What happened to an America once filled with hope?
?Results from the CDC's 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey show startling trends. Nearly 3 in 5 teen girls (57%) said they felt "persistently sad or hopeless." That's the highest rate in a decade. And 30% said they have seriously considered dying by suicide — a percentage that's risen by nearly 60% over the past 10 years.
?What happened is that someone shattered the culture.
?Coming out of World War Two, Americans had a wonderful perspective on life and the future. There was a shared model for what that meant, and most people agreed with that model. It was a model based on commonly accepted principles of duty, honor, responsibility, sacrifice and good moral values.
?The ideals acknowledged included celibacy until marriage (especially for women), self-improvement, preparation for a career for men, expectation of responsible parentage, looking forward to an early marriage with a lifetime commitment, and a life based on faith and morals.
?Beginning in the mid-1960s there were some eager to take a hammer to that vision. Many on the Left in this country saw that lifestyle as being unexciting and oppressive for women. They began encouraging women to reject the traditional role that served them and their families for so many decades. Free love became the mantra of the times and the Woodstock generation’s values began sweeping America.
?IN 1963, BETTY FRIEDAN published The Feminine Mystique, a founding text of modern feminism that is considered by Leftists to be one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. In this work Friedan challenged the widely shared belief that fulfillment as a woman could be attained as a housewife and mother. In it she contends that there was widespread unhappiness among women in the 1950s and early 1960s. She discusses the lives of several housewives (her former Smith College classmates) from around the United States who were unhappy despite living in material comfort and being married with children.
Gloria Steinem, another feminist from the 60s, was a writer for Cosmopolitan magazine and in 1972, she co-founded the feminist-themed magazine Ms. An activist for women’s sexual freedom, she was an advocate for abortion, having had one herself in London at the age of 22.
?What has happened in the years since? Marriage rates have dropped from over 80% to just over 40%, babies born to unwed mothers have exploded from about 8% to over 50%. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Cheap Sex and the Decline of Marriage” sociology professor Mark Regnerus describes what he sees as the reason for the decline of marriage in the United States.
?Regnerus correctly observes: “For American men, sex has become rather cheap. As compared to the past, many women today expect little in return for sex, in terms of time, attention, commitment or fidelity. Men, in turn, do not feel compelled to supply these goods as they once did. It is the new sexual norm for Americans, men and women alike, of every age.”
?Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization writes:
“If male demand for sex is pretty static and the female supply of it goes up, as it dramatically has since the advent of the birth control pill, then the “price” goes down. It’s not that women willy-nilly aren’t expecting enough of men in return for sex. I’m sure they’d all like more. But, as every man knows, these days, if one woman won’t, another will. To a certain degree, she will because of the pill, but also because there’s a lot of competition and essentially no social stigma attached to premarital sex or out-of-wedlock pregnancy. It turns out that the very things advocated for by feminists in the 60s and before make women’s lives, in many ways, worse, not better.”
?Again, from the Wall Street Journal article:
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“When I asked Kristin, a 29-year-old from Austin, whether men should make sacrifices to get sex, she offered a confusing prescription: “Yes. Sometimes. Not always. I mean, I don’t think it should necessarily be given out by women, but I do think it’s OK if a woman does just give it out. Just not all the time.”
?Kristin rightly wants the men whom she dates to treat her well and to respect her interests, but the choices that she and other women have made unwittingly teach the men in their lives that such behavior is noble and nice but not required in order to sleep with them. They are hoping to find good men without supporting the sexual norms that would actually make men better.”
Franklin then concludes:
“If Regnerus would just pay attention to what he himself has written, he’d have an idea of why women make those choices. They’re basically caught in a trap that was set decades ago by what was then called the Sexual Revolution. It all made perfect sense back then, but, as with the best-laid plans, hasn’t worked out the way so many people thought.”
?Paula England of the Institute of Family Studies has written in response to the WSJ article:
For almost a half a century now, social scientists have observed what they call a “retreat from marriage,” although the reasons for the retreat continue to be debated. The change started about 1970. In that year, 80% of 25 to 34-year-old Americans were married. By 2015, only 40% of this age group were married. People can be “unmarried” because they are widowed or divorced (not shown in the graph), or because they have never married. Figure 1 shows a large increase in the proportion who have never married, from 5% of this age group in 1970 to 50% by 2015.
Is it any wonder that the CDC report finds that nearly 3 in 5 teen girls (57%) said they felt "persistently sad or hopeless."
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The author Donald E Hackford Jr. is a retired NYPD Deputy Inspector who holds undergraduate degrees in Engineering and Criminal Justice, and Master’s Degrees in Sociology, Criminal Justice and Mathematics Education.