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Sept. 5, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

19:54

Dangerous Snowflakes - Where “Triggered” REALLY Comes From

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	So I took a gap year now between high school and university.
	I had no money to go to university and so I went and I worked as a gold planner and prospector up in northern Ontario and Manitoba and Saskatchewan for a long time.
	And then I did two years of English literature at Glendon campus of York University.
	And I really got involved in acting there.
	And I did some acting in high school.
	I was in Our Town. But I was in a Pinter play.
	I was in a Chekhov play.
	I just did a lot of acting.
	I had a great professor, Skip Shand, who encouraged me to pursue it, and I ended up auditioning for the National Theatre School of Canada.
	I did two years of English literature.
	I auditioned, and because they take only 1% of applicants, and I did a pretty good audition...
	I ended up going to the National Theatre School.
	Now, it's a three-year program.
	I didn't even finish out two years.
	I just found it so lefty, socialist, censorious, like all the stuff that goes on and the arts that is appalling to sort of mainstream common sense people was kind of compressed RAR style into the National Theatre School.
	Although I'm so grateful that I went.
	It gave me good voice training.
	It gave me good movement training and, you know, connecting with the mind and the body, which is, you know, like the British way, the traditional British way is your brain is like the god that your merely fleshy, meaty body carries around like an acolyte, like the relationship.
	Between the mind and the body in the sort of British tradition is not positive, is not good.
	And so it did help me sort of get a much better relationship with my body.
	I did the Alexander Technique, did movement classes, dance, sword fighting, and just it was cool in a lot of ways.
	But one of the things that I really remember from theatre school was this.
	So there was a fellow there.
	He was taking the acting program, which we all took.
	I was also then branched into playwriting, which was completely useless, but at least the course was.
	But this guy was in the director's program, and he was from down home out east in Canada.
	And he said something that really struck me and really, really stayed with me, just in Casual conversation.
	So we were sitting around, all of us actors and all that, and we were talking about the future and, you know, the risk involved in being an actor, right?
	Where, as is usual in the case in a true talent-based meritocracy, 95% of the money goes to like 5% of the people.
	Everybody wants to be those 5%, you know, like movie stars and models and so on.
	Podcasts too, I suppose, but...
	We were all talking about the risks.
	And what he said was very interesting.
	He said, I don't really have much fear of risk.
	He said, my mother and my father sat me down in their quaint little cottage kitchen before I left for theater school.
	And they said to me, no matter what happens in this life, you always have a home base here.
	You always will have a roof over your head and food in your belly.
	So go out and take risks knowing that you have a soft and loving place to land.
	Now, that was a wonderful thing to hear.
	And it's a beautiful sentiment.
	I'm sure it was true.
	But it's sad as well at the same time, isn't it, for a lot of people?
	When you're dangling over a precipice with no soft place to land, life can get scary, right?
	And when you're in a constant state of fight or flight because you don't have any particular sense of security, you tend to get pretty aggressive.
	And you can see this on Twitter. You can see this, of course, in YouTube comments.
	You see this all over the Internet.
	people get easily antagonized they get very abusive very angry very very quickly and this is what's called the snowflake generation and that term is used with some derision but I think it's important to understand where it comes from because there's deep human pain and grief in what is called sort of the snowflake generation or the easily triggered generation and so on and I think it comes largely from from two things that are under discussed now
	Now, the first of those two things is the daycare generation.
	The daycare generation.
	So this is generally, of course, kids who are thrown in daycare real early, could be when they're babies and so on, and then they stay in daycare through kindergarten.
	They have after-school programs.
	They will often go to camps in the summer, as I did.
	And, you know, they just have a lot of...
	It's time around, really distracted, harried daycare supervisors or teachers or whatever.
	And I worked in a daycare for years as a teenager.
	And I loved the kids.
	They loved me. And it was a great job to have.
	But, you know, you really do get to see the institutionalized nature of daycare.
	And daycare is bad for children's development.
	I mean, we wonder why... Children are bonding so much with their peers rather than their parents or authority figures, so to speak.
	Well, it's because in daycare, you're thrown into this pretty feral situation where the lowest common denominator of the most cruel and the most brutal and the most harmful children end up rising to the top, bubbling to the top.
	Without the adult supervision that blunts the bladed edges of more sociopathic personalities, you end up in this Lord of the Flight situation.
	Where the least advanced, least sensitive, least empathetic, most primitive personalities tend to rule the roost, right?
	And you can see this in the sort of Mean Girls phenomenon, and you can see this in this peer pressure stuff that goes on.
	How do you fight peer pressure?
	Well, you fight peer pressure by having a loving, close, and respectful relationship with your parents, with maybe other authority figures in your life.
	That's how you end up with security and stability.
	So when you get dumped in daycare, you know, there's this weird idea that parenting can somehow be outsourced to...
	Minimum wage people, usually from foreign cultures with accents and so on.
	Like, there's this weird thing that you can just take that loving, one-on-one, skin-contact, breastfeeding bond between mother and baby, and you can just magically replicate it by dropping the kid off in some brightly colored institution with a bunch of other lost boys and girls, and have...
	Some person working for minimum wage replace the bond of motherhood and the connection of kin, of kinship.
	And, I mean, you can look at it this way.
	So, let's say you've been married for 15 years and you are slated to go out with your wife for your anniversary.
	It's your 15th year anniversary and you're slated to go out for dinner with your wife.
	And then, you know, you call your wife up from work and you say, you know, sorry honey, I'm really not able to make it.
	But I've hired Raul at $8 an hour or $10 an hour.
	He's going to take you out for dinner instead.
	And she'd be like, well, he's not my husband.
	He's just some guy.
	And really? $10 an hour?
	That's what you're paying? This guy to take me out for dinner on her wedding anniversary?
	But of course... That's parenting, right?
	You're paying some stranger to do what family should do.
	Like you're paying some stranger to do what you have to do as a husband or should do as a husband or should want to do as a husband, take your wife out for dinner on your 15th year anniversary, and she'd be really offended if you said, I'm paying Raul to take you out for 10 bucks an hour.
	She says, that's all I'm worth.
	Now, of course, if babies could speak when they're dumped in daycares, they would also say, This is offensive to me.
	You are my mother.
	You are not replaceable.
	You are not interchangeable with some minimum wage worker who is just passing through.
	Turnover rates in these daycares are very, very high.
	I worked there for years, but I saw a lot of people come and go.
	So you get afraid to like people because they may be gone next month.
	Nobody with any potential stays on minimum wage jobs.
	So the daycare stuff It's pretty important.
	You don't have that secure bond.
	Now, when you don't have that secure bond with your mother or your father, then you're open to exploitation.
	You're open to predation.
	And this is where we get to our second aspect of why the snowflake generation is so, sort of, quote, easily triggered.
	So I will put this article below.
	This is from Philly Voice.
	And the title of the article, this is from March 25th, 2019, so it's pretty recent.
	The title of the article is, Child Abuse is 40 Times More Likely When Single Parents Find New Partners.
	This is a statistic that is, of course, massively under-discussed.
	And it's very, very important.
	Child abuse is 40 times more likely when single parents find new partners.
	Now, of course, that's not 40% more likely.
	It's 40 times.
	More likely. That's not even 400% more likely.
	That's 4,000% more likely.
	So, this article goes, According to the 2016 U.S. Census, the majority of the nearly 74 million children ages 8 and under live in a home with two parents, whether married or unmarried.
	Nearly 25% of children in America live with a single parent, usually their mother, blah, blah, blah, single dads, 1 to 4% since 1960.
	Most divorced adults eventually cohabitate or remarry again.
	For example, about 75% of divorced women remarry within 10 years post-divorce.
	Yet the number is lower if the woman is the mother of a minor child.
	Perhaps one of the reasons why relates to the documented risk involved in bringing an unrelated adult male into the home.
	Sometimes referred to as the abusive boyfriend syndrome, scholars note that there is, quote, a statistically greater potential for instability, end quote, in homes where adults and children who have no biological connection reside.
	It comes down to the fact they don't have a relationship established with these kids, states Eliana Gill, clinical director for the National Abuse Prevention Group Child Help.
	Their primary interest is really the adult partner, and they may find themselves more irritated when there's a problem with the children.
	So, look, this should come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about biology.
	I mean, on the more brutal end of the biological spectrum, of course, as I've talked about before, male lions, if the father of lion cubs is killed or dies or is driven off, the new male comes along, just kills all the cubs, because he wants to impregnate the female and ensure the survival of his own genes.
	If you don't grow up with children, and particularly, I think, if you don't have that biological bond, It's easier to be annoyed.
	It's easier to lose your temper.
	And, of course, there's only, I mean, the sociological points out, the boyfriend is there for the mom, right?
	He's there to have a relationship with mom, to have sex with the mom, to hang out with the mom.
	The child is kind of in the way of that.
	Like, if he's there looking to have sex with the mom, the child being around is kind of, well, it's reproductive organ blocking him, so to speak, right?
	And so, you know, the mom...
	I mean, I know this. I grew up with a single mom.
	The mom gives you, you know, a couple of bucks to go to the mall and says, don't come back for an hour or two, right?
	And it's like, okay, this is gross.
	But, you know, that is the way of all flesh when you don't have that persistent pair bonding that goes on.
	So, of course, the boyfriend is there for the mom.
	He's not there for the kids.
	Well, that's one possibility.
	Of course, the other possibility...
	Is that the boyfriend is there for the kids.
	That he's dating the single mom to get access to children because he's a pedophile.
	And that is not nearly as rare.
	Well, it should be 0% present, but it's not nearly as rare as it should be.
	The article goes on. Of course, not all step-parents or bonus parents, male or female, struggle to bond or love the children of their new partners.
	There are certainly many stories of blended families thriving.
	Ah, there's that word.
	Thriving. It's just become, it's funny how these words just kind of come into play, right?
	The success depends on various ingredients, according to the APA. April Edelmeyer, writing for the Gottman Institute, affirms how critical it is for remarried couples to, quote, learn how to communicate effectively and not be afraid to discuss sensitive topics as they arise.
	Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, of course, it's a bit of a self-selecting group, right?
	If you were mature, if you were good at communicating and resolving conflicts, you probably wouldn't be a single mom, right?
	Now, single mom, just for those who are going to put this inevitable issue forward, a single mom, because people always say, well, what if the father dies?
	Well, then you're not a single mom.
	You're a widow, right? Single moms are women who are Single moms by choice.
	In other words, they divorced or they married a man who divorced them or they had usually almost always unprotected sex with a man who didn't stick around.
	These are all choices. You say, well, it's the man's responsibility for not sticking around.
	It's like, yeah, well, that's true.
	But particularly when they're young, men propose sex and women say yes or no.
	Right? So if you're in a buyer's market, Then you have more responsibility as a buyer.
	If you're in a seller's market, then you have more responsibility as a seller.
	Like, if I can only get one job after looking forever, I can only get one job, then I got to kind of take that job.
	And how much responsibility do I have for the fallout of that job?
	Well, not much because I just had one job.
	Let's say I have 20 job offers.
	Or 30 or 50, then I have more responsibility for the job that I take because I have more choice.
	And that's the case with women, right?
	Women enjoy the privilege of being asked out, of having the men pay for dates.
	And I don't know, this is what I've read.
	I mean, 85% I think of dating initiation comes from men to women.
	And so when they're young and more physically attractive, women...
	Kind of have a monopoly and men are asking and women get to choose from the many men who are asking them out.
	They get to choose. And so who they choose, they have more responsibility for.
	And so it's just basic biological fact.
	You've heard these studies, right?
	Like some attractive woman goes into a bar and propositions in a hotel and propositions men for random sex in her hotel or random men for sex in her hotel room upstairs.
	Most of the men say yes.
	An attractive man comes in and offers that for women.
	Most of the women say no. I mean, it's just facts.
	Just, you know, there's no need to get offended or anything.
	They're just basic facts.
	So, yeah, so this is the reality that, of course...
	We're going with the article.
	I'll get back to that in a second. Okay.
	Nevertheless, so nonetheless, quote, children of divorce and later remarriage are twice as likely to academically, behaviorally, and socially struggle as children of first marriage families.
	About 20 to 25% struggle compared with 10%, a range of research finds, right?
	So two to two and a half times more likely to struggle.
	They're also more likely to be hurt.
	In their article, quote, child abuse and other risks of not living with both parents.
	And again, you can skip over some of these details.
	If their parents find new partners, children are 40 times more likely than those who live with biological parents to be sexually or physically abused.
	Read this again. It's very, very important.
	This is the foundation of what is so volatile in society these days.
	If their parents find new partners, children are 40 times more likely than those who live with biological parents to be sexually or physically abused.
	There's another study that children are, and I quote, nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries as children living with two biological parents.
	40 times more likely to be sexually or physically abused, 50 times more likely to die of inflicted injuries.
	And again, I mean, my mom had a series of men floating through our rent-controlled, poverty-stricken apartment, along with regular eviction notices, and...
	I know they put up with me.
	I mean, it's not complicated.
	Especially when you're a teenage man yourself, or a teenage young man yourself, you understand sex drive.
	Yeah, I understand they're there, and they're putting up with me.
	And it's a dangerous situation, right?
	I mean, very, very often the mom is bringing, at least from the child's perspective, The woman, the mom, she gets sex, she gets romance, she gets companionship and conversation.
	I understand that. But, I mean, I'm a stay-at-home dad.
	I mean, it's important to have adult conversations as well.
	I get all of that. I can get that from friends, though.
	So for the mom, there's a benefit.
	But for the child, what's the benefit?
	Strange sounds, gotta leave the apartment, guy kind of rolling his eyes at you and wanting you out of the way, physical aggression, danger, in this case, sexual and physical abuse can run rampant in these situations.
	So from the child's perspective, the mom might as well bring home a tiger, right?
	A lot of times, right?
	So to understand this increased risk, says the article, of sexual or physical harm, it is helpful to consider the lack of oversight which occurs when both biological parents are no longer working as a team.
	Ideally, parents work together to teach children body-safe rules, observe children in play, particularly with older peers, and thoughtfully choose care providers.
	Post-divorce, this doesn't always happen.
	Yeah, no kidding, right? Another explanation for the increased risk of harm connects to the potential negative dangerous role older steppe-bonus siblings can play in the lives of younger children.
	Even when sexual or physical abuse by an older steppe-bonus sibling is not a factor, children who live with steppe-bonus siblings are more aggressive.
	Yet most significantly one must face the difficult truth that the primary cause of harm to children in blended family settings is the unrelated, usually male, adult brought into the mix through romantic involvement with the biological parent.
	And it kind of goes on from there.
	So you've got a daycare generation with a lack of bonding.
	And then you have, for a lot of these kids, and an increasing number of kids, you have predatory men coming through the place of residence, usually an apartment.
	In a house, at least, there's two floors and so on, but, you know, single moms are usually broke, so small apartments, not much place to hide.
	And so then you have kids who don't want to be home.
	I know all about this.
	You roam the streets. You get into a gang.
	I mean, don't worry. For me, it was like a gang of people who played Dungeons& Dragons and rode dirt bikes over railway trestles.
	But, yeah, you end up in this situation.
	The peers take over.
	The parental authority vanishes.
	The men don't want you there.
	So, again, you have a negative view of masculinity, right?
	I mean, why is it that there's been such a negative view of masculinity these days?
	Well, because... Basically, most of the men who date single moms are low-rent, low-quality men, because they can't get women who don't have the liability of kids and an ex and all that kind of stuff, right?
	So you just see more and more negative examples of men, predatory examples of men, and it's catastrophic for society as a whole.
	And of course, this is one reason why the black community is foundering, because about half of black girls report being raped by a black man when the black girls are children.
	So, you break the family.

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