So much public discussion about the breakdown in the family unit revolves around the progressive left's gender and sexual revolution.
The judicial creation of same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, the codifying of gay adoption and surrogacy rights, the expansion of a welfare state that replaces the role of dads, feminism and the idolizing of career women, the subsidizing of alternatives to the nuclear family, the categorization of pornography as free speech - they all play a part in the debate.
Even though it isn't always the case, too often the conversation seems to omit perhaps the most glaring and devastating menace to the strength, stability, and solvency of American families: Divorce.
I don't know who this is, I don't know why she posted this, and I don't know when it was posted. But I know it's all too real for all too many children. And I know it absolutely breaks the heart of anyone who loves children the way Jesus tells us to.
Okay, let's clear up a couple things right away.
First, I don't know why anyone would record something like this. It could be that this woman is still feeling a great deal of anger towards her ex and this is spite - a vengeful way to shame or hurt him publicly. It could be that this is about generating sympathy for herself, showing the world how good of a mother she is and how much her child loves her. It could be another depiction of the crippling social contagion of narcissism spread through the explosion of online media - "doing it for likes."
No, I don't know why she recorded this, I don't see value in it, and I wish she hadn't.
Second, it is distinctly possible, and statistically probable, that the woman in the video initiated the split in her relationship. Most reports on the reality of divorce in America will tell you somewhere between 70-80% of all marital splits in the country are initiated by women. What is less clear to me in that statistic is why divorce was initiated. It may sound like initiation equals responsibility, but women might be initiating 70% of divorces in relationships because 70% of the time men are unfaithful. I'd hardly blame the divorce on the initiating woman in such a case.
No, I don't know if the woman who posted this was the initiator, if she had reason to be, or if she was an innocent party altogether.
But neither of those change this reality: the child in this video is not acting, is not behaving this way "for likes," but is actually experiencing a real and devastating trauma that no child should ever have to endure. The pain this poor young guy is encountering here was the result of selfish decisions or a selfish decision of an adult. It's cruel, unnecessary, and one of the most obvious examples of why the West is collapsing from within.
No marriage is impervious to disagreement, fatigue, or betrayal. But the self-serving impulse to use divorce as an escape hatch while leaving children to suffer in the smoldering wreckage is hardly the optimal, morally upright solution.
Children need the love of both a mother and father. Does that mean a child deprived of one or the other cannot survive, succeed, or thrive? Of course not. But in such cases, doing so requires that child to climb a mountain of obstacles that self-sacrificial love demands we adults avoid placing in their path.
Can the government make things better by ending a "no-fault divorce" option? Probably. Can society make things better by celebrating marriage and family more than it does? Probably. But ultimately the only way our children are shielded from the scarring agony you just watched is if we grown-ups start loving others more than ourselves.
