helping parents not to parent

The view seems to be that it’s just about all right for women to give birth, but after that can we please separate them from their young as soon as possible, for the sake of the economy?

Peter Hitchens at his spicy best giving the 'narrative' of how men have again stuffed up women, but this time with the help of women (feminism). Read the article here.

Dave Thomas is to thank for putting me onto it in his own piece responding to the recently proposed £1200 'gift' to working mums (it is here and well worth a read). 

Response & Responsibility

At the foundation, feminism is the handiwork of two kinds of men - destructive, overbearing men on the one hand and wimps on the other. Because of how God has made the world, men are always responsible for everything that happens in the feminine world - whether they want that responsibility or not. Consequently, feminism is not the work of dissatisfied women; it is the work of ungodly men. (Reforming Marriage p32)

Adam: male & female

This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them mankind in the day they were created. (Genesis 5:2)

'In Hebrew, the italicized word translated mankind is Adam. In other words, God created Adam and his wife male and female, He blessed them, and called them Adam. She was, from the beginning, a covenantal partaker in the name of her husband. God does not call her Adam on her own, He calls her Adam with him.' (p15)

'God is the one who called our first parents by the collective name Adam. Now Adam is also a generic term for man or mankind. This shows clearly the biblical practice of including women under such a description. Our English use of the generic man and mankind follows this biblical example exactly. Far from being insulting to women, as feminists want to maintain, it reflects a biblical pattern of thought. The feminist reaction to this, and their rejection of taking a new last name (in order to keep their father's name!), is not just a small bit of modern silliness. It is a fundamental rebellion against God. So when our Susan Miller becomes Mrs. Robert Carter it is not just 'something' we do. It is covenant security.' (p18)

from Reforming Marriage, D Wilson

Independent?

In both passages where she [Eve/Woman] is named [Gen 2:23 & Gen 3:20], it is clearly stated that her two names reveal truth about her. The first reveals her dependence upon man - she was taken out of man. [Gen 2:23] The second reveals man's dependence upon her - every man since is her son. Millenia later, the apostle Paul teaches us that we are continually to remember these two truths in our marriages. Each wife is an Ishshah, and each wife is a Chavvah. Each is Woman, and each is Eve. [1 Cor 11:11-12] (p17, Reforming Marriage, Wilson, D)

Radical Womanhood

This looks to be an excellent book. And certainly Vinegar Hill Pictures have given us a useful 4min 'advert'!

Comparisons

If I set the sun beside the moon,
And if I set the land beside the sea,
And if I set the town beside the country,
And if I set the man beside the woman,
I suppose some fool would talk about one being better. (GK Chesterton)

Zoe Lewis - an extreme case ... or not?

Zoe Lewis is a playwright who embraced the feminism espoused by her mother and flaunted by Madonna. She now feels betrayed. Below are some extracts of her honest assessment of her experiences of feminism:

Madonna syndrome:
I should have ditched feminism for love, children and baking

I never thought I would be saying this, but being a free woman isn't all it's cracked up to be. Is that the rustle of taffeta I hear as the suffragettes turn in their graves? Possibly. My mother was a hippy who kept a pile of (dusty) books by Germaine Greer and Erica Jong by her bed (like every good feminist, she didn't see why she should do all the cleaning). She imbued me with the great values of choice, equality and sexual liberation. I fought with my older brother and won; at university I beat the rugby lads at drinking games. I was not to be messed with.
Now, nearly 37, those same values leave me feeling cold. I want love and children but they are nowhere to be seen. I feel like a UN inspector sent in to Iraq only to find that there never were any weapons of mass destruction. I was led to believe that women could “have it all” and, more to the point, that we wanted it all. To that end I have spent 20 years ruthlessly pursuing my dreams - to be a successful playwright. I have sacrificed all my womanly duties and laid it all at the altar of a career. And was it worth it? The answer has to be a resounding no.

Ten years ago The Times ran a piece about my play Paradise Syndrome. It was based on my girlfriends in the music business. All we did was party, work and drink. The play sold out and I thought: “This is it! I'm going to have it all: success, power and men are going to adore me for it.” In reality it was the beginning of years of hard slog, rejection letters and living on the breadline. A decade on, I have written the follow-up play Touched for the Very First Time in which Lesley, played by Sadie Frost, is an ordinary 14-year-old from Manchester who falls in love with Madonna in 1984 after hearing the song Like a Virgin. She religiously follows her icon through the years, as Madonna sells her the ultimate dream: “You can do anything - be anything - go girl.” Lesley discovers, along with Madonna, that trying to “have it all” is a huge gamble. I wrote the play because so many of my girlfriends were inspired by this bullish woman who allowed us to be strong and sexy. I still love her and always will, but she has encouraged us to chase a fantasy and it's a huge disappointment.

I may be an extreme case. My views may not represent those of other women of my generation. Perhaps I am just a spoilt middle-class girl who had a career and who has now changed her mind? I don't think so.

This month the General Household Survey found that the number of unmarried women under 50 has more than doubled over the past 30 years. And by the age of 30, one in five of these “freemales”, who have chosen independence over husband and family, has gone through a broken cohabitation.

I argue that women's libbers of the Sixties and Seventies put careerism at the forefront, trampling the traditional role of women underneath their Doc Martens. I wish a more balanced view of womanhood had been available to me. I wish that being a housewife or a mother wasn't such a toxic idea to middle-class liberals of yesteryear.

I wish I'd had kids ten years ago, when time was on my side, but the problem is not so much time as mentality. I made a conscious decision not to have serious relationships because I thought I had all the time in the world. Many of my friends did the same. It's about understanding what is important in life, and from what I see and feel, loving relationships and children bring more happiness than work ever can.....

......Not all women want children but I challenge any woman to say she doesn't want loving relationships. I wish I'd had the advice that I am giving to my 21-year-old sister: if you find a great guy, don't be afraid to settle down and have kids because there isn't anything to miss out on that you can't do later (apart from having kids)....

....I have always felt a huge pressure to be successful to show men that I am their equal. What a waste of time. Wife and mother should be given parity with the careerist role in the minds of feminists.

from http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article5662099.ece