January 24, 2009

The Obama Age has made The Onion superfluous

From the Washington Post:

A Presidential Spring in My Son's Step

By Susan R. Benda
Saturday, January 24, 2009; A13

Barack Obama is many things to many people. Among the groups claiming a special resonance with him are mothers like me. Who has not seen The Photo (can it be that there is only one?) of toddler Barack and his young mother? His memoir may be titled "Dreams From My Father," but in the preface, Obama says that his mother "was the single constant in my life" and that "what is best in me I owe to her." She brought him up largely on her own.

This is significant for me as an unmarried mother of a preteen son, and it surely resonates for other mothers raising their children without dads. Growing up without a father, my son has at times struggled to feel "normal." ...

For my son, the issue is fatherlessness. Not having a father has been an impediment to "fitting in." He yearns for an adult man to call his very own and is uncomfortable when other children talk about their fathers or ask about his. This discomfort has affected his sense of security about his future, about measuring up and "making it" (whatever that means). ...

It is hard to watch him do this, even though thousands upon thousands of households today are headed by women who don't have partners. I know, however, that it takes time for the world around us to catch up to where society already is. For example, my son's tae kwon do teacher had the habit of talking to the students about their "moms and dads." I took him aside one day and suggested that the term "parents" might do the trick, with no child left behind. But there is a limit to how much a mother can protect her son from the word "dad." A mother can repeat to her child that there is no model "normal" family, but the world reflected and projected by television tells another story. My son and others like him are a silent and almost invisible minority, but they know who they are.

For these young people, the election to the presidency of a man who grew up without a dad signifies a seismic shift. The mere candidacy of Barack Obama has spoken eloquent volumes to my son where my words had failed. I know this because my son now walks a bolder walk and talks a more confident talk. The doors of his imagination have swung open, and his sense of his place in the world has changed. He is proud to share this identity with the new president. For my son, Obama's inauguration this week felt like a personal embrace. For him and for the growing number of children being raised by their mothers alone, all of the ceremony showed something, in a concrete way, that our words alone cannot: Yes, you can.

The writer is a lawyer living in Washington.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

53 comments:

Anonymous said...

Women and the state in a perfect union, Obama the father figure, supporting--as a father should--all his virtual wives. This is a truly plural marriage. Mormon Fundamentalists? They're nothing in comparison to this.

Anonymous said...

GREAT!

This kid might just slit his wrists now that his mom has published this article.

Black Sea said...

Well, it's nice to have the problems associated with single parenthood resolved within the first week of Obama's presidency.

Gee, the guy really is that good.

Anonymous said...

It is hard to list the huge disadvantages that are given to boys without fathers. And girls to, for that matter. If this lady is taking BO as an affirmation of her chosen fatherless lifestyle, we are truly at cultural low-point, if not a tipping point.

Shared parenting (assumed 50-50 custody) should be mandatory in all family courts, and all financial incentives (alimony & child support) should be removed from divorce. In fact, so-called no-fault divorces, really no accountability divorces, should not be an option for couples with children.

I have met many of these narcissistic, over-educated feminists. Good lord, a lawyer too. Her poor son.

Anthony said...

Kid has a father, why is his mother trying to hide that?

Anonymous said...

For my son, the issue is fatherlessness. Not having a father has been an impediment to "fitting in."

I know a simple solution to this problem! She should send her son to a school in a neighborhood where almost none of the kids have fathers. He'll fit in! She works for the Washington Post, so she probably lives in DC. A school like that shouldn't be hard for her to find.

I know, however, that it takes time for the world around us to catch up to where society already is.

I'm starting to feel sorry for the kid already - he'll have no one to explain to him what the word tautology means.

But there is a limit to how much a mother can protect her son from the word "dad."

Heh.

A mother can repeat to her child that there is no model "normal" family

Poor, poor young man. I'm serious - what a horrible thing to say to an impressionable child.

My son and others like him are a silent and almost invisible minority...

That means she lives in a White part of DC. She's in one of the most heavily African-American cities in the country, and of all the neighborhoods she could have chosen, she settled in the notoriously expensive White part. And here I was naively thinking that such a fervent Obama fan would have transcended such petty prejudices. You've got to get beyond race, lady.

"For these young people, the election to the presidency of a man who grew up without a dad..."

There used to be a word for such men.

The writer is a lawyer living in Washington.

Oh damn, I was right.

Anonymous said...

I hope the Messiah enjoyed the inauguration because that's likely to be the high point of his presidency if the boys at ticker-forums are right about the economy disintegrating:

http://www.tickerforum.org

Anonymous said...

"But there is a limit to how much a mother can protect her son from the word "dad.""

I'm sure that the government will now be too happy to step in and shield impressionable young men from this frightful concept - "father".

"My son and others like him are a silent and almost invisible minority, but they know who they are."

Actually madame, being fatherless, they do not entirely know who they are.

Anonymous said...

Didn't Bill Clinton's dad skip town too?

Anonymous said...

"But there is a limit to how much a mother can protect her son from the word "dad.""

Eh? I was thinking something like, "There is a limit to how much a mother can be a dad." You know, like demonstrating a man's way of dealing with anger on a day to day basis, a man's way of delaying gratification on a day to day basis, a man's way of choosing to stand firm or back down on a day to day basis, etc.

If this chic is like a lot of mothers, she is going to take the absolute wrong approach to teaching moral lessons. She will use shame instead of rules. If he wants to act out violence even in a completely harmless way, she'll say, "Why do you want to do that? What is wrong with you?" where the kid's father would say, "Not in the house, dufus." If he doesn't want to help out in the kitchen, she'll say "Why doesn't the desire to make the home esthetically pleasing come natural to you?" instead of "Clean up the dang kitchen or I'll snatch away your privileges."

Or the inevitable: "Now, you're not going to want to be kissing any girls, are you? I mean, you wouldn't want to do that, right?" vs. "Son, I expect you to be conduct yourself as a total gentleman now matter how much you like a girl."

Maybe the maternal way works on girls; I don't know, I never was a girl. It certainly works on boys - turns them into self-hating leftist freaks. If he gets the message about sexual responsibility, he will be a self-loathing heterosexual who won't ask girls out for fear of committing "sexual harassment". If he doesn't get the message, he'll be a player, and probably make a whole bunch more bastards.

If you don't believe me, read Iron John by Robert Bly. He says it better than I do.

Anonymous said...

Somehow, Steve, I figure you've written about this Single Mom attraction, but it did not occur to me until late that such people would, undoubtedly, have a close identification with Obama, due to his wandering, and what I would call, errant mother. Just think of the thousands of these women, with increasing numbers by the week, who enjoy hearing the story of the little Obama boy, who probably barely escaped illegitimacy himself -- if he did.

She writes, "A mother can repeat to her child that there is no model 'normal' family, but the world reflected and projected by television tells another story." Not for much longer, I bet. In fact, the Single Mom is due to be even more heroized than she has been over the past decade. This has truly become an Oprahfied nation.

-- Victoria

Anonymous said...

Women have no business voting and never did.

Anonymous said...

The two terms this person "scare quotes" are instructive. Normality and success do not exist to this woman.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, she thinks fitting in doesn't exist, either.

Anonymous said...

Surely no change has occurred in the child's behavior, and this is a figment of the mother's self-obsessed delusion. Note the inadequate description of the child's behavior sice the Rapture. I love, also, how she demands his martial arts teacher not refer to dads so as to accomodate her lifestyle. That is absolutely classic. At least she has the kid in martial arts.

Anonymous said...

To answer the anonymous so-and-so's comment about Bill Clinton's father, he was a travelling salesman who drowned in an accident while on a business trip. I don't like Bill Clinton, but nobody should be equating Clinton's father with Barack Obama Sr.

Anonymous said...

Obammy got the full parental absence whammy, because his mother periodically dumped him on her parents so that she could pursue her research into Indonesian village blacksmithery, or whatever it was.

I may be imagining this, but wasn't Obama's reference to his mother in the Preface to "Dreams from my Father" written as a sort of afterthought, or apology, after she became terminally ill or had died, as she receives scant attention in the book itself?

Steve Sailer said...

Obama's feelings toward his mother in "Dreams from My Father" are clearly mixed, much more resentful of his mother than is common among black men. But, then, who cares what the President of the United States has carefully written about himself when it's so much more fun to just make stuff up, and nobody will call you on it because nobody has paid much attention to the President's autobiography?

J said...

How could I receive Obama's Stroke? You know, till Queen Anne, English monarchs used to administer the so called King's Touch or King's Stroke to cure all kind of diseases. The king only had to touch the patient and make the sign of the cross to make him recover. Hordes of patients used to descend upon the king wishing this upon themselves. However, the king did not constantly have the power to cure scrofula. It was most efficacious when he was being newly anointed for his coronation.

Anonymous said...

Obama had 2 fathers - his Indonesian stepfather, who seems to have been an ok sort of guy, and his white grandfather, a nasty piece of work who unfortunately seems to have been much more influential.

Re this piece - my reaction was that the author wants to negate her own failure or selfishness in not having a dad for her son, and apparently Obama is helping her do that. Great.

Anonymous said...

who cares what the President of the United States has carefully written about himself when it's so much more fun to just make stuff up, and nobody will call you on it because nobody has paid much attention to the President's autobiography?

---------

Indeed from my informal polling I'd say about 1% of Obama freaks have actually read either autobiography. Approximately zero have actually read both books -- "He wrote two books?!"

The magic of Obamamania is that each SWPL glow addict feels they know Obama better than he knows himself -- even after listening to just one speech (which happens to be written by a platoon of professional writers).

Steve has written about this many times -- Obama is a projection blank slate where all of the listener's best intentions are chalked up in a beautiful and romantic cursive script. His devoted followers hear what they want to hear: When Obama says something totally outrageous such as, "We need a domestic civilian defense force as large and as well-funded as the military", they answer back, "Yes we can!"

Confront typical college age glow addicts with the inconvenient facts about Obama and the response is some variation of "you just don't get him".

Obama sat for 17 years in a radical Black Liberation Theology church? And indoctrinated his young children in the Rev Wright world view? The glow addict replies "Obama really doesn't believe all that stuff".

So what about those two kids, Obama Fans? Did Obama tell his kids each time they left the church that "Daddy really doesn't believe all that stuff" and that they shouldn't believe it either?

No, Obama did not tell them that. Because then his kids would naturally ask the unanswerable question "Why are we going to this church if you don't believe what Rev Wright is saying, daddy?"

The Obama Show is stage crafted fiction hurtling toward farce.

Anonymous said...

Watch out for the trap of using the term "single parent". This invented term wilfully conflates widows and widowers with the feckless and irresponsible, and was designed to destigmatise that which any sane society does stigmatise.

It is far more accurate to use the term (in this context at least), "unmarried mothers".

Anonymous said...

If the lady is interested in a real man to be her son's role model, Andrew Jackson was born three weeks after his father's death.

Ron Guhname said...

We need to make Blagojevich President so all the juvenile delinquents will feel better about themselves.

Anonymous said...

Wanna see whiterpeople in action?


Look at this:

http://tennessean.com/article/20090125/NEWS0202/901250401


Thats an article describing how whiterpeople in my city defeated an amendment that would have made our city conduct business in English-only (we have an army of illegals here, when we probably didn't have 100 hispanics in 1990). Whiterpeople are in ecstacy that they defeated the amendment. The real reason they won? Davidson County's middle class (and much of its lower class) white's left in the past 18 years along with getting some very anti-white black "ministers" to come out against the bill (whatever sticks it to "the man" right?). Nashville's MSA has white ring counties around it, increasingly connected to each other by a new ring highway, full of people who no longer even venture into the city, with a over-policed-welfare state within, full of brown people these same whiterpeople have nothing to do with (whiterpeople live in the city's very expensive south sector and midtown mid-rises with private security to protect them from, you know....undesirable elements).



This whiterpeople woman may think that everyone can successfully single parent their kids, and going to the private school that this kid goes to, the martial arts classes, and the social group he is been fortunate enough to have, he very well might be. But for underclass kids and even middle class kids who dont have private school opportunities, the situation is much more precarious. They cannot be so shielded from underclass folkaways and habits.




Anyone else notice the uptick in the amount of whiterpeople's who are taking martial arts? Watch their feet folks. I took MA for a few years myself, and for the same reasons. The world is getting a bit more threatening, even to them, whether they openly admit it in polite conversation or not. m

Anonymous said...

Born out of wedlock? Gay? Need a blanket affirmation because you feel vaguely disconnected, but can't figure out why? Group hug time!

Anonymous said...

Every time I read an article like this I go out and buy another box of ammo, some more foodstuffs that have a long shelf life and a bit more in the way of supplies. This nation is headed for disaster.

Anonymous said...

Obama is also a southpaw. I wonder if left handed children will now have a better time fitting into society that practices systemic discrimination against them.

Anonymous said...

According to peoplefinders, there is a Susan Benda out of DC who is 64 years old. Which leads me to guess she adopted.

Also, I found this:

Susan R Benda
US Department of State
Office of the Legal Adviser
Washington DC 20520-6417

Looks to me like maybe she's bucking for a promotion.

Anonymous said...

"non de guerre said...

To answer the anonymous so-and-so's comment about Bill Clinton's father, he was a travelling salesman who drowned in an accident while on a business trip."

Travelling salesman, eh? I can't help but think of all those old jokes. This perhaps explains a great deal about slick willie.

albertosaurus said...

I'm starting to feel sorry for the kid already - he'll have no one to explain to him what the word tautology means.

Good one!

Jeff Burton said...

Susan R. Benda: as the father of five, I apologize for my existence.

Anonymous said...

In sync with the societal changes brought about by the internet, we are moving into virtual politics. Next up: virtual war.

Anonymous said...

Is anyone surprised? On average, this is exactly what Women want. Single motherhood/unmarried mothers, abdication of personal responsibility, putting themselves first over their kids.

It's the triumph of feminism and female selfishness. And btw a huge cultural shift from where women were just forty years ago.

The pill, condom, rising female wages, and anonymous urban living make this possible. And indeed the rule.

We can expect a huge drop in male cooperation as a result (to the victor go the spoils, in this case impregnating as many single / unmarried mothers as possible and taking responsibility for none of them). Or what you see in the Black ghetto. Every slight is a reason to fight (constant mating displays as women choose from the thuggiest thug). Cooperation is for losers.

This happened the White working and now middle class in about fifty years, as Dalrymple has pointed out repeatedly. It's happening here.

Of course, with men untied to women in any significant way, the gender gap cuts both ways. Guys who are popular with women (Leonardo Di Caprio, Clooney, Pitt) etc. generate male hatred. Already I see signs (Slashdot posters have called KDE 4 as overhyped as Obama!) that the hype and celebrity of celebrities of Obama has alienated men.

Anonymous said...

How many Obama supporters even know that his mother was white? I would guess around 50%.

Anonymous said...

It is far more accurate to use the term (in this context at least), "unmarried mothers".

I have another term for these women, but I don't think Steve wants me using it on his blog.

Anonymous said...

Single motherhood is overwhelmingly chosen rather than forced. All this woman is doing is trying to validate that hurtful choice.

A few recent presidents had single mothers at some point. I can think of Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton off the top of my head.

Having daddy issues has a lot to do with Obama's career and choices. It probably played a big part in his ambition. For most people, of course, it doesn't end up like that. For most guys deprived of fathers, it means a life of pain and regret, and most guys never reach peaks of glory and success that can compensate for that.

Anonymous said...

As I understood the pundits, the deal was that we vote for Obama and he forgives us our sins. So where do we go to prove we voted for him so we can get those absolutions?

Somehow this reminds me of the Ablasshandel (sale of indulgences by professional "pardoners") during Luther's days. I'm sure it's only a coincidence.

Anonymous said...

Soo true..this story would be brilliant as a satirical joke. Theyd never have the brains to create it or the guts to run it. The Onion story I saw said the "Speech" had been drowned out by men working with jackhammers...wow.thats funny. A veiled attack on working class white men? I dunno.

Anonymous said...

anonymous said...

Every time I read an article like this I go out and buy another box of ammo, some more foodstuffs that have a long shelf life and a bit more in the way of supplies. This nation is headed for disaster.

Exactly.

Anonymous said...

From the Nashville [whiteRpeople's] Tennessean:

English proposal foes went on attack



Nashville's core tilted English-only vote

Anonymous said...

Steve,

Time to get on the corruption story behind the Obama administration.

Blago is threatening to sing.

I see a bad moon on the rise. I see the Obama administration plunging us into the fiercest constitutional crisis since the Civil War.

Our first black president may face impeachment before his first term is over. It's that bad.

Anonymous said...

This is so sad. The shame she feels.

The desperate need to hide the facts from her son, as though he is not painfully aware of them each and every day.

If she can just get everyone else to keep their mouths shut and not mention the elephant ... .

Anonymous said...

Having daddy issues has a lot to do with Obama's career and choices. It probably played a big part in his ambition. For most people, of course, it doesn't end up like that. For most guys deprived of fathers, it means a life of pain and regret, and most guys never reach peaks of glory and success that can compensate for that.

Not particularly pertinent to this debate but there's some statistic about a disproportionate number of British Prime Ministers having lost their fathers around about the age of 15 through bereavement.

The rule of course is that if you're illegitimate (and that, rather than having a father, seems to be the main factor), you're seriously impeded in life.

Anonymous said...

Shouting Thomas, that's some bold talk on Blago.

How about some links and evidence that the Blago scandal really is "that bad" i.e. rises to the level of presidential impeachment. Where's the beef?

Anonymous said...

Scooter, Blago (gotta love him) was in on ALL the corrupt stuff in IL, and guess what, so was Obama.

He's not going quietly. He's probably got more info on the Saddam-Auichi-Rezko-Farrakhan-Obama connections than disclosed before. Along with the decision to pay Michelle Obama what amounts to a 300K bribe, and plenty of other stuff.

There was a lot of money pouring in and out of Chicago. Everyone got their fill including tin-pot Jesus.

Blago is going on the View. Claiming racial discrimination (he appointed a Black Man to Obama's seat). It should be fun.

Anonymous said...

Let me add that Blago has subpoena'd Obama's top aides including Emmanuel and Axelrod.

His trump -- subpeona the One himself, and ask him stuff under oath that Obama does not want to answer and would be perjury to lie about.

I figure Obama HAS to fire Fitzgerald and order the investigation closed. Or face going down with Blago.

Ordering the investigation closed and firing Fitzgerald would indeed trigger an impeachment crisis, given that it's an obvious attempt ala Nixon to avoid prosecution for crimes (in Obama's case, corruption).

Anonymous said...

Our first black president may face impeachment before his first term is over. It's that bad.

First reaction to that is extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof; it's going to take a lot for that to happen. It would have to be something the media couldn't downplay and the politicians couldn't ignore, equivalent of a live boy or a dead girl.

Marvin said...

Single mothers fall into several categories. The first and largest category consists of poor NAM's who have several children at an early age often by different fathers. The mothers are reliant on state aid and a rotation of thug boyfriends, and the kids turn out accordingly.
Another type of SM is one who has the unfortunate luck of having a husband who dies unexpectantly at an early age. A third type is the well educated woman who has listened to and believed the feminist propaganda that you don't need a man to raise a child. This author obviously falls into this category (Murphy Brown syndrome).
I think that reality hits these women and they realize how much they need a father to help raise the child. They try to tell themselves that everything is fine and use every justification they can find. I feel sorry for this kid. Chances are he will turn out fine on the surface, but not having the male role model in the home will affect him in unforseen ways. Barack Obama in the white house will not make up for it.

Anonymous said...

Shouting Thomas said...
" Steve,

Time to get on the corruption story behind the Obama administration."

I second that!! Steve, your writings are funny and informative but I think that stuff you wrote about the sleaze in Chicago, and how Obama fitted in now needs to be explored on a national or even internationl level. You have the brains and knowledge to take big guys down. All you need is some inside source. Are you ready for this task?

Anonymous said...

t99:
"tin-pot Jesus."

LOL, that's a good one!

Anonymous said...

I'm very sceptical of the impeachment thing because essentially anything that happens in Congress is political by nature, not judicial. We see the same thing here in Europe. When a situation does not suit the governing class its amazing how tone-deaf they become and how tenuous their excuses are. Case in point: the EU constitution. Suddenly proof needs to be the equivalent of the SI-standard before they even glance at it. Then they use procedural rules and other nonsense to just bypass it. Yet when something suits them, they can create "facts" out of a myth and drive it through all houses of parliament. The EUrocrats are living proof of this continual abuse of power. Whenever anything can be politicised, it by nature looses its judicial meaning and is subject to majorities, preferably in tight political chambers controlled by certain parties.

Clinton was a sure-fire impeachment but enough senators decided to cover him; Most probably because the sleaze in their own lives was not less. With Obama such a thing will not even be entertained, even with "live boy or a dead girl“. Nobody wants to have the outraged charges of racism hanging over his career, of willfully bringing down the first ever black prez, the new "Saviour". When Clinton's impeachment failed the after-effects were negligible. If I remember correctly the prosecutor got fired. But that was it. If anybody tries bringing down "tinpot Jesus", he will either be lynched afterwards, get roasted by a hellfire missile or immediately hounded out of office by the press, churches, lobbies etc.

As an example, Mugabe should be before The Hague by any measure. Yet all they talk about are the “dire humanitarian situation” and offer more medical and food aid which winds up in the regimes hands. The other day Fischer (ex German Foreign Affairs) got irate that Mugabe will not just quieten down and stop embarrassing all the liberals. That was a moment of truth. They really want him just to disappear because they caused the mess and won’t face it. If Mugabe had been white, the UN would have authorised an invasion force. The point is that we are light-years away from a political situation where a black political leader will be impeached for anything, no matter how outrageous.

Anonymous said...

The title to this post reminds me of a song from the 60/70's that I heard about ten years ago that went:

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius;
The age of Aquarius!


The belief among all of those free-love hippies that everything would work out in their Liberal utopia has been pretty much proven wrong, and yet I can imagine a choir singing this for Obama.

This is the dawning of the age of Obamius; The age of Obamius!