I wholly disagree with your assertion that poverty is the root cause of your childhood problems. I AGREE that poverty was a symptom, but it seems to me that the core issue was illegal drug usage by adults in your life, which led to broken families in the first place. 2-parent, biologically kin families aren’t perfect, but the data shows that children from these environments fare much better in later life than those raised outside those parameters. I appreciate your story and wish you all the best in your career and future family life.
i think the largest problem is the lack of male mentors, of male elders in a young man's life. my upbringing was not nearly so difficult but my family also divorced and my father was gone. after a period of careless wildness which could have turned out far worse than it did, i began to find male mentors which slowly helped repair what was broken. though, yes, it takes grit, a stubborn anger and relentless dedication to not failing, to making it through, and finding the male mentors that are needed. I think that is why jordan peterson had such an impact on young men and, as well, why robert bly's long work with men had such a powerful effect on so many lives. Unsurprisingly, the attacks on their work in that area has been unremitting. There is some social hatred for the male in our culture now, a dismissiveness and contempt for the healthy patriarch, the healthy elder. There is the concept of the healthy matriarch, the healthy female elder (though to some extent that is also under attack by the young now) but nothing matches the contempt for the male in our culture. There is no way we can find out way out of this without the restoration of respect and love and value for the male in this country. it is just as needed as the healthy female. I believe that the contempt is also interwoven with contempt for the working class for it is in that world that the strongest expressions of maleness tend to emerge. as bly once said, working in silence alongside the body of my father, some invisible essence transferred from him into me without which i could never become a man. i still do not understand why so many activists, so many women could come to hate their own male children, hate the male that is inside them, that in fact they could not exist without.
Knowing the story of the man behind the phrase "luxury belief" makes that phrase punch so much harder. Thanks Rob. I read every word and listened to every minute of the podcast.
Excellent article, and the podcast that went with it.
Though my parents were poor, I was blessed that they stayed together. I Still it wasn't till I went to the army myself that I realized this sucks and I'd better got to school. And I still might not have done that without parents that really pushed me to go back to school.
turns out despite what you might have thought from high school grades, I was reasonably intelligent and now have a CPA and MBA. But I could certainly could have turned out different
Well done. Great thinking. I'm following your journey. One nitpit... seems a hat tip to Charles Murray's "Coming Apart" would be in order, as you have in other venues.
Fantastic job! FREEDOM of individuals, freedom of choice can and does lift people. Children are faced with such struggles and it is not their fault. Accepting that their parents issues are not their issues is an important message. I learned that lesson from my foster Mom. I too went to many schools, eleven of them nationwide. I was born to an upper middle class family, that disintegrated with alcholism through my childhood. White as a lily, I was subjected to some very damaging situations -and was even in a Bridgeport detention center wrongly. At 18 I was nearly killed by an illegal alien on 405 Los Angles fwy. Alas, I found my upper middle class life again, only to be chased around by the tax collectors, and now my job is threatened by a tyrannical Marxist administration.
Life is a challenge. My learned lesson is - individuals make choices - some bad, some good and liberty isn’t easy. It’s important to praise God and stay sober in all things.
Thanks for speaking truth to this issue, Rob. I come from a mixed home, and by that I mean I have 3 biological siblings and 4 adopted siblings. My adopted siblings were all adopted out of foster care at varying ages and had experienced varying degrees of childhood trauma. Similar to your story as well, my parents divorced a few years after their adoption. This instability had a more profound impact on their lives than did mine or my biological siblings because for us this was the only instability we had ever experienced, but for them it was repetitious and most of them have yet to recover.
Rob’s early story is so much like my nephew’s it isn’t even funny. He was adopted by my sister and brother-in-law when he was 5. It was mixed race (he’s black. Sister/BIL white) and it was tough.
His issue has always been anger, even at 5 years old. I took him in for about a year when he was 20 and he eventually tried the Marines. After Boot Camp, I had never seen him so happy, confident and … proud. He had earned the respect of his lead drill instructor and it meant the world to him.
He made it another 1.5 years before … messing up. Drugs.
He is seriously trying to find himself.
What is sad is he can excel for 6-9 months but then falls into old habits and patterns. My sister and him don’t get along and her … strong feminist views has him hating women and much as my sister hates men.
Anger among abandoned kids is common. Human development isn't suited to abandonment and anger is one of the standard reactions.
I wish I knew the answer for your nephew. Ultimately he must realize his life is 100% under his control now. If he chooses to continue to screw it up, he has no one but himself to blame for the consequences.
I learned that lesson very young while huddled beneath an underpass Christmas morning. Took me many years and several stumbles to implement that simple truth but it happened.
Bari - as always your content is nuanced and phenomenal. I read this and listened to the Honestly pod. While listening to the pod Rob made me think of something I’ve been thinking about a lot. His thesis that these luxury beliefs place a cost on the lower class is closely related to similar idea I have had. Exaggerated or out and out false narratives are toxic. If you wanted to meet the Critical Theory types half way they say, “we don’t live in a purely Baysian Logical World. Rather we live in the stories we are told.” I think there is a lot of truth to this. That said, then there seems to me to be a significant onus on the influential elites and powerful institutions within a communities to constructed narratives that are nested in objective truth. If the real world is the data doesn’t support that the cops are acting “genocidal” towards young black men and there is significant evidence that social and economic mobility IS a possibility for African Americans (particularly if they avail themselves of the necessary skills). However, the stories told to them are precisely the opposite “thumb is on the scale to insure you won’t succeed” and “all cops are racist” etc. If those are the stories you are told about your world then it’s very easy to understand why one would choose not to pursue a traditional path. Why put your nose to the grind stone and pursue academic achievement? (After all you are told that those efforts would be futile). It occurs to me that these exaggerated stories are told to signal something “progressive and morale” about someone. However, the decision making impacts on individuals hearing these stories (who would have likely made different decisions if they were told a more truthful story) are horrific. It seems to be the opposite of morale and this concept is right in line with the notion of luxury beliefs. While all the cost is absorbed by individuals making suboptimal decisions for themselves based on a false hell scape that has been constructed by “virtuous” people.
First of all, full disclosure: I served 26 years in the Air Force, retiring as a Senior Master Sergeant. Thank you for your service my brother Airman. Something tells me that Air Force veteran history teacher gave you the best advice you received. I don't know how long you were in, but I have a feeling that you also had excellent supervisors. Look at you now; a kid with a brain that would have fallen through the cracks, a Ph. D. candidate! During my time on active duty, I saw similar life stories. One being a guy who grew up with a single mom in poverty. He joined the Air Force at 18. He retired 20 years later as a Chief Master Sergeant with a Bachelor's Degree and his first two years of law school under his belt, and then was able to finish up law school on the Montgomery G I Bill. He is now a practicing attorney in North Carolina. Look at Thomas Sowell. He grew up in poverty in Harlem, dropped out of high school, ended up in the Marines, and then went on to earn a Ph. D. in Economics from the University Of Chicago. Military service played a huge role in where you are today. During your time in the service, you became an adult, if you know what I mean.
This is terrifying. The screaming "TOXIC MASCULINITY"....along with the attack on White boy's is disturbing. It was a serious problem when society did the same thing to young Black boy's. As women of all race's continue to excel which is great, but does it have to be at the cost of young men? It looks like that's what's happening...if you speak out you're attacked! The common response is "they had their time now it's ours" how ignorant is that!!!! Schools are now lowering the standards for grading etc...this continuing of "lowering standards for equity" is alarming. I listen to Glenn Loury on YouTube. He's awesome
Rob, thank you for an inspirational story. Your conclusions mirror those of people studying the causes of crime and instability among black youth; namely the lack of a father figure and/or discipline.
While you did not take any personal credit for your success, I think you deserve credit too. Yes, the history teacher was instrumental in convincing you to join the military and your adoptive mother was supportive. But you are the one who had the drive and discipline to stay the course and do the work. Good for you.
I wholly disagree with your assertion that poverty is the root cause of your childhood problems. I AGREE that poverty was a symptom, but it seems to me that the core issue was illegal drug usage by adults in your life, which led to broken families in the first place. 2-parent, biologically kin families aren’t perfect, but the data shows that children from these environments fare much better in later life than those raised outside those parameters. I appreciate your story and wish you all the best in your career and future family life.
Rob, how do you propose giving a father figure to the boys who do not have it?
i think the largest problem is the lack of male mentors, of male elders in a young man's life. my upbringing was not nearly so difficult but my family also divorced and my father was gone. after a period of careless wildness which could have turned out far worse than it did, i began to find male mentors which slowly helped repair what was broken. though, yes, it takes grit, a stubborn anger and relentless dedication to not failing, to making it through, and finding the male mentors that are needed. I think that is why jordan peterson had such an impact on young men and, as well, why robert bly's long work with men had such a powerful effect on so many lives. Unsurprisingly, the attacks on their work in that area has been unremitting. There is some social hatred for the male in our culture now, a dismissiveness and contempt for the healthy patriarch, the healthy elder. There is the concept of the healthy matriarch, the healthy female elder (though to some extent that is also under attack by the young now) but nothing matches the contempt for the male in our culture. There is no way we can find out way out of this without the restoration of respect and love and value for the male in this country. it is just as needed as the healthy female. I believe that the contempt is also interwoven with contempt for the working class for it is in that world that the strongest expressions of maleness tend to emerge. as bly once said, working in silence alongside the body of my father, some invisible essence transferred from him into me without which i could never become a man. i still do not understand why so many activists, so many women could come to hate their own male children, hate the male that is inside them, that in fact they could not exist without.
Knowing the story of the man behind the phrase "luxury belief" makes that phrase punch so much harder. Thanks Rob. I read every word and listened to every minute of the podcast.
Great piece, Mr Henderson. Please come back, we'd like to hear from you again.
Excellent article, and the podcast that went with it.
Though my parents were poor, I was blessed that they stayed together. I Still it wasn't till I went to the army myself that I realized this sucks and I'd better got to school. And I still might not have done that without parents that really pushed me to go back to school.
turns out despite what you might have thought from high school grades, I was reasonably intelligent and now have a CPA and MBA. But I could certainly could have turned out different
Well done. Great thinking. I'm following your journey. One nitpit... seems a hat tip to Charles Murray's "Coming Apart" would be in order, as you have in other venues.
Tremendous personal story and an outstanding essay.
Fantastic job! FREEDOM of individuals, freedom of choice can and does lift people. Children are faced with such struggles and it is not their fault. Accepting that their parents issues are not their issues is an important message. I learned that lesson from my foster Mom. I too went to many schools, eleven of them nationwide. I was born to an upper middle class family, that disintegrated with alcholism through my childhood. White as a lily, I was subjected to some very damaging situations -and was even in a Bridgeport detention center wrongly. At 18 I was nearly killed by an illegal alien on 405 Los Angles fwy. Alas, I found my upper middle class life again, only to be chased around by the tax collectors, and now my job is threatened by a tyrannical Marxist administration.
Life is a challenge. My learned lesson is - individuals make choices - some bad, some good and liberty isn’t easy. It’s important to praise God and stay sober in all things.
Thanks for speaking truth to this issue, Rob. I come from a mixed home, and by that I mean I have 3 biological siblings and 4 adopted siblings. My adopted siblings were all adopted out of foster care at varying ages and had experienced varying degrees of childhood trauma. Similar to your story as well, my parents divorced a few years after their adoption. This instability had a more profound impact on their lives than did mine or my biological siblings because for us this was the only instability we had ever experienced, but for them it was repetitious and most of them have yet to recover.
Rob’s early story is so much like my nephew’s it isn’t even funny. He was adopted by my sister and brother-in-law when he was 5. It was mixed race (he’s black. Sister/BIL white) and it was tough.
His issue has always been anger, even at 5 years old. I took him in for about a year when he was 20 and he eventually tried the Marines. After Boot Camp, I had never seen him so happy, confident and … proud. He had earned the respect of his lead drill instructor and it meant the world to him.
He made it another 1.5 years before … messing up. Drugs.
He is seriously trying to find himself.
What is sad is he can excel for 6-9 months but then falls into old habits and patterns. My sister and him don’t get along and her … strong feminist views has him hating women and much as my sister hates men.
I keep hoping.
Anger among abandoned kids is common. Human development isn't suited to abandonment and anger is one of the standard reactions.
I wish I knew the answer for your nephew. Ultimately he must realize his life is 100% under his control now. If he chooses to continue to screw it up, he has no one but himself to blame for the consequences.
I learned that lesson very young while huddled beneath an underpass Christmas morning. Took me many years and several stumbles to implement that simple truth but it happened.
I sincerely hope it happens for your nephew.
Bari - as always your content is nuanced and phenomenal. I read this and listened to the Honestly pod. While listening to the pod Rob made me think of something I’ve been thinking about a lot. His thesis that these luxury beliefs place a cost on the lower class is closely related to similar idea I have had. Exaggerated or out and out false narratives are toxic. If you wanted to meet the Critical Theory types half way they say, “we don’t live in a purely Baysian Logical World. Rather we live in the stories we are told.” I think there is a lot of truth to this. That said, then there seems to me to be a significant onus on the influential elites and powerful institutions within a communities to constructed narratives that are nested in objective truth. If the real world is the data doesn’t support that the cops are acting “genocidal” towards young black men and there is significant evidence that social and economic mobility IS a possibility for African Americans (particularly if they avail themselves of the necessary skills). However, the stories told to them are precisely the opposite “thumb is on the scale to insure you won’t succeed” and “all cops are racist” etc. If those are the stories you are told about your world then it’s very easy to understand why one would choose not to pursue a traditional path. Why put your nose to the grind stone and pursue academic achievement? (After all you are told that those efforts would be futile). It occurs to me that these exaggerated stories are told to signal something “progressive and morale” about someone. However, the decision making impacts on individuals hearing these stories (who would have likely made different decisions if they were told a more truthful story) are horrific. It seems to be the opposite of morale and this concept is right in line with the notion of luxury beliefs. While all the cost is absorbed by individuals making suboptimal decisions for themselves based on a false hell scape that has been constructed by “virtuous” people.
First of all, full disclosure: I served 26 years in the Air Force, retiring as a Senior Master Sergeant. Thank you for your service my brother Airman. Something tells me that Air Force veteran history teacher gave you the best advice you received. I don't know how long you were in, but I have a feeling that you also had excellent supervisors. Look at you now; a kid with a brain that would have fallen through the cracks, a Ph. D. candidate! During my time on active duty, I saw similar life stories. One being a guy who grew up with a single mom in poverty. He joined the Air Force at 18. He retired 20 years later as a Chief Master Sergeant with a Bachelor's Degree and his first two years of law school under his belt, and then was able to finish up law school on the Montgomery G I Bill. He is now a practicing attorney in North Carolina. Look at Thomas Sowell. He grew up in poverty in Harlem, dropped out of high school, ended up in the Marines, and then went on to earn a Ph. D. in Economics from the University Of Chicago. Military service played a huge role in where you are today. During your time in the service, you became an adult, if you know what I mean.
This is terrifying. The screaming "TOXIC MASCULINITY"....along with the attack on White boy's is disturbing. It was a serious problem when society did the same thing to young Black boy's. As women of all race's continue to excel which is great, but does it have to be at the cost of young men? It looks like that's what's happening...if you speak out you're attacked! The common response is "they had their time now it's ours" how ignorant is that!!!! Schools are now lowering the standards for grading etc...this continuing of "lowering standards for equity" is alarming. I listen to Glenn Loury on YouTube. He's awesome
Rob, thank you for an inspirational story. Your conclusions mirror those of people studying the causes of crime and instability among black youth; namely the lack of a father figure and/or discipline.
While you did not take any personal credit for your success, I think you deserve credit too. Yes, the history teacher was instrumental in convincing you to join the military and your adoptive mother was supportive. But you are the one who had the drive and discipline to stay the course and do the work. Good for you.
The question is, are you repeating this trope because you're ignorant or a racist?
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr071.pdf
Are you capable of indulging in intelligent adult conversation?
“But I would trade every accomplishment I’ve ever enjoyed to have never have had to witness so much grief and disrepair as a child.” Me too!