FOLLOW-UP TO HELICOPTERING

 Well, I got a comment on a previous post that I just have to follow up on:

In a free country, you are free to do what you want as long as you don't infringe on the rights of others.  A single childless person is responsible if he provides for himself.

This is true for a single person, but his is what my main point was.  If a guy cranks out 10 kids but is in la-la land when it comes to how he is going to provide for them (using a hobby, say blogging or professional gamer, as an attempt at a means of support), then that individual is shouldering his responsiblity onto someone else.  The taxpayer, or the ward family, etc.  And, there really is not a lot you can do.  For example, I have a daughter that is likely demonically possessed and is living on the streets (mostly) because she cannot hold a job and refuses treatment.  We are attempting to minister to her right now, though it is not going very well.  She is at the "living in the rocks and cutting herself" level.  In a McD's last night, my wife literally raised her arm to the square to cast whatever is in her, out.  It was a surreal moment.

We have attempted to do everything within our power to aid her, but the law will not allow us to do a forced commitment to a mental hospital as a non-minor, unless she poses a danger to herself and/or to others.  The key here being; we are doing everything within our power, while honoring her agency and the dictates of the law, to ensure what would normally be our responsibility to care for an adult who is incompetent/incapable of self care.  We do not believe in shouldering that burden onto others.  Nor would she when she is in her right mind.  But, I did warn her years ago when she loosened her grip on the Iron Rod, that this would be the outcome.  As Patriarch in the home, I have special dispensation when it comes to each of my stewardships.  Sadly, little is heeded.

So, going back to the original commenter.  Yes, a single person has little bearing on society if they take care of their own needs.  For the most part, my ailing daughter is providing most of her own needs, but we still are seeking to make her more or less self sufficient.  When she was properly medicated (she was forced into a mental health unit), she was able to hold an engineering job and save enough money to buy a few acres and begin building a tiny home, etc.  Our mission this week was to help finish building it, supply a 1,000 gallon cistern and a simple solar system so she could pull herself up from that point.  But, things went sideways when she asked for me to fix her charging system in McDonalds and I insisted she do it, so she could learn a skill.  Some people are too entitled, so they have to learn from the school of hard knocks.  She has always been this way.  A functional liberal.  Let someone else do what you can easily do for yourself.

I know of a fellow once who was riding in a borrowed car (did not have one of his own) and the car broke down.  My other daughter was in it with this fellow.  She called me because she could not get to work.  While I was typing in the symptoms to Google and finding a fix for them, all I heard in the background was this fellow goofing around.  It sounded like a real party going on.  Meanwhile, my daughter was rolling around under this car on the side of the road trying to find the wire that was shorting a critical starting circuit out.  The fix was a 20 cent electrical connector and a little electrical tape.  A pocket knife or something sharp would have been required.  Well, having given them the solution, no one acted on it and the owner of the car had to have a several hundred dollar tow and the "stealership" charged the car owner over $1,000.  I am pretty positive that NO dollars were paid to aid the car owner for his output and this fellow just skated through on that one.  I encouraged my daughter to do her part to cover a portion of the repair cost at least (not to mention fuel), as this was the moral thing to do.  I did not raise a free-loader and I hope she followed through.

But this is the problem with an immoral people.  They side-step responsibility and place that responsibility onto others.  Where circumstance do not allow (a person is incapacitated and cannot shoulder their responsiblity, that is one thing), but the idler in Zion shall not have a place there.  They existed in Jesus' day, just following Him around looking for a free meal, and they existed in Joseph's day.  There is one in every crowd.  Often many.  The Church seems to attract them because they see free stuff in the additional social safety net.

The person that fritters away opportunities by getting a junk degree that will not provide for his family, is derelict in their duty.  As I mentioned in the previous article, the person who says that the wife and hubby will share the financial income earning 50/50 is delusional.  When we were bearing our children, I simply could not be up in the night attending to crying children and still be functional during the day.  We had to split out those responsibilities so my wife could rest when she could during the day (we struggled financially while she was a stay-at-home mom during that period and later while she struggled with mental health issues after our kid died of SIDS.  A required minimum income for a household today is in the 70-80K range.  Above that, a family can begin to enjoy some other things such as vacations and also to build a food storage, etc.  

I just bought a car from a fellow who was about 25 years old.  His Nissan CVT had puked and he decided to cut it loose.  He had a girlfriend who was expecting their first child.  He was going to school in the evenings to be a lineman for Bonneville Power and working 50 hour weeks for his apprenticeship.  I asked him what his income would be when he was done at the end of two years.  It was over $100K.  He will be able to support his little family handsomely.

I was dating a gal whose father was the CFO of Franklin Covey Institute and I think he was rumored to be valued in the $40 million range.  He and his wife just returned from being mission presidents (along with this gal and her siblings) somewhere on the eastern seaboard.  One night, when we were up at their home in Heber hanging out with the posse, he pulled me aside and asked me what I was planning on doing once I was out of engineering school.  I told him that my goals were to work for Boeing (that had been stated by the gift of prophecy as an 18 year old (previous blog piece), not pie in the sky guessing/hoping).  He seemed pleased with that.  Since Michele had served a mission and I knew valued the gospel and her temple covenants, she was on the short list of dating partners at the time.  My to-be wife overheard me talking about a religion class I was taking and she signed up for it.  I had also signed up for it with Michele so we could spend more time together.  We were all in it together (a little awkward).  Point being, the father of this gal was quite interested in the direction I was going in life, because I was going to be responsible for taking care of his grand kids and he, I am sure, did not want to see her having to shoulder the earning potential even 20-50 percent because I had my hobbies/video games/sports watching or participating, etc.  Those things are fine, so long as the rest of it is attended to in every detail.

It has come to my attention that some women are told they need to develop their careers via blessing or PBs.  This is not a bad thing in a time that a majority of the "men" out there are not stepping up.  Those statements often come as a result of weak "men" that the women will be forced to marry, and not so much from a prophetic urging.  In other words, this is a cause - not effect.  Let me elaborate on this a little.  The statements in scripture relating to the destruction of Jerusalem, for instance, did not come because that was inevitable, but rather because of circumstance (a wicked populace that would not listen to good counsel).  God would have had it that they were not destroyed, but He knew that they would be based on their tendencies as a stiff-necked people.

Sadly, the divorce rate is up well over 50% today.  Many anecdotal stories emerge of women who are dealing with "men" (males) who are addled with addiction and who do not have a firm grasp on reality.  I just heard stories of the poor sister missionaries who are "bossy" because they are insisting that the "men" step up and get out and pound the pavement instead of playing pokemon and otherwise breaking mission rules, etc.  These young ladies are likely not bossy or bitchy, they are probably frightened of what the future holds for them if the guys do not grow a pair and step up.  And the decreasing enrolment of males in colleges and the ever-increasing demand in the trades for people willing to do real work, shows how dire things are out there among the males...  Maybe it is too much plasticizer in the water supply?  Gonadotropism is a real thing....  Time to ditch the man bun and step up.  Life is real.  It can be fun; but only after taking care of the basics.

Anyway, yes - helicoptering does destroy accountability and the sense of responsibility.  Raising a tassle of kids either by dumping the responsibility to the state via child tax credits or via the wife slaving away is not the way to go.  Answers will have to be given in the Judgment.  The scriptures back that position - unless one has found a way to be dismissive of the scriptures so that other obligations and covenants can be shirked.