Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Grown Ups

You may have seen this article, "6 Reasons to NOT Send Your Daughter To College" by Raylan Alleman of Fix The Family, whose group seems to be a bizarre blend of orthodox Catholic dogma and the fundamentalism of backwoods Pentacostals.  I'm not exactly sure how that's supposed to work, but I imagine they replace the Sign of Peace with a little mid-Mass snake handling, and allow priests who aren't fluent in Latin to fake it by speaking in tongues.

After his post was published Deacon Raylan took a certain amount of chin music over his premise, which errs a bit on the patriarchal side and basically advocates a kind of Chinese foot-binding for the female brain.  But being a good Christian who realizes that no man is inerrant and without sin except Jesus, he prayed, meditated, sought communion with the Holy Spirit, then added two more reasons because Christ never explicitly forbade his followers to troll the Internet.
Probably the most controversial and rejected position we have at Fix the Family is that parents should not send their daughters to college. It is even more vehemently opposed than the submission of wives to their husbands. 
Because when wives submit, at least there's a form rejection letter you can use ("Dear Wife: Thank you for your recent submission.  Unfortunately, your servility does not meet our present needs...").  But there's no good way to deal with a daughter who's allowed a fact inside her head; her mind hymen has been broken, and not all the king's horses nor all the king's men can put it back together again, mostly because horses are ungulates -- they don't even have fingers, let alone opposable thumbs, so I'm not even sure why they'd be your first choice, but it does explain why so few horses become brain surgeons.
Both of these positions we have are a threat to the trophies of the feminist agenda
"World's Greatest Golfer"? Your days on the credenza are numbered...
so the rejection we receive is always emotionally charged and ends up insulting, since once explained logically, the opposition runs out of substance and is only left to hurl insults and presume and misconstrue this practical wisdom into some chauvinistic evil.
Great, now I can't stop hearing Ezio Pinza singing the words "some chauvinistic evil" to the tune of "Some Enchanted Evening." Not sure why exactly, but there's just something about Raylan that makes me suspect he's a musical theater fan.
But to distinguish these 2 issues, we are NOT saying that sending a girl to college or women working is a sin. But after looking at the issues we raise, we would challenge anyone to convince us that college for girls is not a near occasion of sin.
Or as we call it here in Southern California, "freeway close to sin."

Okay, before we go any further, let's find out a little about Deacon Raylan and his partner in Fix The Family, William Gil:
Raylan Alleman has been married to his wife Missy (the former Melissa Falgoust) since 1990, and they currently reside in South Louisiana where they were both born and raised in Catholic families and are enjoying a joyous and fruitfully fulfilling marriage. As proof, they have 7 children, 5 boys and 2 girls
So their marriage has a delicious fruit filling.  And if you doubt it, they can furnish children upon demand as proof, which they alway carrying in the glove compartment in case they're ever pulled over in Arizona.
Missy has been a stay-at-home mom since they were married, and they are homeschooling all of their children. He is raising his family to be 100% loyal to the Holy Father as Pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and to be strong defenders of the Faith.
In other words, if Raylan had been present when John F. Kennedy told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act...where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope," he would have cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Wrong answer!" or maybe, "You lie!"
William Gil has been married to his wife Candy (formerly Candice Martin) since 1991, and they currently reside in South Louisiana where they were both born and raised Catholic families.
I tried raising Catholic families for extra money after I saw an ad in Grit, but my Mom complained about how much space it took up, and then a raccoon got into the garage over the Labor Day weekend and ate them.

Here's a question for Missy and Candy: is it just South Louisiana weddings, or are all Catholic brides issued an infantilizing diminutive immediately after the ceremony?
Originally, William wanted to appear in some of FTF's videos too, but they both agreed he should stay behind the camera, since Raylan's the "cute one."

Anyway, let's run quickly through Deacon Raylan's 6 (now 8) "principal reasons for shunning college for girls".
1.  She will attract the wrong types of men. I share the common concern addressed to us, again mainly by angry women, that there are so many lazy men in our society. But what mystifies me is why girls continue to marry them and then live to complain about them
In the old days, these nagging shrews would have gotten an axe in the face and wound up buried in the village dungpile, and that would have been the end of it.  But now, somehow, they manage to complain and keep on living!  But I do agree with Deacon Raylan that there's nothing lazier than a man who graduated from high school, then went on to get a college degree.  I'm pretty sure that kind of otiosity
is the reason Flo was always harping at Andy Capp.
2.  She will be in a near occasion of sin. Just think of the environment that college-age students live in. You have a heavy concentration of young people all living together without the supervision of parents at the most sexually charged state of life they will experience. 
Two-year junior colleges, in particular, are hotbeds of bedhopping hotties, which is why Fellini shot the orgy scenes for Satyricon at Mid-Plains Community College in North Platte, Nebraska.  (The set designer did an amazing job of transforming the Cafeteria into a Roman brothel, but sharp-eyed viewers may still catch a glimpse of the vending machines, and part of a banner announcing a softball game with cross town rival, the Adult Extension Campus.)
This is no small matter we’re dealing with here. Is a degree worth the loss of your daughter’s purity, dignity, and soul? 
I dunno, what's your daughter's purity worth to you?  Ten dollars?  Fifteen?  Do I hear twenty?  Oops -- sorry. I thought the silent auction had already started...
Catholic OB-GYN Dr. Kim Hardey notes that a woman is naturally very observant of a man’s faults as long as she is in a platonic relationship with him. Once she becomes sexually active with him, she releases hormones that mask his faults, and she remains in a dreamy state about him. 
That's the only reason my wife puts up with me.  Of course, I use those time-release hormones (after consulting with a Catholic OB-GYN), and now whenever she observes one of my faults I spritz her with my scent glands and bang!  Fault Masked!

(Just for the record, Catholic OB-GYN Dr. Kim Hardey is a man.)
3.  She will not learn to be a wife and mother. Nothing that is taught in a college curriculum is geared toward domestic homemaking.
I'm sorry Deacon, but you're a little behind the times.  As this educational short subject from Mystery Science Theater 3000 demonstrates, home economics is the only reason a woman needs to go to college.
On the contrary, it is training in a very masculine role of a professional career. So there becomes a severe inner conflict in a woman when she starts trying to be a homemaker and juggle a career alongside it.
Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but it just dawned on me that all the jugglers I've ever seen were men, which means that's a masculine role too, and even if a woman's only attempting to juggle a career, and not, say, chainsaws, she's still probably hemorrhaging femininity as we speak.  Quick, men!  Somebody drop their pants and release some hormones!
Often when a career woman discerns the possibility of giving up her career, she faces the reality that she has had no training in homemaking and often has the thought “What would I do at home all day.” Stay-at-home mothers are actually very busy industrious women and do absolutely beautiful marvelous things. 
"I'm sorry, I was a Chief Technology Officer at a major firm and have always worked in a corporate environment, so this 'domestic homemaking' is complex and beyond my powers to grasp.  Was I not supposed to put the baby in the document shedder...?"
4. The cost of a degree is becoming more difficult to recoup. Like anything that is subsidized by the government, the cost of a college degree is inflated.
Yours was certainly no bargain.
That being the case, it can often be difficult or impossible to get an adequate payoff for the investment...More commonly now we’re seeing situations where not only is the income not enough to support a family, but many are strapped with student loan debt. Add to that the possibility of not even being able to get a job with the degree and you have economic disaster for a family before they even get started. It makes much more sense for a young couple to have a husband with a skill that brings value to the marketplace that has reasonable compensation to go along with it.
Because fortunately, men aren't subject to those market forces.  Or maybe they are and I just never noticed it before because it's hard to see anything through this constant fog bank of pheromones.
5.  You don’t have to prove anything to the world. The girl who graduates from high school along with her parents gets the endless barrage of questions
Like, "Aren't your parents a little old to be in high school?" and "Didn't it kinda suck that your Mom started dumping Slurpees on you in the hall after she became a cheerleader?"  But answering the question "Where are you going to college," is easy, because all you have to say is, "I have a babymaker in my pants!  Your question is invalid!"
6.  It could be a near occasion of sin for the parents.
And if you ask Dad, he could use one.
 In our culture many parents feel an unnecessary obligation to pay for the children's college tuition. Of course to aid in that there are a host of financial advisers who can set up college investment savings programs for which the government will grant tax favors. So parents may avoid having more children with contraception, sterilization, or illicit use of NFP to bear this cost.
Q.E.D.!  Wait...there's an "illicit" use of the Rhythm Method?  What, do you have to phone the Vatican now every time you're tempted to pull out, like an AA member calling his sponsor?

BONUS REASONS To Keep Your Daughter Young, Dumb, and Ready for Cum:
7.  She will regret it.
Show of hands please, ladies.  Among your regrets in life, going to college has to be at the top, right?  Maybe, maybe a notch below that tattoo.  No, not that one -- that one...
This just in, so that we don't leave girls called to vocations out: 
8. It could interfere with a religious vocation. According to Corey Huber, President of the Mater Ecclesiae Fund for Vocations, Catholic seminaries and religious orders do not accept candidates who have substantial unpaid debt. He states the average college loan debt today is a staggering $27,029 which takes most graudates a decade or more to pay off.
Well, there goes my plans to escape the phone calls from Capital One by joining a nunnery.

***************
Commenter trashfire sums it up best, I think:  "Two words:

Malala Yousafzai"

11 comments:

Doc Logan said...

In Utah, wives must be submitted in triplicate.

R. Porrofatto said...

Wow, just wow. That you make such Crap™ not only palatable but funny is miraculous, and a cardinal work of mercy. I feel so sorry for the daughters of these folks, what with all the wife swapping going on between Raylan and Gil (c'mon, look at the pictures -- it's all right there folks. The first five minutes of Raylan's Resurrection of Manhood video series is another big, tumescent clue, too.)

I do like the additional reason # 8 to keep 'em uneducated:
8. It could interfere with a religious vocation.

I suppose, what with all the homeschooling and all for their own kids, they may not be aware that most orders of nuns require college degrees so that their members can be teachers, nurses, and doctors.

heydave said...

One of my favorite MST3K shorts! Iowa State University used to be known as Iowa State College, and seeing this film really, really makes me happy to work there!

Now that I'm cohabiting, gotta get me some of that fault-masking stuff too!

heydave said...

And I must say, that whole article was absolutely beautiful marvelous.

I would say "Made my day? It made my whole week!" but that is the punch line to a joke that I am mildly ashamed to say makes me laugh every time I say/hear/use it.

trashfire said...

Two words: Malala Yousafzai

Bill S said...

You missed my favorite part of this column:
"As for a husband leaving her, the possibility of being left in such a state would make a woman MUCH more careful about the man she decides to marry. Think about it. If you know you're throwing your COMPLETE trust and future in a man, you'll want one you can certainly rely on."
So this asshole is saying that if a man deserts his wife, it's HER fault for picking the wrong one. (He ignores the possibility of being stuck with an abusive husband who deserves to be kicked out. I guess he thinks abusers wear a big sign on their forehead before they get married.)

Tog said...

(Uneducated stay-at-home) Mother of God, that was amazing. Raylan is like an even-more-blathering Bruce Tinsley, who just spent two weeks of Mallard Fillmore trying to piss on public education because "head lice" and "they don't teach Intelligent Design."

Kathy said...

What about Catholic colleges? Shouldn't they be OK with homemaking and theological er-whatchamacallits?

Scott said...

One of my favorite MST3K shorts! Iowa State University used to be known as Iowa State College, and seeing this film really, really makes me happy to work there!

heydave, are you strangely drawn to that mystic fountain?

Tog: Mallard Fillmore still exists? When is this long-prophesied Death of the Print Media going to start paying some simple dividends??

What about Catholic colleges?

Oh, well, those don't count, because of ::mumble:mumble::unintelligible:southern;accent::mumble...

Scott said...

R: Thanks! I didn't know that about nuns, and I suspect Raylan doesn't either. But then, I also suspect he's never met one, because what would he be doing hanging around with an over-educated, unpregnant, unhusbanded hussy who might tempt him to a near occasion of sin, when he could be home filling his wife with fruit?

catnmus said...

First of all, these guys are both married to their wives?? Isn't that incest or something?

Second of all, Missy has been a stay-at-home mom since their marriage? Sounds like some pre-marital hanky-panky to me!

And that other pair, they were raising Catholic "families"? How many families did they have? Or is it that they were born and raised IN Catholic families, in which case why doesn't it mention what THEY are doing to do their part and "go forth and multiply"? Slackers!

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