“why so many came out of the 70s and then invested in the 50s in more ways than one”

I think it is because a lot of those 70s parents did not take the 70s ideas very seriously. Sure, they took advantage them in egotistical ways but it was rather superficial. So the kids got the disadvantages of the 50s and the 70s and none of the advantages, and since they didn’t remember the actual 50s these became easy to idealize.

A lot of my current students’ parents — people in their 30s and 40s (it’s easy to be 35 and have a child who’s a freshman in college, remember) — had and have poor impulse control, and get into a fair amount of trouble for this reason. This is why the kids so idealize authoritarian structures.

This is an interesting potential solution, and one ppl have tried or use regularly, and that gets me back to the investment in a certain kind of middle class attainment/ capitalism that seems out of step with rhetorical strategies in mainstream feminism. Maybe I’m just having one of my “see how capitalism is failing everywhere, do you really want that or the shame that goes with failing to get it? really?” moments instead of focusing more closely on the problems she does raise, which are valid and disconcerting.

“Well, okay.”

?

I am laffin and laffin.

In the period I research, childhood was continually disrupted by death, disease, starvation, warfare, and captivity–across ethnic and class lines, for the most part. The more self-centered children are, I think, the better their chances for adaptation to new parents/new environments/new homes, and thus the better their chances for survival.

I know it must be disturbing for most modern parents to know that their children would not only survive but even thrive after a parent’s premature death, but I think it should be comforting. Who cares if a child remembers you clearly or grieves your loss, so long as she grows up to become a healthy, strong, and functional adult?

Digger: I agree that the injunction by others to stay in marriages probably indicates some feelings of “I settled–why shouldn’t you?”

One thing she said caught my eye — as long as her kids have their house and routine they don’t care about what’s happening to their parents. But they should, shouldn’t they? I bet they are taking it badly, but they aren’t showing it and taking comfort in routines. Modern families are astonishingly centred around kid schedules and making sure the kids are comfortable.

I don’t feel annoyed toward her. Rather I want to offer my sympathies and I suspect she would welcome it.

The self policing may stem from folks` own insecurities about their own relationships. Perhaps they`re staying `because of the children`… but it sucks to not offer a place to crash or a cup of coffee. Sounds terribly insecure.

If Drummond were a woman he’d have been pilloried for saying such a terrible man-hating thing; because he’s a man, his contention was (only) ignored. FWIW, I think there’s a lot of truth there, although I feel pretty sure that a few adulterous women are self-entitled pigs and a few adulterous men suffered an unjust deprivation.

We all know marriage is a woman’s responsibility.