I was listening to Tom Woods’ podcast episode 991 discussing Professor Amy Wax’s article in Philly.com. Tom made a comment that made me pause. He said, “the idea that practices and beliefs of long standing stand accused, [ . . .], are always on the defensive, and we have to assume they’re there for no good reason and the accumulated experience of the age is really nothing as compared to the wisdom of people living in 2017.” Tom goes on to create an analogy of a house and the supporting walls are necessary for the maintenance of the structure. Remove them at your peril, for certainly the building will collapse. Other walls can be removed as wanted with no risk to the house. All this was to explain what Tom identified as his conservatism. Not political conservatism, but a conservatism of tradition and practice and structure. Dare I say these are the habits of traditional families. I am old enough to remember Candice Bergan, as Murphy Brown, give Dan Quayle a rough go because of family values. I don’t really recall too much else, for I was cooking at the time, and cooking was a lifestyle. Some things were impossible to miss. Candice was one of those things.
I’ve often heard of family values being likened to a foundation. A house, walls and all, is of no use if the foundation is poor. Badly designed or built or on poor soil and the risk to the structure is when it will fail, not if it will fail.
My step-father, Gordon, was raised in rural northern Michigan. He was born in 1927. As a depression kid, he knew much about what was needed to survive. He brought those values and principles to my family when he married my mother. The value of family was demonstrated in small ways. Kiss his wife every night. Everyone eats dinner together and each tells about the day: work, school, sports, after dinner, stuff. That was the time we got to spend together being a family. I don’t think he had a specific goal in mind save eating together. What took me years to learn was that his plan was that lesson would make my family strong.
When I heard Tom say that the mores and traditions of family values are on the defensive, I paid attention. I am that conservative of family. Gordon and we planted two gardens and my unenviable and much protested job was to weed them. Both. And cut, split and stack 17 face cord of wood for the heat for the winter. And get decent grades and do sports. That was a lot. More than I wanted most years.
I have two girls. One just in double digits. We don’t live on 17 acres of land and I haven’t a garden…yet. I’ll not ask of them what was asked of me in kind, but I will ask that they do their chores with a minimum of complaint. I will ask that she do her chores if she expects to be paid for the week. We might not be fully equally voluntary, but I think the lesson that work is traded for a wage is more important. I didn’t like the work of the wood, but I did it because it was expected of me. And, really there wasn’t a choice. I was a kid. I took that experience and, as an adult, worked 60 or 70 or 80 hours a week at cooking because it was what I wanted to do. I like to think that the work ethic of getting what I wanted was forged, in part, from the garden and the wood.
Reasonable people recognize that times are different. They were when I was a kid to my depression era step-father. I was an inconsiderate punk to him. I regret that. I think that was part of the path which made me who I am and I do not regret who I am. I am sad that I was disrespectful to him. We managed to find peace before it was too late, and for that I am thankful.
My kids know things we could never have imagined and I cannot imagine what my grandkids will know. Electronic toys tempt them daily at meal times and, where I was a TV kid, they are iPad kids. I get it, but I don’t let them know. I still insist they do chores and sometimes have a stern voice. They have to at least taste dinner to decide they don’t like it.
Defending the principles that got us here seems an idiotic thing to do. No doubt the generation could have done better, but that’s an assessment made in hindsight. I stand is support of conservative principles of earn your wage, eat your food, be kind and civil and respectful to others. As I grow politically, I am pleased with my decision to be a libertarian. Liberty. But, I remain a staunch conservative of the family and the values a family holds. That is not an embarrassment.