A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement • Hacker News Board

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#611

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:03 AM UTC

the_only_law wrote: post #598

ta2158 wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you're flagging this means you know it's the truth but you just have to flag to keep the narrative. That the Pulse nightclub shooter was gay, was on gay dating apps, etc. and decided to shoot up the club because he was closeted (this was wildly paraded on the news) and self-hating. The FBI investigation months later found out that all of those claims were unsubstantiated, and that the real motivation wa…

Would you mind sharing the exploit you have that allows you to determine GP flagged your minute old comment? I’m sure the technical details would be fascinating.

[deleted]

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#612

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #368

Tade0 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after being sucked in to the anticircumcision movement Did it take a lot of sucking into considering that they've been subjected to genital mutilation?

Considering that I'm circumcised and every male I know is, and none of us even give it a second thought or feel that our genitals have been "mutilated", I would say it requires a bit of sucking. There has to be some existing dissatisfaction or disorder for someone to get so up in arms about that. Anyway, it was an example I saw, I had intended to remain neutral on the subject.

The fact that other people went through it too is a horrible, horrible metric for something being okay, and I think buying into that is its own form of sucking.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#613

Post by ta2188 » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

the_only_law wrote: post #598

ta2158 wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you're flagging this means you know it's the truth but you just have to flag to keep the narrative. That the Pulse nightclub shooter was gay, was on gay dating apps, etc. and decided to shoot up the club because he was closeted (this was wildly paraded on the news) and self-hating. The FBI investigation months later found out that all of those claims were unsubstantiated, and that the real motivation wa…

Would you mind sharing the exploit you have that allows you to determine GP flagged your minute old comment? I’m sure the technical details would be fascinating.

Think about it a bit more, you may figure it out. I'll give you a hint: fungibility.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#614

Post by notsureaboutpg » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

shadowoflight wrote: post #229

samatman wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but for many of us in the West, without the tradition common to East and South Asians of reciprocal obligation. This used to be nigh unto a human universal: your parents raise you up from a helpless infant to adulthood, and this obliges you to love and care for them for the rest of their lives. I'm as deracinated Westerner as it comes, and yet I'm fairly traditional in this regard. I can think of three acceptabl…

> This used to be nigh unto a human universal: your parents raise you up from a helpless infant to adulthood, and this obliges you to love and care for them for the rest of their lives. Alternate take on that human universal: your parents had unprotected sex and fulfilled their obligation to raise the offspring produced to adulthood, this obliges you to nothing. I'm not saying this means everyone should estrange thei…

This is so ridiculous. Your parents have an obligation to you and you have none onto them? Why? They cared for you when you were helpless, in need. Why would you not be obligated to do the same?

A blanket honor thy father and mother is a great idea since without them you would not exist. Without their care you would be an orphan or a foster child and statistically way more likely to have a rough life and less of the success and happiness you enjoy today.

The article talks about children's "perceived entitlement" and it sounds like this. Woe to me if I make the sacrifices of a parent to have a child say this to me.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#615

Post by ProfessorLayton » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

baseballdork wrote: post #384

iammisc wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In kind of a macro sense I appreciate my parents raising me, but I do not consider continued contact with them obligatory in any way, shape, or form, and certainly not at the level that my parents in particular want that relationship. This is what I can't understand. I get not wanting a relationship if your parents were abusive. But if you 'appreciate your parents raising [you]', then clearly you think your childho…

> don't you think you owe them something? Anything? IMHO, no. You don't owe your parents anything for doing the job they signed up for. I have a great relationship with my parents and had a great upbringing. It's very difficult for me to imagine cutting off contact. However, I also don't feel like I owe them a single thing and I think they'd agree with me on that.

Humble opinions aside, if your parents live in one of 26 U.S. states, then yes you do owe your parents what amounts to basic needs at minimum [1]. Even if you and your parents are in agreement that you owe each other nothing, about half of U.S. states disagree, and they have the legal mechanisms in place to make you responsible for their needs, should they be impoverished.

I'm lucky enough to have a decent upbringing and get along with my parents as well, and this comment isn't intended to be combative, but the "You don't owe your parents anything for doing the job they signed up for" is not strictly true in a legal sense. This is a reflection of American family values enshrined in law.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#616

Post by trashface » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #327

jgilias wrote: post #285

When I was around twenty my Mom used to call me every other day or so just to have a chat. One day, after she asked me how my day was, I shot back something along the lines of: "I don't have anything to tell you, really. You're calling so often that nothing new manages to happen in between the calls." So, she stopped calling. I would go home every other week as usual and everything seemed fine. It was only much later…

My parents...are a mixed bag. They weren't or aren't abusive. At least, not physically or sexually or anything like that. Emotionally...that depends on how you want to interpret events and what your perspective is. But.... there's a gigantic cultural (rural vs suburban), generational (Xenial/Milennial vs Boomer), political (die hard Republicans vs Greenwald-esque progressives) and religious (baptist vs atheist) divid…

The aversion to mental health care in the older generations is really tiresome. My mom has pathological anxiety and probably depression, but has never gotten any sort of treatment for it. It radiates out and affects everyone around her.

And of course, since she didn't recognize mental illness in herself, she also couldn't see in her children. So we never got care that we needed and are various degrees of fucked up now. We were just force-fed religion instead. We're all atheists now, but those scars never heal, and I'll never forgive my parents for putting us through that.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#617

Post by moate » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:19 AM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #604

moate wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the question inmy mind: an unborn/un conceived child has not experienced any suffering. Is it morally just to expose someone to suffering, even if the alternative is non-existence (or whatever state they are in prior to life)? I did not consent to exist, to think/feel/hurt, but two idiots made that choice for me 37 years ago and now I have to deal with it.

For me it is illuminating to meditate on some underlying assumptions here. E.g. “I did not consent” This type of statement assumes you have a will. If one decides that they have a free will to make decisions, it is useful to note that this is a supernatural belief (because the laws of physics have no room for free will in a stochastic universe). If there is no free will, and nothing matters, not only did you not cons…

Obviously Nihilism is the ultimate freedom to do whatever the fuck you want.

Now, do you have any thoughts on the actual point of the morality of having a child without their consent since you do believe in free will?

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#618

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:19 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #282

rogerclark wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In therapy circles and attachment theory land, this is exactly what's supposed to happen when you receive "good enough parenting". Good enough parenting means your parents actually tried and either worked through any of their issues preventing them from giving care to their children, or didn't have those issues in the first place. So the idea goes, you end up developing a relationship based on mutual respect, love, a…

> "Lots of people are massively fucked up and still have kids anyway, either accidentally or otherwise. And then their kids are put at a massive disadvantage in life and in human relationships." This is an interesting one, and in direct contradiction to the adage: "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” My life experience agrees, tough…

There was a discussion of this in Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, where he was critiquing the "crucible experiences" chapter of Jim Collin's Good to Great.

Taleb's whole point was that this is an illusion caused by selection bias. Hard times don't create strong men. Hard times kill everyone who is weak. Hard times make everybody weaker, but they cause those who are weak to begin with to drop out of sample pool, leaving only those who were strong to begin with.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#619

Post by tharkun__ » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

brightball wrote: post #601

tharkun__ wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like you said, it can probably console people that believe in that sort of stuff and probably is meant like that but you gotta be careful with it if you ask me. I can easily be damaging. If you think about it, the bible and other books/religions were created in really hard and tough times and the belief that somehow in some way "it was meant to be and there's a reason behind this terrible thing happening" was helping…

That was really my point. In the Bible, you see God directly intervening in certain situations but you don’t see Him actively controlling everything. Moses even argues with Him at one point. There’s a couple of verses that people have strained to apply that meaning to it, but reading the entire Bible to put things in context you don’t see “everything” happening for a reason. You see some things. It’s one of the reaso…

Fair enough.

I'm intrigued by the "non-believers to demonize God" though. As a thought experiment, replace God by any deity of any religion, such that you would also be a non-believer (I assume you are a believer in the Christian god), which should help with the objective distance.

How about human sacrifices, say Vikings or Aztecs. What are your thoughts on human sacrifice? Would you go as far as to demonize the Aztec god(s) that required a human sacrifice?

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#620

Post by themacguffinman » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

6f8986c3 wrote: post #569

laurent92 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long story short, I don’t call my parents precisely because I’m childless. Failing my love life has everything to do with them. It’s not like I were divorced. I’m precisely never married, never had a long girlfriend, despite not being ugly nor totally stupid, and my loneliness drove me crazy (in the literal sense – since Covid I’ve honestly snapped a few neurons, so it’s quite over for me). But before that, I used to…

At some point, we have to stop looking to our parents, and take responsibility for our own lives. Until we can do that, we aren't really adults. That's what sets adults and children apart: responsibility. Children are not responsible for their own lives; rather, they live under the guardianship of adults. Adults are responsible. And it is a hate crime that we have probably two generations in the West that have been r…

These children, now adults, have stopped looking to their parents. They've estranged them. I'd say in many cases, that's the responsible thing to do.

If a close friend told you that their BF/GF abused them and asked you what was the responsible thing to do, would you not tell them that they should first remove themselves from their abuser? Is it not precisely the responsible and independent choice for a victim to leave their abuser behind and move on?

Blame isn't necessary for estrangement. I broadly agree, blame is often toxic, and it's healthy to have a sense of cosmic empathy towards even people who have wronged you. It's not really clear to me who's ultimately "in the wrong" here, but the person you replied to is clearly taking the reins on their life: evidently, they're now dealing with life without their parents' help.