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More from Esolen on boys

Anthony Esolen has responded via e-mail to my post below on boys. He has some excellent practical advice, which he has given me permission to post. In my opinion, getting a boy out of the public schools should be priority #1 for parents.

Over the last twenty years I've met and taught about two thousand freshmen, in Providence College's Development of Western Civilization Program. When you meet so many students in a big room, every day of the week for a year, you not only get a decent impression of a cross section of the freshman class (about one fifth of it, at our school), you also have a chance to evaluate what sorts of backgrounds are producing what sorts of students. I've found that if a young man speaks forthrightly to me, looks me in the eye, and takes an interest in something other than regions below his belt, he has been, about nine times in ten, homeschooled, or a graduate of an all-male Catholic school. Over and over I have found this to be the case. In other words, sometimes all that's required for health to return to the body is to remove it from the poisonous atmosphere. I'm intrigued, for instance, by the math scores of homeschoolers; not that homeschoolers distinguish themselves particularly well in that subject, as compared to what students seventy years ago used to do in math. But once you take boys out of school, they resume their modest but appreciable superiority in math, and they rise up to the level of their sisters in verbal ability. And if you take your boys out of the feminist-dominated schools (and it really is difficult to overestimate just how deeply entrenched feminism is in the schools, from the coed gym classes to the history textbooks) and place them in an all-boys school (where, for example, they might study the battle plans of Hannibal), they breathe more easily, they can be themselves, and they can be hammered into shape if need be -- as they themselves will be the first to tell you. So my first recommendation is pretty simple. Trust the health of the boy's nature, and take him out of the poison. Oh, by the way, that will mean doing something to the television, too.

Comments (45)

Oh, by the way, that will mean doing something to the television, too.

Or, at least, the television programming.

Remember those old black and white tv series where morality was simple, men were men, and women understood that?

Television does not necessarily, in itself, mean the end of boyhood. Its power lies in the propaganda it is able to instill in the young boy. Does anyone see the correlation between the downfall of the Western shot-em-ups on tv and the rise of the modern confusion of youth? There have been many sci-fi series before and after that period in tv history, many comedies, many detective series, but I doubt there will ever be another Western of the likes of Bonanza, Gunsmoke, the Wild, Wild West, or Maverick.

Oh, by the way, poison can be defeated in one of at least four ways: 1) removal before lethality, 2) neutralization, 3) dilution below toxic levels, 4) systematic de-sensitization. Prof. Esolen suggests the first as the correct way. Are the other ways even possible in the current educational climate? Poisons require two things to kill: a poison and a system weak enough to be overcome. To poison an educational environment, takes a group pushing an agenda and it takes a group willing to accept it, either directly or through subterfuge. One reason that parents caved into the feminist agenda was because it was being pushed by "experts". Just as people in the old days were almost conditioned to trust their family doctor, people were almost conditioned in the 1950's and 1960's to trust the emerging child psychologists and psychologists, many of whom had medical degrees. Never mind that the research was suspicious, they were "experts". It is that naivite which allowed feminization to get a foothold in the school and subterfuge which has allowed it to maintain a stranglehold. Even the government went along and supported the specious notions by laws such as Title IX.

Hold these experts feet to the fire of good research methodology, however (as eventually happened with the whole language debacle), and these so-called experts can be exposed to have clay feet. Few people are willing to take them on, now, because the research, bad as it is, had become encrusted with political and legal sanction and the odds of being ostracized from the educational establishment is real. One of the reasons I never went to get licensed in education is because I know how to do research and I would probably be quickly dismissed from class as a troublemaker who questioned the data, research methods, etc.

I say, bring back the Westerns.

The Chicken

I love all-male Catholic high schools and (the more urban and grittier, the more mission driven and masculine they seem to be) they support they provide for what a father is trying to instill in his sons, but let's remember; the school is supplemental, and not a substitute for anything we should be doing.

No social conditioner can supplant an engaged and active parent who has an active prayer life.

I don't remember if it was Peguy or Bernanos, but one of them said the most revolutionary figure in the modern world is the Christian father. The whole thing hinges on us, and yet...

Remember those old black and white tv series where morality was simple, men were men, and women understood that?

The chicken has a point --

I just wonder how much of these observations were gleaned from boys of yester-years where the cultural milieu was incredibly traditional as it was conservative, where you had Fulton Sheen as actually having been a top-rated television program in the days and most movies weren't even a quarter as violent and promiscuous. If that's the case, then I would question the conclusion he reaches since it's practically based on old data and whether or not the same approach, as advocated here, would actually effective in these more modern times.

We homeschool, but be a little cautious about some of these studies produced by the HSLDA showing exceptional performance by homeschooled children. In one study, the data contains the results of the Iowa Basic Skills Test that were given to public school kids in a controlled environment, but were administered to homeschooled children by their parents, who volunteered for the study.
See: http://www.stanford.edu/~reich/other_documents/Reich%20RegulateHomeschooling%202005.pdf

I agree with Mr Esolen 100%, when I look at my fellow male University students I very rarely see anything other than indoctrinated louts whose Raison d'être is getting drunk and screwing as many girls as they can.

The irony is that my mother (an entrenched femminist) actually encouraged me to think critically :), she frequently tells me that she is amazed at my ability to intelligently discuss American politics, identify the critical factors that influenced the course of World War Two and mount an intellectual defense of President Nixon's conduct.

On a more serious note as well as following Mr Esolen's excellent practical advice with regards to young men, we also need to concentrate on young ladies as well. The problem of indoctronated young women is also a serious one.

Dear Aristocles,

You wrote:

If that's the case, then I would question the conclusion he reaches since it's practically based on old data and whether or not the same approach, as advocated here, would actually effective in these more modern times.

I suppose the question is: once a society has morally regressed can a return to the old ways be effected by thinking in the old ways? That new knowledge and culture has displaced old moral knowledge, no one can argue; that new knowledge has invalidated the old knowledge in the moral/behavioral sphere can be argued against by example - saying that abortion is a right, as is now held, does not invalidate the correct notion that abortion is murder.

Is it possible to turn culture in a direction it has already been? The answer is, I think, yes. The problem is in the warrant. That is where everything lives or dies. People who want abortions think they have a warrant for it because the "Supreme Court" has spoken, as if they are Supreme in anything except in frustration.

Until the old ways (where boys are boys) has a warrant, it will not be accepted in society.

The Chicken

Craig: I haven't read the article, but the title is, to put it mildly, not promising. Let me clarify a bit the situation you seem to think so damning w.r.t. the data collected on the Iowa test.

I was one of those parents who administered the test to (shocka) my own child and submitted the score. And? The point is?

All Iowa Test administrators are required, in order to obtain the test, to provide proof of at least a bachelor's degree (a PhD in my own case) and to sign a statement after the fact that the test was administered according to the protocols given in the test booklet. Which, of course, I did. Sometimes the administrator is a parent, but sometimes several parents would have the tests administered to their child by one person who signed up to be the administrator in advance.

The assumption that parents are less likely to be honorable and to follow test administration instructions than public school teachers is...to put it mildly...questionable. A public school teacher is as capable of cheating in some way, shape, or form as a parent. The integrity of the test and its comparability to the same test taken by other children depends upon the people who administer it and the choices they make.

Moreover, mistakes in administration can work to the child's detriment as well as to the child's advantage. One mother told me about an error she made in administration more than ten years ago. She forgot to read the recommendations regarding breaking the test up into several sessions and had her son take the entire thing in one day. I can't remember if he got a break for lunch. This was seriously bad for his scores.

Speaking for myself, I take a certain amount of umbrage at the implication that merely by saying, "This test was administered by a parent to his own child" we have automatically implied that _somehow_ (we don't know quite how) this means the child had an easier time of it than children who took the test in a group, having it administered by a public school teacher desperate that her school should not "fall behind" in national scores and lose federal money. (While we're throwing out motivational points.) Is the implication supposed to be that home school parents gave their children hints? Gave them more time than they were supposed to have? Told them to correct their answers? That's fairly insulting.

Sorry, I'm not impressed.

If there is any problem with the large group known as "home schoolers," it's with the un-schoolers. And I've got a secret for you: They aren't giving their kids the ITBS.

Oh, one other thing: The "volunteering" for the study was done when you had no idea how your child had done beyond your general knowledge of your child's ability. It had to be done before the scores came in, as I recall. So the study participation was not self-selected by people who already had high scores in hand. I suppose it is possible that parents who were afraid their children would not do well might not have volunteered, and that is one possible source of bias, but that is the only one I can think of.

Some of the warrants for the more traditional ways were that they led to virtue (but virtue has been replaced by social acceptability), that they led to a place in heaven (but heaven has either been discarded or been universalized), that they led to a more stable society (but the very concept of society has been challenged at the level of the definition of the family), that they promoted the public welfare (but big government will now do that, thank you very much), or that it was natural (but vive le neuveau). Ultimately, in order to change society, one might start with answering the question: why do men need to be men?

The Chicken

Well, having read it swiftly, what a disgusting and horrifying little screed that article is. Let's get back to talking about boys, before I explode.

I think the Chicken has made some very good points. Our society generally does not believe that boys have a right to be boys or that we have a right to teach anything like traditional notions of femininity and masculinity. I think one of the only solutions to this is as much as possible to form "little platoons" where a more or less traditional set of values is taken for granted as normal.

The training of girls, of course, is very important. As one commentator in the other thread pointed out, young women have an enormous amount of power to turn the world around if they would but wield it. But if I may so put it, they have to work together if this is to have any effect beyond, of course, the overwhelmingly important effect of maintaining the girl's own chastity. But for an effect on society, I am guessing, cynically, that you need more young women working together in, to put it crudely, a price-fixing scheme. If one young lady remains chaste while all her fellow young ladies are promiscuous, the young men may simply move on to someone else rather than getting their act together and behaving chastely themselves for the sake of the good girl. But I would like to think that I am wrong here and that even a few good young ladies can have a larger effect than one might think on the young men around them. In any event, they can at least send a clear message as to what they want, rather than leaving young men with the frustrating feeling that the modern woman has no idea what she wants in life anyway, and that therefore there is no point in trying to live up to her expectations.

How many girls does it take to change a society: one. St. Joan of Arc was able to get an entire French army to stop swearing. She had one thing going for her that most modern girls don't, however - an unshakable faith. Modern young people have been taught a system of values that is entirely worldly, natural, and tied - not as educators claim, to the mind, but - to the emotions and subjectivism. In this climate, a single girl who wants to be chaste would be seen as defective. Chastity, by itself, is sterile, even in a proper religious sense. Chastity, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out, comes from the same root as to bring into submission:

Chastity takes its name from the fact that reason "chastises" concupiscence, which, like a child, needs curbing, as the Philosopher states (Ethic. iii, 12). Now the essence of human virtue consists in being something moderated by reason, as shown above (I-II, 64, 1). Therefore it is evident that chastity is a virtue. Summa II.ii Q 151

The problem, today, is that students are being taught that emotions and reason are two separate, independent things and most girls will not understand that reason must master emotions. Chastity, by itself is sterile. It needs to be put at the service of something, just as reason must be put at the service of something. There must be an object of reason as there must be an object, apart from self, for chastity. In St. Joan's case, it was God. In the old days, it was waiting for a husband.

Until a proper sense of sin (for virtue depends on good reasoning) is re-established, chastity will not have a proper context for most young girls. Sin does not have to be expressed in a moral sense. It would be sufficient, for the moment, for young girls (or boys) to recognize that there are consequences to actions. Even that would be a step in the right direction. It is this disconnectedness between actions and consequences that has poisoned young people the most. You can see it in what they dream about becoming.

The dulling of the relationship between actions and consequences and not the feminization of boys has made boys less than boys. Boys and girls are different. As much as the feminists try to deny it, the actions of biology have consequences, but this is not the level to begin with reclaiming the consequences of being boys and girls. One must win the higher before the lower. One word, one word would change the entire educational world. I don't think we will see its return in my lifetime, but that one word that must be spoken and must return is: awe. Woman and men reach out to and appreciate awe in fundamentally different ways and the loss of this, more than anything else has been the decay of boyhood. Return awe and chastity makes sense; return awe and boys begin to notice that girls are different and entitled to respect; return awe and asking questions about the world makes sense - and so do camping trips.

The Chicken

Um, Chicken, could you pick a pseudonym that doesn't make one feel silly answering you and even agreeing with you? Like, I don't know, "Phil Smith" or whatever. I don't care. Just something pronounceable that sounds like a name. It's to the point where I'm going to have to start calling you "MC" so I don't feel like an idiot writing lines like, "The Chicken has some really good points."

Let's not forget the relatively modern concept of "adolescent." 200 years ago, a boy of 12 was apprenticed if not planning on college. It is only over the last 100 years or so that we assumed that it was both possible and desirable to treat secondary education as a product to be mass-produced. This created the phenomenon of large cadres of high school boys without significant responsibilities. It is at least possible that the effects of these teeming (and teaming) boys with little asked of them in terms of responsibility are seen in their lack of awe and lack of self-possession. They have no self-esteem because they have never done anything worthy of esteem. They don't hold anyone else in awe because they have never attempted something worthwhile and sustained and found it difficult or impossible.

Um, Chicken, could you pick a pseudonym that doesn't make one feel silly answering you

Apparently, Lydia, the Chicken doesn't give a cluck about the rest of us.

Actually, Tony, I believe 14 was the usual apprenticeship age, at least if it was presumed to be an apprenticeship the young man agreed to. Sometimes this presumption was false. That is to say, his father apprenticed him without any willingness on his part, but he was forced to sign, and the apprenticeship was then taken to be legally binding. Indeed, it was a form of indentured servitude to which he could be returned, up to the age of 21, against his will. Nor were the masters always good masters. Like anyone with that much power over someone else, they could be harsh and beat the young men. I would not advocate a return to the apprenticeship system in the formal sense, though in a far more informal form less liable to abuse, it might not be a bad thing at all.

Dear Lydia,

Sorry for the nom-de-plume, but I am a frequent commenter at Jimmy Akin's blog. I originally made a few scathing posts there and when I finally decided to post regularly, not only because I was embarrassed, but also to be less self-conscious, I adopted my handle. I seem to be much less shrill writing as the Chicken. Most people, there, call me either Chicken or TMC (The Masked Chicken). I have carried the handle over to here.
How about TMC or we could have a contest to name m :)

The Chicken

The assumption that parents are less likely to be honorable and to follow test administration instructions than public school teachers is...to put it mildly...questionable.

I didn't read the article linked to, but I somehow have learned a few things about statistics. The thing about those numbers that would trouble a statistician is not, so much, that parents might cheat (after all, lots of public school administrators cheat on these things too), but that there is something different about families that volunteer for testing. That's why internet polls on CNN ("Do you think Obama's health care plan is a good idea? and 85% of respondents pick "yes") are worthless, because you can be almost certain that the class of people who volunteer to take cnn.com polls are not representative of the class of people making up the entire population. So any study that involves self-selected respondents is going to introduce variables that the statistician cannot accurately quantify, so he's going to be less confident in the results.

Of course, I'm not saying that annoying a statistician is necessarily a bad thing . . .

Tony,

Let's not forget the relatively modern concept of "adolescent." 200 years ago, a boy of 12 was apprenticed if not planning on college. It is only over the last 100 years or so that we assumed that it was both possible and desirable to treat secondary education as a product to be mass-produced. This created the phenomenon of large cadres of high school boys without significant responsibilities.

What society has ended up with is young men and women who have a schizophrenic set of expectations, rights and responsibilities. Our society has no problem finding young men of 13 mentally fit for life imprisonment for murdering others in cold blood, but it won't allow other young men of 13 to hold jobs and choose their own educational path with the consent of their guardians.

Of course, if we were to all admit that teenagers are closer to adults than they are to children, as our forebears knew all too well, that would radically change our system and society. It would create more legal autonomy, rights and responsibilities for teenagers, and a greater need for active, engaged parents which would restore a lot of traditionalism as families could not afford (for non-monetary reasons) to have two working parents to keep up with the Joneses.

As for the substantive discussion, I can comment from my own experience with a all-boys' Catholic high school. The claim was made on the previous post that all-boys' education allowed students to focus on education without the distraction of sexual temptations. I'm not sure that this is entirely accurate, but I also think it's beside the point. The main advantage of single-sex education was that we could go about our day, in its educational and recreational elements, without having to worry about a bunch of screwy dames.

If you wanted to get into mischief, or if you simply wanted to go on a good old-fashioned date, there were plenty of girls to be had; we had favored nation status at the Dominican girls' school down the road and there were several other such institutions in town as well. And, to be honest, the society of the student body did tend to promote getting into at least a little mischief---but that, I think, was largely a product of the times and men's natural competitiveness, not something necessarily endemic to the institution.

But it was really the day to day absence of people to whom you had to worry about being especially polite. On top of the other benefits of being in an environment run on masculinity, there was something about women's rarity that made it easier to have proper manners when they were around. (This was in the South, where manners still exist every once and a while.) I found it infinitely more difficult to maintain appropriately gentlemanly decorum in college and law school, where women were utterly inescapable.

Our society has no problem finding young men of 13 mentally fit for life imprisonment for murdering others in cold blood, but it won't allow other young men of 13 to hold jobs and choose their own educational path with the consent of their guardians.

I think we sometimes exaggerate the early independence of our forebears. A young working-class child might be packed off as an apprentice, and an upper-class child sent to a boarding school, university, or to study in the household of another noble. But these assignments brought responsibility without independence. The age of majority was 21, and people of either sex below this age remained dependent on their parents' permission for most important tasks. What is true is that men and women reached this age much more as adults than they do now, because they had been made to shoulder responsibilities without being let off the hook. The mistake we've made is decreasing the level of responsibility and increasing the level of independence afforded to minors too quickly.

The Chicken says to bring back Westerns.

Westerns are actually a superb teaching tool. I'm writing an essay about "Gunsmoke" and the natural law. Most episodes of "Gunsmoke" (and I'm thinking principally of the radio show) present a moral or ethical dilemma. The positive law is represented solely by Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal, and he freqently bends or ignores it when it fails to correspond fully to the natural law. The townspeople and cowpokes who find themselves in conflict with horse thieves and murderers are usually just as ignorant and illiterate as the bad guys...but they all, even the black hats, have a profound and simple understanding of the natural law. Even a thief will feel ashamed on "Gunsmoke." He knows he's broken the natural law. A rancher or farmer who knows nothing of the law of torts nevertheless knows "it ain't right" for a another man to kill one of his cows with no recompense. And so on.

I think we sometimes exaggerate the early independence of our forebears. A young working-class child might be packed off as an apprentice, and an upper-class child sent to a boarding school, university, or to study in the household of another noble. But these assignments brought responsibility without independence. The age of majority was 21, and people of either sex below this age remained dependent on their parents' permission for most important tasks. What is true is that men and women reached this age much more as adults than they do now, because they had been made to shoulder responsibilities without being let off the hook. The mistake we've made is decreasing the level of responsibility and increasing the level of independence afforded to minors too quickly.

In practical terms, though, they were still a lot more independent. Society did not in the least look down on a 16 year old who wanted to get married, start a family and work full time. Even if the laws are still largely the same, the social ridicule that a teenager would face for choosing that lifestyle would be nearly as bad as if they were a grown adult who lived in a polygamous relationship with their first cousins. Either way, they'd be regarded as white trash by most people who "know better" than to behave like that.

I don't have time to respond to everything, here. Titus, point taken about statistics and self-selection. What I would love to see is a complete breakdown of SAT scores according to type of school--private, public, and home schooled. The problem with _that_, while we're talking about things to bother statisticians, is that some home schoolers designate themselves as "private schools" (they have to legally in California), so some of the "credit" (or blame) for home schooled scores would go to private schools. On the other hand, the implication in the article concerning the ITBS is that the comparison between home schoolers and public schoolers was completely useless because of a certain degree of self-selection on the home school side. I think this is an exaggeration for a number of reasons, not least of which is that by the author's own admission a majority of home schoolers who did the ITBS did indeed log their scores into the study. Moreover, the author of the article (who, quite frankly, is a statist idiot) has the gall to argue that since it has been difficult to get large, controlled experiments of the sort one might ideally want to compare home schoolers and public schoolers educationally, this is an _evidentiary_ reason for regulating home schooling. Say what? The only evidence we have shows home schoolers outstripping their public school counterparts. This evidence is confirmed from multiple anecdotal sources all over the country. And the fact that we haven't yet gotten studies to satisfy a statistician's deepest longings is an _evidentiary_ reason to think that (as the author implies) perhaps home schooling children are not gaining basic knowledge? Therefore we should regulate homeschooling heavily. What a joke, especially considering the many horror stories, including tests given to high school seniors, etc., showing that public school students themselves are not gaining basic knowledge.

With all of which I suspect you agree in any event, so I am preaching to the choir.

I appreciate your insight about Catholic boys' school, and I think you make an excellent point about other ways in which women's presence is a distraction to boys' education. I stand by the point I made regarding sexual distraction, in part because I was making it in the context of arguing for the exclusion of homosexual teachers, coaches, etc., from such schools. That would introduce a source of distraction and tension that the structure of the school is meant to, at a minimum, keep at a distance in many of its ordinary daily activities.

Yes, Chicken, I'm sure you can raise your children as if it's 1955; although, with all the blatant sex featured in your local ads, commercials, television programming, movies and other such places like the notorious Internet, it'll be a rather amazin feat!

Perhaps you might consider recommending raising one's boys in an isolated cult free of technology and even the world itself, like say an M. Night Shyamalan "The Village" setting might be the ideal for you, yours, Lydia & Kevin?

we had favored nation status at the Dominican girls' school down the road

If you had said the "Dominican's girl school next door" I'd suspect you would have attended my alma mater. Although I recall our favored nation status being somewhat precipitous.

Lydia writes, "All Iowa Test administrators are required, in order to obtain the test, to provide proof of at least a bachelor's degree"

That, too, indicates bias in the sample. The point is that, from a scientific perspective, Rudner did not perform a controlled study, and the sample of homeschooled kids was not representative. Rudner said as much himself. No point in shooting the messenger.

Yes, Chicken, I'm sure you can raise your children as if it's 1955; although, with all the blatant sex featured in your local ads, commercials, television programming, movies and other such places like the notorious Internet, it'll be a rather amazin feat!

If you don't buy cable, listen to the radio, read the newspaper and shred most of your junk mail, a lot of that can be controlled. For most parents, the simplest solution is to just go into the BIOS and deactivate the network ports on their kids' computers and then password protect the BIOS (all of which is usually explained in the user guide to the computer).

When we have kids, I'm going to stand up a Linux machine and turn it into a gateway/router for our house with at least a web proxy on it.

Mike T,

Even regular TV networks, movies, billboards, bus ads, etc. contain explicitly sexual scenes; bottom line, you cannot shield your kids from sex.

Even further, just because you place your child in an overly protected environment such as an all-girls, all-boys school; given the current environment we live in today, there is no way you can ensure such a safe climate in which to ensure that your child does not get exposed to such things.

Such an endeavour is not only foolish, but also can prove detrimental.

You'll practically end up with this kind of kid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOr9SvilF-8

Oh, boy, here we go: Better show them explicit sex ads on television, because otherwise they won't be Prepared For The World.

No, I'm with Esolen. Take the poison away from the boys--and the kids generally. And people generally, if possible. I just _love_ adblocker software on the Internet. For my own sake. If you think it so important for them to see half-naked people, I'm sure there will be a billboard or two we drive by, perhaps an ad for the local production of The Vagina Monologues. So they'll be all right. Sheesh.

Lydia:

Better show them explicit sex ads on television, because otherwise they won't be Prepared For The World.

Just where the hell did I say this?

Of course, I shouldn't be surprised at your proclivity for indulging in strawmen.

I'm sure there will be a billboard or two we drive by...

My point exactly --

Of course, we both know what the whole aim of your recent comment was actually.

At any rate, I'm rather glad that even in your own deliberately calculated & obtuse comment, you saw my point that you can't actually shield kids from sex because no matter how much you try, because of how they happen to be so pervasive in today's modern society, you just can't.

Better to confront such topics with your kids head-on and raise them in a Christian household than to shield them in an overly protected environment, leaving them unprepared once they're thrusted in the real world, such as the maddening open environment of the univeristy!

God only knows how many of these little Mad TV Stewarts you and others have raised.

Better to confront such topics with your kids head-on and raise them in a Christian household than to shield them in an overly protected environment, leaving them unprepared...

How do you spell "f-a-l-s-e d-i-c-h-o-t-o-m-y"? People who want to shelter their children from explicit sex scenes in movies, etc., don't "confront topics" with them. Nah. We tell them the fairies deliver babies and put them under the cabbage leaves in the garden. And only married ladies are physically capable of conceiving children.

Lydia:

As much as you think your above comments are but a sarcastic dismissal of mine, I have met such families who actually demonstrate that very kind of pathetic fairy land that you yourself have precisely described.

They shove their children in expensive private academies, whether an all-boys or all-girls school, engrossed in some sort of fantasy la-la land that these should provide adequate protection from the dirty outside and wicked world, that these adolescents will inevitably confront anyway come university.

And when these same children come to visit their very parents, God forbid that they should happen upon some ad or other that feature either implicitly or explicitly something that happens to broach the topic of sex, but these very same pure Chrisian parents cannot even confront sex themes with their teenagers and feel the job is better left to those in academe who they very well pay for such nurturing or else leave that matter unsettled altogether.

I doubt that such kinds of Christian parents have actually suffered extinction; one need only visit the resident halls of ivy-league universities and see the results of such remarkable "Christian" upbringing that are a little more than merely an over-reactive application of over-protection that provides the child with little more than what the actual real world is all about; but, hey, Mad TV needs more of these skits, so keep them coming!

Dear Aristocles,

Yes, Chicken, I'm sure you can raise your children as if it's 1955;

I responded to this point in my 8/10 8:09pm amd 8:45 post, above. I realize the degenerate nature of modern society. The question is: are things to stay this way or even get worse? Is this the only direction society can take? Is it possible to go back to a more innocent society, given the sin? The answer is, yes. It was the very ability of the tax collectors and prostitutes to repent that should have amazed the pharisees. Repentance is possible. What we lack in this country is a faith strong enough to bring men to repentance. What we lack is a witness to virtue.

The Chicken

are a little more than merely an over-reactive application of over-protection

Well, no, Ari. An intelligent "over-protective parent" (whom I would not regard as _over_-protective but as _prudent_) would not be so foolish as to let someone else, _anyone_ else, teach his children about sex. We real macho over-protective parents want to be the ones to do that. Perhaps you've heard. That's why we object to school-based sex education.

MC, I agree with you. Actually, I am heartened by the extent to which it _is_ possible, as Esolen suggests in the quotation in the main post, to raise children in a non-poisonous environment. Sure, there are those VM billboards, but you can keep so much of it at a distance and give the children a perspective on it rather than treating poison as normal. The two really important issues to my mind are a) not having horrific poison burned into the hard-drive of one's mind and wanting forever after to get rid of it (I wish I could hit the "delete" key on a number of things I have seen and read myself) and b) not having a child immersed in a secular environment so that he regards its completely upside-down morals as normal.

Also (oh, I don't have time for this), Aristocles, I have had exactly the sorts of conversations you suggest with students, but such conversations must be handled discreetly, soberly, and in the fear of God. Sometimes, you never know what God will throw into your path. Let me tell you a story...

One early morning (about 8:00 am) I had just bought breakfast and did not want to be bothered or distracted by students or colleagues, so I went to an inside hidden stairwell landing at the top floor which was hidden with no offices (this is where they put the air conditioners) of a classroom building (okay, I'm weird). I sometimes go there when I want to be really alone and quiet. I had just sat down to eat my breakfast when a young girl of about sixteen or seventeen (whom I had never seen, before) turned the corner going up to the landing. She was sobbing. I asked her if anything were wrong and she said, "Are you depressed, too? Can't you do your chemistry?"

Now, since I am a chemistry professor, I said, "Hmm...I don't think so. I teach chemistry, here. Maybe I can help." She climbed up the stairs and sat on the steps and I helper her with her chemistry problem. I was apparent to me, from her general innocence and naivite that she had been home schooled by fairly morally conservative parents. I appreciate home schooled students and I have had many in my classrooms.

After helping her with her chemistry, we sat on the steps talking about, of all things, apologetics, paleontology (which is what she wanted to be, at the time) and life, in general. It turned out that she was in an accelerated program and had not yet finished high school.

My comments to her concerned, mostly, a discussion of the sorry state of atheism and evolution- she was trying to figure out how to argue against people like Dawkins, although she didn't realize it, but I also mentioned, while trying to give her some pointers about atheism in general and macroevolution in particular, that only learning one side of a topic will leave one wide-open during a discussion. In apologetics, one must know not only your points, but the points of the opposition. One should not do evil, but one must understand evil. I suggested some readings and she left. I was on that stairway talking with her for about an hour-and-a-half.

So, I know where you are coming from. Some home schooled children can be sitting ducks for evil, however, genuine innocence and humility will generally expose evil. Still, they should understand the traps.

There is, however, in moral training, one area that spiritual directors counsel people not to interact with and that is in the area of lust. Having frank discussions of a medical nature are inevitable, but, in general, the best defense in this area is to run away. Here is an excerpt from the classic, The Spiritual Combat, by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli:

CHAPTER NINETEEN: HOW WE ARE TO FIGHT AGAINST IMPURITY

IN ENCOUNTERING THIS VICE we must use special tactics and greater resolution. In order to do this we must distinguish three phases of the operation------the first, which precedes the temptation------the second, during the temptation------the third, which follows the temptation.

1. Before the time of temptation we must avoid all persons and occasions that would expose us to sin. If it is necessary that we speak to such people, do it as speedily as possible; speak only on serious subjects with corresponding modesty and gravity. We must not permit the conversation to become familiar or frivolous.

Do not presume on your own strength despite the fact that after many years spent in the world you have remained firm against the force of concupiscence. For lust often achieves in one instant what whole years could not effect. Sometimes it will make long preparations for the assault. Then the wound is more dangerous when it comes least expected and under a disguise.

It must likewise be noted, and every day experience proves this, that the danger is always greatest on those occasion where there is the least appearance of evil. Here it is founded on the plausible pretenses of friendship, gratitude, obligation, or on the merit and virtue of the persons involved. Impure inclinations imperceptibly insinuate themselves into such friendships through frequent visits, prolonged conversations, and indiscreet familiarities until the poison reaches the heart. The reason, then, is so blinded that it even connives at amorous glances, tender expressions, and facetious liberties in conversation which bring violent and almost irresistible temptations.

a. Be cautious------run away------you are more susceptible to occasions of this sin than straw is to fire. Do not rely on your own strength or on some resolution you have taken to die rather than offend God. Despite your good intentions, frequent exciting conversations will enkindle a flame that cannot be extinguished. The impetuous desire of satisfying your passions will make you deaf to the warning of your friends. You will lose the fear of God, your reputation and even your life will be disregarded. Not even the fear of the flames of Hell will be able to master the fury of the sensual fires enkindled in your heart. Look for safety, then, in flight. There is no other way to escape. Too much confidence will end in eternal destruction...

The best way to become free of these [impure thoughts] is to remove not only the thoughts themselves, but also the reflections directly contrary to them. In attempting to dissipate them by their contraries, we merely renew the impure ideas and unconsciously imprint them still deeper. Be satisfied with meditation on the life and death of our Savior. If, while you are doing this, the same thoughts should return, even more disturbing than before, as may possibly happen, do not be discouraged or abandon your meditation, do not exert yourself in driving them away. Ignore and despise these miserable deceits of the devil and persist, with all possible attention, in your meditation on the death of our Savior. Nothing can be more effective in putting your enemy to flight, despite his determination to resist.

Aristocles, you wrote:

At any rate, I'm rather glad that even in your own deliberately calculated & obtuse comment, you saw my point that you can't actually shield kids from sex because no matter how much you try, because of how they happen to be so pervasive in today's modern society, you just can't.

Better to confront such topics with your kids head-on and raise them in a Christian household than to shield them in an overly protected environment, leaving them unprepared once they're thrusted in the real world, such as the maddening open environment of the univeristy!

The problem is that once you have confronted the topics, head on, what do you do, then? As the head of the household, you have a duty to train your children in the Christian life. There is a difference between burying your head in the sand and teaching your child to run away to fight another day.

The Chicken

Aristocles,

It is not an all or nothing game. You cannot deny that you, as a parent, have the means to control what comes into your household. Even if it is not perfect, it's a lot better than relying on the government to "clean things up" or giving in.

And the Apostle Paul said, "Flee youthful lusts." Three words. Says a lot.

By the way, I couldn't agree more about training kids in apologetics to know their opponents' arguments. Naturally. Apologetics is a "thing" we're into here around the McGrew house, as I suppose is fairly well-known by now. Check out the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, etc. And home schooled children are no better prepared in this area on average than evangelical children generally. Which is to say, not well. Evidentialism is not alive and well in the evangelical community any more than, I expect, in the Catholic community. Moreover, I'm not a big fan of accelerating kids and starting them at college when they are young like that. But I have to say that the community colleges encourage it. In our area, a child--home schooled, public schooled, or whatever--is eligible to go to community college at the age of 14. This is not an option I intend to pursue.

MC, I suggest you get a library carrel. Great places to hide.

As one commentator in the other thread pointed out, young women have an enormous amount of power to turn the world around if they would but wield it. But if I may so put it, they have to work together if this is to have any effect beyond, of course, the overwhelmingly important effect of maintaining the girl's own chastity. But for an effect on society, I am guessing, cynically, that you need more young women working together in, to put it crudely, a price-fixing scheme. If one young lady remains chaste while all her fellow young ladies are promiscuous, the young men may simply move on to someone else rather than getting their act together and behaving chastely themselves for the sake of the good girl. But I would like to think that I am wrong here and that even a few good young ladies can have a larger effect than one might think on the young men around them.

Conservatives are only now, as a group, starting to catch the faintest glimpse of how so many of the problems we have today are rooted in female behavior and desires. Women's groups have been behind virtually every assault on family life from no fault divorces, to so thoroughly destroying the legal due process rights of single fathers that they often cannot adopt their own children when the mother places them up for adoption. The sexual revolution was started to "equalize" men and women, and the majority of the media establishment today works tirelessly to create the image of superior, strong, independent women who dominate the men around them.

It is not enough for women to simply change their behavior. A lot of laws are going to have to be changed, and the media is largely unsalvageable. The more we can hasten the death of the media, the better. Even the view of women as "sweet, naturally more moral beings" is going to have to go out the window. The church can lead the way by starting to emphasize in all of its teachings on human nature and relationships that women are cut from the same sinful cloth as men, and that they are no less depraved in their own equally destructive ways as men. The church is largely oblivious to modern realities like it is women who end 3/4 of all marriages, not men, and usually under no fault statutes.

Chivalry cut free from morals is as bad and potentially destructive as any other form of pure sentimentalism. Even the stories of Lancelot and Guinevere prove that, from hundreds of years ago. In the context of Christian morals, I continue to maintain that it is a good thing.

Chivalry cut free from morals is as bad and potentially destructive as any other form of pure sentimentalism. Even the stories of Lancelot and Guinevere prove that, from hundreds of years ago. In the context of Christian morals, I continue to maintain that it is a good thing.

I agree that it is good in a Christian context, but it takes two to tango. Christian men who behave chivalrously outside of that context usually invert the saying "be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."

I would actually argue that it is probably the single worst sentimentalism today because it is the most passionately held, and the one that is most harming families. Few people outside of the men's rights movement want to even face up the fact that the modern woman is so removed from the chivalric ideal that there needs to be a wholesale reevaluation of the way that we view men and women.

Further complicating it is the fact that liberals and conservatives often agree on preserving it, just for different reasons. In one article from Glenn Sacks, a southern judge was quoted as saying "in all my life, I've never heard of a calf chasing after a bull" as a reason why a father should essentially never be given primary custody of his children. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

Our society wants to maintain choice and tradition, but they are mutually exclusive. There are only two just options: traditionalism with primacy on the authority of the father/husband in all family affairs (until the wife can justify otherwise, such as in the case of abuse) or radical, legally-imposed egalitarianism between men and women on family issues. What we have now, and it is a significant part of why everything is failing today, is a system that gives the feminists almost everything THEY want, while imposing chivalric ideals on men.

Of course, we have to allow for a bit of hyperbole in the original post. I was actually a member of Dr. Esolen's men's group back in the day. Several of the members were only acquaintances and I don't remember or never knew their educational backgrounds, but of those I do know, all were public school graduates! (except one who was co-ed Catholic school graduate). This is a small sample size of about six people (total membership in the group was c. 12-15), and it probably is true home schooling and single-sex Catholic schooling are more reliable overall, but I think parental attitudes are the most important determinants of future actions.

Of course, we have to allow for a bit of hyperbole in the original post. I was actually a member of Dr. Esolen's men's group back in the day. Several of the members were only acquaintances and I don't remember or never knew their educational backgrounds, but of those I do know, all were public school graduates! (except one who was co-ed Catholic school graduate). This is a small sample size of about six people (total membership in the group was c. 12-15), and it probably is true home schooling and single-sex Catholic schooling are more reliable overall, but I think parental attitudes are the most important determinants of future actions.

Sorry for the double post. I had no idea I hit the button more than once.

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