasis on seeking income led directly to post-war GREED! Suddenly, young people wanted to have all the “things” their parents had spent 40 years acquiring. To do this required two wage earners, a really new and wartime concept. No more of the father being the “breadwinner” and the wife being mother and householder.
The first apparent problem created was a demand for child care. In the past, the family provided child care, and the few exceptions were for single parents, which was a category that suddenly increased too, due to wartime deaths and increasing divorce rates (another subject). The second problem, soon apparent, was juvenile delinquency, due to inadequate parenting.
For those of us who grew up with the former way of life, this grasping for “things” was a distorted concept. The “keeping up with the Joneses” idea was disgusting. Buying a new car every two or three years was stupidity, but this concept seemed to sweep the land, especially in the cities. From my perspective, I must say, this GREED was just appalling.
Before we got married, my fiancée and I discussed having a family, and how we would handle that. Of course, like most people, we did want to own a house. We agreed that my wife would work, after graduation from college, until the first child came along. I was not making much money, but we were determined to live in the “traditional” way, on my income.
No TV, no new cars, no long trips, seldom eating out, and no booze or tobacco. No hardships! By the time our first child arrived (she taught three semesters of high school math), we had saved enough to buy that first house, we had a 10-year-old car and a 9-year-old car, which I maintained myself.
We never wavered from our belief that being a mother is the most important job in the world. How can a “career” compare with raising children to take a proper place in society? I am proud to say that our surviving daughter subscribed to the same concepts, turned out to be a wonderful person, and also quit a good job to be a full-time mother. How the world would be a better place if more people learned that children are more important than things.
As an aside, we have traveled widely, visited every state and much of Canada, besides out-of-the-country trips. What have we missed? Nothing important, ever!
Pat Jacobs
Washington
