A feminist has declared that she will never cook for a man ever again, and a mother has given her daughter the craziest name you ve ever heard. Today on the show, are children really old enough to consent to changing their gender? Obviously not, but the consequences of treating them like they are old enough could be dire.
00:00:44.640A guy named Andrew Duncan on the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast really said, he really argued in all sincerity that Tolkien was racist because he depicted some creatures as being worse than others.
00:00:57.740And this has had, these are his words, quote, dire consequences for society.
00:01:04.040Because of the racism that was generated in that story against orcs, which, you know, he's not wrong.
00:01:11.720I read, I read Lord of the Rings myself when I was in middle school.
00:01:14.960And from then on, I harbored this deep bigotry towards undead goblins that have been mined out of the earth by evil wizards.
00:01:23.380And I never really thought of it until now.
00:02:10.740Now, his dad is trying to rescue him from all this madness and let him just be a boy like he is and like he wants to be.
00:02:18.120But the mom is accusing the dad of child abuse.
00:02:20.840The mom, who is trying to turn her son into a girl, is accusing the dad, who wants his son to just be his son, of child abuse for refusing to affirm James's alleged transgender identity.
00:02:35.820Now, I already made my points about this case, and I'm sure it wouldn't shock you.
00:02:43.360You won't be shocked to learn that I side with the dad very strongly.
00:02:47.020I think this child is being exploited and abused by the people who are trying to foist transgenderism on him.
00:02:54.620Not just his mother, but apparently his therapist.
00:02:59.700But there's one other point about all this that I didn't make yesterday and I think that needs to be made.
00:08:02.460Now that I'm divorced, I'm never making dinner for a man again.
00:08:05.880And the pull quote right under the title says,
00:08:10.780I stopped cooking because I wanted to feel as unencumbered as a man walking through the door with the expectation that something had been done for him.
00:08:19.720The piece written by Liz Lenz talks about the oppression that she experienced in her marriage when she was forced to cook all the time.
00:08:29.060And this seems to, you know, this seems to really be resonating with a lot of people who are reading it.
00:08:37.540When my marriage fell apart, I stopped cooking.
00:08:40.960I gave my children frozen chicken nuggets, pizza, quesadillas, or their favorite, cheese sticks, nuts, fruit, crackers, veggies, all displayed on a hand-me-down China platter.
00:08:50.780Now they eat like fancy ladies, as my first grader says, piling her little paper plate with nuts and grapes.
00:08:56.780I live off of bagged salads, rotisserie chicken, and whiskey.
00:09:45.340Talking about all the things she cooked.
00:09:46.360And then we get to the climactic moment.
00:09:48.020And then one night, as my daughter watched TV, my toddler screamed from the living room, and the water boiled, collecting steam on the windows.
00:10:29.700In the tangle of performance and purpose, in my quest to make a home and love, I had created elaborate offerings which were consumed and judged, and yet afforded me no redemption, no grace, no more than four out of five stars.
00:10:43.840That night, I dumped the water in the sink, tossed the ingredients in the trash.
00:10:47.980I poured myself a glass of wine and threw some frozen chicken nuggets in the microwave.
00:10:51.700When my husband came home, we were already eating.
00:10:54.420That was the last time I cooked for two years.
00:10:59.700And then she talks about how she would spend her days.
00:11:04.160I would wake up at five in the morning and go work out.
00:11:06.620Then I'd come home, get the kids ready for school, drop them off, come back to the house and cry.
00:11:10.420I was supposed to be working, but mostly I just sat and stared at the Word document that had become my daily journal, and I wept.
00:11:16.160That I would try to nap in the guest room until it was time to pick up the kids from school.
00:11:19.640So, basically, this is a, I would say a tad dramatic self-pitying that's going on here.
00:11:32.320I mean, she paints it as if she's in some kind of like POW camp or something like that, when all she's doing is just making a meal for her family.
00:11:39.800But, my back aches, my feet were burning from cooking all day.
00:11:46.660I mean, yeah, look, I, you know, fine.
00:11:50.180It seems that she's upset mainly about the perceived, so if we could put all the drama aside and everything like that, and cooking is supposed to be an act of redemption.
00:12:03.220You know, I don't even know what that means.
00:12:04.580I don't think it's supposed, it's not supposed to be an act of redemption.
00:12:08.280It's just something that you do because people need to eat in the house.
00:12:11.180And so, I don't, you know, I don't think it needs to be this great poetic moment every single time you do it.
00:12:21.020But it seems that she's upset, and I think there is, there are many different ways you could go with this.
00:12:27.940But there's also a point here to be made about something that seems to be common, especially in my generation and younger generations, where we kind of, we don't like anything that's an obligation.
00:12:41.840We don't think that anything should be an obligation.
00:12:43.820We think that everything we do should have this great, deep purpose, and we should find deep fulfillment in everything that we do.
00:12:51.780She talks about, no, it shouldn't be an obligation.
00:13:08.220Not everything you do is going to be that way.
00:13:11.000In fact, most of the things, if you're going to be a competent and mature adult, especially if you're going to be a parent, and you're going to be a contributing member of a family,
00:13:22.460most of the things you do on a daily basis are just kind of mundane tasks that need to be done.
00:13:29.680You know, when I take the garbage out, I'm not asking myself, what am I getting out of this?
00:13:34.360You know, taking the garbage out used to be this fulfilling act of self-affirmation, but now I feel like it's just a drudgery.
00:13:42.040All I'm doing is, no, I don't have that crisis.
00:13:44.200I just, I just, the garbage needs to be taken out, so I just take it out.
00:13:51.000You just do it because it needs to be done.
00:13:53.480And it seems like people these days struggle with this concept that there are things you do.
00:13:57.900There are a lot of things you do just because they need to be done and for no other reason.
00:14:03.660And if you're going to stop doing things that need to be done and only do the things that you find fulfilling,
00:14:10.140then you're going to end up like the writer of this piece.
00:14:12.500You just spend your days crying and napping because the thing is, there aren't that many fulfilling things to do in a day.
00:14:19.360If you say to yourself, I'm only going to fill my day with fulfilling things, then it's just, you're just going to end up on your bed crying, I guess,
00:14:29.800which is what unfortunately happened to this woman.
00:14:31.560Now, it seems mainly that she's upset about the perceived lack of appreciation and gratitude on her husband's part.
00:14:41.440And listen, gratitude is very important in a marriage.
00:14:44.220If somebody makes you a meal, you should say thank you.
00:14:48.900It can be deadly in a marriage if one or both spouses feel that the other is not grateful, doesn't care, doesn't appreciate.
00:14:55.380But, you know, as I'm reading this and I'm thinking about how much it apparently resonates with some women on the Internet, a lot of women apparently,
00:19:03.580It seems that women are rarely encouraged to be grateful for their husbands.
00:19:11.120That's just not something that you see very often.
00:19:14.860Now, fortunately, I feel a lot of appreciation in my marriage.
00:19:18.300And I try to give appreciation to, I hope that I give it as much as I should.
00:19:22.040Although I'm sure I can be better at it than I am.
00:19:24.360But I do know for sure that there are a lot of men who feel just like the writer of this article feels.
00:19:31.180And perhaps with more justification than she had.
00:19:34.880Yet their plight isn't taken as seriously.
00:19:37.260And if they complain, they would probably just be called lazy deadbeats and told to just, you know, get their act together and do what they needed to do.
00:19:43.540I mean, can you imagine an article from a man complaining that his wife never thanked him when he got home from work each day, so eventually he just stopped going to work?
00:20:28.440But the man's job, the husband's job, the father's job is also difficult.
00:20:35.440And if one of them is home and the other is out working, it's wrong for the person who's out working to treat the other like they don't do anything all day.
00:20:43.540And they don't contribute to the family.
00:20:47.420But it's also wrong in the other direction.
00:20:49.660It's wrong for the one who's at home dealing with the kids and all that stuff to treat the other person like they're on vacation when they go to work.
00:21:10.940Like, I think this is something that we all have to think about.
00:21:14.520And if you're feeling unappreciated in your marriage, and you're feeling like your spouse isn't grateful for the things that you do, I think you have to stop and ask yourself, okay, do I appreciate them?
00:21:48.840In the article, she never grapples with that question at all.
00:21:51.740She never, in the article, stops to wonder, hey, you know, I wonder what my role in this whole thing is.
00:21:57.300And so it's no surprise that the marriage fell apart.
00:22:06.120Because if both or even one person in a marriage is not willing to look at themselves critically, then, again, that's just going to be deadly for a marriage.
00:25:27.120To name a pet, you could just mix up some Scrabble titles, take some Scrabble tiles and mix them up in a bag and then spill them on the table, and whatever comes out, just make that the name.
00:25:38.120Oh, I guess we're going to call our dog Pluff New.
00:26:08.440Your child should just have a normal name.
00:26:12.180There are probably about, I don't know, you know, for either gender, there's probably, there are probably 100, 200 names that are perfectly normal and fine.
00:26:24.940So just relegate yourself to those names and do your child a favor in the process.