My crime: I had four kids, now growing into adults, and they are all wonderful. Truth be told, I hadn’t planned on four: we had two, a boy and girl, and life seemed perfect. But I wanted one more: I was one of three, and that seemed like a perfect number. Then we were blessed with twins, something that I never even considered, but which has turned out to be amazing.

The truth is, raising kids is God’s work, and there’s nothing like it that can bring meaning to your life—not career accomplishments, not money, not fame—only family. There are those out there on social media and the like claiming that they’re oh so happy with childless life—they’re able to travel!—but they just don’t understand what it means to raise a child. Meanwhile, call me when you’re 80 and need a helping hand—suddenly, your phone will grow silent. //

The left, in their insanity, has now made having multiple children a bad thing. This directly contradicts the order from the Bible, which commands: "Go forth and multiply." Not to mention Mother Nature, who says basically the same thing

To me, raising children has been the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate joy. It certainly hasn't been easy; I can tell you that, but I can also argue that for America to return to prominence, we must acknowledge that children are our future.

Without them, humanity ceases to exist. //

anon-jzmf
4 hours ago
You do make sacrifices for your children. But it's not hard. It's easy to make those sacrifices because you love your kids so much that it's easier to give them what they need than it is to short-change them. //

St. Joseph, Terror of Demons
4 hours ago
Here’s where I am more conservative and traditional than even self-described conservative Republicans.

Once a woman has had a child, her primary function is to be at home raising her children. Certainly there are circumstances that require women to go back to work (e.g., the husband can’t work, is unemployed, or is no longer around).

However, the point of this life is not to strive to accumulate as much wealth, items, and comforts as possible, especially when you have a family. The point of this life is to know, love, and serve God, and to do everything that you can to get you and your family to Heaven. //

misterright St. Joseph, Terror of Demons
3 hours ago
When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, if your mom worked outside the home (as it was called back then) you were pitied. The notion of warehousing kids in daycare centers not only didn't exist, it was resisted because "that's what they do in the Soviet Union!" How far we've gone downhill in 60 years.

The Left argues that children who don't go to daycare are not properly socialized. My experience teaches me that children who are raised in daycare centers and spend time only with their age group in schools are not well socialized at all. I have never met such a child who could look you in the eye and carry on a conversation with adults. Children raised by their parents and especially if they have the blessing of growing up in close proximity to extended family are much better socialized and able to interact with others of all ages. Children of parents who, in addition to the above, are active in their church are even better socialized. In other words, the Left is absolutely wrong once again.

Marxists need to get their grip on children at an early age. The fact that stay-at-home moms are denigrated by the Left is not an accident. The fact that all daycare centers must be licensed (read: controlled) by the state and are thus turned into indoctrination centers is not an accident. The Left viewed the Soviet Union not as a cautionary tale, but as a model. If we don't drastically change course, our fate will be that of the Soviet Union. We need to start with families and education. //

7againstthebes
4 hours ago edited
The left, by their nature are anti-child. They are pro consumerism, pro hedonist, pro abortion, and pro drug and alcohol.

So, they are childless, materialistic, drug users and drunks. Welcome to your empty life.

As a country, we need to do more to encourage marriage and children. Some of that certainly pertains to an active faith in God as a society.

More than that, as a society we need to return to the traditional roles of society and the acknowledgement of the value added for each role. Further, those that are outside of those roles should be widely viewed as not as valuable to society.

The US tax code needs to be rewritten to substantially increase the child tax credit. To decrease the tax rate of married filing jointly. To offer more far reaching tax write-0ffs for child education costs, and daycare costs.

New civil laws that offer mortgage rate discounts for married couples. Civic planning that encourage and foster community planning that centers around children centric families.

These changes are a good way to start a focus on marriage and child rearing. Let the anti-child left be scorned and seen as valueless. Let their behavior be enough to mark them as useless to society. //

misterright 7againstthebes
3 hours ago
The family is the single most successful social unit in the history of civilization. For that reason, the Left cannot tolerate the existence of a society centered on strong nuclear families. Your comment that "society must be returned to traditional values that work to provide those goals and not against them" is spot on. Expect, however, that the Left will fight strenuously and with everything they've got to make sure that never happens.

"Well, there's a lot of things that I suppose that I worry about. And some of these things will seem esoteric to people. The birth rate is very low in almost every country, and unless that changes, civilization will disappear," Musk said in part two of his [Fox News] "Special Report" exclusive interview Friday.

Musk pointed to declining birth rates in the U.S. and Korea, warning that "nothing seems to be turning that around. Humanity is dying." //

America’s birth rate hit an all-time low in 2023:

The nation’s fertility rate has declined since 1957, when there were 122.9 births per 1,000 women ages 15–44. Data for 2023 puts the current fertility rate at less than half the 1957 rate, 54.5. //

"I worry generally about the strength of America. America is the central column that holds up all of Western civilization... If that column fails, it's all over. You can't run off to New Zealand or some other place. It's over. So either we strengthen that column and make sure America is strong, and we'll be strong for a long time, or that roof's coming down," he told Baier.

During my morning perusal of X, I came across a post from Chaya Raichik's "Libs of TikTok" account that I thought really summed up a change we didn't just feel, but saw. With the Biden administration out and the Trump administration in, a change of aesthetics occurred, and it began with the Trump family.

Melania Trump was, as always, the definition of beauty, grace, and poise, but so did Ivanka Trump, as usual. In fact, all the Trump women looked incredible, from Melania to Kai Trump. A really great moment from yesterday, that went under the radar, was when the Trump family was sitting on the stage at Capitol One stadium. Trump hadn't arrived yet, but the crowd was showering the family with praise. The camera displayed a family that looked clean, healthy, happy, and beautiful. //

It wasn't that long ago that we were being force-fed something entirely different and being told that it's good and beautiful.

The Biden family is corrupt. So corrupt that it apparently needed pardons, and with that corruption came people who displayed the opposite of beauty. In fact, it spit in the face of beauty in order to push non-conventional "beauty." //

Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
·
Class is back.
5:45 AM · Jan 21, 2025

Understand, this isn't just about a beauty standard, this is about a path America could take. This is literally a "which way, Western world" moment.

To further solidify my point, I want to show you how the degeneracy of the Biden family produced outward ugliness that was often a politically-based rejection of tradition and goodness.

Back in June, I compiled a list of deviants the Biden administration had attracted, some of whom it even employed. //

The outward aesthetic matched the inward state of the soul. The Biden administration chose ugliness in so many forms because its corruption and degenerate politics caused a physical display of resistance to traditional beauty.

To make myself clear here, beauty can come in many forms, but even a person who people would consider to be less than attractive can be beautiful thanks to an inner goodness that shines through. Class and morality go a long way in outward presentation.

Roald Dahl had a very interesting quote about this:

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

Random US Citizen bintexas
12 hours ago edited
Well, if you can turn a man into a woman just by saying it's true, certainly you can turn an unratified amendment into a ratified one...

One of the things that makes it clear that our society continues to deteriorate is the almost Medieval level of superstition we're seeing almost every day. Saying something makes it true (this amendment was ratified). Naming a thing allows you to control it (western medicine widely contains this superstition) A magical belief that behavior can effect nature (climate change). The belief that words can cause physical/spiritual harm (conservatives talking is the same a violence). Belief that a person is the incarnation of the devil (Trump)

Western civilization isn't dead yet, but it certainly is ill.

First, one (mis)attributed to Solzhenitsyn:

They are lying. We know they are lying. They know we know they are lying. Yet, they are still lying.

Next, one (correctly) attributed to Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels):

When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.

Zman makes the interesting and controversial point that endemic lying is an inevitable feature of democracy:

In a world where the standard is public opinion, winning public opinion is what matters most. In fact, it must count for more than the truth, as the public often accepts as true things that turn out to be false. If the goal is to win the crowd, then playing to their deeply held misconceptions is just as good, if not better, than disabusing them of those misconceptions.
…
Like the Athenians, we have embraced the democratic spirit to the point where factual reality is just one tool in the toolkit of persuasion that may or may not be used by the successful. The modern sophist is untethered from the truth, both spiritually and emotionally, because the only thing that matters is tricking some portion of the public.

Whether or not his thesis is correct, the trajectory is accurately delineated and the West appears to have arrived at the endpoint he describes.