67 Comments

This is a very interesting piece Darryl. My wife and I made a decision when she was pregnant for her to stay home and be the caregiver for our boys while I worked. This decision made such a positive impact on our kids! The party about stuffed animals being an imaginary friend is very interesting!

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Good for you! My wife and I made the same decision, and it’s so worth it. I did not expect that it would make us stand out, but my wife says that people are frequently surprised that she is a stay-at-home mom, if you can believe it.

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We did the same thing, too, and people seem to have this idea I’m living some 1950s nightmare (except my close friends and family, most of whom would love the opportunity to stay at home with their children for at least the first few years.)

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Staying home with kids: the newest subversive activity!

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tell your children not to walk my way

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Damnit, you beat it. I was about to comment about Danzig and badass sideburns.

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had it not been for your comment, I would have missed the context. Ha! And I even saw Danzig live once...not an impressive show, sadly

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A good friend of mine used to work as a bouncer. He worked at a Danzig show and afterwards, a young kid approached Danzig holding a "Walk Amongst Us" vinyl from his days in the Misfits. Danzig took the record and broke it. My friend looked at Danzig after the kid had walked away in shock and said, "you're an asshole." Danzig responded with "you don't understand, I'm not in the Misfits anymore." My friend responded, "That music was much better than the crap you are making now." I suppose this story is why I like Graves better than Danzig as the Misfits lead singer.

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That reminds me of Harrison Ford breaking the Lego Millennium Falcon. "Whoops."

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He could have had someone give the kid a tenner and tell him to buy the latest Danzig album...but no, he had to be a drama queen. What a turd.

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I think we both passed.

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I see what you did there

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I consider motherhood to be my one and only finest accomplishment. My spouse and I raised our son into a responsible, dedicated husband, father and citizen, himself and his wife now raising my 2 grandchildren in just the same way. I always enjoy reading about the cultural mores of child raising among diverse peoples and times past. This was a very enjoyable read, with an impish subtitle. Danzig, indeed.

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I didn’t really know about any of this until I had kids, but my wife and I started with attachment parenting (which I initially doubted as hippie nonsense) and now we are homeschooling after years of trying, and failing, to get public schools to work. After all this, everywhere I look I see parents separated from their children early and getting further away by the year. No wonder everyone is so anxious, and kids most of all!

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I was trying to explain your substack to a friend who was unfamiliar and why I enjoy reading it, and I think I came to the realization that if i had to put it ob a bumper sticker its because you talk about culture and sociology from a right wing perspective -- two fields more than any other that have been totally dominated by commies for my entire life. Keep it up DC always interesting

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Mission accomplished. “Mother “ (Danzig song opening) . Is exactly how I heard it when i opened my email app.

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If you make an audio of this use a few seconds of Danzig’s “Mother” as the intro.

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The answer to the age and wilderness survival question for a large majority of our population is never.

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i lol'd :)

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Keep up the good work, DC. Happily renewing my subscription for another year. Best wishes to you and your folks

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Can I ask what event you’re speaking at? Are tickets available or is it a private thing?

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Not involved at all but I think it’s called Novitiate 2023 and one of (or the main?) organizer is Luke Burgis who runs the Anti-Mimetic substack.

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Can any commenters direct me to the podcasts on Nietzsche & Dostoevsky mentioned above? I scrolled through the posts and couldn’t find it. As an aside, I find Substack difficult to navigate…like, wouldn’t it be cleaner to have all the podcasts in a section, and all the writings in a separate section? The way they lump them all together makes sorting through it all difficult.

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I very much agree that the substack interface is clunky, both in the app & on the website. If it helps, you can usually add a podcast to a separate, podcast-only, app. I use Podcast Addict, which is not free, and it integrates perfectly. I've always done this as part of the subscribing process. But, if you poke around, you can likely find how to hook it up after subscribing.

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You think this site is bad, Patreon is a nightmare.

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The podcast was "The Underground Spirit". Podcast #20. It is brilliant (nothing surprising for DC). I have listened to it several times.

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Thank you, Brian!

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Interesting timing for this article for me. My wife made a comment the yesterday that she noticed our 9 month old son is less interested in objects and not as attached to any stuffed animals when compared to my step daughter when she was this age. My wife is staying home full time with our son and she went back to work 3 months after giving birth to her daughter

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My sister had to go back to work after only five or six weeks of unpaid maternity leave, and she's noticed apparent differences in behavior between her daughter, who is two now, and her older boys whom she had significantly more time to bond.

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Totally read this in Danzig’s voice. Generational subculture is real.

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Misfits is on my snowboarding playlist. Proper.

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Hahahahaha. I was at a Killswitch Engage concert and that song came on during intermission. The whole place knew all the words. Epic.

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I absolutely read that in Danzig voice Haha.

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