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Sacrificing Our Kids on the Altar of Wokeism
The world has a long history of sacrificing children as a way to pacify the gods. The Babylonians, Aztecs and Canaanites, for example, believed that they would not only protect themselves from the forces of nature, but would
achieve good fortune by destroying their own. Eventually human beings became more civilized (at least in terms of killing their own species).
If we leap forward to the industrial revolution, we know that as a means of survival, children were sacrificed to harsh work environments in the cities. Not until after the industrial revolution did they benefit from laws enacted to limit the abuse they needed to endure.
But today we are watching the most recent iteration of child sacrifice. Radical members of our society have decided that the United States is the bedrock for systemic racism. They believe that anyone who is not a person of color, in other words is white, has been indoctrinated in racist ideas. Even our own children suffer from racism, and no one can free themselves from this curse. It is endemic to our society, cannot be eliminated in any way, and all white people (by their very existence, white supremacists) must pay a price.
The tragedy of these times is that our children are being told that they are guilty and they must be punished. They must recognize that whether they realize it or not, they are worth less than any child of color simply by being born white. Even though they may see themselves as good and loving children, they don’t realize they are filled with hate for “the others.” It is as if they have a genetic disorder which can’t be cured.
So, we are making them suffer for a political ideology that the Left has embraced.
One of the most bizarre aspects of these beliefs is stating that white children are privileged and have an unfair advantage for living productive lives. What about the children who don’t live “easy lives”? What about children, any children, who struggle with chronic disease, autism, poverty or learning disabilities? What about children who are orphaned? Do people think that because they are born white that their anguish is less? Do they think their construct of “privilege” makes the suffering of these children more bearable? And then we add to their burden that they are responsible for hating other children who are not like them?
But the other children are like them! They are all little human beings with bodies and spirits who were created in the image of G-d. They all fight with their brothers and sisters, argue with their parents and probably suffer from teenage angst. They have more in common with each other than they have differences.
Ironically, we went through a period in our culture that gets lost in this campaign of hate. Parents wanted to raise children who were always happy, felt secure, and were never disappointed. We went through the time of awarding participation trophies, leveling the playing field scholastically so that no one felt left out. Instead of preparing our children for living their lives as productive, charitable and kind human beings, we were raising them as narcissists. Perhaps there is a kind of cosmic justice now that the pendulum is swinging the other way.
I know that kids are resilient, and that many may come through these times with their psyches unscathed. Many children will be raised by parents who are aware of Left’s agenda and are fighting back. But when we look at our society in the future, what will be the consequences of our actions? Will our children find their way in spite of the indoctrination they have experienced?
Or will we continue to sacrifice our children on the altar of wokeism?
Published in Culture
I agree with the overall point of this post, very much. But when it comes to child labor in the Industrial Revolution, it’s not at all clear that factory work should be regarded as child sacrifice…they may have been better off, in many cases, than they would have been in an impoverished state in the countryside.
In my post about the apparel industry (and potential automation therof) I cited two women, one an American in 1899 and the other a resident of present-day China, about the advantages of factory work versus agricultural work.
They may have been better off, David, but there is a difference between working on the land and being essentially trapped for long hours in harsh conditions in order to survive. But I get your point. Thanks.
Thinking about Yer title: Sacrificing Our Kids on the Altar of Wokeism
Sounds a little too communal for My tastes.
Sacrificing Your Kids on the Altar of Wokeism
I think it sounds a more personal.
There’s one group of people determined to sacrifice children and the leftists ain’t content just sacrificing Their own. They are the ones determined to sacrifice everyone else’s.
Grim topic, Susan, but a really nice and novel and — I think — accurate way of framing it.
You don’t see it in the mainstream news, but the whole “queer your kids” campaign is a motivation for the Russians fighting Western influence in Eastern Europe. When Disney canceled their programming sent into Russia, that is a win for Russian conservatives. The whole campaign is complicated, and it is not knowable what is just propaganda, but the culture war is a real war and it is global.
Thanks, Hank. I was surprised at how difficult it was to write about. I try not to think about the kids growing up in these times; life seemed so much simpler way back when.
Matthew 18:6: But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
Jesus loves and forgives pretty much everybody except those who lead kids astray so managing to get yourself disliked by Jesus is a special kind of malignancy. It may be that on Judgment Day, it might be more likely that Hitler’s tough childhood will be taken into account than any exculpatory aspects of a Disney exec’s state of mind. He wanted that done to the innocence of kids?!
I am trying to figure out what is going wrong with kids. We do not have any but our friends that do seem to have let them get out of control. Currently my wife is down in New Orleans on vacation with her friend and her 16 year old daughter. Daughter has some skill as a singer. But she is a complete monster. Drinks like an alcoholic. Smokes pot like a pot head. CBD and synthetic vaping. Its her way or the highway with total meltdowns then lock ups in her room cutting on legs and arms. Talk about how her skin feels funny, nobody understands her, her life sucks, and she wants to be dead. Her mom is an idiot from our point of view. Constant catering to her, buying her what she wants and begging her to behave for her latest melt down. Girl has a group of doctors that basically tell mom to kiss up. Mom keeps wanting to be daughters friend.
From what I can tell this is the norm anymore. Seems to be the same across the board with daughters and friends with variations of the same tune. All with a mix of school officials and CPS involved whenever the child makes a noise. Seriously what the hell is happening in the world? None of this happened or would be tolerated when I grew up.
I don’t know enough kids personally to know if it’s the norm, John, but we certainly hear a lot about self-destructive kids. It breaks my heart to see these kids, for various reasons, destroying their lives.
Thankfully, at least at the public high schools that I have taught at for the last 31 years, it is not the norm–currently. The sheer mass of dysfunction is growing, sadly. I see enough healthy kids and families that I have hope. We are running against the wind…
I keep seeing tiny signs of pushback at the individual, community and government level, Jake. Gov. DeSantis is trying to protect our little ones. Virginia is stopping CRT. And more states are approving Education Savings Accounts, so that parents can choose where to school their children. All these efforts may be drops in the bucket, but they give me hope.
Here’s a little note of hope. My 14 year-old got in the car after school the other day in a terrible mood. It turns out that the reason for it was the unwanted commentary and constant snark from a nearby classmate. Apparently, the teacher re-assigned seats for the rest of the year so that this unpleasant classmate will be a regular companion. That’s not the good news. The good news is that my daughter identified the problem with this girl is that she’s “kinda woke.” My daughter is seeing first hand not only the misery inherent in this girl’s world-view, but also the misery that she spreads to everyone around her. Being woke just isn’t fun.
You have an insightful daughter, Lilly. Good for her.
Part of what’s going on with kids is what’s always gone on with kids: they’re kids. They’re immature, they make questionable choices, they push back, and they live in a state of constant tension between immediate gratification and fear of authority. Their little brains aren’t developed until they’re old enough to leave home, and sometimes later. Life is complicated, more complicated than it was when evolution decided to make their bodies ready for adulthood long before their mental wiring was complete, and so they simultaneously resent the limitations on their freedom and fear stepping out into a world for which they know they aren’t prepared.
But most of that’s been true for a long time. What’s new now, and what should concern us greatly, is the communication revolution.
When I was a kid, back in that halcyon monochromatic low-resolution world of rural America in the 1960s, every person I talked to or associated with was someone my parents knew. Every one of them was a relative, a neighbor, someone at school, someone at church, or a family friend.
Today, every middle school kid with a device has access to an uncountable number of strangers, all of them eager to offer their praise or their criticism, to share their values and opinions and wit and dance moves on Tik Tok or Instagram or whatever other peer-pressure-amplifying technology is currently ascendant.
It takes a village? They’ve got a cloud. They’ve got an ever-shifting collection of peers ready to say and do whatever will garner the most “likes,” ready to share their half-baked thoughts without accountability or consequence or supervision.
The cloud is woke, and it’s seductive.
(I had an application on my phone that let me monitor and limit my kids’ device usage. Connectivity is a fact of life for most of us; that horse is out of the barn. But parents can still have some control over what their own kids do, at least — if not what they’re exposed to when they’re with kids not under the same constraints.)
Parental peer support was more critical than we knew. One reason it was safe for me to wander widely when I was nine was that neighborhood adults would have no qualms about addressing (and reporting) bad behavior.
My mother was the youngest of six girls and once told me that her friends would not just invite but beg her to come to parties–my grandfather was a strict reference source that other parents relied upon–If Will says it’s OK for his girls to go then it’s OK for you was an established community standard.
My first peek at the inside of a Playboy on the drugstore magazine rack drew a sharp verbal intervention from “Doc” the proprietor informing me that he would tell my parents. The whole community seemed wired.
There are a lot of negative influences focused at young people but the absence of membership in a normal human community with normal values and expectations is a root cause.
Growing up in CA, I didn’t have your experience. But my husband who grew up in a small northern Kentucky town, Bellevue, would know exactly what you are talking about. The whole community was strung together in a cozy effort to keep kids in line, and keep parents informed.
The woke agenda for children is criminal child abuse. Full stop.
Family, too. In the olden days (that is, when I was young) families were larger, and generally surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and various extended family. These all offered various forms of support and community — the most important community: the family.
Your description of the teen from hell and the poor parenting that has helped create such a demon made me think of a story I used to read to my kids when they were little. From Owen by Kevin Henke:
“‘Haven’t you ever heard of saying no?’
Owen’s parents hadn’t.”
Owen is a fantastic story.
All too true. And since so many of them are waiting until it’s too late to have children or are living homosexual lifestyles or are flat out antinatalist, they don’t even have children of their own to sacrifice. And since they’re short on children, they need, like you said, everyone else’s. And that’s one major reason I advise parents to stop sending their children to public school, and if they can, homeschool.
There are many factors at work that have led our kids astray, among them:
• Yes, most of the influence at school will be increasingly destructively woke, but it goes beyond that. Way beyond.
• The norm now is for the child by the teenage years to come from a dysfunctional family of divorce without either a mother or father and where family life has become a trauma. Most kids do not function well in this kind of environment and have a great many troubles coping with normal life.
• Most of the these kids will act out. Many will have very low self esteem and will seek the comfort of Marijuana and particularly cocaine in their teenage years which gives one a greater sense of confidence in social situations. Daughters without fathers will often seek out the bad boys as boyfriends , and young men without fathers will often seek to become those bad boys. Incredible trouble awaits these kids as well as their parents. The bad boy culture is now rampant and is rewarded by most young females. Good, nice boys are the ones who are shunned socially. This phenomenon has become very pervasive and is perhaps one of great drivers of evil across the world.
• Parenting is hard, even in what appears to be normal families. Many parents are either very woke or very selfish or both , and simply refuse to do the hard work of parenting. As a parent, one needs to set definite boundaries while at the same time shower their children with love and affection. Setting boundaries is not fun and takes a lot of effort , so many parents don’t even try to do it. Giving love and affection interrupts the selfish “It’s all about me ” attitude of many parents and also means that the focus has to be on your kids, not yourself so of course the most important person in the world is the parent and his/her life is where the focus is , not the kids. Kids from these kind of parents often become out of control spoiled brats with little empathy of others, often becoming near socio-paths.
• Madison Avenue since the early 50’s identified the mother as the one who makes by far the most purchasing decisions within the family, so very quickly Madison Avenue learned to play to women’s worst prejudices – that “she deserves this or that lifestyle” – that she deserves the latest fashionable trinket or dress or whatever, which led to a very materialistic attitude that often is transferred down to daughters. Things quickly for many women become more important than people.
• Then there is of course the “woke” culture of the schools that has been indoctrinating our kids for over a half a century with ever increasing determination which indoctrinated kids into a Marxist view of life which degraded old fashioned values of love, mercy and compassion.
All of these influences have led to generations of young adults who have become big trouble for society.
Why can we not change public schools in non Democrat run states? What state is moving to remove direct funding from schools and giving funding to parents? Why has it been impossible to just end collective school funding? We dilly around with a few being funded centrally by states outside of the usual system, but it’s too slow to make a difference and the decision is still centrally controlled. Nothing is more important and we just watch.
Actually we are seeing Education Savings Accounts being enacted, and that is a very encouraging sign. Even a couple of blue states are looking at using those, so that parents can make better choices for their kids. It’s just been a slow slog against the Teachers unions, IWalton, but with all the school controversy nowadays, maybe progress will be made more quickly!
Hank’s subsequent commentary on the communication revolution (comment 14) is on point and entirely valid. But I think, in relation to the above, that a significant problem today is also that many adults simply refuse to allow kids the time and space needed for them to sort things out for themselves, to develop and grow up, and for their mental wiring to fully catch up with itself. It looks to me as if many adults treat every instance of what what we would have called “imagination” or “play-acting” as either a rational and meaningful choice or as a cry for help, just as if it was done or uttered by an adult in extremis. Thus, Johnny puts on his sister’s skirt one day and dances around singing “I feel pretty,” and the next thing, he’s in therapy because his parents have decided this must mean he wants to be a girl. More than likely, though, Johnny was just being daft and looking for attention. But matters have now escaped Johnny’s control, he’s been made to feel unhappy and angry with and about himself, what he sees is that his parents want him to be a girl, and the die is cast.
Every once in a while a piece of legislation comes along that’s referred to as the “trial lawyers’ full-employment act.” The gender identity nonsense, as practiced on the very young, is pretty much the “mental health workers’ full-employment act.” It’s shameful.
You are spot on, She! I read somewhere how a child didn’t want to go through puberty because of whatever the heck they called themselves. You know that icky stuff like growing breasts and menstruating. They wanted to just get pass that. So the parents approved puberty/hormone blockers. But what happens when all the maturing and development that happens as a result of puberty is stopped. Will that kid remain a kid in an adult’s body?
Because the school systems are almost every county’s number one employer. Either directly or indirectly. Add to that the amount of corruption that goes into the support contracts for this system. There are just too many peoples livelihoods involved to change.
But think of all the castrati choirs that will result.