I’d add too as a millennial trying to figure out all this stuff and the legacy of the boomers and X-ers jettisoning prior wisdom on social stages of life like coming of age, marriage, parenting etc with “Do what feels right for you!” You have 30 yr olds who are still waiting to “feel like adults” so they can get on with their life.
No one ever really feels like an adult… because it’s not a feeling.. you become it by doing adult things and making adult decisions. Which is why ‘coming of age’ rituals are so important because we need the outside ‘objective’ measure of the community saying that ‘yes you are an adult’ and you can go do the things.
Brava. This is the kind of clear-eyed call to action that we on the right desperately need - one that points to a new future rather than an unobtainable past. You can’t swim in the same river twice, and you can’t return to a culture that is gone, but we can build anew. May we build on rock rather than sand.
This feels like a manifesto and I’m here for it. It reminds me of the Chesterton quote about saints or angels taking themselves lightly-
“pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap.”
What you're struggling with sounds a lot like what my kids are dealing with.
And my first thought is to say, just do what I did. We had a traditional arrangement, me working and her staying at home with the kids, and it worked out all right. But then I remember we dug potatoes from the garden for every meal for an entire week. I rode on my bike in the dark with a flashlight which reflected back from every sign for ten miles to borrow a van to take my family somewhere. Prayed that the wood stove I'd just hooked up wouldn't give us carbon monoxide poisoning that first night. I had more than a few stressful moments, now that I think back.
So if you want to avoid all that, don't do what we did.
But on the other hand, we have a good life. And it's not so much that we've had an easy time of it, but rather what our relationships are like, and what we ourselves are like. So my first impulse is to advise, but then I realize, "this person wants an easy life." And I'm not offering that. Never had one myself, so I don't even know where to look.
But if you want an end result that's satisfying, ours was. But if you expect the process to be pleasant or easy, I don't know what to tel you.
Dang it Dr Scott! You’re on to something here.
I’d add too as a millennial trying to figure out all this stuff and the legacy of the boomers and X-ers jettisoning prior wisdom on social stages of life like coming of age, marriage, parenting etc with “Do what feels right for you!” You have 30 yr olds who are still waiting to “feel like adults” so they can get on with their life.
No one ever really feels like an adult… because it’s not a feeling.. you become it by doing adult things and making adult decisions. Which is why ‘coming of age’ rituals are so important because we need the outside ‘objective’ measure of the community saying that ‘yes you are an adult’ and you can go do the things.
Brava. This is the kind of clear-eyed call to action that we on the right desperately need - one that points to a new future rather than an unobtainable past. You can’t swim in the same river twice, and you can’t return to a culture that is gone, but we can build anew. May we build on rock rather than sand.
This feels like a manifesto and I’m here for it. It reminds me of the Chesterton quote about saints or angels taking themselves lightly-
“pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap.”
What you're struggling with sounds a lot like what my kids are dealing with.
And my first thought is to say, just do what I did. We had a traditional arrangement, me working and her staying at home with the kids, and it worked out all right. But then I remember we dug potatoes from the garden for every meal for an entire week. I rode on my bike in the dark with a flashlight which reflected back from every sign for ten miles to borrow a van to take my family somewhere. Prayed that the wood stove I'd just hooked up wouldn't give us carbon monoxide poisoning that first night. I had more than a few stressful moments, now that I think back.
So if you want to avoid all that, don't do what we did.
But on the other hand, we have a good life. And it's not so much that we've had an easy time of it, but rather what our relationships are like, and what we ourselves are like. So my first impulse is to advise, but then I realize, "this person wants an easy life." And I'm not offering that. Never had one myself, so I don't even know where to look.
But if you want an end result that's satisfying, ours was. But if you expect the process to be pleasant or easy, I don't know what to tel you.
My only struggle is the struggle to understand the struggle you think people are having.