In progress....
In 1963 most Americans were enjoying the mellow tunes of Fats Domino and Johnny Mathis, scarfing down malts and hamburgers at Woolworths and watching the latest movies under the stars at drive-in movies. That summer Americans watched as Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. led a march on Washington to spotlight racial wrongs. Fortunately for us, he was Christian, so he led us in a spiritual awakening and it moved us. By autumn we were reeling from the assassination of President John Kennedy.
Slowly simmering in the background of rising prosperity was the ensuing influence of a work published in February 1963, an odd little book called "The Childhood Mystique," by Betty Friedan.
By 1964 the book was top of the best sellers lists as it went on to have considerable influence, in fact, it is number 31 of the Boston Public Library List of 100 Most Influential books of the 20th Century.
This remarkable book was a blueprint for mothers and wives everywhere, on how to counter the growing influence of materialism and advertising and the slow strangulation of Christianity from the public square. Friedan encouraged mothers to take charge of their children's education.
It included a reading list of 'the ten most dynamic family models in modern literature including writer-naturalist Gerald Durrell's account of his family on the island of Corfu from 1932 to 1939, one of the most idyllic fantasy childhoods ever. Or Pippi Longstockings, by Astrid Lindgren about a willful girl who gets into all sorts of scrapes or Beatrix Potter lonely childhood, rich nonetheless because her parents didn't quash her early forays into the natural world.
But the most important book that Friedan encouraged all to read--wives, mothers, single women and men--was of course the Bible, the blueprint for finding God and for living a rich, devout life. Families everywhere have always needed to know Biblical wisdom, to help them learn what's worth knowing and to counter worldly temptations that have lured away so many from truth and light. More so in an increasingly affluent culture heading in the wrong direction.
ALAS, this is not the book Betty Friedan wrote. Instead, she penned "The Feminine Mystique," which is one of the most destructive exhortations ever written, that almost single-highhandedly spawned a malaise that she invented, 'the problem with no name.'
Friedan was had significant communist party connections, devoted to Stalin even after the horrors of the gulags were revealed. She berated those around her in rage-filled diatribes, recounted by many, many co-workers and her ex-husband. If work was so wonderful why wasn't she happier?
American women, circa 1960s as described by Friedan (a graduate of all-female Smith College), were discontented, upper middle class, increasingly college-educated, spending days in drudgery waxing floors and wiping baby bottoms. Friedan's antidote for such misery was for women to rise up and reform higher ed, advertising and indeed all modern life. But most importantly the only way for women to find true meaning and worth was to work outside the home.
Any thinking economist reading this prescription would instantly see there was money to be made from two income families, for in no time at all real estate doubled then tripled. Fast food chains would invade suburbia and day care centers would dot every corner, to siphon off their cut of the new two-income family.
Any Biblally literate person would see the flaw in her thesis was the deliberate flouting of the 10th Commandment: Envy. It was as if the pods (from the 1950s sci-fi film, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") had implanted a hyper-self-centeredness in women, men but not the children-yet. That would come later. That would come later, after growing up in frazzled homes, day care centers, and never having enough time with mom and dad who foolishly presumed their absence could be filled by a plethora of electronic gadgets and the mythological quality time.
Could our young people's difficulty adjusting to adulthood be connected to both parents working full-time jobs, barely fitting in child rearing between boardroom presentations? On top of all this is the stress of more and more of their parents divorcing. Some parents can pull it off, some women can even pass their bar exam one day and birth twins the next, but that's not the average by any stretch.
The true test of our cultural experimentation is whether people are happier now. In reality, women for the most part work two full-time jobs, with rushed moments for the kids and husbands. Addictions are epidemic. House prices are far out of the range of even the two-salaries now, rush hour traffic out of sight, and stress second nature to family life.
I believe the biggest culprit in this extraordinary social experiment was the psychological pressure by business, academic philosophers, the media, etc. that devalued the womanly arts of homemaking, and all that word entails. To be replaced by a bizarre presumption that families could be nurtured on the fly, as women marched off to the office just like their menfolk, coming home at night after a stop at the day care, to homes absent the heretofore full-time results of the nurturing arts. We've all lost out on this one. The Childhood Mystique isn't so mysterious after all. The real mystery is why we fell for it.
In 1963 most Americans were enjoying the mellow tunes of Fats Domino and Johnny Mathis, scarfing down malts and hamburgers at Woolworths and watching the latest movies under the stars at drive-in movies. That summer Americans watched as Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. led a march on Washington to spotlight racial wrongs. Fortunately for us, he was Christian, so he led us in a spiritual awakening and it moved us. By autumn we were reeling from the assassination of President John Kennedy.
Slowly simmering in the background of rising prosperity was the ensuing influence of a work published in February 1963, an odd little book called "The Childhood Mystique," by Betty Friedan.
By 1964 the book was top of the best sellers lists as it went on to have considerable influence, in fact, it is number 31 of the Boston Public Library List of 100 Most Influential books of the 20th Century.
This remarkable book was a blueprint for mothers and wives everywhere, on how to counter the growing influence of materialism and advertising and the slow strangulation of Christianity from the public square. Friedan encouraged mothers to take charge of their children's education.
But the most important book that Friedan encouraged all to read--wives, mothers, single women and men--was of course the Bible, the blueprint for finding God and for living a rich, devout life. Families everywhere have always needed to know Biblical wisdom, to help them learn what's worth knowing and to counter worldly temptations that have lured away so many from truth and light. More so in an increasingly affluent culture heading in the wrong direction.
ALAS, this is not the book Betty Friedan wrote. Instead, she penned "The Feminine Mystique," which is one of the most destructive exhortations ever written, that almost single-highhandedly spawned a malaise that she invented, 'the problem with no name.'
Friedan was had significant communist party connections, devoted to Stalin even after the horrors of the gulags were revealed. She berated those around her in rage-filled diatribes, recounted by many, many co-workers and her ex-husband. If work was so wonderful why wasn't she happier?
American women, circa 1960s as described by Friedan (a graduate of all-female Smith College), were discontented, upper middle class, increasingly college-educated, spending days in drudgery waxing floors and wiping baby bottoms. Friedan's antidote for such misery was for women to rise up and reform higher ed, advertising and indeed all modern life. But most importantly the only way for women to find true meaning and worth was to work outside the home.
Any thinking economist reading this prescription would instantly see there was money to be made from two income families, for in no time at all real estate doubled then tripled. Fast food chains would invade suburbia and day care centers would dot every corner, to siphon off their cut of the new two-income family.
Any Biblally literate person would see the flaw in her thesis was the deliberate flouting of the 10th Commandment: Envy. It was as if the pods (from the 1950s sci-fi film, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") had implanted a hyper-self-centeredness in women, men but not the children-yet. That would come later. That would come later, after growing up in frazzled homes, day care centers, and never having enough time with mom and dad who foolishly presumed their absence could be filled by a plethora of electronic gadgets and the mythological quality time.
Could our young people's difficulty adjusting to adulthood be connected to both parents working full-time jobs, barely fitting in child rearing between boardroom presentations? On top of all this is the stress of more and more of their parents divorcing. Some parents can pull it off, some women can even pass their bar exam one day and birth twins the next, but that's not the average by any stretch.
The true test of our cultural experimentation is whether people are happier now. In reality, women for the most part work two full-time jobs, with rushed moments for the kids and husbands. Addictions are epidemic. House prices are far out of the range of even the two-salaries now, rush hour traffic out of sight, and stress second nature to family life.
I believe the biggest culprit in this extraordinary social experiment was the psychological pressure by business, academic philosophers, the media, etc. that devalued the womanly arts of homemaking, and all that word entails. To be replaced by a bizarre presumption that families could be nurtured on the fly, as women marched off to the office just like their menfolk, coming home at night after a stop at the day care, to homes absent the heretofore full-time results of the nurturing arts. We've all lost out on this one. The Childhood Mystique isn't so mysterious after all. The real mystery is why we fell for it.
