Why Traditional Sex Roles Benefit Women

I am what many call a “sexist”, and the misogynist label has been sent my way a few times before. The sexism accusations usually come when I say something anti-feminist or acknowledge an unpleasant reality (in RL they also sometimes come when I make an off-colour joke).

But I do not hate women, rather I have a generally benevolent, if cynical, attitude towards them, just as I do to society as a whole. While I don’t particularly care about most women (or most men for that matter), I do generally like to see people get the best in life rather than the worst (other than the occasional bout of schaedenfreude or natural justice for the deserving).

And that is why I’m a sexist, because I wish women the best and they have been conned. The forces of disorder have have so manipulated the dominant narrative that many women (and men) now engage in fundamentally self-destructive behaviour.

So, for the purposes of helping women, I am going to clearly lay out the long con that has been played against you by society, the forces of disorder, ideologues, and the well-meaning but unknowing. This post is going to tie a lot of what I’ve written previously together, so links will be many.

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Dear woman, you are taught to be independent, to avoid “ruining your life” with early marriage or having children young, to go to university and have your own career, and to avoid home-making. You are taught to be economically self-sufficient, to not be “controlled by your man”

In other words, you are taught to make your own life miserable. The jackals are trying to destroy your happiness, your sense of belonging, and your future family so they can economically exploit you. This may seem outrageous to you, but before being outraged, please finish reading, and consider the information I present. I don’t expect to change your mind now, but if I plant a seed of an idea, maybe you will germinate before you wind up miserable, exploited, alone, and beyond the point of no return.

Before I begin, know this: women nowadays are profoundly unhappy. Their unhappiness has been steadily declining for the last 4 decades. A quarter of all women use some sort mental health medication, and a quarter of women age 45 or older uses antidepressants. Women use antidepressents 2.5 times more than men and antidepressant use is rising rapidly. Nearly a quarter of women will get a depressive illness in their lifetime.

Women, particularly older women, are literally drugging themselves to escape the horrors of their life.

If you’re young, the choices you make now will determine if you’re part of that 1 in 4 women who needs drugs in middle age simply to get through the day.

So listen to me, and it may help you may avoid this.

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Now, like most women, you probably want to get married and have children, if not right now, then at some point in the future. I know there are a few outlier women who never want to get married and never want to have children. If you are one of those women, ignore this, none of this will matter to you at all. But if you’re not one of these women, here is a warning for you. This is the trap that has been set for you all your life.

We will start with university. University, at least the liberal arts program you are probably considering, has turned into little more than a resource extracting scam. If you go to college, there is a one-third chance you will drop out with nothing to show for it. If you do graduate you will owe $23k in debt or so (on average), which may not seem like much, but if you are in the one-half of college graduates who are under- or unemployed (ie. you won’t be using your degree), it will hurt. One-half of young people have a job (or no job) that doesn’t require their degree. Choose your degree wisely; avoid liberal arts programs.

As for going to college to become a better person, there is a high chance you will learn almost nothing.

College is a trap to suck money from you. There is only a 1 in 3 chance you will get a degree and a job that requires your degree. You will be stuck with thousands of dollars of student debt either way.

If you find a job, you will be unhappy, maybe not now but eventually. 70% of people are disengaged from their jobs, 40% of people actively dislike their jobs. 67% of mothers wish they didn’t have to work full-time; among married mothers this increases to 77%. The profile of an unhappy worker is a single, 42-year-old professional woman.

Anecdotal accounts of women leaving the workplace to spend time with your children, or wishing they could and being unable to, are legion. 43% of women leave their jobs when they have children. Leaving your child at child care is often painful for many women. Feeling guilty or missing your children while at work is common (don’t worry you’ll adjust, it won’t always be that bad). 2/3’s of parents regret spending too much time at work instead of with their children. Most working women have difficulties with work-life balance.

To many women working is a hindrance to happiness and family life, but surely the extra money is good for the children?

But there is little extra money.

Taxes will take a good 30% of your income. If you’re married, daycare will take about 10% of your household income, which means it will take up about 20% of what you earn (assuming you and your husband earn the same; if he earns more, it will take up a larger share of your earnings). If you’re a single mother it will take up 30-40% of your income.

So half of what you will earn is accounted before you even earn it.

If you’re like most people (which you are), you’ll spend part of that income on a larger home. In fact, 30% of your “extra” income will go to a bigger house (which you’ll barely see, working full-time).

So, for busting your hump, about 20% (probably less) of what you earn will actually go to disposable income or improving your quality of life. That’s not the extra expenses of working: transportation, work clothes, lunches, coffee, etc. That $20 you earn will is more like $4 in the end.

But maybe missing your children and having only $4/hour in disposable income will be worth it because you will be doing exciting things at work?

Don’t count on it. Here’s a chart of the most common jobs women work:

All these jobs, with the exception of accountants and, possibly, managers (depending on what type of manager), can be divided into 6 categories: secretarial, food services, retail, nursing/personal care, housekeeping, and child-raising.

What do you notice about these six categories? With the exception of retail work, they are all things a housewife would be doing anyway.

So, instead of taking care of your family’s schedule, you will take care of your boss’s. Instead of feeding your family, you will feed other families. Instead of caring for your children and your parents, you’ll care of other people’s parents and children. Instead of cleaning your own house, you’ll clean someone else’s. Instead of raising your own child, you’ll raise someone else’s. Or you may be working in retail, which everyone hates.

It is highly likely that at your job you will be doing exactly what you would have done staying home, except you’ll be serving strangers rather than the husband and children you love.

So, in all likelihood you will be working a job you don’t care about or even actively hate, wishing you could work less. You will be missing your children as they are raised by other people so that you can care for other people’s families, all so that you can make a couple bucks an hour in disposable income to spend on consumerist crap and pills to make the depression go away. In addition, you will go into large amounts of debt for this privilege.

Does that sound like a good deal to you, dear woman?

Does that sound like the good life to you?

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It probably doesn’t. So, what can you do about it?

First, you have to get a husband. If you do not have a husband you will be forced to work that miserable job or starve (or go on welfare). Remember above, single mothers spend 30-40% of their income on child care. Add on 30% of your income for housing and 30% for taxes, and you will have only 10% of income left for everything else (although, your tax burden will likely be lower than average and government handouts will stretch that 10% a bit further). Even so, you will not have the option to avoid working like a dog at a job you hate.

You’re best chance to get a husband is now. The younger you are, the larger your pool of men to choose from and the more willing they will be to sacrifice to get and keep you. Read this post from OKCupid and truly understand that graph. After age 26 your choices in the marriage pool will start to decline rapidly. The longer you wait, the more likely you are to be stuck with an undesirable man and the less likely you will be to find a man who wants you to stay home with your children.

Marry young.

Second, if you want children you have to be able to have children. Study this graph carefully:

If you wait until your 30s you have about a 1/10 chance of being infertile and it rises rapidly after that. I will repeat: if you do not start having children in your 20s there is a 8-15% chance you will never have children. If you wait until your 40s to have children you are as likely to be infertile as you are to conceive.

If you want children, especially if you want more than one, and you don’t want to run the risk of never having children, make sure to start in your 20s. This means marrying in your early-mid 20s.

Marry young.

(As alternative to marrying young, you could sleep around and party, but there’s a strong chance you’ll regret it anyways and there’s always the chance you’ll wait too long and end up miserable and lonely.)

Third is keeping your husband. If you lose your husband, you will lose your chance to stay at home, you will be forced into working, not to mention the unhappiness, poverty, and damage to children that usually accompanies divorce. I have previously analyzed which factors in a woman lead to divorce. I will share them here as things to avoid.

To keep a husband: don’t have sexual partners before marriage, wait until your 20s to marry (but after age 20 the effects of age are minimal), don’t get pregnant until you and your partner are married, get a degree (although, this is probably just a proxy for being intelligent and diligent enough to get a degree), be devout if you are religious, and make less than your future husband.

So, if you want to raise a family and avoid the trap of working a job you dislike, while serving other peoples families and missing your own family, all for almost no actual benefit, marry young, marry a man who wants traditional sex roles, don’t have premarital sex, and go to church.

Make the right choices now, so you don’t have to pop Zoloft throughout your later years out of regret for making the wrong choices.

You, along with many other men and women, have been swindled. Don’t let yourself be swindled further. Don’t engage in feminist self-annihilation.

If the information and advice I have presented here have caused you to consider marrying early, I have a little bit of advice here on how to find and/or make a good husband.

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This one’s been sitting half done for months now. In celebration of Traditional Sex Roles Week, I’ve decided to finish it. Women, it’s in your own interest to get #BackToTheKitchen.

Goldie Blox

Aaron linked to this ad for toys called Goldie Blox.

Unlike Aaron, I’m not quite so dismissive. I like the commercial, but I’ve always had a fondness for Rube Goldberg machines.

I also think the toys are a theoretically good idea. While most women don’t like math and won’t go into non-biology STEM, a few do and will. Why not make toys for those atypical girls?

My sisters had pastel-coloured Legos and they played war with them with my brother and me as we used our primary-coloured blocks. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with girl versions of boys’ toys.

On the other hand, there is something wrong with these toys.

THere is an interesting incongruity between the toys themselves and the purported feminist message. Whatever Goldie Blox’ intentions and advertisements and despite all the hype the toys are getting from the feminist-types, when you actually observe the toys you can’t help but notice the makers don’t really buy the message they’re selling.

Pastel Tinkertoys

These toys are essentially Tinkertoys and Tinkertoys have always been fairly gender-neutral, which makes them an odd target to feminize. Rather than being a leap forward for gender-neutral toys or equalism, these Goldie Blox are actually gendering toys and promoting inequality.

What idiot made Tinkertoys plastic and colourful?

The toy makers are banking on the fact that girls don’t want to play with gender-neutral Tinkertoys, but would instead prefer these gendered, feminine-themed Goldie Blox. That seems to be putting little girls even further into the gender box rather than moving them out of it.

Second, despite their anti-pink attitude, the colours of the toy are simply changed to other feminine colours, particularly a golden-yellow and a pastel purple. There’s not the primary colours of Legos and browns of (old, real) Tinkertoys. I don’t see how changing the gendered pink to gendered pastels is a particular “leap-forward” for getting girls out of the “pink ghetto”. Merely painting the ghetto a different colour is not going to change anything.

Third, look at the toys themselves. Tinkertoys are just Tinkertoys, they have no themes, while Lego’s are occasionally without theme but usually something boyishly cool like rockets, planes, or pirates. The Goldie Blox sets available are a parade float and a girly ribbon “spinning machine”.

Parade Floats – The Height of Imagination

The joy of Tinkertoys was simply building whatever came to your mind at the time. The imagination and the ability to build was the lure. Even with Legos sets, how many kids actually concentrated on the sets themselves, rather than tearing them apart as soon as they were built to build something else or play war?

These toys have been dumbed down. Look at how few pieces you get and how limited they are. And a parade float, really? You makes toys that can be used to build anything the imagination can conceive and a parade float is the best you can come up with? Is that the best you think young girls can aspire to?

I’ll see your parade float and raise you a rocket-ship.

How much of an “improvement” for gender neutrality in toys or for getting girls out of of the pink ghetto is it for little girls to simply be building girly things?

How much engineering/building skills and imagination will such simple, limited sets instill in young girls?

Finally, look at the sets, what do you see?

That bear has some swag.

Cute little animals. There’s a dolphin in a tutu, a bear in a pastel suit, and a cute little doggy with big floppy ears.

What do you see in Tinkertoys? Nothing but blocks and sticks (or plastic in the new and crappy form; that annoys more more than it should. At least I’m not the only one).

What do you see in Legos? Articulated figures capable of action (with guns and swords).

The girl-oriented engineering product is not enough of a draw in itself; it needs something cute, something personal to draw the little girls in. To increase the narrative and personalization, each even comes with it’s own storybook.

Every machine needs a back-story.

How much do you want to bet that most little girls who receive this toy will spend more time playing house or tea with the little animal figures rather than building, destroying, and re-building weird contraptions?

Here we can see the complete intellectual bankruptcy of the whole ‘girls and boys are equal meme’ displayed in one little children’s toy.

Even the equalists who specifically created a feminist-vaunted engineering toy to get girls into engineering know that most little girls don’t want to build and destroy for the sake of building and destroying like little boys do. They know full well they can’t just market Tinkertoys to girl straight-up; they know they can’t simply tell girls build this and make a profit.

So, to convince most girls to give an engineering toy a try they have to regender a gender-neutral toy, make the toys as girly as possible (while avoiding the dreaded pink), dumb the toy down while destroy the creativity of the toy, and introduce cute little animal figures in tutus simply to make them palatable to little girls.

I’m an evil supporter of the patriarchy and I would be hard-pressed to think up a toy that is more patronizing to little girls than this.

If you want pastels and dollies for your daughter buy some My Little Pony toys; there’s nothing wrong or inferior with young girls liking pink, pastels, and relationally-based toys.

But if you want an engineering toy by some Tinkertoys or Legos.

Uncountable hours of fun.

Avoid this drek; it’s insulting. “Hey little girl, you can’t handle 65 pieces of Tinkertoys ($16.40), so here’s 35 pieces to build a parade float ($20) because that’s all we expect you to be able to imagine and create. The boys will go over their and play with their underwater base.”

When even the gender-warriors implicitly state their cause is lost whenever it comes to something that actually effects reality, you know there’s something flawed with their ideology.

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I must say though, I do admire the business acumen of the creator. What an idea:

I’ll take a classic toy, make it worse, colour it in pastels, attach some feminist ideology to it, and sell less of it at a higher price, then have the feminist press rave about my awesome new toy providing scads of free publicity.

That’s a pretty good business plan.

Keep the State out of Women’s Bodies… Except When Convenient

One major theme in this year’s presidential election was that of the “war on women”.

The complaint was and  essentially that the state shouldn’t get involved in women’s reproductive choices.

I agree.

With the exception of abortion, where a child’s life is involved, the state should leave women alone and let them make their own reproductive choices. They should be free to do as they will and live with the consequences.

But, feminists lie. They do not want the state to let them make their own reproductive choices. They want the state to force them (and others) to only accept certain reproductive choices.

Feminists want privilege and choice, not freedom.

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Here’s a good example of the hypocrisy of the modern women espousing the creed of keep your hands off my body.

a woman in a country where politicians who actually believe that the female body has special powers to discern between evil sperm and loving sperm have been elected to create and vote on legislation that limits women’s control over their own health care.
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“Perhaps remove the focus from that one point and think instead about the free abortions and contraceptives that will be given to all females of reproductive age… Or about the Muslims, Christian scientists, and Amish ( among others) that are exempt from obamacare due to religious beliefs….”

She goes on and on, hitting every talking point FoxNews and its ilk have drummed into her head, including the legitimacy (there’s that word again) of Obama’s citizenship and his ties to socialism. It was all a bunch of moronic nonsense, but what stood out to me the most was her first line: “Perhaps remove the focus from that one point” — that “one point” being a woman’s right to control her own health care choice, as if that point weren’t worthy of our focus!! This was a woman saying this! A woman who was fed the bullshit and ate it up with a spoon, just like the GOP wanted.

By “limiting a women’s control over their own health care” she obviously means don’t want others to  pay for it, even if it goes against their religious principles.

She says she wants the state out of her body, but she’s very clearly inviting the state into her body by having the state pay for her health care.

Her next complaint is about how crime effects women: a valid point, but ignores how it also effects men and children. It’s not part of this topic, so we’ll mostly ignore it.

I didn’t get any paid maternity leave when my baby was born. I work for myself, so I wasn’t expecting any, of course. But here in America, even if I had been working for someone else, that person or that company would not have been required by law to give me even a day of paid maternity leave. Not even an hour. My job would have been held for a few weeks, but that’s it.

I started a new moms’ group when I was pregnant and most of us all had babies within a few weeks of each other. Some of the women took extended maternity leave — six whole months — so they could stay home with their babies until they started, you know, sleeping for more than three hours at a stretch. They weren’t paid for that leave, and they worried as their savings dwindled what they’d do if there were an emergency and they missed more work.

Here she demands that the state pay for and legislate her reproduction. She’s demanding her workplace interfere with her body. She’s begging the state and corporations to involve themselves in her reproductive choices.”When they did go back, they had to deal not only with juggling motherhood and their careers, but also with navigating the office politics surrounding working mothers. One woman, a producer at a major network news station, worried about being overlooked for assignments that would require her to travel now that she was a single mother of an infant. She worried about being overlooked for promotions and raises now that her “focus was split.” “I don’t want to be mommy-tracked,” she lamented, as she plotted ways to ensure topnotch child care for her daughter should her commitment to work be “tested” with a last-minute assignment that would take her out of town with just hours to prepare.”

Here she’s lamenting that the employer is not becoming involved these women’s reproductive choices.

How dare those corporations stay out of women’s private lives!

Many of my new mom friends who returned to work months after giving birth continued breastfeeding, which brought the new challenge of pumping at the office (or, “in the field,” in the case of my producer and journalist friends). They told me stories about the “designated areas” for them to pump, which are required by law. One woman, a clinical psychologist, pumped in a supply closet with a broken lock on the door. She kept one hand on her pump and one hand holding the door shut in case anyone wondered why the light was on and barged in on her without knocking. Finally, she put a sign on the door, but it was gone the next day and she had to make a new one. That one came down the next day, too.

Not content with the state and workplace involving themselves in her reproductive choices, she desperately wants the state and employers to further interfere in women’s breast-feeding decisions.

She notes that the state interferes in her breastfeeding decisions, but the tone of lament clearly indicates that the state is not interfering enough.

How dare they let women be free to make their own breastfeeding decisions!

Our rights are at risk — our basic rights — not to mention the fact that many of us are afraid, on a daily damn basis, of being attacked — legitimately attacked — simply because we are women.

This election year, vote to keep your rights. Vote for the people who are going to fight to protect you. And fight to keep the morons and the assholes and the douchebags out of power and out of our bodies.

She ends with a hypocritical statement about keeping people out of women’s bodies. How fitting when she spent the article arguing that other should involve themselves in women’s bodies and that this involvement was the basic right of the female.

One final observation, somewhere in the middle of her article she says:

I need a chaperone because some crazy douchebags think my body is public property. Hmm, I wonder wherever in the world they got that idea.

My suggestion: if you don’t want your body being viewed as public property, don’t act like it is by having the public pay for its upkeep.

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This was just one example I’m using for illustrative purposes that I happened to come across while thinking about this post. I could find numerous others, but the point is made: No matter what the issue, most modern women want the state in their bodies. They beg for it, they vote for it.

They will selectively say they don’t on certain issues. They will dissemble about what the “state in their bodies” means. They will flat out lie, saying they don’t. But when it comes down to it:

The modern women fervently desires state interference in her reproductive choices.

It’s a  broad-brush generality, NAWALT, I know, but most modern women who would say something like “keep your rosaries out of my ovaries,” “my body, my choice,” “keep the state out of our bodies,” or whatever, truly want the state interfering in their bodies.

They want the state to pay for their contraception.

They demand the state pay for their abortions and reproductive health care decisions.

They demand the state educate children on sexuality, contraception, and reproduction.

They demand the employer subsidizes their reproductive choices.

They demand the employer and state make their breast-feeding choices for them.

They demand their employer make their personal work-life balance for them.

They demand the state dictate their private marriage contracts (and then demand that the state dictate homosexuals’ private relationship contracts).

The modern women demands that the state and society involves itself intimately in her personal, sexual, and reproductive choices… but only when its convenient for her.

She demands privilege without responsibility. She demands society cater to her every whim, without her having

She detests others’ freedom, but argues for it for herself when it suits her.

She demands you pay for her every whim, but denies you any say.

She is tyrannical, irresponsible, and greedy.

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To women reading this: either the state and society are involved in your body and your reproductive choices or they aren’t. You can’t have it both ways.

You can not demand that the state not regulate contraception, then demand that the state (or other organizations under the compulsion of the state) pay for your contraception.

You can not demand leave itself out of women’s abortion decisions, then demand that the state pay for abortion providers such as planned parenthood.

You can not demand that public schools stay out of dictating women’s sexual choices, then demand they engage in mandatory sexual education.

You can not demand that the public not comment on your reproductive choices, then demand that they pay for the maintenance of your children.

You can not demand the public refuse to comment on your sexual choices, then force the public to subsidize your sexual lifestyle and health care needs.

You can not demand that your employer not dictate your personal life to you, then demand your employer subsidize your maternity leave and fund your personal choices.

You can not demand that the church remove itself from your reproductive choices, then demand that the church pay for your reproductive choices.

It is an either-or proposition.

Either the state has the right to interfere in your sexuality and reproductive choices or it does not. Either the public has the right to interfere with your sexuality or it does not. Either your employer can interfere in your personal life, or it can not.

You are either free or you are not.

Make the choice.

If you choose to invite others into your sexual, reproductive, and personal lives, do not hypocritically complain when they do.

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In conclusion, the modern women, however much she may protest otherwise, desperately desires that others involve themselves in her reproductive and sexual choices, but only when it is convenient to her.

So, next time a modern women says the state should stay out of her uterus, ask her opinion on mandatory maternity leave. Point out the contradiction. Point out her hypocrisy.

Baby Rabies and a Traditional Wife

I’ve talked of finding a good wife and mother before and the blessings of having many children. One of the things I talked about was finding a women who wanted children and as good with children.

The simple fact is that if you are to be a patriarch, finding a wife who wants a full quiver is essential.

Despite the grinding, remorseless slog that is online dating, I still have a couple profiles, and invest a minimal amount of time in them (about once or twice a week I login, check who’s new within my parameters, and send a short message or two if anyone’s interesting).

Like most men, I do most of the primary messaging, but I do get a small amount of messages (about one every month or two) from women who I did not contact beforehand. The women who send me unsolicited messages always came in one of two categories:

1. She is overweight/unattractive and reeking of desperation. Often women in this group don’t even seem to have read my profile. (Hint: If a guy says he is looking for a Christian wife and wants lots of children, he will not respond positively to messages from an atheist who doesn’t want marriage or children. Exception: She is offering very easy sex, in which case he might be tempted into entertaining thoughts of carnal sin).
2. She is in her late-20s or early-30s (ie. older than me) and her profile shows her as being very interested in having children.

After initially trying to be polite by replying to these, I’ve since stopped replying to both groups after a bad experience where some polite responses to a girl I was not interested in broke down into receiving lengthy hysterical messages outlining how awesome she thought she was, along with an extended detailing of her life story after I declined her advances.

Anyhow, moving away from my digressions, the second group is what I am going to write about today.

Before I dipped my toe into the manosphere, I wondered about these women. They often seemed as desperate as the overweight women, but there didn’t seem to be any reason for it. They were fairly physically unattractive for their age and didn’t seem to have anything in their profiles that would obviously disqualify them from finding a decent man. Yet, here they were, hitting on a much younger guy, with an obvious tinge of desperation in their profiles and messages (even in my blue-pill days I was cognizant enough to know women generally preferred older men and vice versa).

I wondered why, if they were so family-oriented and wanted children so very much, they were unmarried in their late-20s or early-30s when there wasn’t any reason they shouldn’t have been able to find a decent husband much earlier.

Reading the manosphere, I’ve since realized that these women are suffering from what is often derogatorily referred to as “baby rabies”. They have lived it up in their 20s, are now hitting the wall and realizing their fertility is waning, and are desperate to get a bun in the oven before it’s too late.

(I will continue to use the term baby rabies, despite it’s moderately derogatory nature, as I can not remember another simple term for this phenomenon while writing this post).

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So, these women suffering baby rabies are loudly proclaiming how family-oriented they are and it is very apparent how much they desire to have children.

For the MTGOW or PUA, the obvious response to the desperation of these past-their-prime women is either ignore it or take advantage of it, respectively, but how should the patriarch-to-be* respond this kind of women, when her stated goals so closely align with his own?

The same as the MGTOW’s: ignore them.

There is a fundamental difference between a traditional women looking to raise a large family and a women in the grip of baby rabies.

A traditional women will plan her life around her desire to have children; raising and maintaining a family will have always been a priority for her. She will have prepared herself for this goal and learned the virtues necessary to meet this goal.

On the other hand, a women in the grip of baby rabies has not made raising a family a priority. She is merely responding to an emotional impetus pushed on her by her changing hormones and has not prepared herself for the demanding task of raising children.

There is a fundamental difference between a women whose goal is to be a wife and mother and a women who is experiencing baby rabies.

Do not mistake the two.

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The question then becomes, how does a young man distinguish the two?

The most obvious and easiest to observe answer is age.

A women in her late-teens/early-20s who is desiring a husband and large family is very unlikely to be in the baby rabies stage; assuming she meets the other requirements you should have for the mother of your future children.

On the other hand, a women in her 30’s(or older) has very obviously not made raising a family a priority, otherwise she would already be married and raising children. If you want to be a patriarch, do not marry a women this old, whatever her potential virtues, she does not have the same goals as you.

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Now, you may have noticed I didn’t include women aged 25-29. That’s because these women are not so cut and dry.

They aren’t as obviously in the throes of baby rabies as older women, but at that age, you wonder why, if a family is of such a priority to them, they have waited until past their prime fertility to get serious about marriage.

I would say to generally avoid them, but would not categorically reject a woman in that age range as I would those in one in her 30s. If they have enough other virtues and their reason for not getting married earlier is not silly, they may be worth considering.

But be cautious, use your judgment.

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Now, some may raise objections to my eliminating women in their 30s out of hand and advising against women in their late 20s, but the patriarch is looking for a particular type of women, one for whom marriage and children are a high priority.

A women who waits until her late-20s or 30s to pursue marriage has amply demonstrated that marriage and children are not a high priority for her.

What of her education and career?

A bachelors can be achieved by the age of 21, so that’s not really an excuse.

Even if it was, a women who pursues an education and career above a marriage and family, self-evidently puts the former as a higher priority.

That’s fine, it’s her choice, but it does mean that she is not a good candidate for a patriarch looking for wife whose highest priority is family.

But what if she didn’t have the opportunity to marry?
What if she couldn’t find a good man?

She did have opportunity; she didn’t take it. She did find a good man, she rejected him.

Women have a lot of options of the marriage market when they are young; most men would be surprised (and jealous) of how many they do have. Even a woman with below average marriage market value will have far more opportunities to pursue marriage handed to her with minimal effort than even the highest value men will get through huge outlays of effort.

You average women will have met a large number of decent guys throughout her late-teens or early-20s. If she has not married one of them that shows that she either:

1. Puts a low priority on marriage and children, in which case she is not what a patriarch is looking for.
2. Had some flaws that were strong enough that no other decent man  pursue he and propose to her, in which case sound judgment would warn any other man to avoid her.
3. Has far too unrealistic standards of her husband. Anybody who marries her will not be able to live up to them (that includes you, you’re not special), setting the stage for a bad marriage.
4. She has been open to many suitors and either dated a large number of them or simply had one or two long-term relationships that went nowhere. She didn’t end up marrying them because, for whatever reason, none of the men she dated were of sufficient quality for marriage. In this case, she has shown that she has a history of poor choices regarding the type of men she has allowed into her life. These poor choices shows that she has poor judgment in men, which likely means poor judgment in other areas of life. Poor judgment is not something any patriarch should want to attach themselves to. (Either that or see #3;they were of sufficient quality, she just had unrealistic standards).

A women who is still single by her late-20s is simply not the kind of women any patriarch should be looking to marry. She may be a good women, but she is not the type of women a patriarch should choose.

****

Even if we assume that, somehow, her failure to be married and raising children already are not due to her own choices, there are other considerations that are simply unavoidable at that age.

There is, of course, the biological fact that a women in her 30s is rapidly losing her fertility and there likely won’t be enough time to raise a large family before infertility and/or a high risk of mutation strikes. Even for a women in her late 20s: if you take the time to court her (say a year), then have a child every two years, you’re approaching her 40s by the time you get to child five, which is a bit late to be having children. The amount of children you will be able to have will be limited.

As well, simply living independently for a decade or so following high school/college is itself a problem. By that time, a women will have adapted to her situation as an independent, single adult with little responsibility. Re-adapting back to the interdependence of a marriage will likely present a challenge for her (and her husband). In addition, adapting to the responsibility of a child (let alone many children) at that age following so many years of a lack of responsibility may prove problematic.

****

What of men in their 30s; should young women looking for a patriarch avoid them? It’s kind of sexist to have a double standards.

First, I am writing for young men, not for women and am focusing on what young men should concentrate on. Women have their own things to look for, which I might write about at another time, but this post is not aimed at them.

Second, it’s not a double standard, it’s two different standards. Men and women have different priorities for potential mates. Stop trying to force women’s priorities on men.

Third, a man has not likely had the same opportunities as a women for marriage. As the pursuers in the marriage market place, men do not have the same overwhelming array of options handed to tham from which to choose that women do. They have to work very hard simply to have a small fraction of the options open to your average young woman. (Take heart young man, the situation reverses itself sometime in your 30s). He may have pursued many women who he thought might make good potential wives, without being overly picky, and been shot down by all.

As well, his fertility will last him well into middle/old age, so that worry is off the table.

That being said, there are a couple problems a young women might face with a man in his 30s (or older). He may be approaching the age where his children may be at higher risk of mutation. Also, he has likely gotten used to living independently, just as women have, and will face the same problems settling down.

****

Age by itself is not a perfect guide. For a younger women, rather than being a traditional women wanting to be a patriarch’s helpmeet, she may simply be a gold-digger or someone who believes raising children and being dependent is easier than working. I’m not going to get into that at this time, but will give you this link (which I’ve already used thrice above; read it is essential to this post) once again.

Other things you can look for two distinguish between the two:

1. Desperation: A traditional women will be looking for a husband, but in a calm, sensible manner. A women with baby rabies will have a tinge of desperation to her.
2. Singular Focus: Is she focusing on the marriage, you, and children more or less equally, or does her primary focus seem to be having children, while marriage and her potential partner seem secondary?
3. Particularity: Related to that, does she want your children (or at least a good man’s children) or does she not seem to very selective about who fathers her children?
4. Preparedness: Has she prepared herself to be a good wife and mother (see previous link) or does she seem to just be acting impulsively?
5. Timing: Has she always wanted to be a mother, or is this something that just recently appeared for no good reason?
6. Number: Does she want just one designer baby to fulfill her itch or is she looking to raise a whole family?

That’s probably not a complete list; I’m sure others will have things I missed in the comments. The thing is to recognize that there are potential pitfalls and that just because she says she’s family-oriented and wants children does not necessarily make it so. Use your judgment and consider things rationally to come to the choice that fits your life goals.

****

Just to head off some objections I’m sure will come up.

Aren’t you being judgmental?

Why, yes I am. Thank you for noticing.

Anybody who is not extremely judgmental in choosing the person to whom they are swearing a solemn oath before God, the state, and their family to spend the rest of their lives with is a fool. Anybody who is not even more extremely judgmental in choosing the woman who will be the mother of their his children is an abject fool.

This goes for women as well. If you aren’t extremely judgmental about the kind of man you consider marrying and fathering your children, you are a fool.

This is not to say young men and women should make a large list of stupid superficial requirements for potential mates. Use your reason. Judge on the important things: loyalty, reliability, judgment, shared values, work ethic, shared morality, religion, family attitudes, sexual attractiveness, etc., while being forgiving on the superficial/small things.

This is probably the most important earthly decision you will make in your life. Do not be too compromising.

Aren’t you being unfair about *******? What of *******? Isn’t ******* an exception?

Life’s unfair. Get used to it.

Also, NAWALT, I know.

I am giving young men some rules of thumb to help them make the best decision they can. It is up to them to apply them using their own discretion and judgment.

Rather than whining about how others are unfair and judgmental and how you deserve something just because, look at your own choices and try to change them so you are best able to achieve your goals.

If having a family is important to you, make choices that reflect their importance.

You’re an asshole.

Probably, but that’s irrelevant.

****

Despite my prior dismissal of exceptions, I will note one.

There is the rare exception of the early widow. A women who married (or was engaged) young and was a loyal, loving wife (or fiance), but whose husband (or husband-to-be) died tragically early, is a special circumstance. A widow will likely come with some extra emotional needs (and possibly previous children), but if you are willing and able to comfort and emotionally support her (and raise her children), she could make an excellent wife for the young future patriarch (assuming she meets the other basic requirements you should have).

A faithful widow would also probably make an ideal marriage candidate for an older widower or man who’s been cheated on and/or abandoned by his wife. All things being equal, she would likely would be a much better potential wife (and mother) than either a divorcee or a women who has put off marriage to much later in her life.

Consider it. Think of the example of Ruth and Boaz.

****

* All of the above advice is written particularly for young men in their 20s/early-30s looking to become patriarchs, but anyone else looking to marry should take heed.

****

This post inspired by (h/t: M3):

Lightning Round – 2012/10/03

The science of the rationalization hamster.

Dalrock takes the enemies of marriage in the church to task.

Penis size and science.
The important point: am I bigger than average for my country?
Answer: yes. Boo-yah!

Wow. A good look into the mind of the unhappy modern feminist if you can stomach the entitlement, pointlessness, and poor writing quality. It reads like she just vomited her stream of consciousness on the page.
Wouldn’t she make the best wife?
Aurini administers the truth pills.

A leftist swallows a red pill.
He just needs to swallow some more.

The manosphere is growing. I’ve noticed a lot of new blogs popping up since my relatively new blog started.

Bill is encouraged.
I offer more encouragement.
So do Matt and Aurini.
Bill responds.

Better to have guts than brains.
Related: Sometimes you have to ignore the big picture.

Taking away the rights of women is affirmative action for betas.
A response. The game has been rigged, but most men don’t deserve marriage.
Related: Men today are soft.

Up the Alpha.
Related: The Perfect Man.

She’ll be happier if she does the housework.

The heart is deceitful above all things.

Sheltering your children may leave them as prey.

There is hope for the future.

What love is.

How to end up with a frigid cow of a wife.

Some science: concealed ovulation.

Some freedom pills are dolled out to those who wish to partake.
Related: Remember when dissent was patriotic.
Related: This guy does.

What’s wrong with the Koch brothers?

Maybe libertarians are aspies.

Former Obama Administrator for the NYT: We need death panels.
No kidding. You mean someone has to decide how to ration health care or costs will become unsustainable? Really? Are the people at the NYT retarded? Or am I insulting retards? We all told them this would happen. Idiots.

Calling this guy a jackass is an insult to jackasses.

Hmmm…

Female economists are more likely to support government intervention. Surprising.

What this election is about.

The tribe of liberty needs to stand united.

Why leftists are ugly.

Which colour-coded tribe do you support?
Related: A funny video.

There are probably some lessons to learn here.
There have to be lessons here somewhere. (Irony).

All that spending sure helped those kids. Glad our tax dollars were well spent.
Related: You could buy two houses in Detroit instead.
Related: “the youngest children among U.S. kindergartners (those born in August) were 40% more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and twice as likely to take ADHD medications as the oldest kindergartners studied (those born in September)”
Related: One guy realizes the damage he did much too late.

Resurrect the Kalmar Union.

(H/T: Instapundit, SDA, the Captain)

A Good Wife and a Full Quiver

Mentu has an interesting post on his contemplations of his family life as he is in the waiting room for a vasectomy. I’d suggest giving it a read, as it’s an interesting look into a man choosing to make his hedonistic lifestyle permanent, but regretting the things that might have been.

I wish Mentu luck, and hope he does not come to truly regret and doubt his decision in the future, but that is not what I wish to write about. Instead, I’m going remark on something he wrote in the post:

I thought about the Manosphere. In my opinion, pro-marriage and Christian bloggers in these parts talk far too much about how to find a good wife, and not nearly enough about how to find a good mother. After a long and exhaustive search, I have finally given up. I actually gave up about three years ago, to be perfectly honest. Women who might make decent wives pop up every now and then, but women in the 21 to 31 year old age range who would make good mothers have gone the way of the Dodo Bird. It’s not as if they’ve rejected the idea; they’re not even aware that the concept exists.

He’s right, the Christian manosphere does seem talk more about finding a good wife than finding a good mother, but I don’t think it’s a deficiency of our discussion, rather Mentu is making a definitional mistake in separating the two. For myself, and I’m sure for most present and future patriarchs, the distinction between a good wife and a good mother is non-existant.

A good wife is necessarily a good mother.

****

The purpose of marriage to the Christian is twofold:

1. To sate “passion” so as to avoid sin (as per 1 Corinthians 7:8-9, 36).
2. For man to have a helper is his mission, which is in itself twofold: to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion over the earth (as per Genesis 1:26-28, 2:18-24).

Some Christians may marry only for the purpose, they need passion and sex and marriage is the only allowed sexual outlet. This is not sinful, but neither is it complete.

A Christian who marries solely for passion, or as we would say today, love, is missing out on a fundamental part of a godly marriage, which is having many children.  His marriage is incomplete.

The Bible repeatedly and consistently talks of the blessing of a large family of many children. It is one of the greatest gifts a man can have and, in the Bible, to bless someone with many children is one of the highest blessings possible.

• And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
• And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1)
• I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. (Genesis 22:17-18)
• And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, “Our sister, may you become thousands of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate him!” (Genesis 24:60)
• Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments! His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. (Psalm 112:1-3)
• Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! (Psalm 127:3-5)
• Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. (Psalm 128:1-4)
• Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers. (Proverbs 17:6)

Anybody who does not have a full quiver is robbing themselves of a great blessing.

Patriarchal Christians realize the benefit of this blessing. For the complete picture of marriage, the purposes are intertwined: you marry to sate passion, have support, and have children. Any good wife will fill all three of these functions.

There is no difference between a good wife and a good mother, a good wife is necessarily a good mother. If a woman is not a good mother, she can not, by definition, be a good wife.

So, when a patriarch-to-be declares what he wants in a wife and talks of searching for a wife, it can be implicitly assumed that he is also looking for a mother with those traits. I know I am.

****

Having said that, what are some things to look for in the future mother of your children?

As far as I can recall, the Bible itself does not speak much on what makes a good mother apart from being a good wife.

For the most part, what would make a good wife, would also make a good mother:

• Someone family oriented.
• She wants to marry and have children young.
• She’s loving, patient, understanding, and nurturing.
• She’s reliable.
• She’s not lazy.
• Strongly opposed to divorce.
• A virgin, or at least very low count.
• Strongly religious.
• She’s biblically submissive.
• She has a good group of friends who display positive traits.
• She’s not a feminist.

Some other indicators I’d look for that apply primarily to someone looking for a wife and mother, rather than just a wife:

• She truly desires children from from her teens/early twenties, rather than wanting children later in life simply because the biological clock is ticking.
• She does not want a career, but would make motherhood a priority. (A career and a job are distinct categories: working part-time or a home business is fine).
• Her friends are also fruitful and family-oriented, and either have or want children.
• She has the traits you desire in children.
• She’s involved in child-oriented activities in church (works in the nursery, Sunday school, or children’s programs).
• She lights up around other women’s children and coos over babies.
• She’s good with other people’s children.
• She’s babysat in the past and was good at it.
• She has traits you want your children to have.
• She’s not easily disgusted (especially by children’s excretions).
• She has the physical indicators of fertility. (This one’s easy, is she physically attractive?)

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, there’s probably more.

****

I’ll end by saying this:

If you are planning to have children, make sure your potential wife would also make a good mother.

On this blog, when I talk about a good wife, a good mother is implicit. For those of you who don’t make that connection implicitly, make sure that your potential wife would also be a good potential mother.

What is to be done?

Aurini writes:

I am a Patriot.  During my life I hope to actually see the True North Strong and Free – not just sing it in the National Anthem.  To find a wife and raise a family, with hope for a future.  Gaming girls in foreign countries is better than marital theft, certainly – and it’s probably a fair bit better than Heroin – but it doesn’t leave much of a Legacy.

Running away will protect us for a time, but the Enemies of Life are implacable; this is a global ideology more infectious than proselytizing Christianity could ever hope to be.  It’ll reach Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia sooner than you think – only by the time it gets there it won’t be called Feminism any more.  Like the common cold, this virus mutates fast.

The MRM fell because it was premised upon weakness.  Any true hope for the future will have to be premised upon Strength.

I agree fully.

But that leaves the questions of what is to be done. How can we destroy the system that is destroying us?

How can we avoid the Bonobo Masturbation Society?

****

The options we have:

1) The Blue Pill: Play along with the system.

2) MRM: Fight the current legal system for equal rights from within the system.

3) Game/MGTOW: These options are essentially the same: retreat. You withdraw from the system.

4) Patriarchy: This is outwardly similar to the blue pill, with all the attendant risks, but is done intentionally with red pill frame and knowledge,  rather than leaped into blindly.

5) Violence: Overthrow the current system with violent revolution.

****

The blue pill may work. For you, for now. But you could always wind up on the wrong end of the divorce or economic statistics with one bad week, and it leaves the system intact. This is no fight at all.

MRM may make the legal system more fair, but that’s all it will do. It will make divorce sting less, it will remove affirmative action to allow fair employment competitions, and it may do some other good things, but it is still based on progressive ideas of equality, fairness, human rights, social justice, and all that jazz and is still corrupt. In the long run it merely preserves the corrupt system, but blunts its edges, reducing consciousness, fixing the system further in place.

Game/MGTOW may work. For you, for now. But it is retreat; it is conceding that the system wins and hoping that if you either avoid or succeed at playing by the new rules of the system it might not eat you. You might avoid family court, unemployment, or unhappy marriage,  but you are still a Bonobo happily masturbating away, enjoying yourself to avoid thinking if there isn’t something more fulfilling out there.

Violence won’t work. Right now the system is not corrupt enough to get enough people fired up for violence. In addition, the anti-progressive movement is small and is like herding bulls. There would be no way to win. Starting violence would turn the decline into a collapse and most revolutions end up eating their own children. Small scale violence accomplishes nothing except making the violent person’s ideology look bad. Violence should be avoided.

That leave patriarchy as the only hope.

****

So how does patriarchy help us win?

We must realize that any fight against the current progressivist system will take time, possibly generations. The war against progressivism is a war of ideology and ideas; changing the dominant paradigm is (usually) a slow process. It took progressivism and feminism over a century to bring our country to this point. It will take just as long to bring it back.

So, that leaves us with two things we must do: push our ideas and develop our ideology and breed the next generation.

First, we need to develop our ideas and put them out there; we must push the overton window. We have to put red pill knowledge out there, make it acceptable, and bring people to the cause. This is already being done; you can occasionally see red pill knowledge creep into the MSM. The manosphere is great for this.

More importantly to pushing our ideas, we have to live lives that are enviable. Ideas are great, but unless people see what’s in it for them, ideas alone will not suffice. We have to demonstrate what we are arguing for.

Live a red pill life that others are envious off and want to emulate. Praxis.

Second, breeding. The future of our society is determined by the next generation, so we need to create the next generation. On one hand, we have an advantage because progressivists are breeding themselves out of existence. On the other hand, if we all go MTGOW or PUA, then we aren’t breeding either.

So, marry a good women, have lots of kids, and raise them traditionally. Your life will be better, your life will be full and meaningful, and you’ll have a legacy you can be proud of.

Make sure to avoid a few pitfalls. Refuse to marry those who aren’t worthy of bearing your children (no rings for sluts). Be wary of the public school system; make sure to raise your kids right. Live as an example you want your kids to emulate.

Creating the next generation and developing our ideas is how an ideological war is won. So, do it.

****

That’s not to say game and MGTOW don’t help some. Both spread red pill ideas. In addition, PUA’s make promiscuity rougher and less fair, thus making promiscuity, already unattractive, less attractive for females. Both reduce the amount of marriageable men who will “man up”, leaving women asking “where did all the men go”, showing the corruption of the “sacred path for marriage”.

While they’re still acting the part of bonobos, they do have some positive impact in the ideological war.

Economic Costs of Children

Here’s another installment of  my economic analysis of marriage. This time we’re calculating the cost of children.

Conveniently,the USDA has done a study, and it costs $235,000 to raise a child (in a family of two) through age 17 for a middle-income family, about the price of a 2012 Ferrari.

So the question is, over time, which do you think would bring you more utility, a Ferrari or Junior (or a medium sized house, or 4 years off work if you make $60k, etc.)?

That’s that.

****

But that doesn’t really make much of a blog post, so more in-depth analysis of the study.

annual expenses ranged from $8,760 to $9,970 for families with a before-tax income less than $59,410, from $12,290 to $14,320 for families with a before-tax income between $59,410 and $102,870, and from $20,420 to $24,510 for families with a before-tax income more than $102,870. (p. 10)
….
As can be seen, total family expenses on a child through age 17 would be $212,370 for households in the lowest income group, $295,560 for those in the middle, and $490,830 for those in the highest income group. In 2011 dollar values, these figures would be $169,080, $234,900, and $389,670, respectively. (p. 20-21)

Here we can see that a lot of the cost of child rearing is likely optional. Low income people can do it for $170,000, so they could only get a 2008 Lexus instead.

If we look at page 26, there’s a complete breakdown of the numbers. Low income people made on average $38k, medium made $80k, and high made $180k. So, we can calculate that, low income people spent about 1/4 of their yearly income on a child, medium income spent about 1/6, and high income spent about 1/9. Because this number is based on having two children, it means you average poor 2-child family would spend half their income on a child, medium would spent a third, and high would spend about a quarter. So, as you get money, you spent a smaller proportion of it on children.

****

housing accounted for the largest share across income groups, comprising 30 to 32 percent of total expenses on a child in a two-child, husband-wife family. For families in the middle-income group, child care/education (for those with the expense) and food were the next largest average expenditures on a child. (p. iv)
…
Food was the second largest expense on a child for families in the lowest income group, accounting for 18 percent of total expenditures. Food was the third largest expense on a child for families in the middle income group, accounting for 16 percent of total expenditures. Transportation made up 13 to 15 percent of total child-rearing expenses over the income groups. (p. 11)

Housing is the biggest expense. The study calculated housing by the cost of adding extra bedrooms to the price of a house. You could save money by buying cheaper real estate or jamming or making your kids share rooms or change the basement into the room (both strategies my family used at various times).

If we look at page 26, you can see that costs vary a lost, although, food, clothing, and healthcare vary less, while child care, miscellaneous, transportation, and housing vary by a much larger proportion. This suggests you can only save (or overspend) so much on eating, clothes, and health, but a lot of housing, transportation, and miscellaneous costs are optional. Child care varied the most, so this could either be optional, or simply be that higher income people used proportionately more of it to gain those higher incomes.

****

Overall annual child-rearing expenses were highest for husband-wife families in the urban Northeast, followed by families in the urban West and urban Midwest; families in the urban South and rural areas had the lowest child-rearing expenses. (p. iv)

So, choose where you live when you want a family to save on housing costs. If you live in a lower cost area, it costs less. Pretty self-explanatory. Steve Sailer wrote an interesting article on this kind of thing before, give it a check.

****

For all three income groups, food, transportation, clothing, and health care expenses on a child generally increased as the child grew older. As children age, they have greater nutritional needs so consume more food. Transportation expenses were highest for a child age 15 to 17, when he or she would start driving. Child care and education expenses were generally highest for a child under age 6. (p. 12)

Interesting, I though babies would be more expensive. Kids eat more as they age and young children use more child care. Makes sense. Learning to drive increases transportation expenses, probably due to buying your kid a car, so tell your kid to get a job and buy his own car.

****

Compared with expenditures for each child in a husband-wife, two-child family, husband-wife households with one child spend an average of 25 percent more on the single child, and those with three or more children spend an average of 22 percent less on each child. (p. 17).

So, as Bryan Caplan pointed out, children get cheaper the more  you have of them. For the middle income family, a single child would cost $294k, 2 children would cost $470k ($235k each), and 3 would cost $550k ($183k each). For a lower income family, one would cost $211k, 2 would cost you $338k,  and 3 would cost $395k.

For a middle income family: the first child costs you $294k, the second costs you $176k (60% of the cost of the first), while the third costs you only $80k (27% of the first).

For a lower income family: the first child costs you $211k, the second costs you $127k (60% of the cost of the first), while the third costs you only $57k (27% of the first).

So if you decide to have children, have three or more. Your third child has a 73% discount on the cost of the first, a steal. You can also save a lot by adopting a lower income lifestyle.

****

Conclusion:

Kids cost a lot, about as much as a Ferrari, but which would add more value to your life?

A lot of child rearing expenses are optional as evinced by the fact low income families can raise kids on less costs than other families. Housing is the biggest expense and a lot of the costs are optional. Children can be a lot cheaper if you buy less house, squeeze the kids in, and buy in a cheaper area.

Your first kid costs a lot of money, your second costs a fair amount, but your third kid and beyond cost very little, so, if you do have children have a lot. The marginal costs of the additional children after the second are very low.

The Bookshelf: Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids

I previously mentioned that I was reading Bryan Caplan’s Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. Having now completed reading the book, here’s the review.

The book is a pro-natalist book arguing that your self-interest should lead you to have more children, that having kids should be easier than you think, and that you’re parenting style is not really going to affect your children’s long-term outcomes.

The book is written in a typical popular economics manner: a light-hearted tone, but keen on being technically accurate and precise. It’s very readable and simplifies the issues and studies to be understandable to all. The arguments are well-supported by scientific studies, common-sense, and coherent logical arguments. THe Overall, it’s a well-written book.

As for content, the book is divided into eight chapters and is fairly short at less than 200 pages (238 pages if you include references and indices).

The first chapter argues that the parent’s happiness counts too and that a parent should lessen their own parental workload for their own benefit (and their family’s).

The second chapter shows very clearly that, as long as you are a typical first world parent, your method of parenting has no real long-term effect on your children’s futures and you should not feel guilty about lessening your workload.

Having demonstrated that your parenting has no long-term effect on your children’s future, the third chapter lays out how this should practically effect your family life.

The fourth chapter attacks the notion that society is more dangerous for children now than and the past, and shows clearly that kids are safer than they have ever been.

The fifth chapter argues that if you fully look at the long-term consequences of having children, you will have more than you currently have, because you overestimate the work of children in the near future and underestimate the value of children when you are older.

The sixth chapter argues that, contrary to the arguments of the over-population crowd, more children are not bad for the world, rather a larger population and more children are a positive benefit for the world.

The seventh chapter gives some tips for increasing the number of grandchildren you have.

The eighth chapter talks up the benefits of fertility technology.

The ninth chapter and final chapter is Caplan’s clarifications and responses to common hesitations and counter-arguments presented in a dialog format.

Overall, I would recommend reading this book. The subject matter is interesting, the book is well written, the arguments are clear and persuasive, and more information on one of the most important decisions in your life is always a good thing.

Conclusion:

If you’re married, plan to marry, have kids, or are considering having kids, I would fully recommend you read this book so you can make family decisions with accurate knowledge.

If you never plan to get married and/or have children, this book will may not be relevant to you, so you may not want to read it. You may still want to read it if you are interested in natalism or family issues or simply to consider (re)evaluate the long-term impacts of your choices.

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.