Your parents, who brought you into this world and raised you, should rightfully be the most important figures in your life. On the bedrock of one’s forefathers are civilizations built and raised. Yet the Western cult of the self attempts to subvert this and create a society of orphans. Adults are constantly rewarded for putting their personal or professional goals before their children. Parents think nothing at fighting in front of their children. Above all, the insipid practices of divorce and premarital pregnancy create selfish adults and miserable kids; the hedonistic adults perhaps happier in the short term, but eventually dead, and the kids passing on dysfunction to the next generation. In short, in popular culture children are expected to have no reason to respect their parents and every reason to hate them.<\/p>\n
In the midst of this society of orphans, I had the incredible fortune to be born to two perfect parents. To my knowledge, they have never\u00a0quarreled; if they did it was not in my presence, which to a realist historian means the same thing. They never demanded recognition or respect, but earned both by pouring their hearts into raising their children with selfless love.<\/p>\n
What is the result of this labor? The creation of children who can feel the presence of love in their homes, and have the means to distribute that love throughout society. The false, selfish “love” of a temporary obsession should crumble before this almighty goal. If “love” brings you to overlook alcoholism, brutality, and dishonor, then it is no grounds for a marriage that might expose children to these things. Similarly, if you yourself engage in these things in the presence of children, then it is you who must be shamed and removed from the pool of desirable partners.<\/p>\n
The purpose of a marriage is not to memorialize a selfish, limited love between two people, nor is it (as Christian leaders suggest) to “produce” children. Only a couple who cannot think rationally about the society they want to live in will settle for one of these shallow goals, and only a foolish individual will promote them. Humanity as a whole deserves better than that.\u00a0Marriage must engender an outward, contagious love conducive to raising<\/em> healthy children.<\/p>\n I’m still on the fence as to the meaning of human existence, but I feel fairly confident in saying that raising children who carry both wisdom and love with them to the next generation should be among humanity’s highest goals. Let us hope, then, that we can enshrine that goal both in our laws and in our stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Your parents, who brought you into this world and raised you, should rightfully be the most important figures in your life. On the bedrock of one’s forefathers are civilizations built and raised. Yet the Western cult of the self attempts to subvert this and create a society of orphans. Adults are constantly rewarded for putting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1487,"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions\/1487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avery.morrow.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}