Anna
Mussmann on our culture's discomfort with the clash between moral relativism and the demands of motherhood:
To varying degrees, our ancestors tended to believe that correct beliefs and behavior should be enforced for the good of the group. Religious heresy should be curbed, political unrest removed, and destabilizing immorality punished. Nowadays, we value diversity and individual expression more than the strength and security of a monolithic culture. As long as no one is obviously hurting others with their beliefs, choices, or actions, we argue for live-and-let live morality in most spheres. It is not our job, we think, to judge the guy who dumped his wife, critique the “open marriage” of the couple down the street, or even to tell our transcendental brother-in-law that his potted plants don’t hear when he talks to them. We are not our brothers’ keepers.
However, as new parents quickly discover, children who do not experience parental judgment become intolerable, unhappy people. Mothers are forced to become authorities for the sake of their families. They must frequently overcome the will of a child (sometimes by force) and say things like, “No, you may not run into the street, no matter how devastatingly disappointing this is,” “No, you are not allowed to use the toothbrushes and toothpaste to create art on the walls,” “No, you may not attend that sleepover at your friend’s house while his parents are out-of-town.”
One way to resolve this conflict is to relieve mothers other their duties to keep their children perfectly safe 24 hours a day and to teach them right from wrong. The government is standing by to take over these obligations, and it is not troubled by any discomfort when it acts judgmental or punishes heresy.
5 comments:
I thought this was a good article. "The truth is that being a mom makes it difficult to embrace aspects of modern morality. ... If moms think of their role as a simple, natural activity that reflects the true state of the world, they are in danger of questioning our media’s loudest values."
That's a good point, and it isn't motherhood that comes out looking bad because of it.
Their children will generally be happier. No guarantee of that, of course, as a lot of personality seems to be loaded on hard disc. The children may develop a sense of justice which is at odds with the world, and that may cause them some unhappiness, but in general, the discipline willbring calm.
culture's discomfort with the clash between moral relativism and the demands of motherhood
I'm not convinced our culture sees a clash between moral relativism and the demands of motherhood; I'm not convinced our culture accepts moral relativism. It's just that the loudness of a minority amplifies its apparent size.
I also have a problem with this statement (and perhaps I'm wound up and reading more into it than Mussmann meant): The truth is that being a mom makes it difficult to embrace aspects of modern morality.
Modern morality is no different than ancient morality. Morality doesn't evolve to fit the times. How we implement morality might evolve; modern values are certainly different from ancient values. Being a mom may well clash with modern values. Especially since being a mom is itself a choice-focused activity in an era of easy childbirth and easy abortion. I'm not especially sympathetic to the travails of motherhood, though, given that the mother at the least had constructive knowledge that when she engaged her chosen activity to be a mother, she was signing up for a 20 year activity, not a 9-month and a couple hours activity.
Kids learn best by trying stuff, including stuff they're not supposed to try, and getting away with it or getting injured by it. Kids get healthy by being exposed to disease and getting sick and recovering, or at least exposing their immune systems to the germs, not by being shielded from disease. That demands that mothers--and fathers--actually set limits: toddlers don't get to play cops and robbers with the loaded guns in the house. Kids don't get to play in the puddles that are welling up so conveniently from the stopped up septic tank. But the parents do need to set the limits loosely. And watch--from a distance. The kids do get to run the neighborhood, play with the neighbors' dogs that run as a pack, play tackle football in the front yard, or stickball in the street. Or skateboard, or....
Protective bubbles, whether inflicted by coddling moms or coddling governments, will be the death of us all. This demands that mothers--and fathers--do their jobs, not gnash their teeth and agonize over the choice focuses in which they have to engage or let their kids engage. That's the moral behavior.
Eric Hines
Modern morality is no different than ancient morality.
I think I know what you mean to say, but the way the ancients and moderns think about morality is markedly different. Stoicism is nothing like modern rule utilitarianism a la J. S. Mill, for example. It's not alike in outcomes, but it's also just not alike in assumptions, values, or concepts about what is or ought to be in your power.
We can say in a sense that Christianity is the same, morally, for ancients as for moderns. But that's just because Christianity is ancient. Likewise or moreso Judaism; almost likewise Islam.
The government is standing by to take over these obligations, and it is not troubled by any discomfort when it acts judgmental or punishes heresy.
I saw a wonderful quote this morning that touched on this, and I wanted to share it:
"Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the American Government take care of him; better take a closer look at the American Indian."
-Henry Ford
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