Sunday, March 20, 2011

A Safe Topic

I have come to the realization that to maintain a blog, I will have to expand my repertoire to something besides myself. So on to my opinion on stuff that isn’t as interesting as me. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about politics or religion because both would probably offend some people if people were to actually read this article. I also can’t give insightful critic on social interactions ala Jane Austens because my social interaction are limited to people who are required by work or family ties to interact with me.

This leaves sweeping, uninformed opinions on society at large. I could talk about the state of marriage for example. Unfortunately, it’s a subject that I have absolutely zero first person experience in. It’s like a janitor giving their opinion to the guy who designed the Eiffel tower. I feel elitist for saying that about janitors, because it’s so ingrained in me that you should always pretend that a job you wouldn’t want to do is the most noblest task. Which leads me to the topic that I will give my sweeping, uninformed opinion on: stay at home parents.

People pretend to respect it and say that it is the most important thing that a person could do. (For future reference “people” and “they” in this blog refers to humans who have decided maliciously to ruin the world by taking the opposite opinion to mine.) They get away with it only because it’s true, but not because those people actually respect it. Why don’t I think people really respect stay at home parents, at least not to the level that they should? Because I think that if it were really seen as a prestigious job, more men would do it. If you think that logic is flawed, please feel free to explain why.

In any case, I think the problem is with being a stay at home parent is that it is seen as requiring a good soul more than a good mind. And nobody respects a good soul, because anyone could have one if they wanted one. Talent is more important than personality. You can always change your personality.

That’s how I used to think when I was young and foolish. But with old age, I’ve learned the difficulty of changing your own personality. Which leads to point of this article (you thought I was just rambling, didn’t you? You were right, imaginary reader, but never mind). The danger of people not assigning stay at home parents the level of prestige that they should, is that it leads to the mistaken notion that anyone could do it. I think it takes an outstanding level of maturity to do well (patience, intelligence, non-neuroticism, great work ethic, perseverance, etc) and that, like any difficult job, it’s not for everyone or even for the majority of people.

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