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Family Values

how are family values today compared to yesterday?

  • values are higher than before

    Votes: 1 4.5%
  • values are the same

    Votes: 7 31.8%
  • values are lower than before

    Votes: 14 63.6%

  • Total voters
    22
-- men need to band together and fight for their father/parenting rights in courts as a group--

There just isn't the information available to young men or boys at school when information about abortions, raising children etc is thrown at girls from the onset of puberty.

Another thing we have here in the UK is social housing - houses that are owned by local govt and tenancy is distributed according to need. Young girls know that if they become pregnant they immediately go to the top of the housing list and can get themselves a house to themselves. The problem in that scenario is that if a father is on the scene she may lose that right to a house. Children's rights to contact with both parents are damned in such a scenario.

What hope is there for men when the information is not available about the consequences of becoming a father and losing contact?

-- it's not all together uncommon for a one night stand to result in a child the father is completely oblivious about for years. A woman can successfully take a man to court when a child is 3, sue for child support, and win despite his just being told that he even has a kid.

I am and will always be in favour of both parents being responsible for the costs of raising their children. Whether the father has contact or not, he should if he can support his child / children. That's whether he's known them all their lives or he is informed after a period of time.

The UK system changed a while back - if a mother made a claim on social funds she was obliged to inform the authorities of who the father was. If she falsely accuses someone who subsequently (through DNA) finds he is not the father then he gets all his money back.

-- Otherwise it just appears as if they don't care and enjoy having an excuse to be let off the hook. The damage this does to children is seen throughout our entire society.

To be honest, very few people actually care or are completely ignorant of how bad the situation is until they find themselves with a letter saying their children don't want any contact or a court states that the parent with custody has successfully blocked all attempts at contact and it is not in the interests of the child to allow contact.

One chief justice in 2003 issued his view that if the mother was so implacably hostile to contact that it distressed the child, then no contact with the father would be allowed.

There is a long uphill battle and the first bit is the men's magazines to start actually informing men of the minefield that is becoming a father.
 
Good points. Boys should be taught all about the inconsistencies within the legal system when it comes to parenting and their rights right along with sex ed.
 
I think you need to make a clear distinction between a dad who abandons his kids, prehaps as a result of a divorce(or sometimes not) and dads who are simply unable to live with their kids due to a divorce. When a divorce happens, its not as if dad is asked by the judge if he would like to remain living with his ex-wife and children. There is a huge difference between the two. And I have experienced both myself. I do not know, nor have I ever met my biological father(well, since I was about 18 months old I guess). I did see my step father for a while, after he and my mother got divorced.

Part of the problem with young men not knowing how to be "fathers" could certainley stem from the abandonment issues you spoke of. I think its mostly because our society is putting so much damn emphasis on empathy these days, something most men are simply short on.


The bolded portion is exactly one of the points that I was trying to convey...
Well pu Crip.
 
Are you aware that the biggest obstacle to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was Democrats? No, of course you don't, because that would require some kind of historical knowledge and objectivity.

The point you are responding to was about liberals. Not southern conservative Democrats, many of which jumped ship to the Republican Party after the Civil Rights Act.
 
I don't disagree. But the "why" is irrelevant to someone like myself who doesn't sit in judgment of "why" others choose to leave a relationship. The "why" - to me and to everyone else - is completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that if people are not happy in a relationship, then they need to either fix it or get out of it. There is no "value" in forcing people to remain in unhealthy situations. Even if someone does think they left for a 'stupid' reason.

My point has nothing to do with keeping an existing bad relationship together or to casting blame. I hope that you understand that.

I was not indicating that the why is important for justification/judgement reasons, but rather as a means to understanding how and why the relationship failed, so that those within it can learn and apply new methods towards getting along so that all within the unit, whether it be divorced with new partners or not, are happier and better adjusted so that all prosper, especially any children.

For that reason, and for others as well, I would argue that the why is relevant to everybody, including you.
 
Yeah! They go into marriage to easily and fast, really enthusiastic about it, and finds out a few months later that they argue, and then they get divorced. WEAK, people are WEAK COWARDS.

Jeez... don't oversimplify and devalue good people because of complicated issues please.
 
Materialism is killing more marriages than anything else. So many people anymore just have to have that bigger house, more expensive car, more expensive clothes and so on. Used to, the average house was around 1200 to 1500 square feet, 3 bedrooms, and at best 2 baths. People would raise 3 or 4 kids out of a house that size. To many married couples now a house like that is simply a starter home, and as soon as they decide to start having kids they end up trading up to some huge cookie cutter with 2500 plus square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3 or more baths, and a walk out basement - all that for an average of 2 kids.

So what do they do with all that space, well they paint the walls all the same bland variations of off white to beige, fill it up with a bunch of dull furniture that looks like the same stuff all their friends have (bought on credit of course), put a TV in every room, and all of them spend their time apart in different parts of the house. Family activities for them consist of weekly soccer practice. They seldom sit down to the table and eat together. They never build that essential friendship with the kids, and they are always chasing that next material item thats going to make them feel good again. When you get down to it, its kind of hard for a family of 4 to maintain a close relationship in a 3000 sq foot cookie cutter home.

So then, with all that mountain of debt, someone looses their job and there you go, the debt piles up, the bubble bursts and the selfish parents divorce.
 
This switch marked the end of the GOP as a fiscally conservative entity and morphed it into the liberal entity it is today.

This is why the two parties are no longer any different in my way of viewing things, because the Southern Democrats shifted parties for retarded reasons.

They did not give up the ideals that made them democrats in the first place, they only shifted names over social "conservativism".

IMO, this marked the decline of the GOP as a conservative entity. And Roe v. Wade was the death blow to small governemnt conservativism in American politics because social issues gained primacy in the GOP as opposed to fiscal issues.

They support big govenremtn in socially "conservative" ways.

This is why there is no Goldwater in the party anymore. He'd be labelled as a "librul" nowadays because of his social views.

Roe V. Wade was the death blow to small government conservatism? I would have thought the Civil war(which according to conservatives was about states rights), Women's right to vote, The Civil rights movement and it's affiliates were all clearly more damaging then women being allowed to have abortions. Calling Roe V. Wade the death blow is like ignoring that a boxer takes a beating in 9 rounds and then suddenly faints on the 10th.
 
What do you believe have caused family values in america to deteriorate?

Or perhapse you believe they are the same as always or even better than yesteryear?

Are americans more selfish making family bonding, marriage and children come second?
I don't see how they would change in a days time.
 
Many people are just weak and give up too fast. Not only marriage.


Many people also stay in marriages too long, and that can be to the detriment of the kids and family as well.
 
Many people also stay in marriages too long, and that can be to the detriment of the kids and family as well.

There is a lot of rotten things about our society, impossible to change all of them. The shame is that most people dont even care or want them to change.
 
There is a lot of rotten things about our society, impossible to change all of them. The shame is that most people dont even care or want them to change.

Most people are simply too busy trying to survive day to day...
others get caught up in their own little worlds and don't see the big picture.

And really, how do you, an individual, change the big picture?
That is a daunting task, and very few ever make such an impact...
 
The Baron said:
Obviously those within the relationship have the power to harm the relationship the most. This is hardly a revolutionary observation.

However, making divorce easier only harms the “traditional values” originally brought into question by this thread. Marriage was intended as a permanent relationship “until death do we part” that was intended to transcend the good times and bad times that couples will inevitably go through during the course of a lifetime.

it has to be up to the couple to maintain that commitment.

government interference in the form of making divorce unnecessarily difficult won't make people love each other more, nor will it make them more committed to each other.


The Baron said:
I suppose I could point out that people also tend to stay together due to tough economic times but what would that do to your theory then?

people get married for money, and they stay together in unhappy relationships for money. this is hardly new. is this supposed to be an example of family values?

The Baron said:
at the end of the day, love is a choice not an emotion. And those who "choose" to abandon the commitment to their marriage only end up harming their spouses, children, et al.

I wont argue against that point.

my argument is that making divorce more difficult does not solve the root problem, and makes the consequences of it more severe.
 
it has to be up to the couple to maintain that commitment.

government interference in the form of making divorce unnecessarily difficult won't make people love each other more, nor will it make them more committed to each other.

But it will make them think twice about getting into a marriage not so easily tossed away.

people get married for money, and they stay together in unhappy relationships for money. this is hardly new. is this supposed to be an example of family values?

No. But it is a really good example of how stupid people can really be.

my argument is that making divorce more difficult does not solve the root problem, and makes the consequences of it more severe.

It does solve the root problem as I see it. People should not be getting married at the drop of a hat. People with 10+ divorces under the belt should raise an alarm bell to others. 5 marriages is becoming way to common.
 
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But it will make them think twice about getting into a marriage not so easily tossed away.

I doubt it. people are very idealistic about marriage. they don't tend to get married if they don't think it will work. even discussing the possibility of making a prenuptial agreement can make people angry, because they don't want to acknowledge the fact that the marriage might not work.

for a variety of reasons, the age people enter their first marriage has been going up, not down.
 
My point has nothing to do with keeping an existing bad relationship together or to casting blame. I hope that you understand that.

I was not indicating that the why is important for justification/judgement reasons, but rather as a means to understanding how and why the relationship failed, so that those within it can learn and apply new methods towards getting along so that all within the unit, whether it be divorced with new partners or not, are happier and better adjusted so that all prosper, especially any children.

For that reason, and for others as well, I would argue that the why is relevant to everybody, including you.

Purely for the sake of personal growth, I don't disagree.



But it will make them think twice about getting into a marriage not so easily tossed away.
You won't see any argument for me for reasons people should get married. (I can't think of a reason to get married) :lol:

So yeah, like I said previously in another thread... make it incredibly difficult to get divorced and make adultery a crime and marriage will be all but obliterated and I'm perfectly okay with that since the government shouldn't be involved in the first place.

Absolutely, agree 100%.

It does solve the root problem as I see it. People should not be getting married at the drop of a hat. People with 10+ divorces under the belt should raise an alarm bell to others. 5 marriages is becoming way to common.
I agree because the root of the problem is that people are getting married to begin with. Or even more simply, that the government is involved at all. I very much agree that making it both difficult to get married, incredibly difficult to get divorced, and quite simply more advantageous not to bother signing some silly government license at all will absolutely get to the root of the problem and eventually get the government out of marriage altogether. One can only hope, anyway.
 
I doubt it. people are very idealistic about marriage. they don't tend to get married if they don't think it will work. even discussing the possibility of making a prenuptial agreement can make people angry, because they don't want to acknowledge the fact that the marriage might not work.

Well I can agree to disagree here. I don't think any hard data exists to really back either of our positions.

for a variety of reasons, the age people enter their first marriage has been going up, not down.

I don't think that is a bad thing at all.
 
So yeah, like I said previously in another thread... make it incredibly difficult to get divorced and make adultery a crime and marriage will be all but obliterated and I'm perfectly okay with that since the government shouldn't be involved in the first place.

Absolutely, agree 100%.

I don't think adultery should be a crime. I do think government needs to get out of marriage though.

So I agree with you to about 65% :cool:

I agree because the root of the problem is that people are getting married to begin with. Or even more simply, that the government is involved at all. I very much agree that making it both difficult to get married, incredibly difficult to get divorced, and quite simply more advantageous not to bother signing some silly government license at all will absolutely get to the root of the problem and eventually get the government out of marriage altogether. One can only hope, anyway.

Now that I can agree with 100% :2razz:
 
I don't think that is a bad thing at all.

neither do I. I'm just pointing out that if no-fault divorce made people more eager to enter into marriage prematurely, we would be seeing the opposite trend.

but there are so many variables that its hard to make generalizations anyway. (more schooling, increased cost of living, etc)
 
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