If I had a dime for every time I heard a young woman tout her definition of feminism, I’d be rich. “Feminism to me means . . .” It’s true that feminism is a word that means different things to different people, but the goal of feminism is still the same no matter how many adjectives we ascribe to it.

When people ask me to define feminism, I go straight to the source: feminists themselves. Gloria Steinem defined it clearly just last month. She said the goal of the feminist movement is to “free everyone from the prisms of gender.” The system, she says, is crazy: We must change it. Like their friend in the White House, change is feminists’ favorite word.

What, exactly, must we change? In a word, biology. Feminists want to change male and female nature, which as most of us know is like trying to stop the ocean from producing waves. But more to the point, why? What’s wrong with more wives than husbands choosing to care for their babies and more husbands than wives choosing to slay the beast to make it all possible? What’s wrong with more women than men choosing nursing or relationship-oriented fields and more men than women choosing math and engineering?

If you’re a feminist, everything’s wrong with it. Biology separates women and men and makes them different. And the goal of feminism is sameness. Feminists want men and women to be exactly the same, so much so that we cannot distinguish between the two. They should live parallel lives, coming together as necessary and breaking up at will.

That’s what feminist Linda Hirshman pronounced in our debate this week. Hirshman is No. 77 in Bernard Goldberg’s 110 People Who Are Screwing Up America for her elitist stance that no mother (no parent, actually) should stay home with her children because an educated adult’s place is in the office (which begs the question as to who, precisely, should rock the cradle — dimwits?). When asked whether she believes the number of women checking out of their marriages today is a good thing, Hirshman proudly claimed yes. It’s evidence, she said, of their willingness to get out of a potentially damaging relationship and stand on their own.

That millions of women are getting divorced for reasons other than spousal abuse is lost on Hirshman. That’s because feminists begin their day with this mantra: “men bad, women good.” They never preach this message in an obvious way, of course — which is why they’re able to get so many young, impressionable women on their side. Feminists talk only of fairness and rights, and who could argue with that? Young people are always looking for a way to assert their rights. So when Gloria Steinem says reproductive freedom equates to the “right to decide to or not to have children,” young people absorb the idea that abortion is critical for women to be able to determine how many children they will have — as if there’s no other method available. As if without it they’d be stuck at home with ten screaming babies.

Over and over I hear young women’s misconception about feminism: that it’s about choice. No, feminism isn’t about choice. It’s about so much more — and, hopefully, when young women are older and come out of their feminist fog, they’ll understand this. Lord knows they wouldn’t be the first.

An NR family member just highlighted this Christmas recipe on her Facebook page.

Entertainingly edible. 

It’s hard to know exactly how to acknowledge Pearl Harbor Day. I think I’m like many young Americans who suddenly realized how much pain and heartache these days represent, only after 9/11 awakened us to the real suffering hiding behind the cold numbers on the calendar. 

As you think about the day, Anna Quinn does a great job thinking about “The Greatest Generation,” in this piece about a disabled woman she used to know –  a woman who epitomized the traits of that era even though she couldn’t walk:

Once I had a dear friend whose birthday fell, unfortunately, on December 7.  Every year her favorite cousin would call to congratulate her with the words “Happy . . .  Pearl Harbor Day!”

She loved to tell me about his teasing, but in truth, I could not comprehend the darkness of December 7, 1941, her twentieth birthday. As with most other difficulties in her life, she handled her birthday with grace and wry humor.

Her difficulties prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor were not inconsiderable. She survived the 1932 super tornado that devastated her small town of Northport, Alabama, riding the storm out in a bed with her brother. And then she contracted polio, which left her in leg braces.

A handicapped girl in small town Alabama in the forties could have easily chosen to live quietly at home. Instead she earned a B.S. from the University of Alabama, a Master’s from UNC, and eventually a Ph.D. in Library Sciences from Columbia. She worked at many universities, finishing her career as a librarian at Georgia Tech.

Read the rest here.

The Economist is hosting a debate on the statement, “This house believes women’s place is at work.” Independent Women’s Forum senior fellow, Karin Agness, wrote about it here, highlighting AEI’s Christina Hoff Sommers’s simple, devastating refutationt: “Women do not have an assigned place.”

That should really be the end of the discussion.

Anyone who recoils from the idea that women’s role would be restricted to homemaking and child-rearing should recognize that it’s just as limiting to confine women to the role of worker. Yet I’m always struck during such discussions (or books such as Linda Hirshman’s Get to Work), by the total lack of value many modern feminists are willing to bestow on family life and civil society.

It can sound like a pathetic, everyone-gets-a-trophy line of argument, but stay-at-home parents’ contributions to society are real. Scholars differ in their assessment of how much impact parenting styles have on individual children’s outcomes, but it’s clear that communities pay a price when there is a lack of at-home parents.

Feminists’ glorified image of work-life also seems disconnected to reality. As Mark Steyn notes in his latest book, a growing number of jobs provide little real value outside of navigating the modern economy’s bizarre, bureaucratic labyrinth. Sure, the local compliance officer gets a paycheck which shows that someone valued his service, but just how meaningful is his impact on society really?

Intuitively, most people know that the size of the paycheck you receive isn’t the only way to measure your worth or contribution to your family or society. Yet the feminists can’t seem to escape the money-as-everything mentality when assessing women’s roles.

— Carrie Lukas is the managing director of the Independent Women’s Forum.

Fantastic. The Brits treat the morning-after pill like a stocking stuffer. Telegraph:

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) will encourage women to stock up on the emergency contraceptive over the Christmas period.

They will have to register their details on a website and will be phoned by a nurse for a 15-minute consultation intended to weed out young teenagers and assess suitability.

However, the charity has admitted that under-age girls will almost certainly obtain pills through the scheme by lying to them. Some children “will not be completely honest about their age”, a spokesman said. Under-16s would usually need a prescription to prevent a possible pregnancy in this way.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said last night that he would prefer the pills to be issued after a face-to-face consultation but stopped short of saying he would intervene.

Other critics likened the scheme to dialling for a pizza and warned that teenagers would abuse it to obtain the morning after pill without their parents’ knowledge. They said it could fuel promiscuity and encourage unprotected sex, risking a rise in sexually transmitted diseases. BPAS said the service was vital at a time when many surgeries and pharmacies would be closed and because chemists’ shops charged up to £25 for the emergency contraceptive, too expensive for some women.

The rest here.

Rebecca Cusey reports:

Anne Rice’s “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt,” an exploration of the early days of Jesus’s life, is coming to the big screen. Rice, who famously wrote about inky-hearted vampires in “The Vampire Chronicles,” converted to Catholicism in the late ’90s and wrote “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt” and “Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana.” 

 

I’m in a hotel room in Des Moines, working on a writing project while The Sing Off’s Christmas special drones on in my room. Though I’ve watched the show pretty religiously with my kids, it’s background noise tonight. I’m collecting information, organizing it into a longer book format, researching, ordering room service, trying to pretend I don’t know where the workout room is.

The show seemed happy enough, though I didn’t hear one Christmas song that wasn’t Santa-centric. (Perhaps I missed some? I heard the Beach Boys’ “Little St. Nick,” ”Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” Justin Bieber’s “Under the Mistletoe,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and even “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” If I missed one, let me know. Again, it’s basically background noise tonight.) I enjoyed listening to host Nick Lachey and judges Sara Bareilles and Ben Folds performing on stage. (Okay, wasn’t so enthused about Nick. Have you noticed the weird shoulder shrug thing he does while announcing performers? My daughter pointed this out, and now I can’t pay attention to anything else he says. It’s like his body physically emphasizes punctuation marks.)

Anyway, I was listening to a torturous rendition of “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)” — a 1971 song written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono – and realized that they were singing this in honor of the soldiers who were coming home for the holidays.  

Does this seem tone deaf to you? As the wife of a soldier, I appreciate that the show is honoring our soldiers in a time of war. I mean, I wish all of the shows would take a moment to think about the soldiers who won’t be spending the holidays at home. But seriously? Doesn’t the song choice seem strange to you? Does a liberal, hippie, Vietnam-era song provide comfort to anyone, except in some sort of nostalgic Forrest Gump soundtrack kind of way? Isn’t it only nice if it’s divorced from historic context?

If I’m right that the show’s producers made a decision to eliminate all religiously themed songs, then perhaps it makes sense. After all, there are meaningful Christmas songs that deal with war. For example, two stanzas of ”I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” refer to the Civil War and the other five emphasize God’s sovereignty and the ultimate triumph over evil. However, if you reduce Christmas to some sort of feel-good season without any religious significance, then what comfort can you offer the military?

He might be okay at delivering presents, but Santa’s just not that great at delivering hope or comfort to the homesick.

Elizabeth Ficocelli has an excellent series Catholic parents may appreciate: Introducing priests, nuns, and now deacons to young children, in short, well-done books. 

My father was born in 1922. He died just over three years ago, at the age of 85, and I can honestly say I never once heard him tell my mother what to do in her own house. Yup, that’s what I wrote: her house.

Technically, it was their house — my father did make the payments, after all — but he would never dream of telling my mother how to decorate it or how to situate the furniture. And he certainly wouldn’t tell her how the kitchen should be organized, what utensils should be used, or how to load the dishwater. My parents’ home was, with the exception of the garage and basement, my mother’s domain.

That’s the way things were back then: The house was her job, the office was his. This arrangement had its bumpy moments — she would complain that he didn’t “help out” enough in the kitchen,” and he would try to be of assistance, only to be told he wasn’t doing it right — but for the most part, it worked.

Today this family model has gone the way of the dinosaurs. Husbands and wives are expected to do everything 50/50. That’s how couples, men in particular, prove their status as enlightened beings. But is the 50/50 marriage — in which both spouses work, cook, clean, and raise children together in perfect harmony — superior to the old way? And does it even work?

In theory, perhaps. In reality, no.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m all for sharing duties, and that’s generally the way things work in our home. My husband and I rarely fight about who does what because we’re both self-sufficient and respect each other’s role. (Full disclosure: My husband works full-time and pays the bills; I write, as you know, but also take on the lion’s share of household and child-related matters). And our marriage dynamic has become all the more evident since we moved my 81-year-old (and still vibrant) mother into our home.

Oh, sure, my mother knew my husband does the dishes every night; she’s seen that many times. And she remembers his doing his part in caring for our two children when they were babies. But it wasn’t until my mother moved in with my family that she saw the extent to which my husband got involved on the home front.

When she wants to put certain utensils in a certain drawer in the kitchen, I might respond, “Well, you-know-who doesn’t like it there.” Or if she wants to prepare a dish (I do most of the cooking, but she helps out) a certain way, I might say, “Well, you-know-who doesn’t like such-and-such prepared that way.” At which point her eyes will open wide while she desperately tries to keep her mouth shut. But I know exactly what she’s thinking: My father would no more have had an opinion on these matters than he would fly to the moon. And he would eat anything and everything my mother put on his plate. My husband, on the other hand, has lots to say — so much that it makes my job that much more difficult.

The 50/50 marriage feminists have been touting for decades is supposed to be a recipe for the old model. Their argument is that women like my mother were unduly burdened, while husbands got off scot-free. But is this accurate?

My mother quit her career as a stockbroker (yes, women had careers before feminism came along) when my sister and I were five and three, respectively — and was never employed after that. As a result, her time was her own. Once my sister and I were in school full-time, my mother was free as a jaybird to do whatever she liked.

My father couldn’t say that.

Does my mother’s life, or mine, seem oppressive to you? That’s what feminists and the women they’ve enlisted in their cause believe — and what they want you to believe. Consider this shocking statement by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook: “We still haven’t achieved the goal of real equality for women in the workplace and men in the home. Women continue to need protection not only globally where many women lack basic civil and human rights, but also here where the most dangerous place for an American woman is still shockingly in her home.”

The most dangerous place for an American woman is in her home. Wow.

With this belief firmly planted in their brains, feminists tout a new model for marriage — one in which each spouse is expected to do the exact same thing. Sandberg explains that she and her husband share everything right down the middle: care of their two small children, full-time careers, cooking, cleaning, etc. What she doesn’t mention (as most high-profile feminists don’t) is that somewhere in the background is a full-time nanny who’s doing the hard work — some might say the real work — for them.

Most women, most parents, don’t want to give up the precious years they have at home to rear their children so they can pursue demanding careers that place them at the mercy of hired help. Much to the dismay of feminists such as Sandberg, most women — despite all their so-called gains — still choose to work part-time, if at all, once they have children. In doing so, they acquire a type of freedom men don’t have.

Husbands don’t have the luxury of leaving their jobs temporarily, and then when their babies are old enough to go to school decide whether or not they want to go back to work, change careers, or get part-time jobs. Millions of men don’t follow their dreams because they know women want husbands who are willing to carry the financial load. My husband is an academic at heart, an intellectual of sorts who’d spend his days reading and writing poetry if he could. But when he was in his 20s, he realized his dream to become the next Pablo Neruda would not provide for a family — so he gave it all up and went into sales instead.

It is men’s consistent work — full-time, year-round, all throughout their lives — that allows women the freedom and flexibility to find the balance they so desperately crave. If that kind of life, that kind of devotion to the daily grind, were recognized as equally taxing as “women’s work,” as it used to be before feminism came along, the idea that women are unduly burdened would seem downright laughable.

The 50/50 marriage is a fraud. No marriage is ever equal on any given year — and too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the soup anyway. No one dares admit this lest they be labeled a throwback who believe women “belong in the kitchen,” which is so ridiculous. But the greatest problem with the 50/50 model is that in order to follow it, the children of America can’t be raised by mom and dad — and the majority of parents, thankfully, don’t want that.

The 50/50 model is a feminist utopia. It works in their dreams, but not in ours.

Scholars who take on the notion that overpopulation threatens our planet counter that human beings are our most valuable resource. Far from degrading our world, they make it richer and invent all of the products and processes that improve our quality of life.

I wholeheartedly agree with this perspective, but worry that one of the greatest problems confronting the U.S. (and, indeed, Western civilization) is that we increasingly fail to put these resources to good use — particularly our nation’s boys.

Much has been written on how women are gaining power in the new economy, out-performing men in education, and even increasingly out-earning them. Kay Hymowitz’s book provides a detailed look at the dysfunctional culture that dominates much of young men’s lives — at a great cost to them, and to women too.

David Thomas provides a more personal perspective on this phenomenon in the Daily Mail. He describes the successes of his ambitious, 20-something daughters, and his concerns for his teenage son. While he uses statistics and particulars from the U.K., they resonate just as well with the situation in the U.S. Both education systems are run almost exclusively by women and cater to female learning styles, which has profound consequences for boys.

I’ve been reading these types of statistics and arguments for many years, but they have a very different impact when you consider them as a parent. Debates about nature vs. nurture which used to seem like interesting academic questions become a little absurd once you have kids — particularly children of both sexes. The difference are so blindingly obvious, and clearly stem from more than choices of pink and blue, that the whole idea of a gender-neutral world becomes absurd.

It took my two-year-old son, who has grown up in a house dominated by two older sisters, with mostly girl toys and Angelina books, about five minutes in the home of another little boy to identify and become obsessed with guns and swords. He is more hyper, rambunctious, violent, and less easy to communicate with than my girls were when they were his age.

It’s easy to see how these attributes will be a liability in a few years. My four-year-old daughter was recently described by her preschool teacher as an ideal student: she listens, sits still, and follows directions. She is quiet, polite, and excels with fine motor skills, so she is enthralled by the many craft projects that dominate her preschool experience.

That’s nice to hear of course, but made me pause about the teacher’s perception of an “ideal” student. Clearly, in this instance, the ideal student is decidedly female. And as a mom, I sympathize. If I was in charge of 15 preschoolers, I would absolutely want a crowd of well-behaved children, quietly pasting hearts on construction paper, rather than a noisy mob rolling on the ground or wielding sticks. In other words, I’d rather deal with a bunch of little girls than little boys. But that’s not how schools are supposed to see it, and it’s clearly not good for boys to be surrounded by those who see their natural tendencies as a nuisance.

Like Thomas, I’ll be paying extra attention as my kids grow up to the academic climate in which I enroll my son. I’ll seriously consider and look for opportunities for boys schools when possible. I’m confident that my girls will do well in traditional school settings, but am not so sure that that’s the situation that will get the most out of my little boy. I don’t want him to get the message that school is not a place for kids like him.

When I was living in Virginia, a family down the street with three daughters had a bumper sticker on their car that read something like this: Girls Don’t Chase Boys, They Run Right Passed Them.

It’s cute, though needless to say, one would never see anything comparable on the car of a family of sons celebrating boys’ superiority to girls. It’s hard to imagine that such a male-applauding bumper-sticker even exists. Yet my neighbors bumper stickers was absolutely unremarkable. In fact, it’s the new vision of equality. As Thomas summed it up: “[Students] have been taught that men and women are equal — except for all the ways in which women are superior.”

That’s the message pushed in our schools and in society. Is this really what we want our boys growing up to believe?

— Carrie Lukas is the managing director of the Independent Women’s Forum.

Catholic Online:

The ACLU is complaining, this time because Apple’s popular new virtual assistant, Siri, can’t direct you to an abortion clinic. The group has launched an online petition asking people to flood Apple offices with requests to “fix Siri.”

Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) – The ACLU wrote on a blog post on Wednesday, “Although it isn’t clear that Apple is intentionally trying to promote an anti-choice agenda, it is distressing that Siri can point you to Viagra, but not the Pill, or help you find an escort, but not an abortion clinic. We’re confident that the developers at Apple want to provide iPhone users with accurate information.”

Apple has replied that the omission wasn’t intentional and that Siri is still in beta testing so there are “places where we can do better.” It is believed that as more and more data is uploaded into Siri’s database, then the digital assistant will be able to field more general requests.

My friend Tom Walsh, who has been with PEPFAR since 2004 and was even the acting head of it in 2009, writes about an event today you might want to check into:

Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine something that could bring together Presidents Obama, Bush (43), and Clinton . . . with Bono and Alicia Keys . . . and Kay Warren . . . and Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Barbara Lee.

But it’s happening. Tomorrow (Thursday) morning, the ONE Campaign and Project (RED) have organized an observance of World AIDS Day that will include all of the above, and others.

And they’re coming together for the best of reasons — to celebrate the progress we’ve made in 30 years of fighting this disease. Over the last decade, the PEPFAR program has made incredible strides at reversing the toll of AIDS, especially in Africa, the hardest-hit region. Recent scientific advances have made it possible to do even more, and tomorrow’s event will offer a window into the opportunities ahead of us. 

You can watch the event here live at 10 a.m. EST, or anytime thereafter.

Okay, can you tell I’m avoiding some other writing projects? One more post on the Home Front, and — I promise — I’m going to leave you good readers alone. But I found Rebecca Cusey’s recent article about “Hipster Homemakers and ‘Extreme Domesticity’” very interesting. She asks:

Women are taking on burdens their grandmothers rejected: growing organic food, canning, baking bread. Is this movement a way to take care of one’s family properly or a symptom of an overly wealthy and neurotic society?

Her article goes on to explain her views on the matter, but she’s gotten some push back from (apparently?) some hip homemakers. Tara Edelschick’s reply to her post is the most well reasoned. What do you think?  

Are these “hipster homemakers” type-A personalities that carry their overachievement to the home front? Or, as Tara claims, is the real curse of modern motherhood (especially among the wealthy and well-educated) a certain defensiveness about the choices we make?

Now that I’ve adopted a baby from Africa and brought her to a new home in rural Tennessee, I’m looking at racial issues in a totally fresh and more serious light. That’s why Rick Banks caught my attention. He’s recently caused a stir with his book, Is Marriage for White People?, in which he talks about the marriage crisis in the black community. And he’s at it again.

In his new column, “What’s the Problem with Black Fathers?” he stirs the pot:

African American fathers are often reviled as the most uninvolved group of parents in our nation. Recently, after black teenagers in Philadelphia committed a series of assaults and acts of vandalism, Mayor Michael Nutter singled out African American fathers for especially harsh criticism. “Part of the problem in our community, the black community,” he said, is that “we have too many men making too many babies that they don’t want to take care of.” Comedian Bill Cosby and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama have similarly castigated black fathers for, in the words of Obama, having “abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men.”

It is true that many black fathers are absent from their children’s lives. But it is not because they don’t care about them. It is more because they are not married to the child’s mother.

Why does this matter, and what can we do about it? Read his suggestions here.

When my husband finally home came home from Iraq, after his year with the 3rd Armored Cav Regiment in the Diyala province, we decided to surprise the kids at school. Perhaps we had seen one too many of the types of videos Greg posted below. You know the kind . . . where the child doesn’t realize his or her dad is about to pop through the door and then has a joyful reaction caught on tape for the rest of their lives?  

Well, we surprised the kids at Zion Christian Academy — but it was too much, and just felt wrong. We hadn’t gauged the intensity of their emotions — or ours. David had just found out (upon his arrival to the states) that one of his dear friends had been killed, so he felt wounded and raw. In turn, I felt uneasy — because I’d expected a husband that was thrilled to be home, but got a grieving soldier who regretted leaving his brothers behind.

The reunion wasn’t so much joyful as tearful. It was simply too much for a nine-year-old and seven-year-old to take — and all in public.

Though I used to watch those sweet reunions and swell with patriotic pride and joy, I can no longer even click play. I’m overjoyed of course that families are being reunited and that some parents have the emotional fortitude to pull such public reunions off.

But I just wanted to throw our story out there in case there’s a spouse at home dreaming of the day their loved one returns: Sometimes the private, quiet reunions are just the right thing for your family.

A heartwarming homecoming for a Marine and his lucky daughter.

I just finished a book called Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married by Gary Chapman. In it, the author outlines the complexities of married life that few of us anticipate before we tie the knot — such as how our personality affects our behavior, or how important spirituality is to most people, or how few couples explore this topic before getting married. Indeed, there are so many things that make marriage challenging all on its own that being raised in a culture that undermines this institution practically guarantees people will fail. Yet that’s exactly where we are.

Never in the history of time have women had a better shot at marital bliss — they have more freedom, flexibility, and privileges than ever — yet they’re celebrating the single life in record numbers. The reason is twofold. Since the day they were born, women have been tremendously influenced by the most significant revolution of our time: the feminist movement. For decades its mission has been to change a woman’s place in society and eradicate both masculinity and femininity. The result is a battle between the sexes — the likes of which this nation has never seen.

The second reason women struggle with marriage — which is part and parcel of the first — is they’ve been taught that the world revolves (or should revolve) around them. This attitude is a bona fide deal breaker. So much about marriage requires putting oneself last, or being quiet rather than demanding, or taking the higher road and not having to have one’s way all the time. Simply put, married life presupposes a maturity modern women don’t have.

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about young men who fail to grow up and become good family men, but video games are not the culprit — women are. Men tend to follow women’s lead — and it is women, not men, who fight Mother Nature. It is women who’ve changed the roles, rules, and expectations of marriage. It is women who embrace no-fault divorce laws that allow them to check out the moment they’re dissatisfied. Indeed, feminists assure women they can’t possibly be happily married until men change who they are or adapt their nature to accommodate the needs of women.

They’ve also drilled home the absurd notion that women in America live in a patriarchy. Not only is this patently false — women in this country rule — the truth is that women have chosen the lives they have. They chose to abandon marital intimacy by bringing the power they wield at work into their homes, where it doesn’t belong. The happiest wives I know don’t do this. No matter how successful they are outside the home, they leave that piece of themselves at work. When they walk in the front door, they put on their feminine hat and let men be who they are: simple creatures with few demands. As my cousin, a former law partner (and female), says, “There are two ingredients to a healthy marriage: good food and good sex.”

Naturally, this philosophy will raise the ire of the most strident modern woman who’s been taught to believe that cooking for a husband or saying yes to sex amounts to indentured servitude. They refuse to even accept that men have a greater sex drive than women. In failing to understand the differences between men and women, women have sabotaged their own happiness. As for the men, they aren’t so much choosing to be immature as they are doing what they’re told. Tell a man he’s dispensable, and he’ll quickly prove you right.

Marriage was never meant to be a competitive sport, yet that’s exactly what is has become. That’s because modern women have been taught that in order to be equal with men, women and men should pursue identical lives and ignore the differences between them. This attitude is producing enormous strife and makes happy marriages impossible.

Honestly, marriage doesn’t have to be so difficult — and it needn’t become obsolete. But it will if women don’t stop fighting men and start surrendering to their nature. They’re fighting a losing battle.

— Suzanne Venker is co-author of the book The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know – and Men Can’t Say. Her website is www.suzannevenker.com.

The cookie-baking kind. 

Kathryn, I didn’t see your post asking for Thanksgiving recipes until now, because I was so busy preparing my completely preassembled Thanksgiving meal that I bought from a company that specializes in meals for people like me who are way too busy to make a meal, but too proud to admit it. I flew home on Wednesday night and had my entire family over for a Thursday morning for Thanksgiving Day festivities. Thanks to Super Suppers in Franklin, Tenn., I looked as if I really had slaved over the stove for a week.

At any rate, someone forwarded me an old article in Yankee magazine about Mrs. Ann Romney’s favorite recipe for Welsh cakes.

·       1 egg

·       1-1/4 cups of currants

·       1/2 cup of milk

·       3-1/2 cups of flour

·       1 cup of sugar

·       2 teaspoons of nutmeg

·       1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

·       1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

·       1/4 teaspoon of salt

·       1 cup of butter

Beat egg with milk. Add currants. Sift all dry ingredients together. Work butter into flour and mix until mealy. Pour milk and currants over flour, and butter mixture all at once, and mix well. Wrap in wax paper, and chill at least one hour. Roll it a little less than half an inch thick — actually about 3/8 of an inch. You may think this is too precise, but it’s very important not to roll too thin! Cut with cookie cutter. Cook on a pancake griddle greased with oil (325 degrees) on both sides. Flip the cookies when you see they are all shiny. Cook it for less amount of time on the second side. Roll in granulated sugar, and let cool. Resist the urge to eat them right out of the oven — these are the only cookies that taste better cooled.

(Why does she have a family recipe for Welsh cakes? Her own grandfather immigrated to America in 1929 after being injured as a boy in the coal mines in Wales.)

If any of you try to create these delicacies, please send a note with a photo. Let us know how they are!

During Thanksgiving, Americans gather with family to reflect on the blessings in their lives for which they are thankful. 

Oh, whatever!  Thanksgiving is all about the food: Juicy turkey with stuffing, creamy mashed potatoes smothered in homemade gravy, cheesy broccoli casserole, sweet and tart cranberries.  Even Sean Penn must be thrilled to be an American on the third Thursday each November.

But this Thanksgiving, Americans should do more than just eat.  They should reflect on how the food they love is under attack.  Food prices are up a full 13 percent this year. Governments at all levels are conspiring to tell Americans what they can and cannot eat through an over-sized helping of regulations and taxes, which push food prices up, eliminate choice, and make our food taste worse. 

Sadly, this Thanksgiving marks a new period in American history: The era of food dependence.

Nearly 150 years ago, when President Lincoln declared the third Thursday in November a national day to give thanks, people largely relied on their hunting, foraging, and agricultural skills to eat.  If you wanted a turkey, you had to shoot it yourself.  Can you imagine most of our modern men heading out to shoot a turkey today?  More importantly, did they update their hunting license?  And just how did those early Americans cook a turkey without all those warning labels about the proper cooking temperature?  Those early settlers sure were risk takers. 

Want a good bread stuffing?  Early settlers first had to bake the bread out of the flour ground from the grain they planted last spring.  Today, many communities ban the planting of gardens . . . on your own land.  Need some cream for those mashed potatoes?  Settlers first had to head out to the dairy barn in the blistering cold to milk the cow.  But things are a little different today; most states won’t allow Americans to drink unpasteurized milk they get from their own cattle. 

Of course, no one advocates a return to the days of throwing a musket over your shoulder to head out to shoot “yer kinfolk some turkey.” After all, let’s not forget another quite common thing that happened 150 years ago: starvation.  Yet it is still worth reflecting on how far we’ve come from those days when relying on oneself — and using common sense about how to prepare foods — was the norm, not the exception. 

Indeed, our modern world with ubiquitous grocery stores and trade with other countries (with warmer climates) has made life easier and products more readily available.  Yet, despite these contemporary conveniences, it appears modern Americans need more help than ever to properly feed their families. 

Today, the federal government spends nearly $30,000 per low-income household on a variety of food assistance programs and a whopping 15 percent of the American public (that’s one in seven Americans!) relies on food stamps, the budget for which has doubled since 2007 to $70 billion. 

Clearly such assistance programs are not just a safety net for those truly in need, but are increasingly a middle-class entitlement that is fostering a general dependence on government — a dependence that conflicts with our great American tradition of independence.

There’s another, far more effective, way the government could help the poor get enough to eat: Keep food prices low.  Yet, the government is doing just the opposite by regulating the food industry — a move that will hike prices even more.  These paternalistic measures — which include salt bans, soda and snack-food taxes, toy bans, and regulations on restaurants, grocery stores, and food manufacturers — will cost the food industry billions of dollars in lost revenue and upwards of 74,000 jobs.  Tragically, it will also keep many Americans reliant on the government for their family’s dietary needs.

The early settlers gathered on Thanksgiving to thank God for providing them the bounty before them.  Today, too many Americans are thanking a different source for their food: the mighty federal government.  We must all remember that our nation was founded on the concept of limited government.  Placing onerous regulations on food manufacturers, limiting the foods we love, and fostering dependence on government is outside the government’s proper bounds.