Luxury Belief: Dismantle the Nuclear Family?

0:00 clearly marriage has positive benefits the group that is the most likely to downplay the benefits of marriage are the most likely to be products of successful marriages under the most likely to form marriages themselves dismantle the nuclear family is a luxury belief here's why I'm going to guess that you don't want to spoil your child with luxury brand items with too many lavish Vacations or with just too much stuff in general enal but did you know you can

0:31 spoil your child with a different kind of luxury all together luxury beliefs hi I'm AEL welcome back to high fam today I'm going to show you how to not spoil your child with luxury beliefs what these are how you can counterbalance them and how you can raise children that are really aware of the values and beliefs that they hold and their impact on society please meet Rob Henderson if you haven't yet read his Incredible Book troubled then what are you waiting for

1:00 pause this video click the link below and read it right now Rob Henderson shares his story of his troubled childhood he was born to a single mother who was addicted to drugs and unable to care for him and rescued from that situation of extreme neglect but then bounced around from foster home to foster home incurring all sorts of abuse and neglect along the way he finally was adopted but his adoptive family too ended up breaking down with his adoptive

1:29 dad no longer speaking to him and his adoptive mom going through a series of financial catastrophes and broken relationships Rob finally made it out of that vicious cycle by joining the military and eight years later he was admitted into Yale and then to Harvard where he earned his PhD Rob is obviously a very bright cookie but the way that he grew up didn't give him much opportunity or much of a chance to really succeed in the academic realm or in many other

1:57 Realms besides but what happened when he got to university is the really fascinating part now whilst all of that is fascinating and there's so much to learn from Rob's story and his gripping writing style the real lesson for all of us parents out there comes when he actually gets to these ivy league institutions and there he comes across a very interesting surprising and new set of beliefs that the people in these institutions are espousing for example

2:24 they advocate for drug legalization for non- monogamy for having children out of wedlock they advocate for open Borders or for loose sexual norms for defunding the police or they show a skepticism of meritocracy and work ethic or the education system itself Rob goes on to term the coin luxury beliefs and these are beliefs that are held by the elite echelons of society to no expense of their own but at the expense of the

2:57 lower classes in society take from for example the idea of defunding the police usually the people who advocate for this idea are protected from its results from its consequences they probably live in safer neighborhoods they're more protected from crime or even in some cases they can afford their own private security these ideas are not popular in crimer ridden neighborhoods where the Reliance on the police is such that these people feel that the police are already underfunded thus it is a luxury

3:28 belief it's a belief that is designed to show and Signal our virtue and our status only people in Elite statuses can actually hold these beliefs because they are protected from the very results and consequences of these ideas Rob explains the fascinating evolution of signaling wealth and status and he shows that we used to be able to Signal our wealth and status through the clothes we wear or the cars that we buy but as all brand goods and items have actually become

3:56 cheaper and cheaper and mass consumption greater Ander the upper classes of society the elites had to find a new way of signaling their wealth and status and these luxury beliefs are exactly that when you advocate for things like open Borders or non- criminalizing certain crimes what you're actually showing is that you can afford the repercussions of these actions and of these policies one of the worst luxury beliefs that Rob came across in the Ivy Leagues and that he's

4:25 since been advocating against in his incredible work is the luxury belief of dismantling the nuclear family this comes in several forms it comes in advocacy for non- monogamy for polyamory for loose sexual norms for having children outside of wedlock or for the idea that all Parenthood is created equal that for example being a single parent is absolutely equal to having two parents in the family what he found was that as he entered into these Elite institutions these ideas became the norm

4:55 but Rob himself says that the biggest challenge of growing up in the environments that he did was not the poverty it was not about the class differences between him and these people but rather the biggest thing that influenced him was the lack of stability it was the very fact that he didn't have a stable nuclear two parent household that led to all of his greatest challenges in life his closest friends ended up incarcerated or even shot dead

5:21 in the streets or struggling to live a crime-free life and Rob attributes this not to the fact that they were impoverished although that didn't help but mainly to the fact that they lacked stability love guidance and boundaries that are provided by a strong family culture from whatever class holding this luxury belief of dismantling the nuclear family really offers social status or a sense of moral superiority I'm not judgy I in fact think that there are many

5:51 different ways to raise children I don't think that I have any superiority in my lifestyle over any other it's a form of cultural relativism ISM it's a form of pluralism and of course there's a small kernel of beauty and Truth to the idea that we shouldn't judge others or get on our moral high horse or feel that we are superior the trouble is that these beliefs themselves and holding them put you in a place of moral superiority to

6:17 others who can't afford them yes there are many influential intellectuals and celebrities in the upper echelons of society who criticize the nuclear family as outdated or oppressive prominent intellectuals such as Judith Butler and Progressive writers often argue that the nuclear family has oppressive rigid gender roles and that this is something that women in particular should be Breaking Free of they often advocate for alternative models of living such as polyamory or communal living as a way of

6:49 Breaking Free of these shackles and stepping into greater freedom and equality but these critiques are typically voiced by those who are insulated from everyday economic hardships a luxury that allows them to experiment with abstract ideals and without risking the stability that most families and children in particular depend on as early as the hippies of the 1970s many celebrities and cultural figures have publicly denounced the nuclear family and promote this idea of

7:21 free love or radical family experimentations as symbols of progress progress infers that this is an idea that will actually benefit society and kids I guess but often these writers live in highly secured affluent environments where the risks of alternative family models are minimal which is what makes these ideas a luxury belief rather than a viable option for most people and the truth is that we haven't seen a better model than say the

7:52 nuclear family children raised by preferably their biological parents preferably in a monogamous marriage I know I feel so judgy just saying that but studies back this up take a listen studies from the national Center for Family and marriage research show that children raised in stable two parent households have significantly higher academic achievement better mental health and lower rates of behavioral problems compared to those from single parent families for example research has indicated that children in intact

8:23 families can be up to 20 to 30% more likely to succeed academically and emotionally a Brookings Institute report highlights that intact family structures not only support better economic outcomes for children but also Foster greater social mobility and Community stability underscoring the importance of a secure two parent environment as Rob Henderson and others have argued these ideas are more about signaling moral superiority than about what actually benefits the vast majority of families in other words whilst such beliefs might

8:55 sound fluffy and sweet and Progressive and compassionate and so empathic and really enlightened research consistently shows that it's actually a two parent stable household that offers children the greatest well-being and the greatest potential to thrive the nuclear family has proven benefits for children and if you care about children's well-being then you wouldn't ignore them in these conversations well-being like stability

9:26 support a framework for a healthy child development good role modeling and a lot more opportunity and these are often overlooked in these Progressive discussions you know I had a great example of this on a recent YouTube video that I shared about the phenomenon of only fan stars and what that might be doing to Modern marriage and yes I was critical of the way these only fans women were composing themselves sleeping with hundred and a thousand men in one

9:56 day in my opinion is harmful Behavior it is not what I would want for my daughters or sons and take a look at one of these messages that I received from someone I think called Cal and Cal if you're watching this here's what I have to say to your comment let me read it first you said I hope I can say this in a way that supports you your listeners the women you featured and all of the

10:16 sex positive active women out there I'm super fortunate to have a healthy monogamous 27-year relationship raising several children and I have never felt the need to make negative assumptions or use derogatory terms towards these women featured or the men that that choose to have sex with them I've never felt a moral superiority to them and wouldn't want my children to either I would caution anyone to feel they are morally above these people due to their own

10:38 cultural background I would instead help my kids to see that it is our responsibility not to take advantage of anyone vulnerable or in a bad situation to understand consent and power dynamics and certainly not to judge anyone as having a less moral existence or label people as perpetrators or victims without knowing circumstances or an actual crime taking place and this is exactly the point that I'm making Cal here is saying that you mustn't display moral superiority you mustn't make

11:07 judgments over other people in fact being judgmental seems to be the main cardinal sin of Our Generation if you're called judgy that really stinks that really means something bad about you if you ever say that any other lifestyle is inferior or that any other culture is less good less righteous less correct less healthy less safe then you are engaging in the worst kind of behavior ever this is born of our cultural relativism of a very positive idea of

11:38 Live and Let Live of the idea that the only real moral code is as long as I'm not harming anyone as long as everyone consents and this has led us people in the West in particular to be completely gagged and handcuffed we're unable to actually voice moral ideas or moral virtues or judgments about better and worse choices and I think this is gagging us parents as we raise our children and I want to shift into the part of the video where I

12:05 give you actually practical steps to counterbalance this idea because the truth is I want to highlight something slightly hypocritical about this approach and Rob Henderson expresses it best so let's listen to him he said that we should be able to move beyond the nuclear family because it's restrictive and constraining this was someone I graduated from Yo with she was basically telling me that marriage is this outdated patriarchal institution and Society should move Beyond it so I asked

12:30 her well how did you grow up She said I was raised by my mom and my dad I did have that conventional family but I asked her in her future if she wanted a family what would she do and she said I do want a family someday probably get married and have a husband and so I was thinking that you benefited from this and you plan to carry the benefits of that Arrangement forward for your own

12:47 children but your official public position is no one should do this it's outdated she was sort of denigrating it saying other people shouldn't do this and to me it seemed very duplicitous that clearly marriage has positive benefits the group that is the most likely to downplay the benefits of marriage are the most likely to be products of successful marriages and are the most likely to form marriages themselves or listen to this almost every single person I ever met they were

13:09 raised by two married parents stable secure families and yet if you look at who is the least likely to support the idea that children should be raised by two married parents these are people who have University degrees earn six figureure incomes who they themselves follow that conventional Bourgeois life track there's a professor at Yale law who wrote this book um about meritocracy and one line that he uses is uh you know our our modern day Elites are

13:37 non-practicing Libertines and what he means by this is that a lot of these people who graduate from Elite universities you know they publicly espouse this idea of you do you you know whatever kind of Lifestyle you choose it's totally fine all family structures are equal but then privately when you look at the choices they make they are the most likely to get married the most likely to prioritize education and family and own children and trying to

14:00 set their own um kids up for success and meanwhile for everyone else you know they they take this very sort of hands-off approach or even even try to undermine family which I find shocking So Cal I know that your comment came from the best place and I hear what you're saying that we shouldn't judge other people that everyone should be free to do whatever they want to do but the fact that you're in a 27e monogamous

14:20 relationship tells me that you at least for yourself feel that this is the best way to raise children and I want to just use that to ask one of us do we no longer feel comfortable to make life recommendations to our children recently one of my students told me that in her heart of hearts she really does hope that her children get married and start families she feels that this is the best path forward in life the best way to

14:43 lead a meaningful life and it's actually important to her that her children do that and she said that up until recently she felt she couldn't actually talk to them about that she couldn't actually say to them you know hopefully one day you'll get married and you'll find a love like Daddy and I have or hopefully when you're a parent one day you'll be able to teach your kids XY Z she didn't even want to say that because she didn't

15:05 want to suggest to them that this might be an expectation that she has we have become so squirmish and so uncomfortable and so worried about being perceived as judgy that we're unable to articulate the types of values ideas and beliefs that we think are better because better sound so judgy better sound so morally superior but here's the thing there are moral Superior choices and when you constantly break down morality and break down lifestyle choices and break down

15:36 societal Norms to the place where you're not allowed to discern any kind of hierarchy of what's better and what's worse then we are doing our children a disservice let me give you a really simple example just to drive this point home a child who is educated to read is better set up for Life they're going to have much more opportunities now some children will never be able to read we don't have to judge that we know that

15:59 that's true we can love and accept them unconditionally forever and ever but the fact is that most of us would want for our children to learn to read and to read well to reach a high level of reading proficiency let's take it further we would want them to be well educated because most of us see the value the value of an education in other words we are able to make the Judgment that being better educated is better

16:23 than being worse educated okay now we can debate what better education looks like or what worst education looks like but I'm sure that most of you watching would agree that you want your child to be well educated to have a good education but my friend that's a judgment call why are you judging people who choose not to educate their children why are you judging kids who aren't educated as having less life skills or less potential for meaning growth

16:48 happiness economic success social status than your child that's very judgmental of you right so do you see my point we do have to make certain judgments because we have to show our children what we value and as soon as you tell them what you value you're making a judgment that this is better than the other thing you know you might be showing it purely through your life you might just be modeling it like you are you know investing in family for example

17:13 or you are investing in education or you think having a strong healthy body is important but you're showing your kids these values through your lifestyle and I want to suggest that we feel a little bit more comfortable in showing them with words as well because this virtue signaling where we say nothing is better than anything else nothing brings better benefits than anything else it's simply not true and it's just that a luxury belief that is there to show us as

17:39 morally Superior better people who can afford these ideas but Society can't afford these ideas people like Rob Henderson suffered so much at the hand of these ideas so how do we escape it well number one you have to actually get clear on your values and beliefs and if you need help doing that then I invite you into the studio at high.com / Studio you can get on the wait list or maybe you can join today if doors are open the

18:03 idea of the studio is to be able to craft our vision and to be good leaders for our kids to share our values and to actually articulate them but many of us are confused about what our values really are in this world of absolute relativism of no absolute truth of no absolute morality of a real fear of being Discerning or judgy or hierarchical in any kind of way many of us are so timid or confused or shut down

18:29 this part of our brain that even thinks about what is better and what is worse so I want you to ask yourself these hard questions like do I think it's better to have a good healthy marriage or not is that how I think children should be raised do I think that loose sexual Norms are positive on balance or not do I think that poor news is a good thing or a bad thing one of Cal's comments on

18:51 YouTube was also that there is no such thing as evil and good and fine those are religious terminologies you don't have to use them say if you're not a religious person but there is such a thing as better or worse in terms of the types of outcomes that it creates and the types of societies that it creates and data is pretty clear on the nuclear family being better for raising children data is also pretty clear on the harmful

19:15 effects of the sex industry but that's for a whole other video we can actually discern and tell which societies are better by their products right you know them by their fruit you see what kind of economic success what kind of social success how people feel in those societies what tends to happen how safe are they what kind of flourishing and creativity and Innovation do they bring about we can certainly debate the finer details of each question but surely we

19:42 should be able to say to our children a society that buys and sells children for slavery or for being wives is worse than a society where children have basic rights and protections before the law a society where husbands are allowed to rap their wives is worse than a society where that is considered a crime or a society where children grow up not knowing their parents at all and being bounced around from foster home to foster home is worse than a society

20:13 where children grow up being loved and cherished within a two parent stable household even just saying that makes me afraid that you're all going to come at me calling me judgmental in the comments below but that leads me to point number two which is that we have to learn to be more afraid of being confusing than we are of being judgmental we owe our children Clarity conviction confidence and a compelling path to move forward for we owe our children a guidance

20:39 system through which we recommend strongly recommend suggest and guide them to live their lives well whether it's healthy food choices or healthy relationship choices or healthy economic choices our children deserve our moral guidance they deserve our moral convictions and when you always say well Live and Let Live let let everyone just do whatever they want you are showing them that you are refraining from judgment and that you're kind and compassionate and empathic to other people and that is good but you're also

21:08 showing them that you have no conviction or Clarity or suggestions serving suggestions for this life children need direction on how to lead a good meaningful life and we see that they're not getting it and how do we see that well we see it in the high rates of Failure to Launch somewhere around 30% of 25y olds still are unable to stand on their own two feet we see it in the fact that they are feeling more anxious and

21:32 depressed than ever before we see it in the fact that they are opting out of relationships and worst of all we see it in their severe isolation and sense of nihilism I think children need and deserve a blueprint towards a meaningful life and as their leaders as their parents with fully developed prefrontal cortexes with more life experience with more legal liability with more emotional social academic and moral responsibility towards them I think we've got to give

22:00 it to them so if your child is judging someone else and you're so busy just making sure that they're not judgmental that you forget to offer them true guidance about what would be the better healthier happier more meaningful more moral way to live then you're missing out on a massive chunk of Parental responsibility we should be a lot more worried about our children being really confused and lost than we are about our children being judgmental of others but

22:27 if you are worried about them being Jud J mental of others let me tell you something just teach them to be respectful teach your child to respect everyone even if we disagree with them you see Cal in her comment was telling me to be respectful by reserving judgment but I want to say two things can be true at once I can judge a choice as inferior as harmful as less good as negative as immoral even and still show

22:54 respect to that individual I can respect people no matter what their positions are or their lifestyle is and I can still reserve the right to be Discerning and judgmental over whether or not I agree with that lifestyle choice I mean I have to ask myself would I want this for my kids and when I see only fans creators my clear and compelling answer is no I wouldn't want it for my kids for a kathora of reasons number one on that

23:20 list is for moral reasons and yes that shows that I have moral superiority that I think a culture of monogamy is better than a culture of polygamy for example sure or that I think that sex should be linked to love and not to money transactions okay or that I think that people should be faithful and that they should build lifelong lasting relationships because it's the best place to raise children and not bounce around from partner to partner so that

23:48 makes me very judgmental I know and that's hard to say on the air but the truth is that I still offer love and respect to everyone I know I have plenty of friends who live alternative Lifestyles to mine and we're still friends they know that I don't agree with it they know that I wouldn't guide my children towards it or wouldn't make those choices for and they also know that I love and respect them unconditionally and that's the thing

24:11 that I think we need to bring back in our society is the realization that those two things are not mutually exclusive you can love and respect and offer unconditional support to someone while still disagreeing with their lifestyle or judging them for it Rob Henderson is saying this about himself he's saying the way that I grew up was inferior to a stable two family home it was less good that's a moral call that's a psychological call that's an economic

24:39 call that's a social call there are lots of different things that make it less good but ultimately what he's saying is I think it would have been better for me and for any child to be raised by two stable loving parents preferably biological is that Throwing Shade at adoptive parents or at single parents absolutely not every is doing the best they can with what they have but it is saying that there is better or worse put

25:03 it this way I don't eat purely organic food but I know that people who are eating pesticide-free organically grown food are getting a higher quality of nutrition than I am that doesn't mean that I'm devalued as a human being that I'm mess worthy that there's something deeply wrong with me it means that my choice of what to feed my body is less good than their choice for any number of reasons you might look at two two moms

25:28 one who works outside the home and sends her kid to daycare from a very young age for very long hours and one who stays home with her children till they're three or four years old and only then sends them out for small gradually growing amounts of time and you might say I think this one is better for the child that Mom is doing what she has to do she's working within her resources she's doing the best she can we don't

25:50 have to judge her as a human being but we can judge that lifestyle Choice as better or worse for the results now life is rarely as simple as that there may be many different reasons that she's going out to work and it might be the better choice in the circumstance she's in like for me eating non-organic might be the better choice for the circumstance I'm in but that doesn't make it a purely better choice if we just measure the

26:13 actual facts and results I have a lot of students who are single parents I have a lot of friends who are single parents or divorced or in blended family homes or widowed and you better bet they're raising their children not in a stable two parent household right it's a blended household it's an orphaned household there are many different things that life throws at us but we do have to be able to articulate what the goal is what the ideal is what we want

26:38 to strive for and why other things might be harmful or just plain wrong that doesn't mean we don't show love and compassion and friendship to everyone it just means that we can also either disagree with them or just be honest about the facts that not every lifestyle is ideal unfortunately due to the war we know lots of people who have have been widowed they know full well that they're raising their children in a less ideal situation right now are any of us

27:05 judging them for it heck no we all just want to show them love support and compassion and help to fill in the gaps wherever we can but that doesn't mean it's just as good it's obvious to everyone who has eyes that it's not just as good that that's not what anyone would want for their child that that's not an ideal situation and yes we can say that single Parenthood is on average on the whole stereotypically less good than two

27:32 parents if you have an abusive partner is that less good no there are of course exceptions to the rule are there situations where children should absolutely be put in Foster of course but the point is what are we striving for are we willing to uphold an ideal are we willing to put something on a pedestal and say that's the goal we're not all going to get there we're not all going to get there all the time but yes

27:55 a strong nuclear family a strong family culture where people are committed to each other and committed to raising children together is better than all of the Alternatives in terms of children's outcomes number four just teach a child to be questioning and to have critical thinking when they State something ask them what's wrong what's right about that where did they get that from can they back it up inside the studio we teach a lot of critical thinking skills

28:22 in fact I have a whole workshop on it in there and the idea is to help children to discern and to be somewhat judgmental of ideas to test ideas on their Merit do they stand up do they withstand evidence data science our moral intuitions our histories and traditions do they make sense are they common sense or are they a luxury belief now is your turn what do you think of luxury beliefs what do you think of the idea of dismantling the

28:49 family is this just common sense and totally fine and all family structures are created equal are you too raising your children to be skeptical of meritocracy or of work ethic raising them to have loose sexual Norms or lot of drug experimential or do you feel that these opinions are sometimes virtue signals and an engagement in status display let me know in the comments below feel free to agree disagree push back or correct me but just do so respectfully and make

29:19 sure to get your hands on Rob Henderson's book I'll link it in the comments below much much love and keep on living that high firm life I'll see you in the next video