Kept Women, Kept Men, The Family Economic Unit, and Sucess In an Intellectualized World.

Fancy folk debate the approaches to achieving a "Work-Life" balance.  The nature of the family has become a politicized exercise in self-indulgence rather than a biological and cultural phenomenon. 

Those of such antique notions as the children of the Scottish Enlightenment who believed you could read "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" in nature might think marriage is an enterprise undertaken by a man and a woman to raise children enduring "[t]he slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" such a bold venture entails.  Such people still exist.

Raising children? A task of some significance to the health of societies? These are non-starters in much of the debates whirling around us like a swarm of noisy wasps.

Yet, how children are raised makes a real difference in their intellectual development.  The more words a child hears in his or her first three years makes an enormous difference in their latter vocabulary as shown in this video from the Economist:



Might a mother and a father who spend lots of time with their children, reading to them, telling them stories, and making sure they are around when they talk do more good for their later wealth than a huge grub stake?  Homeschooling did C.S.Lewis and J.R. Tolkien a world of good and neither was a slouch with language.  Both were exposed to other languages at very tender ages.  Other studies have shown learning more than one language in those early years does wonders.