It’s About Making Babies!

Tam at View From The Porch contends that Correlation does *not* equal causation. She found a reference to women voting on half-thought-out notions are the reason for all the socialism and big government.

In the comments, Tam suggested that women might marry earlier, if they could find a man worth marrying. My response, as often happens, got rather long for a comment.

Part of my comment on Tam’s post

If I recall correctly, the original intent was for men age 25 or older to vote – that owned property.

The thought was supposed to be, that if you owned property, you had a stake in what the government does, and a better idea of what it took to manage – and defend – your property and family.

There was an assumption that a man would be married, by age 25 (average age of marriage in the Colonies was 12-13 years). If the man didn’t listen to, or intentionally represent his wife and family’s views, the man would at least be affected by their needs and feelings.

From age 18 to 45, every man was to be an armed member of the militia, making that a de facto voting requirement.

That all got dismantled in the years since. Now the assumption, especially since compulsory education supposedly prepares everyone equally, is that everyone of age (and documentation/provenance) is a citizen, and a voter. With little stake in seeing the nation and community prosper, with little experience, in some cases, in managing and defending property, and in a lot of cases, no military experience or appreciation of military discipline, resolve – and often without the experience of nurturing a family through good times and bad.

It is no wonder our voting citizenry flounders all over the place.

I think that the reason to marry is to honor one’s culture. The rituals and traditions, the agreements about what is right and wrong were the environment and social structure that raised us. If our parent’s families nurtured us well – how could we not be bound to engage with that community, as a couple and family? The reason I mention this, is that picking “the best” or “a good” man – or woman, depending – isn’t enough. Like the loss of context from the original voting requirements – that of stakeholder and family person, not necessarily gender or race exclusions for citizenship – following the giddy high school clique definitions of attractive and desirable just doesn’t answer what we need.

We need someone to establish a home – a culture, the bringing together of beliefs and agreements, of what and how to do things, of traditions and rituals. We need a mate, a co-parent to be, someone to form that home culture, to interact on a responsible basis with the local community as a couple. For most people this means a degree of honor and respect seldom seen in TV sitcoms. That is, honor and respect for self, for each other, and for the community and nation.

You have to know your own background, your culture, and deliberately pick someone that will help you build a home culture that serves both of you, and that honors the asset that the family that raised you was, to it’s family and community.

Voting and citizenship wise, I could argue for age 16, or completion of grade 8. Age of marriage, that should be a matter of family and faith and community traditions and beliefs.

I think the government *needs* to define citizenship and voting rights. It doesn’t need to get involved in marriage and family.

Amanda’s tale of the ‘stranger’ that often violated family values got me thinking. And on Brad’s Take, I wrote about how, in tough times, music can be affordable, and available, and rewarding – and, when played or sung, the song selection contributes to bonding and building families and communities.

But I got to thinking, that by letting commercial interests select the stories that are available (TV, movies) and the music that is available (radio, TV, music marketers and producers and distributors), we give away immense amounts of time that our kids and our families spend immersed in that very emotional medium – music.

Milton Bradley is advertising CandyLand and Sorry and Monopoly as ways to spend ‘family night’. I guess I have to write Aulos and Yamaha and Hohner to remind people that kids and adults can learn to play the guitar, the recorder, the penny whistle, the piano and organ, the harmonica, the dulcimer, etc. I personally thing drums, trombones and other brass, cymbals, etc. require larger music groups to make their loudness .. useful. But, I guess you could enjoy a quiet family singalong, just send Junior with his trumpet to participate from the barn or basement.

Teaching your kids to play an instrument occupies their time usefully – it takes stamina, patience, motor skills and develops dexterity and concentration and discipline. And, if you teach the kids, they spend that time learning, practicing, performing – with you.

Time spent with your kids, at work, learning, and in recreation, conveys a lot of character-building information. Both ways. You cannot teach, well, without learning things about yourself. Spending time with your child is the single clearest way to express your attachment, love, and respect for them.

One other aspect of family music, music played on simple instruments in the home, is selection of the music. While Junior might bang out with the butt-thumping boom-cars, at home you can balance that by requiring some of the older songs, songs that shaped our cultural heritages. “I’ve Got Rings on My Fingers” is a silly Irish ballad. Explaining the story, though, covers a bit about the British Empire, back in the day, and the emergence of the Irish as they dispersed across the world to affect other peoples. Also, “The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls” gets into rebellion. Frederic Smetana’s “Three Revolutionary Marches” made an impact on my during high school. I bought the conductor’s score, copied out the melody line of one of the pieces, and play it today. Whistling that melody in Lowes last year, a girl ask her father if he could whistle like that (I assumed she meant the tune, cause as a whistler I an not good).

_Three Revolutionary Marches_ was, when written, banned by Czechoslovakia as a capital crime – for rousing a rebellious spirit in the population. _The Harp That Once.._ was a rabble-rouser by Thomas in the 1800s, rousing the Irish against the British. Umm, Tara was the hall of the High Arl (king) of Ireland, the largest wooden hall in Europe from 800 BC to 400 AD, as well as the name the Irish founders gave the mansion and estate of Tara, in “Gone With The Wind”.

Commercial music today is shaping future generations; there is no help for that. Teaching out kids the music that shaped the world for our parents and grand parents can help balance that legacy.

Forty years ago companies were following psychologist recommendations that people that play an instrument are better at math type skills. We lost that particular bent in company managers, but the theory hasn’t been disproved that I know of. Keeping traditional music and the ability to play can open doors in unexpected places. Learning music can provide inspiration and comfort down through the years. And it might just take a $4 recorder and $10 book to get started.