In 1909, Sarah Lawson was a widow and mother of 9 children. She’d already lost her husband and four of those children. She ran a boarding house in McMinn County, Tennessee to make ends meet. There was a telegraph office nearby in which men came to work, and Sarah’s boarding house stayed full.
Sarah’s daughter, Sally, was 20-years-old at the time, living at home with her mother. Sometime in 1909, a man named Everett, began boarding at Sarah’s boarding house. In December of 1909, he “took advantage” of Sally, and the young woman ended up expecting a baby.
The men in Sally’s family took out the shotgun and were ready to make the man “do right by Sally” and marry her. But Sally had no desire to be married to the man who had pushed himself on her. In September of 1910, Sally gave birth to a little girl who she named Thelma. Thelma was a spunky little girl who took to the piano at age 3 and taught herself how to play.
In 1914, Sally married a telegraph operator named Adolphus who became the only father Thelma would ever know. With Adolphus, Sally gave birth to a son and two more daughters.
Thelma grew up to be quite the adventurous soul. She learned to drive at 12-years-old, had her own car in her later teens, and played ragtime in a local silent movie house. She loved the great outdoors and cooking delicious food. She fell in love with a handsome young man named Eugene, and they were married in 1929.
Thelma gave birth to my mother – Betty Jean in 1933 via c-section with no anesthetic! She also had a son and three more daughters.
Thelma was a kind and gentle soul, who I never heard say a bad word about anyone. In fact, I never heard her say a bad word … period! She worked at American Uniform in Cleveland, Tennessee for 25 years, sewing aprons; and Eugene ran his own shoe repair shop. My grandfather, Eugene, passed away suddenly of a heart attack in 1970, at only 65 years of age.
Thelma (my Granny) never remarried. She spent her later years cooking big Sunday dinners for her children and grandchildren. We’d cram 40 people, eating in shifts, into her little single wide trailer. There was a lot of love and delicious food in that tiny trailer! I always said Granny had flavor in her fingertips.
In my opinion, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better soul than my Granny. I have fond memories of her visiting our home and playing ragtime piano while we gathered around, mesmerized by her stylings.
A lot of good people have come through my Granny’s lineage … a lot of people who simply would not exist if Sally had been born a few decades later and made the popular choice of terminating a rape pregnancy. Among us, we have dozens of loving fathers and mothers, nurses, a forest ranger, a physicist/inventor, businesspeople, several artists and teachers, an accountant, medical techs, preacher’s wives, an author, numerous missionaries, singers, musicians, nature-lovers and more.
I often wonder how many people are not with us on this planet because so many babies were never given the chance at life. How many scientists, doctors, inventors, and more are we missing?
Would we have a cure for cancer by now if someone hadn’t been snuffed out of existence? Would we have solutions to the world’s most pressing problems if some little girl or boy was allowed their turn on earth?
Just something to think about…
Photo: Thelma with three of her grandchildren: The artisan, the physicist/inventor, and the author (me).
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 19.7 million children, more than 1 in 4, live without a father in the home. Research shows that when a child is reared with their father absent from the home, he or she is affected in the following ways:
Four times greater risk of poverty
Seven times more likely to become pregnant as a teen
The traditional two-parent home is one of the best defenses our society has against anarchy and tyranny. It is in the home that children are taught values, morals, good behavior, cooperation, work-ethic, and team-building skills. Typically, fathers tend to be instinctively protective of their wives and children. Mothers, too, have a natural Mama-bear instinct to protect their young. Each of these individuals brings a unique mix of protection, nurturing, and emotional and physical support.
While stereotyping men as the protectors and providers may have been common in the past, there are plenty of variations. For example, in my family of origin, my mother was the authoritative figure, more likely to discipline, and more likely to stand up to outside forces that threatened our home or those in it. My father provided for the family, brought a nurturing presence, and provided protection in his own unique way. He was never one to pursue conflict with anyone in the world, but has an aura of safety and trust about him. Any worry or concern I had as a child melted away in my father’s presence. I knew he would keep me safe.
Together, my parents were a complete package that helped develop their children into well-rounded adults.
From the very beginning of recorded history, God instituted the family in the creation and union of Adam and Eve. He said it was not good for man to be alone. For children to achieve their highest likelihood for emotional, physical, mental and spiritual development, a two-parent home (while not always practical or possible) is the ideal.
The Family: Archenemy of Marxism
According to the philosophy of Karl Marx (the father of socialism and communism), the traditional family is considered a tool of the Bourgeoisie elite and a capitalistic creation. Marx claimed that humanity lived in tribal promiscuous hordes until capitalism came along and the elite started using the two-parent home to pass wealth from one generation to another. *
Marxism, and the cultural Marxism we see infesting our current society in the Progressive and Socialist movements, is anti-family. Family, according to this philosophy, is just something that morphs with society and has no optimal structure. In fact, traditional family is the enemy. It is something to be undermined and destroyed.
Why?
Strong Families Make Strong Nations
A nation with strong families and two-parent households is more likely to teach values such as independence and personal responsibility. Independence and personal responsibility directly correlate to freedom. You can’t have freedom without personal responsibility. And you can’t have true freedom inside of tyranny (socialism which eventually evolves into communism and oligarchy). The two do not coexist.
Thus, destroying the family is a key method for a gradually devolving free society into socialism/communism.
Strong families are more likely to protect themselves against outside tyranny and oppression. Here’s a personal example:
Decades ago, the IRS audited my father about some matter for which he was innocent. They claimed he owed millions of dollars, which he did not. An IRS agent showed up at the house and began harassing my dad. My mother was sitting there, and she discreetly turned on a tape recorder. After a few minutes, the agent noticed what my mother had done, and told her she couldn’t record the conversation. My mother proceeded to tell him in her no-nonsense way that it was her house, and she could do anything she pleased in her house.
The man left and in time the matter was resolved in my father’s favor. My father probably never would have thought to record the conversation; and he was too gentle to go toe-to-toe with the IRS agent. But my mom, as Southern and gentile as she was, stood up for her family like a bear when provoked. Can you see how a two-parent home came in handy against tyranny in this situation? I sure can!
Attacks Upon Men Are Attacks Upon the Family and Our Nation
Not only are government social programs geared toward incentivizing single motherhood with additional payouts, but also our society demeans men and masculinity. It downplays the role of fathers.
I recently spoke with Christi Turley Diamond (a Director of Marriage Boot Camp and a Certified Life Coach and Certified Grief and Loss Recovery Specialist) about the work she and her husband do with couples. She said,
“So many men are in self-preservation mode.”
In the work she and her husband, Rick Diamond, do with couples, they have noticed that shifts in our society have had a demoralizing effect on men and masculinity. This is negatively affecting marriages and families, leading to more divorce and to more fathers leaving the home. This, obviously, results in more of the negative effects on society which I listed at the beginning of this article.
A Solution
In her work with men, specifically, Christi has seen dramatic shifts that have helped to save marriages and families. She told me that many times, a wife brings a husband kicking and screaming, completely resistant to going to a Marriage Bootcamp. By the end, the man is the biggest fan of the event, excited to share it with the world. He has found safety in opening his heart and giving a voice to buried feelings. He’s unveiled the wounding that created the walls he once used to push his wife away in the first place. Being in a community with other men gives him the ability to let go of the belief that “men don’t talk about feelings,” which is so deeply ingrained in him by society.
Christi shares, “We’ve made marriage so easily disposable in our county, and at an extremely high cost to our children and our society. If we realized that healing and fixing our marriages isn’t an impossible monumental mountain to climb. Repairing and healing marriages requires only a few shifts here and there. These shifts create a domino effect that leads to transformation in marriage and re-connection of relationships. This leads to the family unit remaining intact, with both parents. Many, many times we see couples who are on their last leg literally turn their marriage around in four days.”
If we can keep families together, the result would be a changed nation.
Are you or someone you know having marital problems? Perhaps you’re wondering whether it’s time to throw in the towel or time to stay and fight for it? Christi Turley Diamond and Rick Diamond know how that feels. They were there and turned their situation completely around. Now Christi and Rick work together to help couples transform their marriage as they’ve facilitated a marriage boot camp for years and do virtual relationship coaching. Before you give up, talk to them! Book a free 30-minute consultation today.
Note: I receive no financial remuneration for sharing information with you about the Diamond’s relationship coaching services. I’m simply sharing it as a possible solution for a serious problem I see in the world.
Additional Resources on Marxism and the Destruction of the Family
* Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto: “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie,”
Marx believed that abolishing the family would be relatively easy once bourgeois property was abolished. “The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.”
We each must decide what we want to give our lives to — what matters most to us and what will give our lives meaning. For me, there is nothing more valuable than freedom.
One month from today I’ll be an empty nester. My youngest of 6 children is heading off to Guatemala to serve a 2-year mission with our Church. For the last few days, I’ve had the most unsettled feeling… listless, irritable, and as if nothing I do matters. Why bother? It’s crazy. My life is good. I’m happy. I’m loved. Why the strange emotions?
Today, after a bit of self-examination, I realized I’ve spent the last 31 years rearing children and the last 30 running a business. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, yet in spite of me, my six children managed to turn out wonderful. Sure, there are those who are still working through the ramifications of being parented by an imperfect mother. Yet, overall, they are successful, smart, and independent individuals. So independent, in fact, they don’t need me anymore.
Despite my screw-ups, I succeeded in the one thing that mattered most to me – rearing independent adults who could make their own way in the world.
As I look to the future, I ask myself what’s next. What matters? I’ve been in business long enough to know that there is no business success that (for me) creates the sense of satisfaction from life I’m looking for. It’s no longer about the acknowledgement or the kaching of the cash register. I’ve been there, done that, umpteen times. I sure wish I could swap a lot of that time for having spent more of it with my kids.
Business tends to be a hamster wheel with just enough carrots along the way to give you the illusion that what you’re doing matters. Please, don’t get me wrong. Entrepreneurship is a wonderful thing. We need entrepreneurs to have a free society. Entrepreneurs create jobs; they invent things that make other people’s lives better; they put food on the table for their families and other people’s families. Every major society that has had entrepreneurs has had freedom. When a society loses its entrepreneurs, it loses its freedom.
Which gets to the heart of what I discovered myself. In asking myself, “What would give my life meaning?” The answer was obvious … fostering freedom. If that means encouraging entrepreneurship, if that means spurring independent thought, if that means educating people on the priceless treasure of freedom we enjoy – that is where I intend to spend my remaining days.
My grandchildren may live far away and never know me. I may never meet my great grandchildren or great great grandchildren. Yet, there is one thing I can work toward and work for … leaving them a legacy of freedom. If I can do something, anything, even a small thing that can turn the tide and leave more freedom for my posterity, my life will have mattered.
The question I’ll be asking myself daily is: “What can I do to foster freedom today?” Then, I intend to act courageously upon the answer.
Featured Image Copyright: CHOReograPH / BigStockPhoto.com
The destruction of the family is closely tied to the loss of freedom in our country. This episode of Front Porch Sense explains why families are so important, why they are under attack, and why preservation of the family is the solution to restoring liberty in America. From Marnie Pehrson Kuhns, best-selling author of Restoring Liberty: Personal Responsibility and Freedom in America.
Please be sure to subscribe to our mailing list and/or YouTube channel so you don’t miss an episode.
Featured Image Copyright: Rido81 / BigStockPhoto.com
