I grew up in chaos not quite as severe as this in many ways, worse in a few. The last grade I actually completed was sixth, though I officially finished eighth in various penal and psychological facilities. I hitchhiked across the continent for three years starting at age thirteen.
At age twenty four I set a goal of graduating from university by my thirtieth birthday. Two young children, working full time and sixteen credit hours a semester, excluding the semester I took off after my youngest’s birth. I met and married my husband while in school and we’ve been married almost three decades.
I made my goal by three days. Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, math and writing.
Not the best or easiest way to get ahead but don’t tell me one cannot change one’s situation and by extension change the trajectory for one’s children.
The three kids we raised in an intentionally structured stable home are all financially independent, law abiding people. My daughter’s three kids are being raised in a home with Daddy and Mommy working together to create and maintain a child-healthy environment, including a stay at home mom plan they instituted before her first pregnancy.
Dysfunction is terrible for kids. BTDT. Fixing the dysfunction isn’t easy but so worth the effort when I see my children and grandchildren thriving.
It wasn’t all bad. I saw my picture on a milk carton once. Wish I’d snatched one to keep but at the moment I was more interested in getting out of the area.
The author briefly mentions the real reason he turned his life around - he enlisted in the military and thus became disciplined. Had he not, he'd probably be in jail. Author and now activist/politician J.D. Vance is another whose life wouldn't have been worth a plugged nickel if he hadn't joined the Marines.
Great point, Sam. My son struggled with drugs and homelessness for some time. Joining the Army turned him around. Today he has a stable job and owns a home. A stint in the military was a godsend for my son.
And yet, veterans commit suicide at a rate approximately 50% higher than the general public. Many of those suicides are people who recently transitioned from the service to civilian life.
PTSD is an odd concept. Seeing dead bodies causes PTSD. But so might the trauma experienced by the author... ripped away from his mother for example. Yes, discipline helps people, but it often comes with a cost, when dealt from the deck of cards that is the military. You don't just get discipline in the service. You might get PTSD as well.
Somewhere in this mix, the author and those who get out of the bad situations must have received love along with the discipline. IMHO, it is love that motivates. It is discipline which shows how to do it. But you gotta want to do it. And that takes caring, which comes from love.
When my two boys were 6 and 4, my wife contracted bacterial meningitis, spent four and a half months in the hospital, and came home a quadrilateral amputee - both legs above the knee and all ten fingers below the first joint. To compensate, we threw ourselves into the task of creating as normal a life for our children as possible. Looking back, I gave them high expectations and my wife gave them discipline and a relationship with God. It worked out well. They both are living happy and successful lives and they’re both involved with helping the poor and the disadvantaged. In retrospect, I think the only really important thing was that we cared. We made our share of mistakes, but not running out on our responsibilities was the key to their eventual success.
You and your wife taught your kids invaluable lessons in overcoming adversity. Life is hard, sometimes unfair, and when we have people we trust and upon whom we can depend we fare much better.
I’m enjoying being a grandmother and hope you and your wife have that joy when the time is right.
That’s exactly the best thing I taught them, that when things get tough you don’t leave. What their mother taught them was: there are no excuses. Recently, a good friend asked me if I ever considered leaving. I said, “Every day! Every single day!” But then, my life would be a fraud. I’m Jewish. It’s important to me that my memory be a blessing. It’s more important than my personal comfort. The sin I commit more than any other is coveting - not other men’s’ wives but their freedom. Just once I’d like to take a walk on a beach with my wife, or walk into a store without checking the ground for obstacles. I don’t know why my life is so hard when others’ aren’t. But that’s what it means when it says “You shall not covet.” It doesn’t say you shall not lament.
My husband has been in your shoes a few times and from this side I’m certain your wife feels the same as I do when my physical situation blows up: I appreciate my husband more with each passing day and hope I can return his love and devotion in a different way but in equal measure.
We taught our kids that love is wonderful but it’s not enough. Commitment is what gets you through the hard times, the daily grinds, the days when we’re irritated with each other. We love each other certainly but without that commitment we wouldn’t have lasted past my accident.
My husband and I have been donors to charter schools for a long time. We have had dinner with graduates who have gone on to college and were succeeding there. All the students were from disadvantaged minority families. All the students at these dinners came from two parent households.
Reading Hillbilly Elegy several years ago drove home this point once again. The white children failing in the rust belt also came from broken homes. We must do better for our children - we need to change our culture. This essay nails it. We as Americans must undertake a concerted effort to build stable, nurturing two parent households where high expectations, mutual respect and delayed gratification are extolled.
I love Bari and I want her to enjoy the maximum amount of commercial and professional success......but as a comedian I am obligated to point out that her podcast with Rob about luxury beliefs is sponsored by Whole Foods where they sell almonds for $57
Thank you for this article!!!! These statistics are SO well documented, and known, yet so often ignored (by those who benefited most often). A stable two parent home is the most important factor for children to grow to live fulfilling lives. The military, and discipline, have saved more than a few who lacked that. For thousands of years, across cultures and around the globe, the “traditional” family unit has endured as the most stable and successful.
Unlike a luxury car, which is simply a choice that doesn’t hurt anyone else, these “luxury beliefs” are incredibly destructive to those who buy them.
I tell my children often that they are “privileged,” not because of the income we earn, not because they “look” white, not because they attend private school. They are “privileged” because they have two parents who love them, and each other. It is a “privilege” to which more children should benefit, and the reason we reject as parents these cultural fads that seeks to stupidly dismiss the importance of the environment in which children are raised.
Bari - I am convinced that the degree of your influence on American culture will not be understood for many years, but that it will be remarkable. In so many ways you are clearly on the right path; I encourage you to plow forward at flank speed.
Refreshing to read truth. The wisdom of the ages made illegitimacy a taboo. There is a solid reason for this. Children need a two parent home with a father as one of the parents. It is tragic that the government accelerated the growth of illegitimacy or single, unmarried mother homes through its welfare policies. Before the new welfare rules in the late 60's most children grew up in a 2 parent home. Now after 60+ years of this welfare promoting illegitimacy we have four or give generations who have never had a father in the home only a succession of males who flow in and out of the homes, don't live there, just "stay at" that address occasionally. These families often have a different father for each of the children. It is a national tragedy because these children, particularly the boys have been deprived of a loving, engaged father.
Prior to the 1960's new welfare laws, >90% of Black children lived in 2 parent homes with married parents. Immediately after the welfare laws that require 1 parent home to receive government benefits, <40% Black children in 2 parent homes. It is directly the result of Government Promotion of single parent homes.
My heart is heavy reading this article from my comfortable kitchen in Los Angeles knowing how many Lost Boys must be suffering only a few miles away. This is a beautifully written and eye opening. Short of adoption I’m wondering if you have any input on what can I do to help these boys? Is there a recomended charity making a meaningful impact?
Congratulations to you Rob on your PhD studies and thank you for this article.
Fantastic work and congratulations on your accomplishments to date. You've identified a massive blind spot in the discussions about racial and economic inequality, social violence, education, etc., etc. Better families could solve more of those problems then all of the trillions in social programs, law enforcement, incarceration, drug treatment, job training, education reform, etc., combined ever could.
The child psychologist Leo Sax wrote a series of books about this matter including “Boys Adrift”, “Why Gender Natters” and “The Collapse of Parenting”. I m so glad I saw one of these on my friends coffee table one day. Obviously, he is not on CNN or NYT….
My husband and I read all three of his books when our daughter was an infant. She is now 11 years old. All three of his books are full of very wise common sense advice and information that continues to be helpful to us as our daughter grows up. He very directly drives home the point that parents need to do absolutely everything in their power to raise their children in an intact two parent household. It is both parents’ responsibility to do whatever they have to do to make that happen.
Wonderful essay and gets to the point of a (maybe "the") real crisis in our society: a paucity of true male role models. I grew up in a relatively poor household but with a completely stable family situation. Dad wasn't in the house much because he had to work two (or three) jobs but he was always there for me and my eight siblings. All nine of us went to college and moved on to stable careers. As wonderful as Mom was, it's probably a different story if she tries that on her own. Well done to you, Rob, and kudos to those who helped you on your path.
I am 62 and a life long conservative. I have espoused and been supportive of conservative social principles oh these many years. I have been mocked and vilified for these views by the sophisticated elite culture. You reap what you sow. It was “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand at age 19 that made me realize my life was my responsibility.
What a heartbreaking yet completely edifying essay. Rob defines the issues, problems and solutions in a few paragraphs. LBJs not so Great Society started this downward plunge and the culture has rotted ever since. Two parent families and a male presence are what’s needed for success and those are the very things the left doesn’t want to see in lower and even middle classes. Perhaps the elites want to keep chaos going so they can stay on top?,
The welfare state ensured that a man in the home was verboten in terms of getting money. There is a raft of literature on this. I’m actually shocked you asked the question, I thought everyone knew this happened. Check out Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s writings where he talked about defining deviancy down. He was the last thinking reality based democrat.
I really didn’t know that, having a man in the house disqualified you for welfare money. Good intentions, LBJ but unintended consequences. I know how to fix it all in a single fell swoop.
I’m not so sure there were any good intentions involved on LBJs part. It was all to insure votes particularly from the underclass. After all remember LBJ was the horror that upon passage of the civil rights act said, I’ll Have Those N word Voting Democratic for 200 Years’?
Denmark doesn't seem to have a problem with lost boys; Denmark is outperforming the United States on almost every metric. For example, the United States has a child poverty rate of 20.9% compared to Denmark's 2.9%. Denmark is number one in upward mobility compared to the United States, with the rank of 27th. The question is, do we really care about the lost boy, or are we simply given it lip service?
You don't understand. Throwing money at this problem only exacerbates it.
Take the author's mother for instance. Do you really think giving her money, housing, etc. would've changed her trajectory? In case your answer is yes I'm here to tell you you're mistaken. She'd have purchased more drugs and destroyed herself faster than she already was.
In my case more money would've disappeared down the same hole into which it was already falling. I needed adults who gave a shit that a ten year old was trying to kill herself to get out of a bad situation, not more money or "services" being offered by the same bureaucrats who didn't care to begin with.
I've never been to Denmark, can't say anything about whether or not their poor are better off or not. Poverty wasn't the root of my problem, and I don't think it was the author's. Our problems were pathological dysfunction in the adults who were supposed to protect and guide us.
Pathological dysfunction is a human problem, not a US problem. I guarantee you there are kids in Denmark who are at this very moment dealing with the same situations with which we dealt. Given the population difference between the US and Denmark the gross count is certainly fewer but unless Denmark is populated by a species other than Homo sapiens sapiens, the same dynamic applies in Denmark and every other country/population you care to examine.
The claim that more money will solve human pathological dysfunction is seductive. It's easy and allows people to feel good about themselves.
Alas, that solution only makes it worse for kids like us.
Blanketly throwing money at parents with problems as severe as Rob's probably wouldn't help, but providing high quality pre-school, day care and before and after school care would.
Turning back the clock to where children starved to death on street corners won't make a better world.
Those things might help, then again it might not depending on the people involved. Did I get many of my meals from school? Yes I did. Was I still malnourished? Yes I was.
Who said anything about "turning back the clock?" Might Denmark have a good idea? Sure. Is Denmark the cure as you stated? Certainly not, since they have the same problems everyone else has with pathological dysfunction.
Again, there are no easy answers to situations like this.
My second semester of community college I was working from 4AM-1PM, going home to my kids until 6PM, then classes from 6-10PM.
I kept falling asleep in my 9PM course. The professor asked to see me a few weeks into the semester and after talking with me a bit, strongly recommended I go on welfare so I could focus on my kids and school and get some sleep. I resisted at first but his logic seemed sound so I did. And to his credit, I had a few months of real rest and had more time for my kids and my studies.
Late in the following semester I received a letter from the local welfare office that I had to appear at the office on a certain day or lose the benefits. Surely, I thought, they'd allow me to change the day since that was a finals day for me.
I went up the chain to the assistant director of the welfare agency, explaining at each stop that I had finals that day and couldn't appear. I was perfectly willing to appear, just not that day. The director told me if I didn't show on the specified day I'd lose the benefits.
I told him to put his benefits up his ass and went back to work.
What a lovely way to start a comment "you don't understand." Because you the assumption that I want to throw money at the problem. You assume that pathological dysfunction is a naturally occurring state with no cause. You make multiple assumptions based on anecdotal evidence. And then you use a broad brush to paint society with this evidence.
I intended that sentence as an assumption that you haven't had these sorts of experiences and really thought your claim that copying Denmark's approach would solve these problems. It was an assumption of honest communication on your part. If I was mistaken, I apologize.
I make multiple observations based on experience. I also qualify what I know as fact from what I believe as truth.
I intended no slight against your character. Since this isn't really going anywhere, I'll wish you a good day and get on with mine.
From one list kid to another: well done!
I grew up in chaos not quite as severe as this in many ways, worse in a few. The last grade I actually completed was sixth, though I officially finished eighth in various penal and psychological facilities. I hitchhiked across the continent for three years starting at age thirteen.
At age twenty four I set a goal of graduating from university by my thirtieth birthday. Two young children, working full time and sixteen credit hours a semester, excluding the semester I took off after my youngest’s birth. I met and married my husband while in school and we’ve been married almost three decades.
I made my goal by three days. Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, math and writing.
Not the best or easiest way to get ahead but don’t tell me one cannot change one’s situation and by extension change the trajectory for one’s children.
The three kids we raised in an intentionally structured stable home are all financially independent, law abiding people. My daughter’s three kids are being raised in a home with Daddy and Mommy working together to create and maintain a child-healthy environment, including a stay at home mom plan they instituted before her first pregnancy.
Dysfunction is terrible for kids. BTDT. Fixing the dysfunction isn’t easy but so worth the effort when I see my children and grandchildren thriving.
It wasn’t all bad. I saw my picture on a milk carton once. Wish I’d snatched one to keep but at the moment I was more interested in getting out of the area.
The author briefly mentions the real reason he turned his life around - he enlisted in the military and thus became disciplined. Had he not, he'd probably be in jail. Author and now activist/politician J.D. Vance is another whose life wouldn't have been worth a plugged nickel if he hadn't joined the Marines.
One of the under appreciated benefits of the Military is socialization of some borderline individuals.
Great point, Sam. My son struggled with drugs and homelessness for some time. Joining the Army turned him around. Today he has a stable job and owns a home. A stint in the military was a godsend for my son.
And yet, veterans commit suicide at a rate approximately 50% higher than the general public. Many of those suicides are people who recently transitioned from the service to civilian life.
PTSD is an odd concept. Seeing dead bodies causes PTSD. But so might the trauma experienced by the author... ripped away from his mother for example. Yes, discipline helps people, but it often comes with a cost, when dealt from the deck of cards that is the military. You don't just get discipline in the service. You might get PTSD as well.
Somewhere in this mix, the author and those who get out of the bad situations must have received love along with the discipline. IMHO, it is love that motivates. It is discipline which shows how to do it. But you gotta want to do it. And that takes caring, which comes from love.
When my two boys were 6 and 4, my wife contracted bacterial meningitis, spent four and a half months in the hospital, and came home a quadrilateral amputee - both legs above the knee and all ten fingers below the first joint. To compensate, we threw ourselves into the task of creating as normal a life for our children as possible. Looking back, I gave them high expectations and my wife gave them discipline and a relationship with God. It worked out well. They both are living happy and successful lives and they’re both involved with helping the poor and the disadvantaged. In retrospect, I think the only really important thing was that we cared. We made our share of mistakes, but not running out on our responsibilities was the key to their eventual success.
You and your wife taught your kids invaluable lessons in overcoming adversity. Life is hard, sometimes unfair, and when we have people we trust and upon whom we can depend we fare much better.
I’m enjoying being a grandmother and hope you and your wife have that joy when the time is right.
That’s exactly the best thing I taught them, that when things get tough you don’t leave. What their mother taught them was: there are no excuses. Recently, a good friend asked me if I ever considered leaving. I said, “Every day! Every single day!” But then, my life would be a fraud. I’m Jewish. It’s important to me that my memory be a blessing. It’s more important than my personal comfort. The sin I commit more than any other is coveting - not other men’s’ wives but their freedom. Just once I’d like to take a walk on a beach with my wife, or walk into a store without checking the ground for obstacles. I don’t know why my life is so hard when others’ aren’t. But that’s what it means when it says “You shall not covet.” It doesn’t say you shall not lament.
My husband has been in your shoes a few times and from this side I’m certain your wife feels the same as I do when my physical situation blows up: I appreciate my husband more with each passing day and hope I can return his love and devotion in a different way but in equal measure.
We taught our kids that love is wonderful but it’s not enough. Commitment is what gets you through the hard times, the daily grinds, the days when we’re irritated with each other. We love each other certainly but without that commitment we wouldn’t have lasted past my accident.
Proving once again that it's not what you have, it's what you give.
My husband and I have been donors to charter schools for a long time. We have had dinner with graduates who have gone on to college and were succeeding there. All the students were from disadvantaged minority families. All the students at these dinners came from two parent households.
Reading Hillbilly Elegy several years ago drove home this point once again. The white children failing in the rust belt also came from broken homes. We must do better for our children - we need to change our culture. This essay nails it. We as Americans must undertake a concerted effort to build stable, nurturing two parent households where high expectations, mutual respect and delayed gratification are extolled.
I love Bari and I want her to enjoy the maximum amount of commercial and professional success......but as a comedian I am obligated to point out that her podcast with Rob about luxury beliefs is sponsored by Whole Foods where they sell almonds for $57
😂😂😂😂
Sometimes irony is just nuts.
baaah dumm tssss
🥁🥁🥁😂😂
Marie for the win!
I’m here all week!
Thank you for this article!!!! These statistics are SO well documented, and known, yet so often ignored (by those who benefited most often). A stable two parent home is the most important factor for children to grow to live fulfilling lives. The military, and discipline, have saved more than a few who lacked that. For thousands of years, across cultures and around the globe, the “traditional” family unit has endured as the most stable and successful.
Unlike a luxury car, which is simply a choice that doesn’t hurt anyone else, these “luxury beliefs” are incredibly destructive to those who buy them.
I tell my children often that they are “privileged,” not because of the income we earn, not because they “look” white, not because they attend private school. They are “privileged” because they have two parents who love them, and each other. It is a “privilege” to which more children should benefit, and the reason we reject as parents these cultural fads that seeks to stupidly dismiss the importance of the environment in which children are raised.
Bari - I am convinced that the degree of your influence on American culture will not be understood for many years, but that it will be remarkable. In so many ways you are clearly on the right path; I encourage you to plow forward at flank speed.
James, I was about to write something similar…you said it better! I could not agree more with your comments!
Refreshing to read truth. The wisdom of the ages made illegitimacy a taboo. There is a solid reason for this. Children need a two parent home with a father as one of the parents. It is tragic that the government accelerated the growth of illegitimacy or single, unmarried mother homes through its welfare policies. Before the new welfare rules in the late 60's most children grew up in a 2 parent home. Now after 60+ years of this welfare promoting illegitimacy we have four or give generations who have never had a father in the home only a succession of males who flow in and out of the homes, don't live there, just "stay at" that address occasionally. These families often have a different father for each of the children. It is a national tragedy because these children, particularly the boys have been deprived of a loving, engaged father.
This is very true.
Prior to the 1960's new welfare laws, >90% of Black children lived in 2 parent homes with married parents. Immediately after the welfare laws that require 1 parent home to receive government benefits, <40% Black children in 2 parent homes. It is directly the result of Government Promotion of single parent homes.
My heart is heavy reading this article from my comfortable kitchen in Los Angeles knowing how many Lost Boys must be suffering only a few miles away. This is a beautifully written and eye opening. Short of adoption I’m wondering if you have any input on what can I do to help these boys? Is there a recomended charity making a meaningful impact?
Congratulations to you Rob on your PhD studies and thank you for this article.
Think about becoming a guardian ad litem. Those were the few people I knew who seemed to care about me as a human being.
Some local groups are doing great work matching at-risk boys with male role models. Find one and either donate or ask a man you know to volunteer.
I paid my debt forward with my daughter’s best friend who still sends me Mother’s Day cards. That kid hoed a hard row and has made much of herself!
Fantastic work and congratulations on your accomplishments to date. You've identified a massive blind spot in the discussions about racial and economic inequality, social violence, education, etc., etc. Better families could solve more of those problems then all of the trillions in social programs, law enforcement, incarceration, drug treatment, job training, education reform, etc., combined ever could.
Only strong stable families will do it. They are irreplaceable
The child psychologist Leo Sax wrote a series of books about this matter including “Boys Adrift”, “Why Gender Natters” and “The Collapse of Parenting”. I m so glad I saw one of these on my friends coffee table one day. Obviously, he is not on CNN or NYT….
My husband and I read all three of his books when our daughter was an infant. She is now 11 years old. All three of his books are full of very wise common sense advice and information that continues to be helpful to us as our daughter grows up. He very directly drives home the point that parents need to do absolutely everything in their power to raise their children in an intact two parent household. It is both parents’ responsibility to do whatever they have to do to make that happen.
Wonderful essay and gets to the point of a (maybe "the") real crisis in our society: a paucity of true male role models. I grew up in a relatively poor household but with a completely stable family situation. Dad wasn't in the house much because he had to work two (or three) jobs but he was always there for me and my eight siblings. All nine of us went to college and moved on to stable careers. As wonderful as Mom was, it's probably a different story if she tries that on her own. Well done to you, Rob, and kudos to those who helped you on your path.
I am 62 and a life long conservative. I have espoused and been supportive of conservative social principles oh these many years. I have been mocked and vilified for these views by the sophisticated elite culture. You reap what you sow. It was “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand at age 19 that made me realize my life was my responsibility.
Stable families being key to thriving children and adults has been obvious for years. Maybe decades. Why do we resist this truth in our culture
What a heartbreaking yet completely edifying essay. Rob defines the issues, problems and solutions in a few paragraphs. LBJs not so Great Society started this downward plunge and the culture has rotted ever since. Two parent families and a male presence are what’s needed for success and those are the very things the left doesn’t want to see in lower and even middle classes. Perhaps the elites want to keep chaos going so they can stay on top?,
How did LBJ’s great society create the phenomenon of broken homes? Honest question.
The welfare state ensured that a man in the home was verboten in terms of getting money. There is a raft of literature on this. I’m actually shocked you asked the question, I thought everyone knew this happened. Check out Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s writings where he talked about defining deviancy down. He was the last thinking reality based democrat.
I really didn’t know that, having a man in the house disqualified you for welfare money. Good intentions, LBJ but unintended consequences. I know how to fix it all in a single fell swoop.
I’m not so sure there were any good intentions involved on LBJs part. It was all to insure votes particularly from the underclass. After all remember LBJ was the horror that upon passage of the civil rights act said, I’ll Have Those N word Voting Democratic for 200 Years’?
OK. Not to be difficult, but so far he’s been proven right and back then the N-word was much less powerful - a colloquial saying.
I will define the solution with one word, Denmark!
How does Hamlet factor into this? I’m missing the link.
Denmark doesn't seem to have a problem with lost boys; Denmark is outperforming the United States on almost every metric. For example, the United States has a child poverty rate of 20.9% compared to Denmark's 2.9%. Denmark is number one in upward mobility compared to the United States, with the rank of 27th. The question is, do we really care about the lost boy, or are we simply given it lip service?
https://confrontingpoverty.org/poverty-facts-and-myths/americas-poor-are-worse-off-than-elsewhere/
http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/social-mobility-rankings/
You don't understand. Throwing money at this problem only exacerbates it.
Take the author's mother for instance. Do you really think giving her money, housing, etc. would've changed her trajectory? In case your answer is yes I'm here to tell you you're mistaken. She'd have purchased more drugs and destroyed herself faster than she already was.
In my case more money would've disappeared down the same hole into which it was already falling. I needed adults who gave a shit that a ten year old was trying to kill herself to get out of a bad situation, not more money or "services" being offered by the same bureaucrats who didn't care to begin with.
I've never been to Denmark, can't say anything about whether or not their poor are better off or not. Poverty wasn't the root of my problem, and I don't think it was the author's. Our problems were pathological dysfunction in the adults who were supposed to protect and guide us.
Pathological dysfunction is a human problem, not a US problem. I guarantee you there are kids in Denmark who are at this very moment dealing with the same situations with which we dealt. Given the population difference between the US and Denmark the gross count is certainly fewer but unless Denmark is populated by a species other than Homo sapiens sapiens, the same dynamic applies in Denmark and every other country/population you care to examine.
The claim that more money will solve human pathological dysfunction is seductive. It's easy and allows people to feel good about themselves.
Alas, that solution only makes it worse for kids like us.
Blanketly throwing money at parents with problems as severe as Rob's probably wouldn't help, but providing high quality pre-school, day care and before and after school care would.
Turning back the clock to where children starved to death on street corners won't make a better world.
Those things might help, then again it might not depending on the people involved. Did I get many of my meals from school? Yes I did. Was I still malnourished? Yes I was.
Who said anything about "turning back the clock?" Might Denmark have a good idea? Sure. Is Denmark the cure as you stated? Certainly not, since they have the same problems everyone else has with pathological dysfunction.
Again, there are no easy answers to situations like this.
A real life example for you:
My second semester of community college I was working from 4AM-1PM, going home to my kids until 6PM, then classes from 6-10PM.
I kept falling asleep in my 9PM course. The professor asked to see me a few weeks into the semester and after talking with me a bit, strongly recommended I go on welfare so I could focus on my kids and school and get some sleep. I resisted at first but his logic seemed sound so I did. And to his credit, I had a few months of real rest and had more time for my kids and my studies.
Late in the following semester I received a letter from the local welfare office that I had to appear at the office on a certain day or lose the benefits. Surely, I thought, they'd allow me to change the day since that was a finals day for me.
I went up the chain to the assistant director of the welfare agency, explaining at each stop that I had finals that day and couldn't appear. I was perfectly willing to appear, just not that day. The director told me if I didn't show on the specified day I'd lose the benefits.
I told him to put his benefits up his ass and went back to work.
What a lovely way to start a comment "you don't understand." Because you the assumption that I want to throw money at the problem. You assume that pathological dysfunction is a naturally occurring state with no cause. You make multiple assumptions based on anecdotal evidence. And then you use a broad brush to paint society with this evidence.
I intended that sentence as an assumption that you haven't had these sorts of experiences and really thought your claim that copying Denmark's approach would solve these problems. It was an assumption of honest communication on your part. If I was mistaken, I apologize.
I make multiple observations based on experience. I also qualify what I know as fact from what I believe as truth.
I intended no slight against your character. Since this isn't really going anywhere, I'll wish you a good day and get on with mine.
Profoundly moving, inspiring, and worthwhile read. Thank you for sharing Rob and Bari.