Re: Keets Keeps Baiting Me/Who vs. Kiss/The Family

["L. Bird" <pkeets@hotmail.com>]

>>I just didn't find it all that relevant.  You see, the point I was trying 
>>to make is that the sexual revolution was the catalyst for this change.  
>>It's the CHANGE in society that I was pointing out. Women's roles have 
>>dramatically changed in a relatively short period of time, in sociological 
>>terms, not men's so much.

I'm not sure you exactly remember the sexual revolution. ;)  It was brought 
about by effective contraception, and the big difference was to make women 
sexually available.  It did also allow women to plan their families--which 
aided in planning their careers, but this is because they already had 
careers to plan.  World War II was the big catalyst that got women out of 
the home and into the munitions factories, because there were too few men to 
run them at the rate wartime required.  You know.  Women's patriotic duty 
and all that.


>is read any one of the million women's magazines to see that.  Sure men 
>have an effect on what happens at home, but their role in the family really 
>hasn't changed as drastically as the women.

It hasn't changed as recently.  It's been forty years since the sexual 
revolution, BTW.


>In 1999, a woman can choose to be a wife, a mother, a professional, a 
>professional AND a mother, a single mother, single, a lesbian, whatever 
>path she wants.  Now those are choices.  Compared to men, your number of 
>acceptable choices towers over mine.

Men have similar choices.  You can be a husband, a dad, a professional, a 
professional AND a dad, a single dad, single, gay, whatever path you choose.


>I was raised to do one thing: get a job and raise a family.

And how did this reduce your choices?  There's no law that says you have to 
do this.  If you're talking about family pressures, no one is free of those.


>However, fathers have to CREATE that bond with their children.  Mothers on 
>the other hand, have it automatically.  At least
that's what every single solitary mother has ever said to me about it.  It's 
much more difficult to create something out of nothing, than to have those 
tools from the start.

The mother-child bond isn't a sure thing.  Notice how many children are 
abandoned every year, and how many are killed.


>The difference being, children have had centuries to adapt to that.

One century.  The Industrial Revolution was in full swing about the turn of 
the last century.


>Don't kid yourself into thinking that Dads were home before the Industrial 
>Revolution.  Not at all true.

Generally they were within walking distance.


>Even for a father who worked the farm right on his own land, he spent 12-16 
>hours every day in the fields, not spending "quality" time with the kids 
>but working his ass off (out here in the fields...)

Who do you think was his work crew?  You're thinking in modern terms again.  
The farm was a family business, and everybody worked in the fields.  This 
was generally an extended family group, too, including grandad and a gaggle 
of cousins.  That's how the older men passed on their job skills to their 
sons (and daughters).  It wasn't just farm work, either.  If dad was a 
smith, then he needed a bunch of strapping boys to pump the bellows.


>Or in medival Europe, dad might have been off fighting with
>those damned Saxon dogs instead of hanging out with Jr.

And of course, when junior got to be eleven, then he went off to the 
Crusades, too.


>Remember, one of the reasons that the sexual revolution ever happening was 
>because women got fed up with men running around as they pleased.  If they 
>weren't working all day, they were out getting loaded and chasing skirts 
>all night.

How does this follow?  Are you thinking that the sexual revolution was about 
women wanting men to work all day?  That's not exactly it.  The sexual 
revolution was about sex.  Temperence (back in the 1800's) was about men 
laying off the booze and the skirts and supporting their kids the way they 
were supposed to.  There are pretty strong economic reasons behind the 
family--it has to do with supporting the cost of children.  Men are much 
more free now to escape child support responsibilities than they were in the 
fifties.  At least you can discuss this with your wife now and maybe opt for 
no children at all.


>For the sake of this discussion, I was thinking a little more
>contemporary.  This generation of children has evolved to adapt to daddy's 
>lack of attention just like kids have for centuries.  Only now are they 
>experiencing mommy's lack of attention in addition to daddy's.  In 
>sociological terms, this is a brand new phenomena, and we don't have all 
>the data in to understand the after effects yet.  But a cultural phenomena 
>it is.

I'll agree with this.  But I think we do have enough data to understand 
what's going on.  The family unit has reduced from the extended family to 
the nuclear family to the latchkey kid.  In too many cases, there's nobody 
around to teach this poor kid how to get along in life.


>Now THAT's funny!  Lyrically (even in that period), if Pete ever writes 
>anything that starts with ba-da-a-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-dabba-daaaaaab..." I'm 
>quitting on The Who forever!

It's typical of the pop songs from that period.  How is that beginning much 
different from the "Ooooo...Ooooo..." that starts "Heatwave"? Or the cutsy 
"Ba-Ba-Ba...Ba-BaberAnn..."?

One thing that makes the music seem so thin is that it's only John and Keith 
playing.  I don't hear lead guitar at all.  Meanwhile, what do you think of 
the lyrics?  What's he talking about here?


>Some way, some day, I'll find a way to make you see my way
Even if you don't think like I do, you know that it's true
It's your mind that I seek
Tried so hard to make me think my point of view was bad
Although at times when you kept on I thought that I was mad

I'm glad it's goodbye, you don't have to ask why
Come back another day, come back when you see my way,
You see my way

Tried so hard to make me think my point of view was bad
Although at times when you kept on I thought that I was mad

Some way, some day, I'll find a way to make you see my way

I'm glad it's goodbye, you don't have to ask why
Come back another day, come back when you see my way,
You see my way...



keets

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