Pregnancy and childbirth aside, the family in and of itself is the main thing keeping men from being held accountable for children the way women are. Replacing it with public creches and schools as the main source of socialization for children would be a major stride toward sex equality.
You're looking for a bandaid fix to a chronic problem. And though I really don't intend to insult you, I am inclined to say....that's the liberal way: Take a trend and legislate, pontificate, grow your solutions around the trend so the trend can go on while the problems it causes,at face value, look to be solved, until the bleeding starts in again even worse down the road.
Family is not the problem. Family doesn't need to be replaced with public creches and schools as the main source of indoctrination. That's so Brave New World. I'm getting the impression you're impatient for society to develop into what YOU think we should be and you'd like to move it along.
We talk about the liberal agenda to separate families, and the way they manipulate the human condition for their own agenda, and liberals say we're crazy. But that's exactly what you're talking about. You've as much as come out and said it.
Family needs to be reinstated. Personal responsiblity needs to be reinstated. We didn't see society fall apart the way it is now until people started selling the idea that it was okay to leave our families, break our promises, terminate our children, for the sake of immediate gratification. The first idea peddled was that every single one of our desires, both momentary and long term were "needs" that we owed to ourselves to fulfill.Hard work and effort were somehow repackaged as "unfulfillment". The next idea was that not only are we obligated to serve these "needs" for the sake of our wellness, but entitled to have them met as well.
It doesn't make sense that a father who used to devote 100% of his income to his family now only devotes 24 or 31% of it to them after he leaves. But society doesn't bat an eye. In fact, society is what set the laws that allow him to do that. After all, he left to go make a life with some other family, and he has "needs" to attend to.It doesn't make sense that a father who moves hundreds of miles away from his kids, sees them a couple times a year, skypes a couple times a week and requests the occasional report card is viewed as a "good parent". But there we have it.
What's interesting and telling, though, is that while fathers who make these decisions are still viewed as good and fit fathers, fathers who stay in the household and continue supporting and caring for their families are not compared as outstanding fathers. Instead, we are led to believe that many couples who stay married are "stuck with each other".
These new definitions of family and parenthood damage our kids and our society. They're also also emasculating. Not surprising that often fathers that abandon their kids go make more kids with other women. It's also not surprising that 40% of abortion patients are having their second and third abortions. Many women talk about becoming pregnant on purpose after their first abortion in an effort to replace a decision that feels wrong into something right, but then the same circumstances that led to their first abortion lead them to the same decision.
We're instinctually inclined to care for and protect our loved ones, especially our kids. We're wired for love and security. And because of this, we used to take pride when we maintained all of this with work that was sometimes hard. But we're being taught that gratification with minimal and no effort are what's normal,and deserved. And we're acting on these ideas we absorb intellectually. The divorce rate, single parent rate, abortion rate, definitely support the fact that we're buying these ideas. But these ideas conflict with our instincts and you often see people repeating the same behaviors. The divorce rate among second and third marriages is no better than among first marriages. It's that instinct that's not being satisfied that drives us to recreate the same situations over and over.
You have it backwards. You view equality among the sexes as neither parent having to take responsibility for the kids. I guess you think that because people have been conditioned to believe it's okay to make a family and just change your mind and go, we have to provide the means for that decision. The truth, the thing that's always served the family the best is when BOTH parents take responsibility for their kids. You can't remove the need for love and security, or the instincts of a parent...particularly mothers, with a program.