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America’s ‘Mental Health’ problems are due to a lack of strong family values.

unpopularopinion Original (deleted)
fakeredditemailz 4335 S x 4 G 2021-06-03 21:45:13

America’s mental health problems: Mass Shootings, High Divorce Rates, Opioid Addictions, Self - Absorbed youth, etc .... are due to eroding family/community values.

Now I believe that families come in all shapes and colors and that love is love. However, America has lost the sense of family as a community. Family as a team.

With two parents working 50+ hours and no one being home to truly care for the kids, cook healthy meals, and talk to each other, Americans are being coming more depressed, manic and desperate for attention.

America really needs to change to a focus on the family. Change the professional landscape so it is okay for parents to work part time in professional fields if they need to.

Americans need to stop having babies without the intention to be married. The kids ARE NOT alright. As much as Americans want to believe that kids will be okay with a divorce, they aren’t and behavior issues start to show soon after a divorce.

America needs to stop worrying about their own individual needs and wants and focus on what is best for the greater good.

America’s mental health problems: Mass Shootings, High Divorce Rates, Opioid Addictions, Self - Absorbed youth, etc .... are due to eroding family values.

TeachingParticular 1233 1h58m

We need to make more meaningful human connections whether it is family or friendships. Loneliness is killing people.

Xoryp 182 5h46m

We need to focus on meaningful living in whatever form that takes each individual. This will affect the kids if the parents are content and not wage slaves. But we need a society of people that aren't expected to work full-time+.

1 fulltime employment or 2 part-time employments should support a small family of 4. If we had that most things would get better.

Edit: typo

1 fulltime employment or 2 part-time employments should support a small family of 4. Of we had that most things would get better.

arbys-sauce 54 8h24m

My fulltime employment supports my wife and 3 children.

I don't save as much for retirement as I would like and we go without some niceties, but we live comfortably. It also enables my wife to home school our children, and they're getting a better education because of it.

LonelyGamete 19 10h26m

That was my parents and I until my father's health caught up with him. Well, he didn't really save for retirement much. Just take care of your body and stay aware of when you need to get help. Catching things early is always better than catching them late.

oliviaroseart 6 12h17m

I’m sure that’s nice for you, but it’s simply not a reality for many Americans. Let’s all take a nice hard look at the Waltons. Walmart is the largest employer in the US yet attempts to unionize are repeatedly stomped out and it is a fact that the average American taxpayer subsidizes their employees who cannot survive without aid. This is for *no other reason * than greed and profit on the backs of our fellow people. They enrich themselves with the money we literally pay them from our checks every week.

suggestiondude 2 18h12m

Better education maybe but missing out on so much social moments that guide how they interact with people for the rest of their life.

I would not want my kids to be home schooled. Looking back on my childhood, school was very important in making friends, girlfriends etc. It teaches you social skills for life that imo your kids won't learn from a few playdates or friends on their street after school.

Vince_McLeod 2 11h52m

Of we had that

We had it 120 years ago - why don't we have it now?

cat_respecter -2 12h18m

IMO minimum wage should be sufficient to pay a mortgage (not rent fuck landlords), the expenses associated with 2 cars, and should be enough to support a spouse and 2 kids.

PsychedGhost 2 18h40m

Not rent fuck landlords

Think you meant landchads.

Glockspeiser 1 13h22m

Ahh someone who lives in fantasy land

Locke_and_Lloyd 50 8h10m

Good thing we just spent a year in near total isolation then, right?

Time-Marketing5784 2 18h31m

We did? Shit, I guess I missed that by still having to go to work every day.

Rechitech -4 12h17m

Should we have just kept going as if all was normal?

DuxDucis52 47 7h54m

I feel like alot of the issue is how we design our cities. We design cities for cars not people and the result is urban sprawl, expensive maintenance for cities (leading to insolvency of local govts), and less walkability. All of this puts a big financial strain on our community and keeps us all from interacting with each other

fanilaluzon 26 7h33m

According to OP, you're wrong. It's about marriage. Two parents who are devoted to their kids but aren't married are bad parents.

"Americans need to stop having babies without the intention to be
married. The kids ARE NOT alright. As much as Americans want to believe
that kids will be okay with a divorce, they aren’t and behavior issues
start to show soon after a divorce."

TeachingParticular 45 7h35m

Issues start when when the marriage is toxic.

MamaAvalon 55 8h5m

This! My son's behavior issues improved immensely when I divorced his alcoholic father and won full custody. Staying together "because family values" is a horrible message.

hannibal-bashir 15 10h31m

Staying together for family is the right thing to do provided that you chose a good partner

MamaAvalon 11 16h16m

The problem is, people change. He wasn't an alcoholic when I met him or before we had children together, obviously. He was an engineering student (we met at college) and by all accounts a good guy. But sometimes these things happen - people get addictions. As a mom, your first responsibility is to protect your kids and I wasn't about to stay with a controlling abusive person because family values. Those aren't my values. My values are that the safety and well-being of my kids comes first.

VelveteenAmbush 2 18h19m

No one is attacking you for divorcing an alcoholic. Your children are better off than if they'd stayed with an alcoholic father, but worse off than if they had had a healthy two-parent home. You chose the least-bad outcome for them based on a really bad situation, but OP's message is fair in general.

mapimba 1 19h4m

As a wife your main responsibility would be to find out why your husband became alcoholic and try to resolve that situation thereby protecting your kids. It doesn't just happen for no reason, something bad happened to him and he needed support.

Abandoning your partner should be a last last resort, that's what marriage is, or should be.

bathoryblue 2 17h48m

*provided that partner lives up to their end of the bargain.

ttgx1000 0 12h10m

Agreed, this post is dog shit and tries to explain away a complex issue with a simple reactionary solution.

rum_es 1 9h15m

Marriage itself is a process that also builds upon understanding and sharing your time with another person. Same principle with child. You got for it with commitment

mtcwby 2 17h38m

The marriage part isn't important but having two engaged parents is. The lack of engaged fathers is a particularly problem and a cause of many societal ills.

BerserkBoulderer 1 8h43m

That's common-law or nontraditional marriage, they're essentially the same thing.

Billy-Mays-Ghost 17 8h26m

My loneliness is killin me!

Lost_Individual5551 13 10h36m

I must confess, I still believe…

Cerebr05murF 7 10h57m

Still believe.

peacock_sunglasses 5 14h13m

When I'm not with you I lose my mind!

Spazz6269 4 16h29m

Give me a sign

Niisan-s13 5 16h40m

Hit me baby one more time

mapimba 5 19h4m

I'm a genie in a bottle...

Lost_Individual5551 2 1d6h6m

…so close…

Delta_Goodhand 3 11h30m

This is actually an economic problem

wheresmattynow 2 8h58m

People say this, but have you ever tried striking up a conversation with a stranger in a bar in any big city?

People hate strangers, and hate isolation, but cant reconcile those two things.

TeachingParticular 3 9h51m

Never lived in a big city. But that is happening all over. Nobody wants to engage but yet we are depressed and lonely.

ShiftkeyComma3 1 7h39m

Not many people will do that unless it benefits them in some way. You can't deny that. The world needs a lot of fixing.

rum_es 1 9h13m

Even tho, to understand how important it is, sometimes person should be alone

absolutelyfat 1 9h43m

This is what happens when you glamorize hook up culture. Tried dating innocent christian to girls from the hood. Confidently say no one gives a fuck about making bonds. Because sooner or later, you or they will find someone better. Everyone got their booty calls one dm away.

TeachingParticular 695 1h55m

Believe me divorce can be a blessing when all the parents do is scream at each other. Horrible marriages effect kids too.

dumbbinch99 159 6h41m

Yeah my parents stayed together, we’re both incredibly toxic to each other and thus to me. I 100% believe they’d both be happier people without each other, and I wouldn’t have had to grow up in a toxic household where everyone’s anger was taken out on me lol

riancb 36 7h41m

Had a very similar childhood. It really sucks doesn’t it? Especially the way they make you feel guilty for being born, as if if you (and your siblings) weren’t there, they’d be happily divorced, but you are there so they just HAVE to stay miserable.

This song really helped me when I got frustrated with them.

IAMACURSE 12 8h31m

This was always my go to when I was dealing with my parents https://youtu.be/5iXpRXHO3dg Pretty much described my home situation, abusive father and a mother whose too naive (due to manipulation and grooming, but naive nonetheless) to get out.

Castamere_81 6 10h19m

Damn sorry to hear that, but preach! My parents were miserable to live with growing up and my dad was really abusive to me. They got along better when my sister and I moved out, but damn those first 18 years were hell. Everyone would have been better off had they divorced.

DangerousPredditor 3 10h25m

This is also my childhood and as an adult I couldn't want less to do with them now.

TheWorstRowan 2 13h15m

My parents became good friends after divorcing, I wish they'd done it sooner. Before that there was a palpable air of mutual enmity when they were in the same room.

suggestiondude 2 18h17m

My parents would fight every morning, usually about my dad's drinking from the night before.

I hated it. I use to ask my mom why she didn't divorce my dad and she said she didn't want us to grow up in a crappy small apartment.

I agreed and as soon as all her kids turned 18 she left him. He quit drinking and sobered up soon after and took a drug that prevented him from drinking. he was quit for a year and my mom and him got back together.

Sometimes leaving is necessary for change.

BunnyKusanin 29 7h37m

I second this. My parents' divorce was one of the best things that happened to me in my childhood.

TeachingParticular 11 7h40m

My parents divorce was 10 years too late.

rum_es 1 9h19m

How did it affect you?

sillyredsheep 25 9h21m

As a child of divorced parents, I strongly believe it is better in the long run for parents who don’t believe they can make it work to divorce. I can’t say that it hasn’t given me problems emotionally, but it can’t compare to the issues that come from parents who hate each other and refuse to split.

4thDimensionalDreams 1 8h16m

I second this.

AFlair67 -1 7h33m

Absolutely but then the question is, why create babies if the marriage was so crappy?

BunnyKusanin 6 7h47m
  • by accident
  • because their family values prevented them from getting an abortion
  • because they didn't think the marriage would turn to shit in the future
  • because they wanted to fix the marriage
  • because one of the spouses forced the other to have have that baby

I bet there are some more weird and shitty reasons why people have children in unhappy marriages.

Sometimes when people are being abused it fucks with them so bad they don't even understand that it's a good idea to leave

rum_es -1 9h18m

Divorce always sounds like an escape from issues that can't handle. I understand without background information it's really hard to say if it is really worth divorcing or not but working out that kind of situation simply makes family very strong-bonded.

webzzzzzz 9h47m

But why get married and have kids if you don't have a healthy relationship? It doesn't just turn toxic overnight. A person either flat out ignored the red flags or didn't put in the work to maintain the healthiness of that relationship. Deciding to bring a kid into a horrible family situation is the peak of narcissism.

TeachingParticular 9h52m

You make a valid. That is why marriage and birthrates are down.

webzzzzzz 9h58m

And that's actually a good thing. Marriage and parenthood are things that require a lot of hard work and compromises. Not everybody is cut out for those things

fakeredditemailz -52 3h0m

That’s why you close your legs and court and get to know a person before you enter into a marriage. And then you take a vow of for better or for worst

TeachingParticular 36 3h35m

You wait till marriage for sex and he/she can turn into an abusive cheater aka Josh Dugger.

PrincessZorld0 25 5h49m

"Close your legs". Yes, sounds very like egalitarian family values.

targea_caramar 11 5h49m

As if whole lot of domestic problems, including capital a Abuse, didn't happen only after moving in and/or marriage.

The only reason many people in "the Good Old Times" you seem to have idealized didn't exit relationships is because there wasn't the option.

tgifmondays 8 6h22m

Physical intimacy is getting to know someone.

My_Immortal_Flesh 6 6h33m

You went from sounding like a GOOD person with a sound mind, to a mentally unstable, judgmental prude.

I guess this goes to show that some people are still broken, regardless of how “intelligent” they sound

👉 PS. Sex is fun and nothing wrong with wanting to connect physically with others.

Just protect yourself and think before you do anything that can affect yours or someone’s life.

EDIT: Why’d OP delete their judgmental comment?

Glad they at least know what they said was WRONG 🙏

0xFFFF_FFFF 2 6h37m

MrPisster 5 6h34m

I imagine you are a person who misses the good ol days. When men didn't come home until they damn well pleased and women knew their place. Of course they could never leave cuz, you know "vows".

kimchi_paradise 3 6h37m

close your legs and court and get to know a person before you enter into a marriage.

Not sure what you mean by this statement. Is it because a woman has sex before marriage that it ends up in a divorce? You do know the opposite is not true, right? Sometimes "getting to know a person" includes that for some people. Sexual incompatibility is a thing, and can be a reason for infidelity or discourse in some partnerships.

It sounds like there is an underlying level of misogyny in your opinion. I wonder what your definition of "good family values is" since it can vary from person to person, and from culture to culture. I know of plenty of parents in which both parents work full time, and their children are happy as well as they are.

basicgoats 487 9m

I mean, Offspring kinda saw this coming. (The Kids Aren't Alright)

This has been a trend for ages now. Mix in a lot of confusion for values, and you get shit soup. Working towards establishing a healthy family or maintaining it is what makes most people truly happy and fulfilled in life. Yet we emphasize individuality to an extreme.

Minute-Object 78 3h48m

Thumbs up for the Offspring reference. Great band!

bendable17 17 6h42m

Offspring rocks. I literally don’t get how anyone could dislike them lol

GreyMediaGuy -2 7h31m

I hate them. I will change the channel whenever they come on. The lead singer sounds like he's trying to pass a bowling ball through his ass with every word he says. I have no idea who told him he had a rockstar voice, but enough people really like them that it definitely paid off! If you like them, that's awesome, continue to enjoy them. I can't stand them.

alta270 3 12h52m

I’m upvoting this because I love to think you have a reference point of someone shitting a bowling ball

choke_my_chocobo 2 13h24m
alta270 2 18h57m

I forgot about the part where he fully shits an actual brick on the stage at the end

geekybitch42 1 12h38m

Do you listen to rock or punk at all...? Vocal talent isn’t really a requirement for success lol

sammacias 26 4h48m

So did Green Day.

Blooming_Skies21 24 5h11m

American idiot?

PuppyCumMeowMeow 16 5h37m

And Fall Out Boy.

Flufflebuns 16 7h49m

Bad Religion: "My daddy's a lazy middle-class intellectual, my mommy's on valium, so ineffectual!"

ConeyIsland18 2 8h49m

And Blink-182

pizza_makes_me_happy 11 6h36m

It doesn't even have to be family, you just need to be part of a tribe.

Sion_nois06 4 10h53m

I think people having good families, is better than them joining something like QAnon.

hitometootoo 311 6m

At least America is having the conversation and is accepting of mental health issues. Go to the Caribbean, Middle East or Asia and it might as well not be a problem. People actively ignore those issues and, ironically, use the family excuse to not seek help when needed.

slator_hardin 70 6h52m

Yeah, that always perplexed me. Do other country have less mental health issues, or they just have more "anything is fine here! Yeah sometimes people kill themselves, nobody ever understood why, what a pity" situations? I honestly think it's the second. The US does not even come close to be among the worst countries for any "objective" measure of mental health problem (suicide, substance addiction, whatever), so probably here there is more awareness, not more issues

BunnyKusanin 44 8h12m

A Colombian lady told me once that back in her county it's very uncommon to have depression because they're generally very positive people and like dancing. And I was like, yeah, right, dancing sure! It's probably so common that you all treat it as the norm.

I know for sure many people in my country (Russia) would rather consider their relative lazy than acknowledge they have mental health problems. Like, what depression are you talking about? My son can't have depression, he's just being stubborn and ungrateful!

We also had a scandal about teenage suicides supposedly caused by social media groups persuading them to do it. Most of the stories described victims somewhat like this: She was going several after school activities, had good grades, but then she got internet friends and killed herself. And I wonder why the hell do they put no responsibility on the families? Why the hell no one speaks about mental health problems? Teenagers aren't always smart, but you can't encourage a happy person to kill themselves. You have to have as depressed teenager to start with!

kar98kforccw 10 15h22m

Colombian here. That lady is part right and a 100% wrong. For once, generally speaking family values are strong and we often have very united, tight knit families in which kids very often have company from their grandparents, uncles or cousins and we tend to be together even whrn the youngest are already in their 20s. It's really shocking for me to see how in many stories here parents kick their children out at 18 or make them pay rent. That's someyhing that doesn't really happen here. I'd think that contributes in part to mental health. However, mental illness is still abundant here. The problem is it isn't acknowledged and very common responses to saying you have depression are "nah you just need to get busy", "nah, you just need to go out more", "you just need to put some effort from your part!", "look at all you have compared to those poor children in the streers...", etc. There's too much ignorance and misconceptions on mental health and therefore people choose not to talk about that. Hell, my best friend's mum lqughed when he told her he was schizophrenic and was very depressed and his father ditched his condition and told him he had something similar after ptsd from combat and some psychotic episodes and he just manned up and got over it. It's not uncommon to hear that kind of things.

OmgBsitka 41 8h22m

I mean look at Japan their work ethics drive people to suicide.. mental health is a universal problem that needs to be universally accepted as an actual threat to humans.

Whores-are-nice69 34 7h1m

anything is fine here!

son , this depression and anxiety is bullshit do yoga in the morning and study you need good grades how else will you get H1B visa and immigrate to california and take care of us when we retire ?!

- Unironically indian moms

sucrose_97 6 10h9m
4thDimensionalDreams 55 8h16m

I agree. I’m Chinese, and I think America just gets more attention because of how culturally and politically dominant it is, but on the inside the story is far more layered.

OwO345 4 17h0m

same with racism, its a thing in pretty much everywhere, but america actually talks about it

DeerApprehensive5405 6 10h39m

Heck, in most Asian nations/cultures, Seeking help is often seen as disgracing your family for some reason. Could be wrong, could just be a thing with Nparents but the amount of Asian Nparents is concerning.

sleepymusk 1 8h20m

The goal is not to be better but to improve

Joe1762 -1 9h14m

What do you mean? In middle East or Asia parents divide the roles among themselves and it's very rare for you to see two parents working full time without having at least one of them around the kid most of the time in their childhood cuz these years are crucial for the kid's mental growth and well-being. The only bad thing about these families is that some of them beat their children up as a way to make them behave which is wrong and in most cases results in psychological problems but they all do this because it's what they have grown up with and the community is slowly neglecting these punishment methods

FancyWarm_Leopard -46 4h23m

What do you mean at least? America is THE face child of mass shooting, and everybody knows this. Does at least talking about it makes it better?...No

hitometootoo 51 4h30m

Yes, America can still have problems while also still having an active conversation and means for these things. Not all things are in extremes, there can be an issue and solution happening at once.

515091 8 5h52m

Agreed. America is flawed and always will be in some way, because utopia doesn't exist. But having the conversations is the beginning of change. America outlawed slavery, and it still exists to this day in other parts of the world. If it was never spoken about and dealt with then nothing would have changed in America on that issue.

GenZRepublican 13 5h49m

We're not even ranked #1 for mass shootings. Per capita I don't even think we rank top 10

Edit: the U.S. is ranked number #66 per capita

Aseem747-8 5 7h9m

wow that's very low. reddit made me believe that america had some severe mass shooting problem

aFiachra 3 12h33m

It does have a problem. It just doesn't have as bad a problem as El Salvador, Columbia, Mexico, Iraq, Yemen, or Syria.

SpectreDoggo 1 8h12m

It's just high for one of the most advanced countries in the world

aFiachra 0 12h32m

That is overall gun deaths. Not mass shootings.

It is a lot harder to get statistics on mass shootings because it depends on what you mean by "mass". Also, it is not fair to compare the US to active warzones. Iraq, Yemen, and Syria have more gun deaths than the US.

For a country that is neither at war nor a "failed state" (drug cartels, military juntas, armed militias) the US is a massive tragedy of failed imagination.

GenZRepublican 2 14h19m

  1. US ranks #12 when compared to Canada and Europe, are those shithole wartorn countries?

  2. They define mass shootings and yes, per capita the US ranks #66.

Nice strawman though

BunnyKusanin 7 7h53m

America is the face child for mass shootings not just because of mental health issues, but also because easy access to guns.

aFiachra 2 12h44m

The Swiss have guns. But the Swiss are also safety conscious and have serious regulations.

PastelDreams13 231 7m

People had just as many mental health issues in the past. It just wasn’t talked about or acknowledged.

nootomat 90 1h11m

When it was severe enough to be acknowledged, they were just tortured in asylums.

isthisfunforyou719 38 1h19m

Or even define the terms of mental health. Look at the vast difference between the DSM 4 and 5 editions to see how even the professionals are still struggling to even define mental pathology. I'll point the change in Axis 1/2 as an example of how the field is evolving.

KombuchaEnema 38 2h32m

And I guarantee that having a strong family support system makes it 20x easier to recover from the chaos of mental illness and establish some level of stability.

With the breakdown of secure, strong families and two-parent households, we’ll see a lot more people flying off the deep end.

A therapist is nothing if you have a complete lack of any sort of support system outside the therapist.

Impressive-Hunt-2803 15 6h48m

Ok so why were suicide rates higher before divorce was legal?

almon_m 3 11h13m

Because two parents being together isn't everything? Its kinda obvious tbh

ScienceReplacedgod 6 5h50m

In 1950 there were more people in asylums than today

CzechoslovakianJesus 8 6h49m

Most of the asylums have been shut down, so that's not saying much.

miscegeniste 3 6h54m

There were also more asylums. Mental health institutions have been dramatically defunded since then.

SwazyMoto 2 7h28m

Except for back in the day asylums were not to get hard into. If we had the same regulations in the modern Era. We would have more people in asylums.

sallde01 25 3h2m

People say this all the time but with no real evidence

Eddie_078 10 5h15m

True and I'm pretty sure they were aware of mental illness back then. That's why they built all those massive asylums.

CodePandorumxGod 2 6h8m

Some diagnoses go as far back as the Greeks, but it wasn’t until the 1800s until it was officially recognized as a field of study.

RemLezar1 18 4h5m

If you look at statistics for hospitalization for non-fatal self harm and suicide, they are also up dramatically (mostly in young girls) which suggests that the rise in mental health issues is not because the data collection is now suddenly better.

PastelDreams13 8 4h14m

You realize they would normally try to cover this up to save the family any shame, right?

RemLezar1 10 4h27m

That's conjecture. These are official suicide and hospitalization rates. You can't cover that up. Its not like you can just not tell people about it and no one will know.

Suicide rate

Hospitalization rate

monkeying_around369 15 7h23m

So I’m an epidemiologist and work with mortality data and you’re not really correct. In my state we have extremely unreliable data when it comes to suicides because it is indeed covered up. We have some data but it’s almost certainly an under-representation. And the data quality changes also should be considered when looking at longitudinal trends. Suicides are not at all as easy to identify as you make it seem.

Edit for clarification: I don’t mean the hospitals or state are trying to cover it up. I mean families cover it up due to the shame and stigma around mental health and suicide.

PastelDreams13 3 4h31m

And official doesn’t mean accurate. Often attempts and self harm were given more “friendly” descriptions in the medical records

RemLezar1 8 5h15m

I get what you're saying, but these aren't lighter attempts. These are serious attempts. The data shows that the rate of people harming themselves so seriously that its not hidable because they were sent to the hospital has increased over time. Same with rates of suicide which are also not hidable.

I don't see how the notion that families are hiding self harm and suicide less now could reasonably account for the doubling of female suicide rates, tripling of the 10-14 female non-fatal self harm hospitalization rate, and so on over the last 20 years.

Edit: it's also worth noting that the equivalent stats for males hasn't risen as much which also goes against this notions. If this notions were correct, the male rates would increase at the same rate as the female rate, buti t hasn't.

RotundAuthorityMax 2 8h19m

She walked into a kitchen counter cowered in razor blades, the klutz...

ScienceReplacedgod 2 5h52m

up 1 per hundred thousand people

MamaAvalon 1 8h9m

That just means more people are getting help for this (or more people getting help are labeled mental problems vs. just being given a pain pill and sent home) not that the incidence is any higher. This is kinda similar to "the rising rate of autism" which is likely just actual diagnosis happening a lot more now vs. just being labeled as a learning disability or delay.

grade-A-benchwarmer 11 4h20m

thats not correct, with the introduction of television, computers, the modern phone and social media we have seen anxiousness loneliness, depression and several other key mental health factors skyrocket. I understand the point you are trying to make and you are correct, but the current way we function as humans regardless of a "good parental environment" is not healthy.

MamaAvalon 6 8h12m

There are a lot of other things that's happened besides the invention of TV. Inflation and minimum wage being worth less so both parents having to work likely contributes a lot more to unhappiness than TVs and computers. That sounds more like technophobia.

Pac_Eddy 7 37m

Eddie_078 0 5h14m

Maybe but lots of older people I know were a lot more stoic. Pretty rare to find these days.

JKmusclebunny 4 7h37m

Mental illness was a huge taboo and men showing emotions was bad too

sexycocyx -3 5h25m

People were much stronger/more resilient in the past. People today are so fuckin weak and entitled we think someone offending us is grounds to cancel them or silence their right to express themselves.

JKmusclebunny 1 7h38m

Nah, they just weren’t allowed to express emotions

SamianQuazi 216 5m

Some of them, yes, they're rooted in poor family dynamics. But others - be it bipolar or schizophrenia or major depressive disorder - are based on a genetic background. No family values, regardless of how strong they are, can ward off many of the major psychiatric illnesses.

I'm from Houston, and one of the most elite psychiatric hospitals (the Menninger Clinic) is in my city. An inpatient stay there costs about $110,000 for about six to eight weeks. Oh, cash pay only, they don't take insurance. So it's not like a high socioeconomic status walls you off from a big mental health condition.

40325 78 23m

not only that, try finding a psychiatrist in your local city. I'm guessing you have to make 6 calls before you find anyone taking clients.

Mintcar52 23 4h11m

Agree. I was feeling down and wanted to talk to someone to deal with the fact that 2020 was a shit year (personally and because of covid) and was told repeatedly that appointments for new patients were a 6 month wait.

BillyCee34 -30 2h23m

Oh no you have to do the leg work 🤯

Altyrmadiken 19 2h48m

I suspect the argument is that we don't have enough care givers for the amount of problems, which is indicative of a lack of interest in the problems.

Yes, you have to do leg work to find a doctor. When it takes quite some time to find even one doctor taking patients, it's likely there aren't enough doctors. Not to mention that if it's that hard for you, what happens if everyone decides to take care of themselves? There'd be no doctors available taking patients.

40325 1 3h3m

this right here

A_Talking_Lamp 14 5h13m

I mean, if you're severely depressed and even getting out of bed in the morning is a huge task, doing a shit ton of leg work and paper work isn't really feasible.

redhood1291 5 5h50m

I've called literally 30 providers. Combo of psychologist, therapist, counselors, hell even interns (or the equivalent) that are still getting hours to get their license. So you wanna explain how I just need to do the leg work? How about I just stop being sad?

BillyCee34 -4 5h57m

Did i say it was going to be easy ? No. Keep on trying until you find something/someone. Will you get disheartened ? Absolutely. But that’s life. Shit ain’t easy for no one.

I mean this sincerely: good luck man. Hope shit works out for you.

Banespeace 0 5h6m

That's kinda the point the people who need help aren't gonna do the leg work as you put it

40325 -6 3h3m

ah, so you're fuckin' stupid huh?

BillyCee34 -13 3h8m

No I’m just an adult who can make an appointment...oh dear no available ones on to the next therapist listed on google. Is there a slight deficit in the amount of therapist ? Yeah probably but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there accepting new patients...you just have to do the leg work.

Possible_Dig_1194 14 3h51m

If someone has got severe depression or anxiety disorder how likely do you think it is that they can make multiple calls to jump thru hoops? For alot of people it's easier to jump off of a building instead

Mintcar52 7 4h13m

Or start using heroine mixed with fentanyl.

Possible_Dig_1194 2 4h14m

That never goes well or on for very long. That is a crazy dangerous combo.

Mintcar52 3 5h41m

Yeah I know...my friend overdosed three years ago.

Possible_Dig_1194 2 6h13m

Ah shit I'm sorry to hear that. Those drugs are nasty on their own but together....

teeheehaha666 1 4h18m

Right lmao

BillyCee34 -11 4h14m

I agree. People with mental illness are weak when it come to the temptation of suicide but calling a doctors office is hardly “jumping through hoops” it’s just part of being a functional member of society.

Question: when does personal responsibility come into play ?

Possible_Dig_1194 11 4h16m

......if they are that fucking suicidal they are NOT a functional member of society you useless walnut! They need help not people like you not so subtly acting superior than them

BillyCee34 -4 4h20m

If they are that suicidal/mentally ill do we really want that in the gene pool ? You/we can’t save everyone.

This is the part where you say something like “I’d rather have them then you”.

Possible_Dig_1194 11 4h22m

Nah I'll just say huh you actually went there. You actually straight up admitted you were trash. Like full on went there. Are you like this IRL or just an edge lord because you can get away with it on line?

A_Talking_Lamp 2 5h15m

Oh great another eugenics supporting fuck wad.

ProGarrusFan 0 7h6m

Saying this with all seriousness you sound like you're projecting pretty hard. Instead of accusing other people with mental health problems of being weak and useless to make yourself feel strong and useful you should use your expert appointment organisation skills to find a therapist and talk to them about why you feel the need to do that.

I sincerely hope you find the happiness it takes to not shit on other people with mental health problems on the internet.

A_Talking_Lamp 1 5h14m

Oh god please never ever give your shit opinions on mental health to someone who might need help. You're doing the opposite of helping them.

BillyCee34 -1 4h16m

Also I understand that a mountain to me may seem like a mole hill to you and vice versa.

ProGarrusFan 3 7h0m

The leg work of finding a medical practitioner should be a Google search to find the nearest one and a single phone call, not 7-30 practitioners contacted and none of them taking patients (or they are but it's a 6 month wait). There is clearly a problem with the availability of mental health professionals which is indicative of other problems regarding a lack of care for society's mental health issues.

Stop trying to make it like anyone is complaining that they have to do the leg work because thats not what anyone is saying. They are saying there shouldn't be that much leg work to do just to get an appointment.

CharlieAlright 19 5h57m

Yes, but being bipolar/schizophrenic WITH a support system, medication, and good values, vs be bipolar/schizophrenic WITHOUT a support system, medication and good values...

PrincessofThread 3 10h14m

I agree about the support system, and if needed (dependent on the disorder) medication.

As the other user said, what "good values" are is based on individual views. I personally believe teaching children acceptance towards all people is a good start. But some parents define "good values" vastly different from what you define as "good values", so the values a child is taught by the parents are different in different families. What one parent defines as a "good value" to teach their child, might be a "bad value" in your eyes.

Also, families can be bad support systems, at least in part. There are studies that show that parents frequently underestimate the capability of children with disabilities. I have ASD type 1 and my mother always told me I shouldn't be sad if I don't get a role at theater projects, but people at theater projects told me that I'm a good actress and I got some roles; and she tried to get me interested in many topics (e.g. science) as a career opportunity, but I generally suck at STEM subjects. To me, this wasn't supportive. I was grateful for support I received through therapy. Whether a family is a good support system or not, is highly dependent on the family.

Gettingbetterthrow 2 8h11m

How do you define "good values"? For instance, is being homophobic a "good value" or is being LGBT accepting a "good value" and how do you make parents make good, sound choices?

CharlieAlright 1 8h21m

Those are the tough questions. I personally believe in LGBT acceptance. And as far as any other values, I think it's important for all of us to continually talk about these things. I think that mainly, children need to be raised to want to do the right thing, whatever they may decide that "thing" is. Because once you're an adult, you have to decide for yourself. But I definitely agree with OP, in that if both parents have to work 50, 60 or even more hours a week, and there's not much community anymore (except for online), kids are going to have an increasingly harder time because they don't have adults that they can really lean on. They don't have any real support system. And that sucks as an adult. It's got to be devastating as a kid.

Gettingbetterthrow 2 8h52m

You didn't answer the question at all.

How do you define a "good family value"?

My parents taught me one of their "good family values" was "gay people are evil and go straight to hell". Is this one of the "good" values? Who decides which are "good" values if not the parents (who can be wrong)?

CharlieAlright 2 9h2m

I did say that I believe in LGBT acceptance. And I believe that is a "good value". But that's just my personal belief. I can't give you a simple answer because there isn't one. It's just a matter of doing the best you can. Adults are just kids in bigger bodies, and with more life experience and authority. That doesn't mean we know jack shit. That's why I think society has to talk about this stuff so that we can continue to make progress. Other than that, there is no magical answer. Some adults suck. Some are complete morons. Unfortunately there's not much that can be done about that. My parents and grandparents were the lovely combination of idiots, assholes, and stubborn. So I had a wonderful childhood /s I'm honestly not sure what else you want me to tell you? No one gets to decide for everyone what good values are. But trying is better than not trying. Supporting your kid is better than not supporting them. Other than that, life's a bitch. Sorry. I really am sorry. It sucks.

PartyBuy8784 5 5h37m

Try finding someone who isn’t completely booked up and will also take you if you don’t have insurance... it’ll be 20 calls smh.

sexycocyx 4 5h24m

In this context, nurture FAR, FAR outweighs nature.

numerous_squid 4 9h39m

I disagree. I think the vast, vast majority of mental illness is directly caused by trauma, whether or not that trauma is family-related. Eliminating trauma would cut down mental health cases like absolutely nothing else. Calling it genetics is an excuse.

aFiachra 2 12h6m

But others - be it bipolar or schizophrenia or major depressive disorder - are based on a genetic background

It is not that simple.

Endless research on mental illness has shown, again and again, that while there is good reason to believe in heredity, environment is a major factor.

In the case of schizophrenia genetic profile seems to explain half of the illness. But that still leaves half to environment and there is no genetic profile the explains schizophrenia (Source, Robert Sapolsky).

Large pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies have convinced people that depression is a brain disease, but research has shown again and again that depression can be treated with talk-based therapies. The problem is that talk-based therapies take more than 4 weeks and some pills so it is not usually covered by insurance. So, while there is no clear evidence that depression is a brain disease and there is evidence that it is amenable to non-drug therapies, it is not treated based on knowledge of best outcomes, it is treated based on expediency. (source APA)

You raise a good point about socioeconomic status. Poor people with schizophrenia are called "homeless". Rich people don't put their kids in state hospitals.

cranberryboggle 2 15h57m

Lots of people, like me, have mental health problems as a result of brain damage. If you talk to some neurologists you will find out that a lot of people have some form of minor brain damage that causes them to develop mental illnesses. Unfortunately most of these cases go undiagnosed because they lack physical symptoms generally associated with brain damage. This is why some people, like me, only respond to medication. I feel that this is an often over looked aspect in diagnosis.

aFiachra 2 16h2m

Thank you, good point. I am aware that there are a few (very few) experts in traumatic brain injury, TBI, and that they get flooded. Establishing a TBI diagnosis takes a lot of advocacy as insurance companies don’t want to pay.

cranberryboggle 2 20h24m

The only reason I found out about my condition being related to my prior damage is because a medical school in my area was doing a study of adults who had suffered childhood fever related convulsive seizures. They were primarily interested in how your brain reroutes around damaged areas. They hadn't intended to have mental health as a part of the study but nearly every person in the study suffered some form of mental illness. If it hadn't been for a bunch of future neurologists getting paid with a grant none of us would have ever been able to afford a diagnosis.

nuttycapri 1 5h55m

Having family or parents to be at home and take care of you while your major psychiatric condition develops will help them get the therapy they need, as parents could pay for/help find the right therapist, and you wouldnt be alone with just people on the Internet to talk to.

Sullt8 173 3h45m

Over simplification of a complicated problem.

Craniumania 59 5h17m

Agreed. Having two parents stay together doesn’t solve everything by any means, and that’s usually what’s meant by “strong family values”. Two abusive and toxic jerks stay together and raise kids

But OP has a point with the vague, but valid point of “stronger sense of community”. Which I think just points to America’s mental health problem in general. Something I wish I had, community

webzzzzzz -1 9h40m

But then again why marry and have kids with someone you are toxic with? Not a single good and healthy relationship suddenly turns toxic. A person either ignored the warning signs early on, or didn't work put in the work to maintain a healthy partnership

Practical-Fan9357 6 7h8m

A symptom of a larger problem, sure but this is a huge issue. For one thing, it leads to attachment disorder’s which are becoming increasingly common and are incredibly destructive on future relationships, impulse control, IQ and social skills.

Stunning_Grocery8477 1 8h40m

or one aspect of it

ISlothyCat 87 2h34m

What exactly are “family values?”

targea_caramar 98 5h45m

A postcard from the 50's with your nostalgia goggles on, apparently.

bendable17 43 6h44m

Throw in a black eye concealed with makeup and you’ve got it

vegeta7328 55 7h37m

Having parents that love you, encourage you, build you up, and actually want the best for you and the family. When you run into problems, you can always rely on your family to be there for support no matter the issue. I didn't have that growing up, and I didn't think I needed it. Now I use this approach as an adult.

sexycocyx 11 5h50m

Respect, honor, courtesy, love, selflessness....etc

bendable17 34 6h43m

None of those things are specific to family though

n00bringer -2 7h14m

No but they are enforced and your focus to pay respect to these virtues is with your family, respect to your parents, honor your family, be courteous with all members, love without expecting something in a selfless manner.

If you can’t do it with the beings that have you life and raised you how could you be a virtuous person with other people, every good virtue borns from the family

sexycocyx -6 7h10m

No, but that's USUALLY where people learn such things. From good parentS.

monkeying_around369 10 7h16m

What if you don’t have good parents? None of those words could be used to describe my husbands parents or really anyone in his family.

Rixae 3 7h32m

Then they have poor family values thus proving the point of this post

monkeying_around369 3 7h34m

But who decides what good family values are? Because if you talk to them, they 1000% believe they have superior family values.

Rixae 3 7h50m

I mean if they're bad people then clearly they don't have good family values even if they think they do

monkeying_around369 1 7h54m

Of course. My point is “family values” are extremely subjective.

Rixae 2 7h56m

Bunch of fucking clowns downvoting me lmao

I really don't think it's that hard to determine what good family values are, though. It's common sense.

sexycocyx 2 7h20m

If you don't have good parents, you're LESS likely to learn these qualities. Which is not to say you WON'T, but much less likely.

Mad kudos to those who become decent people DESPITE having shitty parents.

monkeying_around369 3 7h33m

Of course. I guess I was responding more with the OP’s notion in mind about needing family values. That’s the kind of gaslighting my in-laws have put my husband through most of his life. They use “family values” as a way to excuse their shitty behavior and make you feel like you’re the bad person for not wanting to subject yourself to their abuse anymore.

[deleted] 1 7h50m

Gettingbetterthrow 2 8h13m

I had two parents who taught me that gay people are horrible child rapists who go straight to hell. I am bisexual. Did my parents teach me good values? My parents told me all about these values of yours.

They didn't live them obviously but they told me about them.

beatissima 6 8h36m

A dog whistle.

trollistic 1 15h51m

It really is the “colored people lack family values like the strong white family unit, also ignore the laws in place to dismantle the colored family and incarcerate them at much higher rates for similar crimes” but we totally aren’t racist vibe. This entire pointing out that you’ve identified the problem and it’s “family values” is the first domino in the exclusionary conservative bs that is the ACTUAL problem.

All the people saying “I just like motorcycles, guns, country, and family values” tend to be the most narcissistic douche humans in existence that get away with being confidently shit humans because they are “better”. They have it figured out! /s

fanilaluzon -2 7h34m

Hating gay people and having a joyless marriage that begins prior to age 21.

DrKrik45 3 12h38m

Except the op didn't mention this at all, he is mostly talking about making connections with other human beings and that both parents have to take a full time job due to economic issues and that kid is left on their own

Commutalk 2 12h50m

It does seem like some people are reading something sinister in their opinion.

It reads a whole lot like how something my conservative mother would say. Her being a conservative; I've seen her hit the nail on the head plenty of times that a lot of our issues is due to life ends up being too expensive to even pretend to be all "family values".

CLEf11 84 4h0m

It takes a village to raise a child and America has no sense of community

vc1298 42 5h41m

Exactly. Too much emphasis on individuality and selfishness in this country. Humans naturally thrive in tribes/communities. It’s no wonder so many of us are fucked up.

tramoney88 12 5h49m

Welp that's what happens when it seems like someone's gonna be there to kill, rape, or rob you.

Night_Staruu 6 7h29m

But with mental health America is actually talking about it. I mean, look at most of Asia.

OnlyMakingNoise 3 7h22m

Everyone wants to live in the suburbs and drive everywhere. The landscape is so depressing. Car culture and community don’t go together very well.

sexycocyx 2 5h27m

Because everybody is only looking out for #1.

DudelinBaluntner 10 6h21m

But not in a family. In a good family - even a poor one - everyone takes care of each other because they love each other. It’s like a small commune that provides security makes the burdens of life easier to endure.

It seems like more and more younger Americans have rejected this kind of family life/family values as “boring” in favor of lives filled with fast thrills, fierce independence, isolation, career-obsession, and the escapism of immersive video games, pornography, social media, etc

sexycocyx 2 6h29m

You aren't wrong.

PotatoOld6368 2 11h6m

yup even "Strong Family Values" ignores the need for a big community. Any women with small children will tell you it feels like a crushing and impossible task to care for those small children. But the severity of that problem is ENTIRELY a result of Americans being separated into "nuclear" family units. Traditionally, pre-capitalism and european colonialism, most people had a pretty large extended community to help them do shit like raise kids. Go figure women get post partum depression when they can hardly expect to have even just one extra adult around for the first few WEEKS of a child's life to say nothing of the next 6 or so years. Even just the anticipation of that situation can feel soul crushing and it doesn't get better when it's you, your first baby, and a few friends who check up on you a couple times a week before bolting to sit quietly in their home miles away from you.

In-Ozz-We-Trust 79 2h18m

You listed four things.....none of which are mental illnesses or mental health problems.

There are a lot of things that you could make a compelling argument about being caused by eroding of family values, but you are way off target with your hypothesis.

PrincessofThread 7 10h52m

I don't think most mental health problems (which sometimes cause behavioural issues), are caused by things like divorce, etc. ... There's usually a genetic predisposition that (depending on the predisposition) either makes someone more likely to develop certain mental health problems, or that make someone definitely have a mental health problem.

I don't think mental health problems (which sometimes cause behavioural issues), are caused by things like divorce, etc. ... There's usually a genetic predisposition that (depending on the predisposition) either makes someone more likely to develop certain mental health problems, or that make someone definitely have a mental health problem.

rollover2323 3 12h15m

They can be caused by any triggering event, divorce possibly one of them.

xper0072 79 5h2m

Definitely an unpopular opinion, but you are wrong. Placing the rise of mental issues within our population on one specific problem you believe you see is ignorant and very short sighted.

FishSpeaker5000 14 8h20m

Yeah can't have anything to do with low or expensive access to health care, a large amount of people who wouldn't actually avoid a plague(??? on that one wtf), political posturing stopping the government from helping people, low wages and poverty, or the fact that mental health most likely is actually better (pre-covid) than it was 30 years ago but is just more visible now due to better diagnosis's and the internet.

HadMan12 1 8h14m

This is true. Is what OP said a huge part of the issue? Yes. Is it the whole issue? No. So he is both right and wrong.

xper0072 3 8h21m

He has part of it right, but it isn't enough. Say I have a shirt that is striped and the pattern is four colors that repeat, green, blue, red, yellow. If I see the shirt is specifically any one of those colors, I'm wrong. It doesn't matter that I'm partially right, if I describe the the shirt as one specific color and not acknowledging that the shirt is striped and multi-colored, I'm distorting facts.

AssistanceHot7852 78 11m

I believe it. I was adopted into a narcissistic family who always treated me as 'the adopted one'. I wasn't blood so I wasn't as important as everyone else. There was a lot of abuse and It didn't lead me into great a mental place. Took years for me to pull myself out of depression and drug use, and self harm. After going to therapy and learning I was not the problem, they were, i began healing and stopped the self destruction. Wasn't easy though it was possible!

musclebeauty 16 41m

This is so sad ….and I’m sorry. But Im happy you pulled through and are doing better.

suggestiondude 2 18h44m

I feel sad for that....if I ever have a lot of money I would love to adopt a child who had been neglected and show them the exact amount of love I show my kids. Sorry you went through that.

Complete-Second3502 67 1h35m

Kids aren’t great after divorce but we also need to stress having kids in healthy relationships. So many people get divorced because the women have the option to leave and be self sufficient now.

Mintcar52 33 4h9m

So many people also get divorced because oftentimes you have two emotionally immature people marrying each other. They lack the tenacity to work through problems and communicate with each other in a way that allows the other person to hear what they are trying to say. Then you have couples having a baby to fix the relationship or act as a distraction and it all goes to shit. The child is brought up in an unstable home environment and the cycle just repeats itself.

blooninja 13 5h40m

I just wanted to say I super-agree on the "two emotionally immature people marrying each other" being a root of the issue.

Maaga1 12 5h40m

And thank god for having the option. There is nothing worse than living in dysfunctional marriage. I was lucky enough to be educated with good job to kick my ex to the curb and provide for my family. No regrets, kids are okay.

Stunning_Grocery8477 8h51m

If people took marriage seriously, meaning with the expectation that it forever, they would pick their partners more carefully and would be more open to compromise.

majesticjules 60 4m

Not necessarily. My parents raised us to have very strong family values. 3 of us need anti depressants to function.

fakeredditemailz -21 7m

Here is another unpopular opinion: a bad diet is probably contributing significantly to poor mental health. Most Americans are overweight, eat way too much sugar, and eat way too frequently.

You are what you eat.....

berthon789 48 38m

Bro you have 0 clue what you're talking about, they can have the best diet in the fuckinh universe and do plenty of excersize and still suffer from depression. It's not that simple

beatissima 10 8h39m

This entire post belongs in r/wowthanksimcured.

Ctrl_daltdelete 2 9h11m

It's a very simplistic way of looking at things but it's worth a shot. I ate crap in my early twenties and was miserable. I eat well now and feel good. I notice a dip if I have a few days of poor diet. So yes, you might still be depressed but there isn't a doctor on earth who'd advise against good food, fresh air and exercise.

sexycocyx -2 5h28m

They CAN, yes. But they're much less likely to.

JKmusclebunny 5 7h41m

You can have a great diet and still be very bipolar

sexycocyx 2 7h51m

You can also smoke two packs a day and somehow live till you're 95. Doesn't make it likely.

JKmusclebunny 1 8h1m

You know what does make the bipolar go away?

sexycocyx 1 8h3m

If you say so Kurt Cobain lol

JKmusclebunny 1 8h4m

Lithium is the gold standard mood stabilizer for bipolar disorder. Medication and therapy are the treatment

[deleted] 1 8h53m

hitometootoo 36 19m

Love it. You're sad because you are fat, just eat less. /s

fakeredditemailz -28 38m

Aww.... the lack of basic nutritional education in America. The fact that you don’t understand the connection between food and health (physical and mental) is scary. Americans education system needs a rehaul

hitometootoo 27 48m

No, you're right. To cure depression, you just need to eat less. Wonder why no one else thought of that. r/thanksimcured

KombuchaEnema 16 2h34m

Did OP say a healthy diet would cure depression?

Or did they say that eating unhealthy is a contributing factor to poor mental health?

One of those things is true. And it’s the same thing that OP said.

Being unhealthy leads to physical symptoms (fatigue, sugar highs and crashes, and lack of concentration)...all of which can contribute to poor mental health.

Brisingr9454 23 3h19m

Yeah but OP is writing off the commenter’s depression as the fault of there diet, without knowing anything about the situation. I agree that diet can affect your mental health, but OP is being a jerk about it.

JKmusclebunny 7 7h42m

Op is being an ass and acting like a bad diet is why people are depressed

BlueBerryCloudDog 26 6h6m

I fail to see what food has to do with the dude's comment that he was raised with good family values and takes anti-depressants... Pretty sure there are a lot of societies out there with strong family values and a lot of problems, particularly mental health. It is just not acceptable to talk about it. Worst case scenario, family can be used as an excuse to treat people miserably.

I fail to see what does food has to do with the dude's comment that he was raised with good family values and takes anti-depressives... Pretty sure there are a lot of societies out there with strong family values and a lot of problems, particularly mental health. It is just not acceptable to talk about it. Worst case scenario, family can be used as an excuse to treat people miserably.

tgifmondays 16 6h30m

Just Reddit stuff. While true that diet can have effects on mental health, it’s obviously not a cure all and the comment was completely useless. Another helpful mental health tip is getting off this hellsite

BlueBerryCloudDog 5 6h44m

Haha couldn't agree more. Though it makes me question what situations and ways of living I do not know or cannot conceive. OP is obviously well meaning but rather inflexible. It makes me wonder what is it that I fail to see and understand as well.

commercial-menu90 16 1h20m

You get an upvote from me because food is more important than anything else. I eat more fruits and veggies and drink more water in a day than my friend does in multiple days. My friend is currently balding, has high blood pressure and suffered from 100 degree fevers after his covid shot. I smoke and I drink and my physical health is much better than my friends. Food is everything. I spent a year eating organic blueberries and tomatoes every morning. That year I went to the doctors for a checkup and they said that I had minimal damage in my lungs despite being a smoker. I really don't know why people don't take their diet seriously and it's especially baffling when people deny the importance of eating well. The same people that tell you that you have plenty of time to workout are the ones who deny that they have the time to cook a healthy meal.

KombuchaEnema 12 2h41m

I cut out most added sugar and can’t believe how much of a change it has made for me mentally. I can concentrate more. I have more energy. I feel more connected to the things I’m doing.

But, like OP said, most Americans aren’t taking care of themselves. And when you eat like crap, you feel like crap.

And, as someone who had to spend nearly two weeks in a psychiatric hospital, I know all about depression. I’m bipolar. I know depression.

Did a good diet cure me? Of course not. I still struggle. I still need therapy. I still have bad days.

Does eating healthy make me feel better and give me a good sense of self-worth and a good routine to follow and goals to achieve? Absolutely.

People just hate trying anything that requires them to do anything other than pop pills.

commercial-menu90 0 3h45m

I hear you. I spent time at a psychiatric hospital myself. I really like how you recognize the importance of food but didn't say that it's a cure all. Tbh, I was expecting someone to reply and call me out for still being depressed while pushing for food being positive.

MamaAvalon 6 8h17m

I smoke and I drink and my physical health is much better than my friends.

Yeah you just lost all credibility there buddy. Neither of those are good for your heath. Your friend likely just has different genetics than you yet you find yourself morally superior because you eat organic blueberries. I eat blueberries out the wazoo and I have several chronic health conditions including COPD even though I've never smoked. It's not as simple as eating a blueberry smh.

JKmusclebunny 9 7h40m

Except that doesn’t cause disorders like Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and OCD (it doesn’t cause clinical depression either)

beatissima 5 8h37m

I have anorexia, which is a mental illness, and I am most certainly not overweight.

sexycocyx 0 5h28m

Why the fuck is this downvoted?

meridaville -4 5h27m

I have no idea why you're being downvoted. It's the truth.

Responsible_Wash_430 -5 4h38m

How dare you suggest people forego mouth pleasure! We should all strive to be circles with eyelashes.

Duality-of-man4 43 4m

1) How do we get parents to work less if they have to work so hard to provide for said family

2) no one chooses their marriage to end up in divorce it happens, what’s your solution two people stay together in an unhappy relationship because guess what that can also mess up a kid

3) I can believe Americans care about the greater good when they pass policies and changes to help climate change

Masterdeetectiv 16 5h32m

Exactly, OP expects everyone to run part time jobs lmao. Thats the most dumbest take i have ever seen. People need jobs for a reason. If people could afford to work less, THEN THEY WILL

requisitionmeabeat 12 5h34m

People like him don't actually care what is going on behind the closed doors of these families' homes. Don't be silly. He just wants everyone to conform to his standard and to act like good 1950's model citizens.

Thank fuck people like you will never get in charge in my country. My thoughts go out to those poor women in Texas that are currently suffering because of bullshit traditionalist attitudes held by people like this.

almon_m 1 11h21m

You're kind of ignoring the whole point of the post, traditional views are traditional for a reason. The traditional family is such because it works, very well infact. While it may be flawed in modern day america, you still need to acknowledge the pros, not just attacking the cons. Like take for example the rise in single mothers, which causes children to grow up with no father figure, which leads to more criminal behaviour. You cant attack the traditional lifestyle without acknowledging why it works

BuddhaFacepalmed 0 17m

3) I can believe Americans care about the greater good when they pass policies and changes to help climate change

LMAO. When Americans fought changes that would prevent elementary kids getting slaughtered in mass shooting, "family values" is euphemism for "white supremacy".

Duality-of-man4 9 25m

Cuz I now the American government isn’t going to enact anything if you could how would you combat school shooting

BuddhaFacepalmed 11 34m

Federal licensing for firearms that requires a health check both physically and mentally, mandatory waiting periods, private sales needing to go through a federal database, people with domestic violence criminal records are barred from firearm ownership, possible sponsorship of gun safes, criminal liability for gun stores and private owners if they circumnavigate the entire process, etc.

Horror_Chipmunk3580 13 3h8m

Forgive my ignorance, but aren’t most of these regulations already in place? Some of these shooters don’t really raise red flags until they snap. They keep to themselves, mow their laws, neighbors never suspect anything…. I’m not some hardcore pro-guns, pry-them-from-my-dead-hands guy, but I don’t think more gun regulations will do anything until we start taking the mental health issues more seriously. And it’s not just mental health, it’s taking care of our population in general.

We kind of took individualism too far, and developed this fuck you, I got mine attitude. It’s obviously not working; when these shootings happen, it affects all of us.

BuddhaFacepalmed 4 3h15m

Forgive my ignorance, but aren’t most of these regulations already in place?

Gun laws vary state by state. Which is why people can circumnavigate Chicago's gun laws just by driving a few hours to Indiana where gun laws are more laxer.

Also we don't have a true federal database of gun ownership and background checks. The Sutherland Springs church shooter was able to circumnavigate his criminal records and was able to buy guns because Texas gun laws does not prohibit firearm sales without a license and the USAF mishandled his records that would have flagged him and prevented the sale.

we start taking the mental health issues more seriously.

In hands of the conservatives, mental health issues is a red herring considering that they are more than happy to vote in the GOP to defund health services.

Horror_Chipmunk3580 5 3h20m

See, I wasn’t aware of that. I always thought gun regulations were a federal issue. Thank you for explaining it so thoroughly.

I was kind of alluding to the defunding of health services issue. We’re in a really shitty situation.

sexycocyx 0 5h38m

There's tons of regulations already in place. But these fucking losers crying for gun control aren't satisfied with that and won't stop until EVERYONE is stripped of their right to own a firearm.

And then when firearms are banned, and kids are planting fucking pipe bombs to kill (like they did "way back" in '99 at Columbine), then they'll cry about banning pipes. They're too worried about blaming the OBJECT of harm rather than the person that made it.

They REFUSE to acknowledge that the society they tried to create is the culprit, and they'll continue trying to point fingers at inanimate objects to deflect blame. They'll continue to point fingers at the objects rather than acknowledge that their fucking failed societal practices have literally created fucking teenage killers.

Darwinism has failed us. The strong no longer survive, but rather the weak with the loudest fucking voice.

Ericdraven04 1 2h10m

Go post this statement in r/firearms.

Altyrmadiken 2 3h11m

Instead, try making that statement in a global situation, and not on a website that is predominantly US over any other individual nation. Roughly half of all traffic is from the US, and something like /r/firearms is likely far higher.

Which is to say that under those circumstances you're liable to meet people who believe it's their god given right to have a gun no matter what. Of course it's going to go over poorly.

However just because they believe those things doesn't mean regulation and oversight are inherently bad.

sexycocyx -6 5h33m

You would try to compare the obvious benefits of growing up in a loving, whole family to "white supremacy". What a piece of shit. Your single mom failed you. You're not fooling anyone. You're bitter as fuck and you're looking for any weak ass excuse you can find to blame others for your problems.

Impressive-Hunt-2803 42 6h45m

The title says "lack of strong family values"
But the text says "capitalism"

We need paid parental leave, and better paying jobs. Those are capitalism issues, not family values issues.

XXGhust1XX 6 9h54m

Exactly this point, I was completely and genuinely with OP for the first 2 paragraphs, but after that, it just describes some of the growing negative impacts of our capitalist society. People being stressed from living paycheck to paycheck, or from a growing debt, facing mountain anxiety as you face societal pressures of conformity despite little economic stability, that's not because your parents didn't love each other enough, and it's not because you don't have friends.

bfwolf1 2 12h41m

But capitalism is not the problem either. Paid parental leave isn’t anti-capitalist. Plenty of capitalist countries like those in Europe have this. And better paying jobs is something capitalism helps foster. There’s a reason Western Europe wage growth was much higher after WW2 than Eastern Europe. There are also alternative models for addressing income inequality such as UBI.

I feel like what you meant to say is America needs a better social welfare system.

webzzzzzz 1 9h54m

But capitalism, in its current form, helped cause the erasure of family values and turned individualism into a rabbid and fanatic thing. Ask any sociologist, they will tell you that a family units are the building blocks of society

SpiritBadger 39 8h39m

Or maybe older generations have created a society where working is a way to barely survive and not thrive. It's not some magical corruption of values. It's greed and disingenuous bootstraps rhetoric that leave the younger gens to pay the bill and get shat on for not saying thank you for the opportunity. It's not a loss of values. It's lack of opportunity and endless stress of surviving in a constantly more demanding financial situation that only seems to get worse.

You want greater good? Tax the ultrarich, raise wages and stop insane ceo bonuses and salaries.

Southpaw535 10 12h25m

Exactly. Huge chunk of incomes for families go on avoiding eviction and starvation, we have mountains of evidence at this point about how poorly wages have risen compared to cost of living, and evidence of how shit it is compared to previous generations.

But yes, its entirely about values and beliefs, not the cold evidence that life is objectively shitter so people are naturally more stressed and depressed with all of its accompanying problems

Onehotdanish 4 12h36m

Finally found some homies who get it

fgom2148 6 11h46m

The first sensible comment. This joined with the enaltiment of individualism, constant advertising playing people's emotions and comparing the viewer to unachievable standards and wealth hoarding by the few, is just the perfect storm for a civil society to implode. Best of luck!

nootomat 36 21m

This sounds like you want to go back to the 50s culturally.

sexycocyx 1 5h31m

Oh the horror!

fakeredditemailz -13 40m

How many mass shootings happened in the 50s? How much drug use? How many overweight diabetic children?

nootomat 51 45m

Which sounds nice....until you look at all the shit that happened in the 50s. We weren't exactly a kind society then. We just didn't have 24/7 and social media that exposed all of the dirty laundry.

Untrustworthy_fart 30 50m

What you mean the period during the FUCKING VIETNAM WAR. Yeah there was actually quite some amount of shooting and drug use.

Edit: I suppose the US was only restricting its self to providing arms and training paramilitaries in the 50s, Though there's also the small matter of the FUCKING KOREAN WAR

doublecastle 4 5h19m

The US did not deploy troops to Vietnam until 1965.

Following-Ashamed 25 51m

How much Jim Crow?

LanceBassProShop 23 1h9m

How much segregation?

Dingoatemycheze 21 2h52m

How many people of color weren't allowed to drink out of the same fountains as caucasians just because they had more melanin? How many women were treated like property just because of their gender? How many members of the LGBTQ community were killed just based on who they loved?

pcoppi 11 5h40m

Lookup the way we were by stephanie coontz... I dont remember the exact points but basically a surprising number of housewives were quite depressed and some developed drinking habits

fakeredditemailz -2 5h50m

I think part time professional work for women is the secret to a happy home. That way mom can care for the kids and also have a profession network.

But obviously, I think every mother has a right to choose her own path in life. We just as a society need to embrace part time professional jobs and job sharing the way Scandinavian countries do

PrincessZorld0 6 6h11m

Really? Women are not always natural caretakers and neither should men be expected to be the main breadwinner. People are far more valuable to the world when you don't put them in neat little boxes that suit your fantasy life.

fakeredditemailz -3 6h18m

Actually women are natural caretakers. It has been that way LITERALLY since the beginning of time. Cave women took care of the kids, Viking women took care of their kids. Every women in every part of the world takes care of their kids. It is evolutionary and biology for women to nurture their offspring. Women literally secrete hormones to help them bond with their children.

All of a sudden in the 2000s - women aren’t natural caretakers?!? - GTFO. You sound ridiculous.

PrincessZorld0 2 6h37m

Right, so we should all be stuck in the past when women and men died at age 20 because BIOLOGY. We are more than animals. Regardless of what you think you know, regardless of how much "natural talent" you think women have to be caretakers, they may not WANT to, and therefore will thrive in the areas they choose. I wouldn't want a half-hearted, employee because they're less effective. Why would I want a parent who feels they're forced to stay home part time because of "nature".

fakeredditemailz -1 6h40m

If a woman doesn’t want to be a caretaker then she shouldn’t have kids!!!!

Handing your baby off to a nanny for 60 hours a week is just sad

PrincessZorld0 2 6h42m

Or.... Imagine being a stay at home dad.... Shocker, there are options!

fakeredditemailz -3 6h47m

Then your child’s father probably feels less of a man that he can’t financially provide (ie hunt) for his family and it erodes his self esteem and eventually he cheats because he felt emasculated by you....... story sound familiar?

kimchi_paradise 2 6h51m

The level of misogyny is pretty blatant. Why can't a women have family dreams, and career dreams? "Natural caretaker" my behind, yes of course they secrete hormones to bond with their children, but did you know men also secrete said hormones as well? Why can't the husband stay home and care for the children? Who says that women do it better than men? In the beginning days, sure, breastfeeding and all. But after the first 6 or so months? Biology makes very little difference at that point.

A lot of people live in an area where it's very difficult to live off of one salary alone. It makes more sense to have someone take care of your child while you both work, in order to pay the bills. There is no shame in that, and anyone who says otherwise has never had any experience in the matter at all. Which sounds like you, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Lol even in Scandinavian countries the equality there is quite good -- men are encouraged to take time off to spend with their families, and get even longer family leave times than what most women might receive here in the US. Women aren't seen as property in your view, but rather, a partner. I know this as my husband is Scandinavian, he doesn't want me to even change my name to his because he finds it strange, his parents are the same way. He has his mother's last name.

I'm so done with people spouting things they have no idea about lol. Woe to the women who are in your life, as it sounds like you do not regard them very highly

fakeredditemailz 0 6h59m

As a college educated mother, I think my personal opinion on the matter is valid.

The problem is that millennials keep trying to fight nature and evolution and basic human relationships that have existed for THOUSANDS of years. Then we look around and wonder why?

Why did little Johnny bring a gun to school and murder six of his classmates? Why are 13 year old popping pills on Instagram? Why is my toddler biting the nanny?

Why? Because their mom is out working 60 hours a week outside the home so she can buy new shoes and other junk she doesn’t really need. Because no one has the time to sit down and actually talk to their children. Because the nanny isn’t a substitute for motherly love

bendable17 2 6h51m

Family in 1950’s appear good, so therefore family values problem

Eddie_078 1 5h17m

And ngl, they had a nice economy and aesthetics.

Soonerpalmetto88 36 4h2m

Family values have nothing to do with whether someone develops PTSD, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder.

sexycocyx 0 5h29m

It definitely has SOMETHING to do with it.

fakeredditemailz -2 4h7m

Epidemiological studies show that exposure to early stress in the form of abuse and neglect in childhood increases the risk to later develop schizophrenia (Bonoldi et al., 2013).Mar

Soonerpalmetto88 25 4h9m

Increases risk does not mean it causes it. There are many people with schizophrenia who come from loving families.

meridaville 1 5h26m

Like who?

jaiagreen 1 5h28m

"Increased risk" is literally the definition of "cause" in biology and most of life. Smoking causes lung cancer, but most smokers don't get lung cancer and some non-smokers do. Drunk driving causes accidents, but many drunk drivers get home safe. We can't think of causality as absolute.

EddieFitzG 7 9h41m

"Increased risk" is literally the definition of "cause" in biology and most of life.

Or it can just be a correlation.

jaiagreen 10h8m

Correlation vs. causation is a different question from deterministic vs. probabilistic causality. If experiments can't be done, distinguishing correlation from causation is where study design and mechanistic knowledge of the topic become really important. Also, if you're going to go with "just a correlation" for a correlation that's consistently found in multiple studies, you need to have a reasonable hypothesis about what underlying factor is driving the correlation.

sexycocyx 1 5h30m

You very clearly stated "it has nothing to do with it". Yet it clearly does have something to do with it.

fakeredditemailz -14 4h11m

No... they may seem loving on the outside. You have no idea what goes on behind closed doors.

Soonerpalmetto88 18 4h17m

I know exactly what went on inside my own house.

BlueBerryCloudDog 2 6h15m

Schizophrenia can be connected to autoimmune disease and inflammation, as well. Some trigger have nothing to do with family dynamics. Ngl, it would be nice if the horrendous problem of mental health could be cured with just parents being more loving to their children. It is a comforting thought. But reality is much more complicated and unfair, unfortunately. Scary right?

Good-Strong 3 10h40m

Why do you think abuse/neglect can't happen in a "traditional" family?

thisismycourage 29 1h16m

I think this really depends.

I work with behavioral kids and have for years. I’ve seen some with parents whose entire lives are almost solely based around their child or children. I have seen some parents and families be entirely uninvolved.

Edit: both can breed mental illness.

unscot 28 3h22m

With two parents working 50+ hours and no one being home to truly care for the kids

What are they supposed to do, quit their jobs and be homeless?

Spaceman2202 29 5h48m

As anyone here stopped to think... maybe we shouldn’t be in a world where we have to work 50+ hours a week to begin with?

unscot 18 5h50m

gasp So you mean OP is full of shit and people can't just decide to quit their jobs whenever they want?

Spaceman2202 11 5h54m

I’m not saying they’re wrong, I’m just acknowledging that the working class is just in a terrible position to go back to traditional family values, also I don’t like the words “traditional values” because a healthy family doesn’t necessarily need to be “traditional”

Good-Strong 2 10h38m

Literally same.

Plenty of "traditional" families are very unhealthy and unhappy, and plenty of non-traditional/"modern" families are doing great.

Good-Strong 10 10h35m

OP probably means that the mothers should all quit their jobs lmao

fakeredditemailz -7 3h31m

One can work full time and one can work part time/flex

unscot 6 3h33m

Wow, great advice at not reductive at all! You should mod r/personalfinance.

fakeredditemailz -8 4h3m

A little extra household income while your children turn into drug addicted maniacs with no decency...... OR one parent reduces their workload to be emotional available for a developing child.....

wb0406 7 5h6m

Holy privilege Batman

Minute-Objective-787 5 5h16m

Being broke and starving because you can't afford your rent is so much less stressful. /S

fakeredditemailz -1 5h23m

If a household has 1 and a half incomes and can’t afford rent, then YOU picked the wrong place to live. And YOU made the wrong decision to bring a child into the world without financial stability.

People need to THINK before they enter in to a marriage and THINK even harder when having children.

Masterdeetectiv 4 5h36m

Its not that easy bro, people cant just quit the job they have and walk into some other company. People need money, and they gonna work to earn it. Making sure the kid eats food is more important than having a small impact on their mental health. Many kids even prefer being home alone and not continuously monitored all day, what about them?

LanceBassProShop 23 1h11m

America needs to stop worrying about their own individual needs and wants and focus on what is best for the greater good.

I too embrace socialism.

PrincessBloom 8 6h3m

Right?! He’s so close to getting it.

livieluv 20 6h3m

So much wrong with this post...

todays-the-day12345 19 7h27m

Where are you getting your numbers? My understanding is that “mental health” is a global issue not just USA. I know some countries are less willing to “accept” mental health as a problem. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in those countries.

heardbutnotseen2 19 7h56m

If this is true the fault lies not in decline of “family values”. But it does lie in the decline of the American workers. Who are forced to work longer and harder for less and less even as the cost of basic needs continue to go up.

autismsaxperson 7 11h11m

Always analyse in terms of class

Commutalk 2 12h59m

Material base > superstructure

TooNuanced 17 6h16m

Family Values™ are not solution to America's mental health issues. It's not that simple and it's not good for people's mental health anyway.

Also, you listed economic problems of exploitation; community issues; diet health; etc: all of which incite or exacerbate to mental health issues. You painted a decently large picture of the issues but provided no way to link how Family Values™ actually address them. How does Family Values™ work against a system from firing those who don't do unpaid overtime when it makes financial sense to do so? Do you expect people to magically cooperate and sacrifice their wellbeing in order to achieve your ideas of Family Values™? Even if it was their value as much as it is yours, what if they need to exploit others for their family's benefit? Family Values™ makes no sense as a solution to socio-economic syndrome you described above.

Plenty of people against Family Values™ want the same issues addressed through actual government policy instead of a call to Family Values™.

P.S Even if you don't mean to, this post is advocating for Family Values™. Family Values™ is only a callback to ye old homogenous community in which the exploitation was simply brushed under the rug. Family Values™ that force virginity for women but not men, submissive wives, sticking through abusive relationships, children as property, disownment of LGBTQ+ and raped children, and others. Family Values™ that just mean 'my interpretation for what the status quo was'. It's rife of nostalgia for a fantasy that never was nor was any good.

MrPisster 17 6h37m

Simple thoughts from simple folks.

fakeredditemailz 1 6h44m

Says the geeky gamer, playing video games in his mom’s basement

YungFeetGod69 16 6m

Not everyone wants kids lol

fakeredditemailz -14 12m

You are still looking at things from an individual point of view.

Parents need to raise their kids. Meaning they need to be actively involved in their mental wellbeing, nourishment, and education. American society needs to come to terms with this and adjust their thinking of having everyone work 12+ hours a day.

Since the beginning of time children, when they have gotten older, have helped care for their elderly parents. Older childless Americans are going to be in for a rude awakening when they realize there will be no one to care for them in retirement and the COST it will take to care for them when old.

YungFeetGod69 35 18m

Since the beginning of time children, when they have gotten older, have helped care for their elderly parents.

SOme children want nothing to do with their parents. Not a guaranteed thing lol

fakeredditemailz -6 39m

If your shitty parents didn’t love you as a kid that is their fault.

YungFeetGod69 17 52m

I dno't see the correlation?

Masterdeetectiv 16 5h39m

Not every kid is rich enough to support aging parents, old people get stuck in cheap nursing homes for a reason

poodlefanatic 13 5h26m

My dude, this is NOT a reason to have kids. If the reason people have kids is so they will have someone to take care of them when they are old and so they won't be alone when they die, that's pretty fucking selfish. Childfree people KNOW they won't have kids to rely on. We accept this and plan accordingly.

I agree that parents should do a good job raising their kids but what this actually looks like varies wildly according to culture, religion, political ideology, etc. So what family values should people adhere to?

Saying all we need is better family values is incredibly short sighted and poorly thought out and is NOT a viable solution to mental health problems. You can have the perfect childhood with perfect parents and still end up with debilitating mental illness. You're distilling a multifacted problem down into one simple solution. That's not how it actually works...

Turian_Gloom_Stalker 16 3h26m

Its definitely a factor, but not the sole one.

Not having a lack of strong family values does not cause mental illness, but it definitely doesn't help people who do have mental illnesses.

It's good to identify problems, but it's equally crucial to come up with potential solutions. What can be done to help bring back strong traditional family values? As long as we aren't talking about some trad-con shit, we are probably on the same page.

ulterion0715 15 1h32m

Our leaders are mostly to blame. Most of them are corrupt, overly-wealthy, and thus highly disconnected from "We The People", whom they took an oath to serve. Our country's in shambles because of the limitless Apathy, Greed, and Hatred that's taken root all across the board with everybody. Everybody's Divided, now. Our leaders allow the people to be overworked, underpaid, overcharged, and underserved. The health care and housing market prices are out-of-this-world ridiculous! The market's no longer free; too much collusion between businesses, and government's bought and paid for by them. Everything's pro-wealth-class while the working-poor class gets repeatedly stomped out of their minds with anti-consumer and pro-wealthy laws, mandates, etc.. and all of this is just the tip of the iceberg.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

PlasticRock2159 8 6h0m

"B-b-but mUh cApiTalism woRkS!!!! juSt gEt a jOb yOu coMmie"

buckleupfkboy 15 5h51m

I think far more than the lack of values is the emphasis on working and hustling. Americans work far more hours than most Europeans at the cost of actually living their lives and seem damn proud of the fact that they work themselves to the bone. Life is for living America, not for working. Oh yeah and sort out the insane lack of access to healthcare

BumblebeeCurrent8079 14 2h38m

The problem is that you don't know what your marriage or relationship is going to be like 5 years from now. Having parents that argue all the time can be just as bad, sometimes even worse than having divorced parents. You can still have strong family with separated parents, the parents just need to be willing to work together to keep that feeling of family even though they are separated. Obviously if one of the parents are abusive or unfit to raise them, than that's different and makes it more difficult.

I honestly think the biggest problem is actually that people wait to get divorced or break up, they wait to the point of them hating each other instead of ending it on good terms. Instead of ending it while they still see each other in a good light, they stay together because they think that's what's best for the kid(s) and end up depressed, constantly arguing or decide to see other people while pretending to be together infront of the kid(s). The last one almost always ends up with the kids finding out and being left lost and angry, questioning which memories of their parents hugging and kissing are true and which ones are fake.

There's also cheating and the fact that some parents let the anger of their partner cheating on them get in the way of their kids relationship with the other parent. Constantly talking bad about the other parent to the kids or being unreasonable in cort when dealing with custody. This goes both ways btw, so the cheater can and does do this too. Instead of doing what's actually best for the kid they do things for selfish reasons.

There's also cheating and the fact that some parents let the anger of their partner cheating on them get in the way of their kids relationship with the other parent. Constantly talking bad about the other parent to the kids or being unreasonable in cort when dealing with custody. This goes both ways btw, so the cheater can and does do this too. Instead of doing what's actually best for the kid they do things for selfish reasons.

HomerFlinstone 13 1h8m

I'm not religious but I really think it's because without religion nobody has a central idea or structure to focus on or a built in community aspect to interact with. That "hole" and social aspect that used to get filled in with religion is just empty. Everyone is just alone and lost in their own worlds.

OrganicCow 19 1h58m

I'm agnostic and have noticed that for many secular people politics and other ideologies have replaced religion.

HomerFlinstone 18 2h3m

Gender, sexual identity, poltical party, hobbies ("gamer"), etc.

Everybody is trying to turn everything into a "community" now.

Phuc_Bui 2 2h33m

And that’s somehow bad?

HomerFlinstone 2 4h19m

It's not good.

Minute-Objective-787 2 5h10m

I say it's better than constantly fighting over ideological utopias like political perfection and religion.

Humans do need to look at ourselves individually face to face before we attempt to "save the world". Not all nostalgia is good nostalgia, and religion is still resulting in wars where people are being killed. I don't think any religion is worth dying for, or killing someone else over, or extincting the whole world over. I don't appreciate religious wackos predicting an "end to the world" and being gleeful that people of other religions will be killed off so thar only their religion rules the world.

Nothing good about self extinction over ideological utopias, either.

We just need to face rock hard, down to earth reality that humans are imperfect and all we can do is our best with what we know and keep trying to improve. This focus on "trying to a be perfect person with a perfect family with perfect kids" to do what exactly - emulate a culture that was a facade anyway based on some fake nostalgia? That is what is really wrong with people today.

Focus on the here and now reality and if there are things to improve and it will benifit, yes, but sometimes if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Let them turn into "communities" . To know society you must know yourself and what role you will play, instead of getting lost in the collectivist blur of everyone doing and living the same way. We're not the planet Camazots in that book A Wrinkle In Time, this is Earth with imperfect humans going in billons of different directions. It will be messy at times, be disruptive - but humans gonna human so do what you can to improve your life as an individual and contribute what you can to improving society.

HomerFlinstone 2 7h43m

I say it's better than...

It most likely is but it's still not good. Not "ideal" maybe I would say.

Eddie_078 1 5h18m

I'd say it's just human hypocrisy at its finest, which is bad in itself.

stfukthxbyee 6 5h5m

I was literally just thinking about this earlier today. I’m not religious at all but I actually tried to start attending church with my daughter just to form some kind of community. I only went a couple times because the teachings were somehow worse than I remembered, but why can’t we have a “church” that isn’t religious? Like just a place people can show up on Sunday mornings and let their kids play together, form relationships with other families, work together for some charitable causes, have some shared values... things like that.

I think it would give people the same sense of community, support, and identity as church. Just without all the weird religious stuff. Idk. It sounds a little culty I guess but isn’t it good to give people some kind of structure?

Eddie_078 6 5h21m

Just go to a park or festival.

stfukthxbyee 4 5h24m

You’re not going to see the same people every time though, and it’s not a regular thing. The entire point is going somewhere regularly with the same people and building strong relationships and working together toward common goals. If going out and chatting with people in public regularly did the same thing then no one would have that empty spot.

requisitionmeabeat 2 5h41m

A book club, gaming club, fishing club, hunting club, debating club, stamp collecting club, car enthusiast club, Star Trek conventions, furry conventions...

You don't need a church to have a group of people you regularly spend time with. How indoctrinated in religion are you to not understand this?

stfukthxbyee 2 5h49m

None of those things are stuff you can take your whole family to though. Like I want to make couple friends with couples who have kids the same age as mine and have our kids be friends too. I don’t see how that’s weird. Like a club is the right word but for whole families you know?

Eddie_078 1 6h0m

School events? Group vacations?

stfukthxbyee 1 6h1m

My kids aren’t old enough for school yet. Maybe when that starts I guess. What are group vacations?

HomerFlinstone 1 6h10m

I don't think these kids get the central concept of what you mean yet honestly.

stfukthxbyee 1 6h13m

Yeah you’re probably right. I feel like it happened so fast that I crossed the line into being an old person lol. I don’t see myself as old yet!!

HomerFlinstone 1 7h52m

It took me till my 30s to fully understand and appreciate the social benefits of religion. I never went to church and have no real network. Those devoted church folks know hundreds of people on a first name basis. They all help each other too. It's an actual community that only religion can provide. It's an amazing place to build relationships, network, etc. It gives you certain advantages in life.

And the whole idea behind having something to focus on, and believe, and the structure behind it, is a very big concept. Hard to explain. It's like having a "point" to live. You either feel what I'm saying or don't. I wouldn't really expect anyone under say, ~28, to get it.

As I said, I'm an Atheist/agnostic and wouldn't change anything, but I did learn to see the benefits that a religious life offers compared to non religious life. Sometimes I wish I was religious lol. Non religious church would be cool tho. Lol.

stfukthxbyee 1 8h2m

Same here! Finally realized in mid-30s. The community aspect is actually amazing and that’s what I miss. I just can’t stomach religion anymore - no matter what it always feels like a controlling and judgey cult to me. But I want that sense of community so bad!

We should start our own groups lol. I’m genuinely interested to know how popular an idea it is (amongst those of use who are able to see the benefits aside from the crazy.

Eddie_078 1 5h57m

I gotta admit this. Just live your life. Spend time with people you can openly discuss your issues and interests with. Don't just go to a place because it's socially conventional.

requisitionmeabeat 2 5h39m

Because it's fucking weird dude. Seriously fucking weird. Just get some friends and hang out with them. You don't have to all congregate in a big hall. Why the fuck would you want that?

stfukthxbyee 2 5h47m

Who said congregate in a hall? Like if it’s not religious couldn’t you like go together to volunteer places or take the kids to do fun stuff? Just meet regularly and do that kind of stuff but have it be open for other people to come too.

Do you know how hard it is to make friends as a stay at home parent in a city you didn’t grow up in? I don’t know how people do it. I would love some kind of community or club like this where I could just show up and start making some friends.

Minute-Objective-787 5 4h53m

The central idea should be reality. Plain reality, what we see with our eyes and what we experience with our five senses.

Religion is not necessary, it's another negative because has never brought humanity together, it has just divided large swaths of us into an "Our god vs your god" situation and is leading to religious wars.

Our "central idea" or "structure" should be based on our common humanity and our role in caring for the Earth in a sustainable way. Religion, secularism, politics and other ideologies are just conjecture and fantasy about impossible utopias.

Humans can be a community by realizing that our common goal is to build a future for ourselves which does not involve extincting ourselves in fights over ideology and religious dogma.

throwaway007676 3 5h51m

Religion is poison.

HomerFlinstone 1 5h3m

Well I agree with you 100% but obviously many people struggle with that concept.

Eddie_078 1 5h20m

Kinda sounds like pantheism to me to be honest.

JoyIkl 5 5h18m

countries with less religious population tend to have higher happiness index so i dont think that's true.

SAHDadWithDaughter 5 6h7m

Religion leads to hatred and disgust directed at people you'll never even meet.

requisitionmeabeat 3 5h37m

I completely disagree. Just because you have problems with subservience don't project that on the rest of us. I'm an atheist. I have no such struggles or 'holes' of meaning in my life. I have friends to socialise with. We play games and stuff. We aren't planning on starting a cult any time soon. All atheists.

sexycocyx 2 5h49m

Religion isn't necessary to know right from wrong. Shit parenting is the biggest problem here. Parents who are bitter and pissed off that they were made to follow rules, so they vicariously encourage their kids to break the rules as an act of defiance.

Then the kid kills someone, and the parent decides to blame someone else instead of recognizing that they failed their fucking kid.

Responsible_Wash_430 2 18h18m

What’s more frightening is that people have filled the void of religion with political ideology. Mao Zedong and Joe Stalin are both smiling in hell somewhere right now.

HomerFlinstone 2 19h8m

Trump is too many people's God right now.

Same with the left in a more general way. Liberalism and progressivism as an identity and religion in itself.

Minute-Objective-787 0 4h55m

The central idea should be reality. Plain reality, what we see with our eyes and what we experience with our five senses.

Religion is not necessary, it's another negative because has never brought humanity together, it has just divided large swaths of us into an "Our god vs your god" situation and is leading to religious wars.

Our "central idea" or "structure" should be based on our common humanity and our role in caring for the Earth in a sustainable way. Religion, secularism, politics and other ideologies are just conjecture and fantasy about impossible utopias.

Humans can be a community by realizing that our common goal is to build a future for ourselves which does not involve extincting ourselves in fights over ideology and religious dogma.

SnowHeader -16 1h34m

Hard to have a discussion when all atheist have some serious superiority complex

Masterdeetectiv 7 5h38m

Geez generalising much are we

SnowHeader -2 5h41m

You know it and I know it.

I’m not even religious but so many people I’ve met love to shout out how they better humans and the next coming of Einstein because they believe they are all about “reason” and dare I say hijack the word “science” and not god.

Masterdeetectiv 3 5h43m

You know some weird people. I dont know many atheists but thats cuz they probably dont shove it down my throat ( even im atheist but i hate talking about stuff like god and all, i just talk about videogames)

cantfocuswontfocus 12 5h7m

Not an American but I wanted to provide some input here since I sort of agree. Where I’m from (3rd world Asian country) my parents and some other older people used to tell me about those “cruel Americans” who would send their parents to die in nursing homes and kick their kids out the first chance they get. I understand that there are various factors at play (mainly economic) but maybe the kicking your kids out at 18 doesn’t help to foster a good environment.

fakeredditemailz 6 5h18m

Great point

cantfocuswontfocus 3 5h21m

Of course now that I’m older, moved out, and living in another country I’m a bit more sympathetic especially to people who may not have a choice but to send their parents to care homes but I’m thankful to my parents that they didn’t force me out and I know that if ever I want/need to move back, they’ll take me back. A little compassion goes a long way I suppose

Succulent_Filth 12 6h50m

Nope, ya lost me ten words in. If in your world mass shootings and divorces are equally pathological, we're done.

Untrustworthy_fart 11 45m

Could the mass shootings be because you have an astounding amount of guns in circulation with fuck all oversight? Could the opiate epidemic be because an utterly fucked pharma company managed to convince your politicians that opiates aren't addictive allowing them to give out oxycontin like candy? Nope its the lack of family values. Point blank.

fakeredditemailz 21 47m

Guns don’t kill people.... mental deranged people kill people

Untrustworthy_fart 23 53m

Then don't let them have guns...

Warningwaffle 7 2h2m

In China they don’t so they have mass stabbings in schools instead. I guess it makes it feel more personal when the homicidal maniac has to get right in your face to kill you.

fakeredditemailz 9 2h58m

I don’t think mass stabbings are a thing.... I can’t see people waiting around while one person is being stabbed and just waiting their turn

Warningwaffle 9 3h43m

Research it then. They have happened multiple times in China over the years. Someone who is bent on committing mass murder will find a way to do it with whatever they have to do it with.

frolf_grisbee 4 2h34m

Sounds like a far less deadly problem

EternallySt0ned 1 17h36m

Actually you're much more likely to survive a gunshot than a stabwound.

Either way guns are here to stay in America the more tge government opposes and tries to control them, the more people buy them.

It's actually hilarious

TheRealTravisClous 2 13h40m

Mass stabbings as a counter argument in countries that have banned guns is so fucking stupid. They don't have mass stabbings because mass stabbing is hard to accomplish, you have to get close to your victim, they can fight back much easier against a person with a gun or get assistance from another bystander. Whereas with a gun you can stand at a distance and kill your victims no need to get in close quarters with them and potentially end your rampage.

Warningwaffle 2 15h29m

Yes, they do. To argue otherwise is stupid because it denies reality. Look it up. Or remain ignorant, your call.

TheRealTravisClous 2 18h23m

Sorry I should have clarified that they are not as common as mass shootings because of the reasons I listed. I should not have said never, because there are no absolutes. However, for every 10 mass stabbings there will be a disproportionate amount of mass shootings within the same timeframe. Globally not just in the US mass shootings are much more of a problem than mass stabbings. A .223 is a much more effective killing instrument than any knife.

According to Wikipedia the the worst mass stabbing was the Kunming Knife Attack (2014) 31 people were killed and 141 wounded and was carried out by 8 individuals.

Comparatively the worst mass shooting was Las Vegas (2017) was carried out by 1 individual who killed 58 and injured 413 by gunfire and 869 total.

I cannot find statistics about the rate of mass stabbings comparatively to mass shootings but I did find shootings vs stabbings in general. In the US only 10% of violent attacks happen because of weapons other than guns, in Europe those numbers are closer due to gun restrictions but this accounted for all violence not just mass stabbings vs mass shootings. I couldn't find stats on Asia as a lot of countries either don't regularly publish all their information or are secretive with their stats.

Altyrmadiken 2 3h15m

I'm stealing this whole exchange.

ulterion0715 1 1h41m

I don't trust you...

...and you smell bad.

LanceBassProShop -12 1h10m

Then by that logic, guns can't save people either.

You can't claim it's the simply the person when a bad thing happens but claim guns save people when it's a good result.

FnCraig 5 1h39m

No, a hero with a gun saves people.

LanceBassProShop 2 2h15m

And a mentally deranged person with a gun kills them.

FnCraig 4 2h35m

And a hero with a gun kills them. And thus the circle of life is complete.

ulterion0715 2 1h40m

Yes it can.

[shooter walks into ___ and pulls out gun]

[defender sees shooter, draws gun, and subdues shooter]

[crisis averted]

LanceBassProShop 7 2h14m

The gun didn't save the day, the owner did.

You can't have it both ways. Either the person behind the gun is responsible or the gun is. You're changing it to fit your pro-gun narrative.

ulterion0715 3 2h21m

If "everyone" is "disarmed", do you really believe that the business owners, the government, the wealthy, and the criminals will just magically give up their guns? Hell no! Behind the scenes, in the shadows, and in complete secrecy, they'll always have guns. The only ones who'll be disarmed are the working poor class and fading middle class. That's it. The poor and middle classes will become vulnerable to businesses, government, and criminals. No thank you. I'd rather we all have guns, and find other solutions than become vulnerable, and wind up being forced into buses, and into work camps. The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

LanceBassProShop 4 2h34m

Nice rant. I was simply pointing out your inconsistent logic to fit your narrative.

JoyIkl 1 5h26m

I dont get whats so bad about screening people so only good people get access to gun, waiting a day or two aint gonna kill people right?

Kim_Jong_Unsen 1 5h58m

We already do that

Kim_Jong_Unsen 1 6h6m

They give someone a means to save someone, or kill them. Guns aren’t good or bad, they’re just a tool used by the wielder.

LanceBassProShop 1 6h8m

Yet OP doesn't follow that line of reasoning.

PepeSilvia859 11 6h11m

This is more ignorant and uneducated than it is unpopular.

Eaglemcfly 11 6h23m

I have to hard disagree on this one. My parents are divorced and I have a healthy relationship with both of them separately and I have carried on with my life with no psychological scars of any kind.

Marriage has nothing to do with a healthy family situation. Some people stay on a long term commitment relationship without ever getting legally or religiously married. A kid needs to know that his parents love him and support him. The rest is secondary.

guChrist 10 3h34m

OP your age is showing hahaha

Miller_TM 2 11h43m

Also their privileged status is showing 😂

ThaGarden 10 5h9m

Right I got addicted to heroin because we stopped sitting down to eat at the table

meridaville 10 5h28m

The problem with this mental health crisis is people will continue struggling mentally yet having children with other mentally damaged people, thus raising another generation of mentally damaged children and the cycle repeats.

JKmusclebunny 1 7h43m

Do you want us to be systematically sterilized in mental hospitals?

cdsb-bva- 3 9h34m

no, we just need 1)more comprehensive sex education in schools at different developmental stages with better access to family planning tools so parents are having kids in a loving and prepared environment and 2)better access to mental health resources and destigmatization of seeking help and that you don’t have to be chronically mentally ill to seek treatment.

brydye456 10 6h44m

America's mental health problems are due to a lack of access to mental health care. Even with most insurance therapy is very expensive.

Good-Strong 10 10h17m

Not true.

Most countries with more traditional family values are pretty unsafe and corrupt in general.

If a certain type of traditional gender roles were the key to a good society, then Afghanistan would be a better place to live in than the USA.

tgifmondays 9 6h24m

How about we pay people living wages?

rollover2323 2 12h18m

You think that will solve mental health problems?

TedCruzIsMe 3 13h40m

It would give anybody who needs help better financial stability and make any help they might need more more accessible, plus anyone working two jobs now would have more time to focus on mental health and safety if one job could provide what they needed. Capitalism just has a way of maintaining the status quo, and the status quo isn’t quite livable :/

thedeadllama 3 13h43m

Yes, many of them

baconator_out 8 13m

focus on the family

Wolf_Pickles 8 9h7m

You are a walking contradiction

Leneord1 7 1h14m

A lot of my issues are genetic and are greatly worsened due to family, but in the same vain, I still have a supportive family who helps me go through my issues

Kalle_79 7 1h55m

I agree on most, but will have to disagree on parents working being a huge factor.

Good parenting is not about QUANTITY but about QUALITY of time spent. Plenty of stay-at-home moms (or dads) can be incredibly damaging for the kids who get overwhelmed by all the care and the attention, alongside with high expectations and the subsequent stress.

Nuclear family has been demonized by liberal/progressive propaganda in a stupid and misguided attempt to promote "alternative families", creating an unnecessary division between two sides that SAY they care about the kids...

Straight, gay or non-binary/gender-fluid, I don't care as long as it's a stable, commited couple with clear roles and duties.

What I really feel it's been wrongly promoted is the alleged lack of importance of all those things in favour of a vague "extended family" with partners coming and going, a bunch of "mine, yours, ours, someone else's" step-siblings, step-parents and all sorts of semi-random presences that only cause confusion.

Basically, anything predicated on the ME ME ME mindset has been accepted and glorified despite it having caused more harm than good both individually and socially.

Irresponsible people popping out kids they don't know how to feed, raise or support aren't a new thing. The bad news is how such behaviour has apparently become acceptable and even "empowering", or at the very least excused as a byproduct of a "broken system" nobody takes responsibility for.

ThisTimeAtBandCamp 7 1h58m

Our (American) culture has been incredibly focused one the individual for some time. I imagine that didn't help

malohombre1 7 3h41m

Here is this upvote. I totally disgree with you

HastelloyTi 7 5h6m

As someone who is currently taking a university course on human development, kind of. Having strong role models and a strong support structure is super important for human development.

You don't need to follow strict "traditional family values" for this to be the case though, and it can be harmful in some cases (if we are talking about 1950s traditional family values, these can actually promote poor habits in men for example)(or genderqueer people) (or women) (it's way too late in the day for me to get into it) (and I have to work tomorrow)

Tldr: strong families are super important. ""Traditional family values"" not so much

Jonestownandbound 7 6h39m

I'm going to upvote this because it legitimately made me cringe.

If I had a nickel for everyone who boiled down America's problems to "family values" I would be able to buy at least 1,000 Cheeseburgers

Responsible_Wash_430 6 4h14m

Unintended consequences of feminism and devaluing motherhood for 50 years. Companies have twice the workers, half the wages, and kids are raised by strangers. But everybody’s got a career to pay for shit they can’t afford, so things are perfect, right?

And that’s assuming divorce doesn’t happen and dad hasn’t been removed from home. That’s when things get really fun for kids. Assuming mom and dad got married to begin with.

And that’s assuming divorce doesn’t happen and dad is removed from the home. That’s when things get really fun for kids. Assuming mom and dad got married to begin with.

marcusaureliuswisdom 2 7h33m

Damn, this is too much truth for this site.

Atomic-Soup 6 5h42m

We are a generation of fatherless children

fakeredditemailz -1 5h48m

This is huge. The impact of a father in a household is tremendous! As a society, we really need to educate young men on how to be a stable role model for their children

BlueBerryCloudDog 3 6h19m

Ngl, this sounds like it comes from Jordan Peterson or something similar. Not that it is wrong thou. But it is far from the entire story.

bendable17 2 6h49m

Thinking about Jordan Peterson hurts my brain. Like, some of the advice he gives isn’t terrible, but his politics and general demeanor really make him unbearable to listen to.

Plus, he gives me NoFap vibes.

BlueBerryCloudDog 1 6h54m

From what I have heard from him, everything he says about psychology is mostly accurate and great (anything else outside his area of expertize not so much). The problem is when expressing himself to the public there is a lot of nuance he purposely leaves out for the sake of his message. Important nuance in the long term. He is good to complement your opinions with, not to base your thoughts around.

GiddyupKid 1 8h23m

Just look at black and african americans families - 2/3 of black children are being born into single parent households today. Kids growing up with one parent are way more likely to drop out of high school, get pregnant at young age, incarcerated, etc., meanwhile BLM is now setting out to “disrupt and dismantle the western prescribed nucelar family” what a great fucking way to stuck in the vicious cycle of low socioeconomic status - fatherless homes - poverty and crime

DangerousEffective9 6 8h9m

I think its due to the left and right mentality this country has its tearing the people apart

MamaAvalon 6 8h35m

LOL no. All of these problems aren't the result of people not having enough "family values" whatever that even means. They're a result of systemic problems in our society like corporate greed and the fact that had minimum wage risen properly with inflation it would be over $20 right now. What exactly are two parents who both need to work to afford, I don't know, things like housing and food to their kids supposed to do exactly? And simply being married does not make someone a good parent nor does not being married mean you'll be a bad one. The only reason my partner and I aren't married is that I'd lose my health insurance. That doesn't make us bad people. I WAS married to my ex but it took TWO years to divorce his alcoholic ass because he contested it. Once the kids and I finally got away from him and they had loving consistency, all of their behavioral issues improved immensely. Staying married for the kids is one of the worst things you can do. You've got this all wrong man.

Zarg444 6 10h48m

How did you observe the "self-absorbed youth"? This feels like the classic and pointless "teens these days" complaint. Mental health, LGBT rights, environment, racism, etc. Kids typically thought little about these things, but they do now. Drug use and teenage pregnancy is way down. The new generation is uniquely responsible and selfless.

How did you observe the "self-absorbed youth"? This feels like the classic and pointless "teens these days" complaint. Mental health, LGBT rights, environment, racism, etc. Kids typically though little about these things, but they do now. Drug use and teenage pregnancy is way down. The new generation is uniquely responsible and selfless.

chajo1997 5 40m

And they can't even visit a doctor because it bankrupts them lol

thekawaiipisces 5 5h26m

I feel like America doesn’t have any family values. Everyone I have met told me that it’s every individual for themselves and they don’t have any obligation to look after their family. I mean yes you have no obligation but they are your family lmao, especially if they are a healthy family then I don’t see why they need to completely cut them off after turning 18.

targea_caramar 5 5h35m

I see you and I raise you that they're due to a lack of strong community values. It really does take a village, and care and good example can come from many places that are not necessarily a Married Mom And Dad. The nuclear family was a relatively uncommon sight until relatively recently, and before that there was the community.

A strong, neighbourly safety net can get a child places even when the breeding couple are no longer together - with the added benefit that people won't have to stay in relationships that are unhappy at best, fatally harmful at worst, and the children won't learn what a relationship should look like from people who by all means shouldn't be in one.

Also many mental disorders are genetic and sometimes worsened by the hectic lifestyle of the modern world, so there's also that

ObjectSmall 2 17h43m

I agree with this; it's not that every mom needs to quit her job and stay home, or that every dad should be the sole provider, but that we need to raise our children to value community and connection. OP's post is a post of correlations -- if you raise your kids in an environment where they feel connected, secure, looked out for, and valued, they will probably grow up to be more functional than a kid who spends life scared, neglected, and insecure.

There's not an easy answer because it's a cyclical problem: schools, parents, community, society, economics, politics, the informed and cognizant voter, and back to schools...

The only thing about OP's post I agree with is that we all need to step back and honestly confront the problem. And that could mean hard questions and uncomfortable evaluations of our values (not just personally, but economically as well, as many people have pointed out). "Family values" really means teaching people to be willing to sacrifice some degree of personal advancement in order to promote a greater good -- for some, the ideal scope is the nuclear family. For some it's the extended family. For some it's the city, state, country, or world. But we're really slipping with this idea in general and it's harming all of us.

I think, for example, we could separate out mental disorders like BPD, schizophrenia, and OCD from things like anxiety and depression. And we could acknowledge that there is a huge environmental and interpersonal component to those problems, which are rampant, and we could acknowledge that we all feed into systems that actively make those worse. Like being assholes to each other on Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram. Like our toxic political discourse. Like, yes, our increasing creation of unstable and dysfunctional families.

A--Tarii 5 6h28m

Yeah the power of love and friendship will totally fix these “mental health problems”

Johnycash138 5 6h50m

The root of all this lies in the fact that low level salaries have not caught up with the inflation and rising cost. Hell, my insurance goes up every year when I am not getting enough hike to match even that amount. That's the reason both parents need to work. We need to have better insurance and healthcare. It should not need half of your salary to maintain a good health insurance. Even after that, one big illness can ravage entire family and their life long saving.

Remarkable-Goat-5312 5 6h57m

This sounds like a religious take.

Abe_Vigoda -3 7h25m

I'm not at all religious but I absolutely agree with OP.

I'm from Canada but growing up on US media, it's very clear that there really isn't any kind of united moral standard. People get more of their values from South Park and movies over people actively working together on a community level.

Religious people don't have a monopoly on morality.

Dhenn004 5 6h57m

That’s certainly an opinion. A misinformed one. Sounds like you don’t understand the roots of mental health. Lol

Copernikaus 5 7h1m

Not an unpopular opinion. Just wrong and unsupported by facts.

BrassUnicorn87 5 7h39m

Wage stagnation and theft of labor value is the death of the stay at home mom. It’s capitalism for like half that stuff.

Mister_Bambu 5 8h25m

I'll be sure to write the president that Reddit feels we don't know how families work

aimeeink 5 8h48m

um, fucking ew

MichalBryxi 5 8h54m

Always baffled me. In Czechia the paid maternity leave is 2 to 3 years (yes, that's not a typo). I was in a bit shocked when my former boss went to deliver her baby and we've seen her back on Zoom ... a month after that?

Ghriszly 5 10h4m

American workers are some of the most overworked and least respected people in the developed world. Were expected to hold our jobs in higher esteem than our own families in a lot of places

BootySweat0217 5 11h2m

You heard it here folks. My mom working is the reason I have mental health issues. Hey ladies! Get in the kitchen! If it wasn’t for you having a career Americans wouldn’t....be addicted to pills? Wait, that can’t be right. If it wasn’t for you women not cooking my meals there wouldn’t be.....mass shootings? None of this is sounding right.

TheDevilsAdvokaat 5 11h29m

I wonder. Some people say "family values" and really mean Christianity...and we don;t need more of that, we need less.

But if you really mean just parents caring for each other and the kids, yes I'm all for that.

Kids are better off in families....and I say that as a single parent. Single parenting is ok, but dual parenting is better.

Wild_Bro_97 4 4h51m

Or maybe they can't afford mental health services because they don't have insurance. Which do you think is more likely?

-hate_ 4 5h20m

People are imperfect and no matter how hard they try, they're going to make mistakes that affect a child negatively, even if they don't realize it. And if it's not the parents- it'll be kids at school, siblings, friends, other family members, teachers, etc. Mental illness can also very much be genetic. I don't think we will ever win here. We are too human for our own good.

So while I don't disagree, I definitely don't think it's anywhere close to a fix-all solution

sexycocyx 4 5h21m

Most people know this. But unfortunately it's more taboo today to say "I want to get married and raise kids the right way" than "I just want to have as much casual sex as possible and fuck commitment".

You're dead on, but good luck changing the society that hates family values and morals that we've let develop...

Family values and morals these days have become "racist conservative trope". And we continue to just stand the fuck by and let it get worse.

We've lost our balls to stand up to what's harmful.

kimchi_paradise 3 6h58m

But unfortunately it's more taboo today to say "I want to get married and raise kids the right way" than "I just want to have as much casual sex as possible and fuck commitment".

Not sure where you are getting this from? I don't think I've heard anyone say this. Maybe perhaps it starts from the latter and turns into the former when they're ready, but no one hates family values.

And no, family values and morals haven't turned into the " racist conservative trope". Being a racist conservative makes you a racist conservative lol. Family values have nothing to do with it. In fact I know more racist conservatives with terrible family dynamics than non-racist non-conservative people lol.

Being a racist has very little to do with morals. If you're racist you likely have none so there's that.

cdsb-bva- 2 9h43m

ditto. my bigoted relatives are all horrible to one another, emotionally immature and abusive and are the typical “good big catholic family” but the other is a mixed blend of family dynamics ethnicities, identities and it’s nothing but unconditional love. one has cause lots of trauma and the other has been there to fix it 🤷🏽♀

sexycocyx 1 7h14m

Not sure where you are getting this from?

If you don't understand then it's because you willfully ignore it. And the fact that you felt the need to pretend like people don't associate these values with racist conservative trope tells me that you're not willing to understand what I'm saying in the first place. You're here to prove a point no matter the evidence that contradicts you and no amount of evidence will satisfy you.

duksinarw 4 6h25m

This is a predictable and ripple effect heavy consequence of crony capitalism. People can't be happy while they're working themselves to death just to survive.

PolitePanda4 4 7h56m

I think this may play a part but there’s so much more. Strong family values won’t solve climate change, it won’t increase wages, it won’t fix bigotry, it won’t fix other costly things like housing, bills, food, etc. There are so many problems in the world that cause these mental health problems and just limiting it to strong family values won’t fix the other problems.

KFCNyanCat 4 8h5m

I get what you're saying, agree with it even, but...in America, "family values" is a dogwhistle for banning same-sex marriage, abortion, and divorce (you sound like you might support this, but it's a bad thing when people can't leave abusive marriages that might be dangerous for the kids)

YorkVol 4 12h56m

So you're saying low wage growth forcing both parents to work overtime hours is destroying the traditional family? Agree.

wildalexx 3 5h45m

If one parent got paid enough to support their family comfortably, then two parents wouldn’t need to burn themselves out at work and could save some energy for caring for their kids.

But America isn’t ready to talk about that yet.

d710905 3 6h5m

What you said about stopping individual needs and wants.

America can't do that, we have built ourselves a system of rugged individualism, and it's going to take massive overhead from a nation that's full of alot of people who are against change of any sort to the system currently in place. We never had a good collective society as some other nations do, it's always been a big focus of the individual American to put their effort into themselves because we have an environment in which "no onss going to care for you or do it for you, the only person whose going to look out for or help you is you." So while all what you said is a nice notion, it won't go anywhere without massive over haul to what we have already built.

Also to help mental health we have to make sure people's basic needs of food, shelter, Healthcare, and education for the children are being met. As well as issues such as income inequality and raising everyone's pay. Trying to fix mental health without addressing those is only trying to fix half a problem.

dnm8686 3 7h30m

From my personal experience... No.

Granted my parents had me, my brother 16 months later, then got married 8 months later, but I'm 35, my parents are still married, and my mom was a SAHM. They still fucked us up royally and I used to beg them to get divorced. I still try to convince my dad to leave her crazy ass but now she's dealing with cancer and even if that wasn't the case he'd lose almost everything to her because she'd make up tons of bullshit about him & she's great at playing the victim.

A parent who stays at home, cooks meals, goes to school events, and another who provides financially is still not always enough.

SnooMarzipans436 3 7h38m

That just sounds like paying workers a fair living wage with extra steps.

byrn554 3 8h39m

What you're describing is capitalism, not poor personal morals.

ihatepickingnames37 3 9h7m

America's enemy was communism and everything that remotely reassembled a social program or assistance for the greater good has slowly been cut since Reagan.

Families are left to fend for themselves in a wild west dog eat dog world

PotatoOld6368 3 10h59m

You cherry picked mental health problems that aren't caused by peoples attachment to their toxic and awful families so no lmao, this unpinion is bad. AND this unpinion is popular so yeah that's a downvote for me.

Samhgs 3 13h16m

While all of the things you say are correct and can have harmful effects to people, I believe you are missing one key ingredient, which I believe to be the most important one.

Before I elaborate, let me just say this: I come from a small and very expensive country, where many of the problems you listed in your post exist as well: lot of divorce, single parenthood or both parents having to work, kids are often in the care of state institutions instead of their family and so on.Add to that that in my country, there is a very high degree of foreign workers, speaking their own languages and immigrant communities. So basically, a recipe for a very incoherent society.

However, the problems you're talking about, while of course also present, are not nearly as bad as in the US. Why? Because of the key ingredient I mentioned.

Here's what I believe:

The difference between the US and my country is this:

Where I come from we are told: you are all different, but that doesn't matter. Everyone is your friend.

In the US you are told: you are all different, and that does matter a lot. Everyone that's not like you is your enemy.

A recent study showed that in the US, over HALF (let that sink in) of women who self described as liberal had been diagnosed at least once in their life with a mental disorder. For conservatives, it was only a little over 20%. Is that a coincidence?I believe not. While risking to sound like J. Peterson, I agree with him on the fact that the left leaning, liberal, post-modern education and politics of the US are driving people, especially those on the left as the study shows, crazy.You have to doubt yourself and every word you say, your neighbours, your friends...everyone is a potential enemy. How not to become crazy.

The best illustration of that, that I can think of right now, is politics: in my country, as everywhere else, we have tons of different parties and the landscape is as divided as anywhere else. But at no point, ever, under any circumstances, would anyone I know EVER suggest to cut ties with a friend, a family member or similar because of how they voted.That just doesn't happen.Now look at the US: before the election, I remember constantly reading articles or watching youtube videos about how you should delete your conservative friends from your friendslist, don't go to family dinner, or trick your republican grandparents into voting differently. That is pure manipulation, and sowing division.How not to become crazy when your own grandparents are "the enemy"?

Rossco1874 3 15h23m

Probably more down to outdated values, Blind faith in religion & then taking an extreme view of religion to interpret it into own warped view of life.

bialettibrewmaster 3 16h49m

We need to get out of the YOLO, LIVE!LAUGH!LOVE! mentality that is so internally focused, so externally validation-seeking, lacks personal accountability for decision-making (critical thinking).

This self-centered Drive lacks empathy. People do not give a hoot about how their actions impact those around them whether it’s their immediate family, community, or other countrypeople. This isn’t about infringing on personal murican Rights (if you happen to be in the US). It’s about decency, respect, and character.

t34nort 2 2h7m

All I can think of is the movie Hot Fuzz and how those creepy people kept saying “it’s for the greater good.”

YoukoUrameshi 2 4h47m

We really needed better benefits for families, so the parents can take more time with newborns, or be able to take unexpected chunks of time off to help foster a loving environment.

Of course, anything broaching the specifics of such a system becomes inundated with politicized rhetoric.

LSSAH_Div 2 5h22m

It's only going to get worse. The media is the biggest contributor to the destruction of the country.

bendable17 -3 6h57m

Hey buddy... is your pfp an iron cross?

LSSAH_Div 2 8h14m

sonicmariofan206 2 5h46m

I disagree only on the point of marriage. my parents were never married just simply together and still had a good relationship. I don't think marriage is necessary as long as they have a strong relationship. but besides that I agree, gender, race, whatever of the parents doesn't matter just two people with a good healthy relationship and the capabilities to provide for their kid(s).

hands-solooo 2 5h52m

The part of divorced kids doing less well is just wrong though. No one is denying that kids from dysfunctional families that end up divorced do less well, but kids do just fine after a divorce if they are in a stable family environnement.

fakeredditemailz 1 5h58m

What is stable about being shuffled between two households on a weekly basis? Or potentially have 2 additional step-parents with different parenting styles telling a kid what to do? Or having to pick which parent you get to spend Christmas with? Nothing about kids after divorce is stable

MadameNoelleD 3 6h17m

My parents are divorced and their relationship was better because of it. They're great friends. They talk and text all the time. They're married to other people who compliment each other better. It all comes down to respect. My parents respect each other and our family enough to never pit one parent against the other or make us kids feel like we had to "choose sides". We all get together for holidays together, my step mom came wedding dress shopping with me, my step dad has helped me move on multiple occasions. Also, my mom was a stay at home mom up until the divorce, the dynamic did not work and just left my parents resenting each other. I wholely believe my life was more stable after my parents got divorced.

gray262 2 5h54m

This is lazy thinking. You can’t blame all of the problems of the current generation on the previous.

jralll234 2 5h57m

Or it’s always been there, we’re just far more aware of it because technology advancements and the closing of state hospitals that kept the worst cases locked away.

I mean previous generations were raised by survivors of incredible trauma (two world wars, genocides, societal lead poisoning etc. with little to no ability to cope or treat mental health issues. We’re finally coming out of that I think.

I mean previous generations were raised by survivors of incredible trauma (two world wars, genocides, societal lead poisoning etc. with little to know ability to cope or treat mental health issues. We’re finally coming out of that I think.

CodePandorumxGod 2 6h1m

I wouldn’t just point to one specified issue and say, “This is why people are going crazy!”

More realistically, it’s likely a variety of things in society that cause people to go mad. Social isolation, low wages, sexual repression, actual physical repression in the form of racial or gender discrimination, depression, etc. Even though there will always be crazies here and there, a healthy society is generally reflected through the treatment and behaviors of its people.

Obviously, America, definitely does not have a healthy society and that’s likely due to multiple compounding issues. While, yes, a lack of family values could be attributed in a few cases, whether it be malicious parenting practices or lack of parenting altogether, it’s most certainly not a blanketing cause across the United States.

Also, it’s important to note that a lot of Americans don’t get treatment for their issues. And mainly, if I were just to throw a dart at the board to see it stick, it’s because they either lack the funds to receive help or simply do not have access to mental health resources where they live. Not to mention that a lot of issues may not be properly diagnosed or fly under the radar until adulthood.

Basically, it’s really hard to pinpoint an exact cause for America’s mental health crises, and it’s more than likely a mixture of contributing factors over one specific root cause.

environmentalmouse09 2 6h9m

Hi. I don’t think America’s “mental health crisis” is due to lack of family values. First I think that it’s becoming more accepted to go to therapy and to seek treatment when you feel mentally unwell. This is one of the many reasons we see these numbers increasing. The second is that we are in a worldwide pandemic everyone’s gonna be a little stressed and depressed and it’ll probably exacerbate the symptoms of people who already have mental health issues. Third Americans are in so much debt. Student debt is at an all-time high because colleges are free to charge whatever they want for education. The price of housing keeps going up whether you’re renting or owning. People are having to use credit cards to pay for things because they can’t afford it and then that just buries them in even more debt. The prices of insurance premiums just keep going up. The price for healthcare continues to rise especially if you don’t have insurance. The minimum wage has an increased since 2009 that’s over a decade ago. And the prices of things just keep going up in the value of the dollar just keeps going down. To put this into perspective in 1968 the federal minimum wage was $1.60 per hour which in 2020 would be equivalent to $11.91. And yet our federal minimum wage is still $7.25 and they expect people to live on that. The United States birth rate has been dropping for six years now and is at the lowest it’s been since 1979. There are hundreds of news story speculating why when the answers so clearly because this generation can’t afford to have kids. With all the problems in the United States right now I just don’t think lack of family values is one of them or at least not a significant one.

biscuitslayer77 2 6h14m

Ah I wish this was true, but families back then had just as many problems with mental health as they do today except it was never discussed or you had "nerves". You're partially correct, but to romanticize the idea that it was better than is just silly.

comeherekittykitty84 2 6h14m

Kaiser93 2 6h23m

I highly doubt that even in the so-called "perfect families" op refers to, there weren't mental health issues. I'm going to comment on the marriage.

Marriage is a dated concept. At least in my eyes. You can't predict what hand fate is going to deal you. You can marry the sweetest man/woman and the marriage can turn incredibly hellish in 1-2 years. We still lack the ability to read minds so we can not predict the next step of our partner. Not to mention that if I divorce my future wife, she could take half my shit and run for the sunset. Nah-uh. Hell fucking no. If you want to marry someone that much, prenups should be mandatory. That way, when you sign this prenup, you know exactly what to expect. If your man/woman doesn't want to sign it, it should be pretty fucking obvious what you're going to experience during your marriage.

Jay_Reddit64 2 6h26m

To be fair kids gonna get more fucked up in a unhappy marrige especially if the parents get fucked up

ech0b0t 2 6h37m

Mental health is a crisis everywhere in the world the only difference is that the physical needs of the western world are mostly met so all the mental illness can actually be addressed. If you have to worry about where your next meal is coming from or having a roof over your head you don’t have time or resources to be even worrying about mental health. But yeah broken families don’t help either

America needs to stop worrying about their own individual needs and wants and focus on what is best for the greater good.

Good luck. We're individualist AF - https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Country-scores-for-individualism-index_tbl1_334509709.

Impressive-Hunt-2803 2 6h45m

You're the only ones with the mass shooting issue, man.

bulletkiller06 2 7h11m

This seems like a huge over simplification to a serious problem with many moving parts and variables, also it seems to me that the OP is attempting to establish their traditional morality as a valid and effective aid to a major problem as a way of devaluing an alternative solution (or solution priority) suggested to them that would invalidate the one they posted here.

Dramatic_Insect36 2 7h53m

My parents are still married, I had a stay at home mom. Both of my parents were wonderful and my family is extremely close. My 3 siblings and I rarely fought, and when we did, it never got physical. I would say that everyone in my family is my best friend.

I still have severe anxiety and depression. From my time in group therapy, I do see a trend in mental health problems coming from family not accepting sexuality or that mental health problems are real. I think a lot of it is also caused by external factors like lack of face to face conversation and the high expectations put on Kids in our competitive society

Good-Ma 2 8h17m

Johnchuk 2 8h30m

that means people need to get paid more which means rich ghouls like Bezos make less money off their labor.

So fixing that problem is not allowed.

Cyb0Ninja 2 8h36m

I think that's part of it OP. At a more granular level it's a lack of support.

sashby138 2 8h38m

Many mental health issues are a literal chemical imbalance/genetics. While I do agree that a lack of focus on the importance of family is rampant in the United States, a strong and healthy family doesn’t “fix” every problem.

Proxidize 2 8h42m

I used to think that for a long while, but I don't necessarily see that is the problem. Over here both my parents worked until the the long hours of the evening and so did most of my friends parents, that was just what the situation demanded, but we have strong familial bonds and a sense of community and just because our parents weren't there to greet us when we got back from school doesn't make them bad people or lessen our relationship with them

fnhs90 2 8h44m

America needs to cut down on their extreme capitalism

toastea0 2 9h8m

Nope. My parents should of divorced a long time ago and they STILL aren't. They think it's good for us. My siblings and I are all grown up now and it's made us even more miserable that they are together. My mom won't leave my dad and my dad just doesn't give a fuck and likes that my mom will cook and clean for him. He doesn't even do his own laundry or anything. Then she calls me and takes it out on me that he's awful to her.

Yay my parents didn't divorce. Now I have zero relationships with them and I'm depressed as fuck because I have no parental figure in my life because all my parents did was stay together 'for me' but they fought a lot even domestic violence. Oh and I don't know what a normal relationship is like because I never got to see one. And not just romantic. Family and friendships. I was too embarrassed to make friends and have any over because of my dysfunctional family life.

kundu42 2 9h10m

Yes. I mean it's not like clinical depression as a matter of scientific fact is driven by several factors such as genetics, nutrition, sleep etc. It can't possibly be caused or aggravated by things like bullying, racism, unemployment, sexism, transphobia, etc. No no. It's mom and dad not raising the kid properly. That's the predominant reason.

3T_BaTe 2 9h12m

I come from an asian country, with 2 loving parents and a sister. The one thing I have throughout my life is family bonding and value. I was taught those values, guided to follow them and surounded by them. And I got depression since I was 12. While they teach me about family, I personally branch out and look for friends, but to them, family is priority. The sad thing about this is that while we conflict with each other, none of us were wrong in any senses, we just value different things. But while I try to understand their perspective, they wont try to understand me. For them, I have to put family on top, always think of my current one and think of what to do now for my own family in the future. "Family comes first", even before yourself, so always think of your family. Today I'm nearly 21 and I have never had a treatment for my mental health because my parents want me to share all my problems with them, because " family values", then solve it with disagreement and finally arguements. I dont think what I wrote made much sense but that my friend is a really bad example of family value

ToolanWheeler 2 9h30m

Mental Health Care should be free.

a_mimsy_borogove 2 9h41m

That makes sense. One thing that strikes me when browsing American media is how talking about hating your family is literally orders of magnitude more common than talking about loving your family.

ShaunLevi1995 1 11h8m

The problem is that there is a serious lack of respect, pride, and etiquette when it comes to family in the U.S.

As you said, people are quick to bad mouth their family/parents to outsiders or to the public. If there's actual abuse or seriously egregious stuff going on, that's another manner. But often times, this hate is for really petty, first world problem kind of things.

What these people don't understand is that by bad mouthing their parents or family to the public, you're showing how little you respect yourself. If you don't respect your parents, and you don't expect us to respect your parents, why should we respect you? If you can't demonstrate loyalty to your blood, you won't for anyone. That concept is too alien to the people who "hate" their family.

sammjay88 2 10h2m

Mental health issues are a thing. They won’t go away with stronger family values. The US needs a Public Health Service to allow people suffering to be referred for treatment for free or considerably less than the paid alternative. That’ll help the people who need it. To reduce incidence… we gotta take a long hard look at the merits of capitalism and neoliberalism. Stronger family / social values will probably come out of doing that. But let’s not sugar coat it. It’s capitalism. It’s always capitalism.

unsaltylol 2 10h9m

You mean the lack of good paying job leading to people not being able to afford to spend time with their kid, what next, people shouldn't be able to have kid

punkassjim 2 10h16m

With two parents working 50+ hours and no one being home to truly care for the kids, cook healthy meals, and talk to each other, Americans are being coming more depressed, manic and desperate for attention.

You were THIS close to actually fucking getting at the heart of the problem.

KingBlackthorn1 2 10h21m

While it is a contribution and I won’t deny that it is not the only reason.

Zarg444 2 10h43m

There are more divorces and more children born out of wedlock all around the world. Mass shootings and the opioid crisis remain uniquely American. Your statement is observably wrong.

There are more divorces and more children born out of wedlock all around the world. Mass shooting and opioid crisis remain uniquely American. Your statement is observably wrong.

GfxJG 2 10h44m

America really needs to change to a focus on the family. Change the professional landscape so it is okay for parents to work part time in professional fields if they need to.

While I understand your point, 99% of Americans would not be able to afford this, unless the pay remained the same. Do you think that people work 50+ hours because they WANT to? No, it's because the alternative is starving.

kbean826 2 10h50m

Based on the title I was prepared to come in here and fight you. And then I kept reading. I don’t know if I agree, but you make a compelling argument.

A-Sentient-Beard 2 10h59m

You had me when I thought this was about making sure everyone had a good work/life balance but the whole children outside of marriage is bullshit

bosskhazen 2 11h58m

It is way too late for western societies to go back on the individualistic trend that has been going on since the 16th-17th century.

What you are talking about is not some temporary phenomenon. It is a heavy trend deeply rooted in the philosophical and ideological beliefs that structure the western civilization and western collective sub-conscious.

The rise of the individual and the destruction of the family, the rise of the nation-state, Colonialism, technical development, Capitalism and communism, etc are all symptoms of the secular world vision that emerged during the enlightenment period. A materialistic, utilitarian world vision that got rid of any element of transcendence and, in its effort of deconstruction, shifted centrality from transcendence, to human, then to nature, then ultimately and inevitably to nothing in the post-modernist phase.

The natural results of this shift is that merciful relationships of the past in society got replaced with contractual relatioships even inside the family.

Denbi53 2 12h8m

need to stop having babies without the intention to be married

I was totally with you until this. Marriage is not the answer to anything, promoting healthy relationships is.

My partner and I are not going to get married. The only reason we would is for tax benefits, which would irritate me because jewellery does not a successful relationship make. Since we got together we have been to 4 weddings as a couple, 3 of which are now divorced, one messily. Marriage should not be the gold standard for a relationship, many, many marriages are dysfunctional, abusive and a lot of people who are in them, but unhappy, stay because of societal pressure instead of because they want to.

Children act out after divorces that dont put them first. People are selfish and want what is not their's, or hate their STBex so much they want to make things difficult for them. Long, drawn out divorces hurt the kids. Parents who cannot remain civil, hurt the kids. Fighting to get what you are not entitled to, or having to fight to get what you are entitled to, and the bad feeling and stress it creates, hurts the kids. I am sure there are plenty of success stories where the parents divorced amicably, the kids knew they were loved by both sides and not at fault themselves and were co-parented with civility.

Personally I think marriage should be phased out. People think it's a band aid to broken relationships, whereas it's actually salt to rub in the wound. It is a totally unnecessary expense for today's young adult, people are allowed to do it before their brains are even completely formed and, as divorce rates show, it rarely works.

Of the 30-60% of marriages that don't end in divorce, I suspect at least a ⅓ of them are unhappy, but staying because of pride, fear or religion.

oliviaroseart 2 12h10m

I don’t think this an unpopular opinion at all. I can’t say for sure, but I think many (if not a majority of) Americans would agree with the OP.

I think this is the truly unpopular opinion: the American healthcare crisis is a direct result of a corrupt federal government who are paid by large corporations, owned by a couple dozen people who have, through many failures of humanity, somehow managed to literally own over half of the global wealth. We are all so brainwashed that somehow we would rather blame our neighbors for laziness than the corporations and billionaires that own our politicians and our country, including our incredibly fucked up for-profit healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.

We are indoctrinated to idolize the ultra-wealthy and, somehow, have collectively accepted that these modern day kings without crowns on a global scale.

I think this is the truly unpopular opinion: the American healthcare crisis is a direct result of a corrupt federal government who are paid by large corporations, owned by a couple dozen people who have, through many failures of humanity, somehow manage to literally own over half of the global wealth. We are all so brainwashed that somehow we would rather blame our neighbors for laziness than the corporations and billionaires that own our politicians and our country, including our incredibly fucked up for-profit healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.

TokenTezzie 2 12h15m

Strong family values? Like what? Honesty? Hard work? Does Christianity or religiosity count as a family value? Who exactly decides the “values” that need to be enforced? This is an argument that many conservatives make; America is eroding into a degenerate society, and only through “strong family values” can America be restored to its former glory. Loneliness, lack of relationships, etc are real problems, but they have real solutions, too. For example, if there was more government funding for social areas (common spaces, town centres) and social programmes, then people would be able to find friends much more easily. Both parents working long jobs to barely sustain the family? Pay workers better wages. Mental health issues? Better healthcare. The idea that “strong family values” are needed to fix America quickly leads down a rabbit hole that ends in fascism (or something like that). Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

AlegalHuman 2 12h33m

Coming from a large foreign family as an immigrant in the US, I can’t help but agree. It really does take a village to raise a kid, but not in the way Americans think (paying an army of “specialists” to teach your kid college-preparatory “skills”) — in the sense of having a variety of different bonds with different humans of different ages and perspectives, and learning through interactions with those people.

Some commentators have pointed out it needn’t be family — and that’s true. It’s OK for it to be family, friends or other chosen individuals. Paradoxically the US seems to have an unhealthy obsession with family “shoulds” (adults not having friends of the opposite sex outside of their marriage at all, fetishizing the idea of a family that looks a certain way, down to the number of kids and white picket fence…).

Everything is commoditized here, the true value of things that cannot be measured immediately in money are not recognized. And if it doesn’t look good, it doesn’t sell (just like “ugly” but tastier/healthier fruits and veggies have been selected or genetically modified off US grocery shelves). This seems to apply to the family too. People seem so caught up in having a socials-ready picture-perfect “family” that they seem to be losing touch with understanding how to build a real family, which doesn’t have to be based in preconceived notions about what that family should look like, blood ties, or anything else at all. It just takes folks wanting to consider each others’ well-being in their decisions, and committing to that to the best of their ability with reciprocity.

We are social creatures, or at least we have been historically. Maybe we’ll evolve to survive just as well as hyperindividuals. But for now it’s clearly evident that hyper individuality does not serve us as well as various forms of social cohesion do.

Outside of social media in addition to it, the constant inundation with marketing that tells you it’s possible to “buy” a perfect family (implicitly or explicitly), coupled with the amount of work needed to be able to afford those marketed things (which distracts from true bond-building, another activity that takes time and focus), do exacerbate this problem. For less well-off families, who cares if the parents are together if they’re too busy to be able to respond to a child’s needs? For wealthier families, who cares if the parents are together and have more time for the kids if, instead of attuning to the child naturally, they are too distracted by parenting “trends” and “specialists”, and led to spending enough or maybe even too much time with the kids, but sacrificing quality of that time for quantity and “expertise” (lining someone else’s pockets in the process)? Interestingly US adults middle class and higher in terms of socioeconomic “status” spend much more time with their children than earlier this century, but it doesn’t seem to help. One must look at the quality of the time. By some estimates, almost a third of US adults in the millennial generation and younger have cut off contact with their elderly parents, most citing too much “helicoptering” or other abusive behaviors, not sheer lack of time together. Helicoptering at least is a behavior that on the surface looks like overinvestment in family, but can ultimately be reduced again to hyper individuality — mistaking your own ego-needs (“I raised a great kid”) for true family bonds (“I’m attuned to giving my kid what is best for my kid”).

I’m not sure what the solutions are to these things. But my gut tells me when humans learn to care more for at least some other people in their lives than for perfecting their image of themselves as individuals, they tend to be better off.

COVID900 2 12h48m

probably more popular than you think

autumnals5 2 12h52m

I’m child free by choice. Are you saying I’m part of the problem? I’m not depressed, live a fulfilling life with my bf. Family values my ass. My life is so much better without that life script bs.

I think what you are trying to say is that we have broken system that doesn’t allow for people to get the mental healthcare they need or even be able to afford what they want. This includes so many other things that contribute to what u are trying to say but it’s not for lack of “family values” barf.

Upper-Bank9555 2 13h35m

The U.S. doesn’t have the public and societal support systems in place like other first world countries that allow “strong family values” to play out anymore unless a family is living in a low cost of living area or they are high earning, and even then it can be challenging.

I’m not just talking about money, I’m talking about employers giving more time off for illness, better and mandatory health insurance plans and public healthcare in general, maternity/paternity leave, home loans that are easier to access for more people (this is a reason the boomers have wealth - their parents did so much for them and their parents got lots of cheap post-war housing), I could go on and on. If we want to make life better, we have to come to a reckoning that while this is a great country in many ways, we are failing so hard in quality of life for the vast majority of folks.

angels_exist_666 2 13h53m

Parents don't have to be married to be good parents. It's very rude of you to say that. From: single mothers.

MyRedditHandle2021 2 14h47m

I personally believe that one of the biggest factors is willful isolation due to technology. So many people spend all their time staring at their PCs/phones and avoiding human contact and/or interaction. People go to great lengths nowadays to not have to actually interact with another human being. The most amazing part of this being the often used justification that it's other people that have something wrong with them. You can't have a meaningful community when people just want to exist in their bubble and not interact with others.

Reddit is actually a great example of this. I've read so many times on this site about how great of a community it is. Bullshit. It's a bunch of anonymous randos. The fact that people think this is a good example of a community shows how warped peoples' sense of community has become.

Gilbo_Swaggins96 2 15h13m

Yeah, no they aren't. Mental health issues are caused by faults in brain chemistry. Whether or not your kid was birthed 'under the watchful eye of Gawd' won't make a difference.

Anonnymush 2 15h20m

Ah, the age old, "it isnt the low wages, it is all of these people trying to survive who are forgetting our ancient traditions" fascist line of bullshit.

Worthsome 2 16h11m

Some good points there but...

"Americans need to stop having babies without the intention to be married"

philmarcracken 2 16h19m

Mass Shootings

Are due to your uniquely lax gun laws.

High Divorce Rates

Women entering the workforce and no longer need a husband.

Opioid Addictions

Doctors we lied to about addiction profiles from big pharma

Self - Absorbed youth

I think bo burnham said this one best - social media has you be your own performer by the age of 12.

An_Anonymous_Acc 2 16h28m

This might be the most boomer thing I've ever read lmao

As if nuclear families in the past didn't have similar issues to the ones you pointed out.

NewClayburn 2 17h7m

"Family values" is a bullshit term. You're not going to have an ideal family unit as long as wages are shit and incarceration rates are so high. There is so much shit to fix about our economy before you whine about "family values". Putting the blame on the individuals is scapegoating.

TheInsatiableOne 2 17h13m

“Family values” is reactionary nonsense that means whatever you want it to mean. It’s been used to hate on anyone who’s remotely different, and now you have stars in your eyes over the white picket fence family. It’s not 1956 anymore. Time to move on.

sck178 2 17h17m

Ah yes... Family values will protect me from my Bipolar disorder. My absent father is really what caused my genetic disorder.

EternallySt0ned 2 17h33m

You hit the nail on the head OP, a strong close knit nuclear family is the foundation of a functioning healthy society.

Reddit also shits on religion but Americans used to very Christian and religious which is incredibly valuable for teaching morals and ethics.

Lack of religious faith in America is apart of its decline.

If the majority of people had both parents, a moral upbringing, basic needs met, and a sense of community America would be unstoppable

work_work-work-work 2 17h34m

The biggest difference between the mythical time when America had few mental health problems and today is the fact that we aren't denying mental health problems exist anymore.

karlnite 1 1h42m

Over competing on a national scale. You can’t strive to be the home town champ, everything is global hustle to be the absolute top. Wanna get into working out? You’re a fool if you just sorta have fun with it and lift some stuff for a year, you need gains, products, supplements, get into an argument about technique, read one article and then scream about how this or that gets the best results per minute of activity, track every calorie.

That’s just one example of how a simple idea of self improvement becomes a mountain of uncertainty, self doubt, and guilt of being wasteful of time and resources. Every second you waste is a dollar you will never earn in America these days. The hustle is the problem, America has become one giant pyramid scam, the world’s greatest grift. And nobody has the time for family so yah that is part of it, we need to just sit around and relax a little more, with friends and family, grow a garden, cook a meal, go for a walk.

PartyEchidna5330 1 2h29m

From womb to tomb we owe our lives to others

ThrowawayGhostGuy1 1 3h50m

Also the piss poor food quality.

fakeredditemailz 0 3h52m

Chemicals, additives, preservatives, and over reliance on processed soy.... it is damaging the population’s health

JKmusclebunny 4 7h52m

Doesn’t cause mental illness

Addhalfcupofsugar 1 3h53m

We also took the locus of control away from our children. Back in the day, a kid took your crayon you took it back. There might be yelling. There might be pushing. If it didn’t end there an adult would step in. Now, a kid takes a crayon, you report it to an adult. There is no outlet for the anger or frustration and no where to learn to manage those things. Even small conflicts are settled by an adult. So kids don’t learn that they have any control in their worlds. Schools also focus on naming and expressing your emotions and not on controlling them. We reward acting out by giving it attention and special interactions. We also told kids they all had special learning styles which is bullshit. Never been proven. It’s a theory. Then we gave everyone a trophy. Of course mental health issues are on the rise. News flash. You aren’t special.

Rhye88 1 4h18m

beanfrogmuffin 1 4h24m

My diagnoses are a result of childhood trauma. You are correct.

mfdoom20 1 4h26m

Mental health is not seen as important in America it never has. Capitalism and free market is what controls the politicians and people in power. It is why men work so hard to get the hottest girls by having the nicest things and why women are feminists and view traditional female roles as patriarchal, girls want fun and to have nice things. What is missing from this equation. The children.

Our time on earth is short when we die that's it. Children are our future and hope for a better tomorrow. Ancient cultures knew this and that's why the term it takes a village to raise a child comes from. The community as a whole is responsible for molding and guiding the next generation. Somewhere along the line we all forgot that and became the it's all about me culture. When you die all that you can leave is your legacy.

Environmental_Leg108 1 4h51m

No no no, go be degenerate: don't commit to a relationship, do drugs and stare at your phone all day.

If you get depressed we have pills you can just buy. Problem solved

Prevalent-Caste 1 4h51m

Man this is so true, it is such a Domino effect getting past down. It's not just one thing but so many many societal things I believe that is contributing to family disruption.

Wages even for a two person working family is hard asf to actually make it. Even making or thriving I've seen in my area is because one person putting in ridiculous hours. Working this many hours obviously has one parent out of the home, leaving that load on the other. Both parents can become overburdened with stress, being ill and withdrawing from family activities just to unwind. I've spent years working 80+ hours a week... It is crushing. This absence time emotionally seperates parents as if they're not even partners anymore.

With social media I see so much self absorption being created. When people become angry at each other or what have you, they can just open their inbox instead of working their problems out and usually have some other person ready to step in I.E infidelity... Kids suffer horrendously from that and divorce, my dad chronically cheated on my mom and basically ran off and eventually married and raised some other kids. No child support or help, my mom raised 3 son's. A single income from the 80's into 90's factory wages, needless to say we were broke asf. Now come full swing back to wages and having to work ridiculous factory hours, we essentially raised ourselves. I knew how to cook before I was teen, wash clothes, mow the lawn, weed eat with shears because couldn't afford a weed eater. All the house work... But what I didn't get?? Was how to be part of loving family, spend time together, no life/emotional lessons and how to handle this n that. No one showed me how to handle money, focus and direct me on school work. Etc etc... Man the list can go on. My brothers turned out like doody, I did my fair share but I learned alot from a good sqd leader I had in the army when I joined the service out of having nothing.

Now decades later, I do my best do make sure my kids needs and most wants are met and I try to connect with them but inside I have no idea if I'm doing it right and wish I could be better. My wife essentially was raised the same way, so maintaining a good personal bond is kinda hard to accomplish sometimes.

Sorry if everything is running together, just typing this quick before I play some Xbox with kiddos. This struck a tone with me because past down mental illness, family disruption and lack of nurturing kids into budding good adults is a problem I've most definitely witnessed, and this problem goes on and on like a hereditary disease. Our mental wellbeing I firmly believe is related directly to our family relationships and upbringing. Godspeed.

wegotpistols 1 4h53m

We could easily start by making corporal punishment illegal. Its too easy for parents to go overboard and start abusing. It really fucks up some kids heads.

VibesButChill 1 4h59m

Maybe, if we actually made the minimum wage liveable in the US, people would stop having to work 3 jobs to be slightly above the poverty line, and actually be able to interact with their children and friends.

realBadSamaritan 1 5h9m

It's not even divorce, it's the separation that causes the trauma.

Chickens_Instrument 1 5h10m

I think this is popular for some people. But not popular for Redditors, so I will upvote.

Redditors want to blame all societies problems on capitalism, the patriarchy, systemic racism, and the French.

Eddie_078 1 5h13m

Toxic individualism at its finest. And idc if it's "old-fashioned" but holy crap, parents MUST act like proper role models.

CanadianWorker99 1 5h23m

I agree , Literally last week my girl friend (Guatemala) said she never had friends growing up everyone only would hang out with their family’s and that’s the way it went there.

rockfordtj 1 5h30m

BradChesney79 1 5h32m

I just don't agree with the premise except that we should be spending more time with the kids.

I feel like it has to resonate and be unpopular.

Just because punching old ladies in the face would be unpopular, it doesn't get an upvote either...

johnchodesu 1 5h37m

Its posts like these that make me wonder if a post being an unpopular opinion shields it from a downvote.

Joesdad65 1 5h42m

Great post.

ScienceReplacedgod 1 5h48m

America's mental health problems is due to bad parenting.

JKmusclebunny 3 7h51m

Mental illness happens in loving families too

skylercollins 1 5h53m

They're due to childhood trauma. Stop hitting your fucking kids.

SeveralP 1 6h1m

This is hella true, I won't even say its because of the work overload. Mainly because of the over access to the internet kids have and parents not spending much time with there kids as they used to

sudip123321 1 6h20m

Wimbleston 1 6h34m

Too bad in capitalism every individual is an island, each with their own bank account to try and inflate before they die.

What I think you ought to consider is calling it "Community", because right wingers haven't campaigned against lgbt people on community, but family values gets twisted to mean a lot of hateful shit.

anarchic_ant 1 6h44m

That and genetics, right?

JennyAndTheBets1 1 6h45m

Sure, as long as family is generalized to close knit groups of people who love each other with no gate keeping on the parameters of what defines a family.

sweetsteeths 1 6h52m

aw man i have no family grew up with a very broken family broken from divorce and have dated only foreigners my entire adult life, the reason being they have stronger family values

rnatalie 1 6h53m

I would argue it's over dependence on this family dynamic and not enough community interaction. I strongly believe that the concept of "it takes a village" should be more accepted.

Willow_weeping85 1 6h59m

Yes!!! That and broken families/lack of a proper family unit. My dad left when I was very young and my mom is batshit crazy. Been floundering my whole life. Drifting without an anchor. Breaking the cycle. That’s all you can do.

bigboosac 1 7h3m

The erosion of the family unit has been promoted at university's and through media the last 20 years. The erosion of traditional family values are under the guise of progressive values.

RhyaanB 1 7h6m

I strongly disagree with their "move out at 18" lifestyle. A person should always live with their parents if circumstances allow (if they get a job in the same city). Why do you have to send your parents to an old age home, can't you keep them with you?

Massive-Fudge-6012 1 7h23m

No it’s due to a lot of things lol

Tarpaulinator 1 7h59m

Did you really 'lol' though?

eieuxezyk 1 7h31m

Forgive me, but I’m very tired and don’t have my reading glasses, but I’d like to take a stab at this as it is making a big statement: Many families are loving and nice to each other and do well in their personal lives. America is a vast social place and differences in families are vast. Also, you may ask why does one person grow up to be a doctor, and his brother a mass murderer? They both came from the same family. If you want to learn about behaviors and the resulting actions, in the end, it is a response to how individuals cope with their pain. For example, a person feels the pain of starvation, so steals food. A man feels the pain of embarrassment by his boss in front of his coworkers at work, so returns to his workplace with an ak47 and shoots everyone. Now if he were formally educated, he might not do that, but that’s what education does: it teaches someone on the correct way to be happy from knowledge, and what is happiness? Less pain. Pain and happiness are synonymous: more pain is less happiness; more happiness is less pain. There’s a lot more to this, this is just the gist of my thought. The majority of humanity through millennia wrongly attempts to solve problems. The best solution to almost every problem comes from solving it from where the problem originated. Like here, in this case, it is the basic inability to cope with pain. That’s where it begins. But people will cast that off with all sorts of crazy reasonings because they will not get to the root cause. That’s why you have debate after debate after debate and nothing gets done. For example: Jews and Palestinians. If they agree that they disagree, then get down to the brass tacks of it: what are the original claims, and work from there—-even if it gets down to the phrasing in the rules, and proceed once that is solved. Communicate with both sides so both are on the same page. Have “town hall” meetings to help this. And come back to it frequently. (If you say that that was already tried, it was not done or fulfilled correctly.) Now here with you in conclusion, you may wish to write not as one bad thing of a group means the whole group does that one bad thing. For example, if there’s a bad apple in the bushel, it does not mean the whole bushel is bad.

marcoam2000 1 7h32m

No it’s because of stupid decisions and worrying about what others think. Like why tf do people who are stupid be allowed to have kids, or why are teens my age and even younger getting pregnant, or why do they fall to peer pressure and start doing things like drugs??? You know as an American teen, I tell you that these kids deserve what’s coming for them, I don’t accept the excuse they are young and they don’t know because if that was the case then how are there 12 year olds who know that what they are being pressured todo will destroy their future or themselves while others also know but they don’t care. It’s like my little cousin Landon, he’s a good kid and he’s 8, a bit of a pain but nothing to bad and he has potential, but his sister now she’s smoking weed and drinking and she dresses in really revealing clothing to the point some of my family members refuse to take her out. She’s 14, and she should know better but she doesn’t. When I was younger from 5-12 when I was still naive, I didn’t ever need to be taught what’s wrong or what will destroy my future Bc I wasn’t an idiot. We have mental health issues more on average Bc of the poor choices people make and worrying about what others think

SmilingGengar 1 7h32m

I think it would be more accurate to say that it is the loss of a universal conception of the common good that has contributed to mental health issues. There is a greater degree of disagreement on which values are good and true than there was in the past, so much so that we are no longer able to successfully engage in dialogue with each other about moral issues on a personal and societal level. This inability to communicate using a common moral langauge leads to the inability to pursue a common vision of the good life, which then leads to increased alienation and isolation, the diminishing influence of community in a person's life, greater suspicion of institutions, increased political polarization, the rise of individualism, and eventually increased rates of anxiety and depression as people retreat into their own bubble.

Now obviously, there are a lot of other factors influencing mental health, but I think the things I mentioned above play a significant part. Appeals to family values are actually a reflection of our collective desire to once again have a united worldview on what is good and true.

mac_128 1 7h38m

That’s the way I look at it too. Though mental health issues could be cause by chemical imbalances, it shouldn’t be seen as a normal illness like a cold. When lives aren’t set up in a heathy way, mental health suffers. That’s not an illness,that’s a healthy reaction to an unhealthy situation!

I’m saying this as a guy who overcame depression without meds just by moving to a place that makes me happy.

isbjarnaveidimadur 1 7h56m

for the greater good

2style 1 8h6m

That's exactly what I thought when I saw the levels of how insane the mental health problems are over there.

asinglestrandofpasta 1 8h9m

yeah I can agree with the 50+ hour work week making it hard to spend time with your kids, but from what I've heard about a) the cost of living, b) the cost of having kids, and c) the low minimum wages in some states (from my understanding some of them are lower than the living wage required for that state), Thais won't be changing soon unless minimum wages increase. wages increase, people can work less and spend more time with their families.

could could also say that with people working less you'll need more workers, and that's where more jobs would open up and supply jobs to people without income/people on any benefits/homeless people to get jobs too. then there'll be more spaces in higher paying jobs so the people with the qualifications who are stuck with no openings in their fields and are working fast food or retail to make things meet can progress in their careers, and there's more "minimum/living wage" jobs available for highschoolers to work those jobs to start learning about money and responsibility

I kinda went off on a tangent and I'm tired lol, so I'm sorry if there's errors in my babbling. have a good night :)

Yes we are on a downward spiral, but it's not everyone, my family is still very close, I have 6 kids and we all get together for Sunday dinners and we keep in touch every day during the week....

I refuse to let my family break apart and will make sure that they do the same when I die, and no they don't have a choice....

BronLongsword 1 8h11m

You not only lost family values, you lost your cultural heritage. Imo, there's no coming back for you.

swagovermemelord 1 8h17m

yeah wth is up with the divorce rates I ma from india and 1 in every 100k families get divorced while in the US litreally every single family get divorced

teamcoyotes1 1 8h19m

Agree. They're doomed with no way to return at this point. But were they sane to begin with?

TrickyAxe 1 8h20m

Not only is this unpopular, it's anachronistic and plain stupid. Well done.

brunettedude 1 8h27m

r/antinatalism FTW! Despite the state humanity is in, despite parents across the world struggling financially, mentally, or whatever, they still decide to bring more kids into this world. It’s sick and selfish. That’s one huge reason why the kids aren’t doing well. They consent to being born and now are stuck in a cycle of poverty or hardship to broken homes.

Nature_Bro 1 8h28m

The greater gooood...

chesterbennediction 1 8h29m

I'd say it's also a complete absense of community. How many people know their neighbors or meet with people around town? I think that's what some churches did back in the day and really got people socializing with eachother. Now everyone is an antisocial stranger.

fazepatrickstar 1 8h35m

Accurate. Baby boomers got shit on not being able to retire at the age their generation did before them. My mom worked 80 hours a week and my sister raised me. Luckily my head was mostly screwed on straight after a lot of mistakes from age 18-21. Got my degree and soon I'm going to be an engineer and moving states. Lot of my friends stayed in the town they grew up in and work terrible jobs/get fucked up every weekend still. They're 24-27 and aren't thinking about their future.

Stunning_Grocery8477 1 8h37m

every other post on AITA is about blended families who despise each other.

I mean yikes.

PhD_in_shitposting 1 8h38m

Lots of couples/partners find themselves and low points in their relationships and they think that having a kid will make things better and will make them happy again and when the kid comes along and does none of those things then they start resenting the kid.

Psychological_Tear_6 1 8h40m

I somehow both agree and disagree with you? Very strongly? This is a very strange feeling...

moneyomm9 1 8h51m

Add social media, a little everything is acceptable, a dash of single parent homes, pinch of low wages, and voila, murica

BusyUnion3303 1 8h54m

yeah, back when women got labotomies to help them deal with the extreme physical, emotional, and financial abuse caused by traditional values def was peak mental health.

Confident-Trifle-651 1 8h56m

It seems today that all you see is violence in movies and sex on TV

But where are those good old family values?

boop_de_boop 1 9h3m

We beed to stop listening to the Jr in our pants and listen to the Jr in our head

youareactuallygod 1 9h9m

I love this post because I thought it was heading somewhere completely different. Thanks for subverting my expectations

rum_es 1 9h13m

It's important how much time you spent, but also the quality of time spent with your child. Couples who really think about a child sometimes don't evaluate all aspects of the decision to have a baby.

PagesOf-Apathy 1 9h19m

Lol american problems

nqple 1 9h24m

I wouldn't say all is due to no strong family values, because because will undermine the job of government in putting psychological and social amenities in place, which is a very important aspect in having a thriving, stable society.

But yeah you're right. Some families are so corroded, it is a bit scary

colonelzer0 1 9h24m

Ngl I thought this was gonna be a much different post when I read the title

YesAmAThrowaway 1 9h25m

Yes and no. When you look at the rate of fatherlessness among the prison population, a frightening pattern occurs. The intact family is indeed a way to prevent many bad things in the current and future life of a child. At least making sure that a child has both a regular male and female participant in their being raised is very important.

A lot of mental illness also stems from social media. Be it anonymous bullying or people getting so ahead of themselves that they constantly worry about everything in the world or get absorbed into angry political discourse. Or seeing unrealistic bodies making them feel ashamed, it can all contribute to this. If you look at the rate of mental illness or suicide, you'll notice that it starts going up a lot ever since social media became a mainstream thing among the younger population.

Parents, protect your kids from this stuff. Please.

Luukipuuk1912 1 9h27m

I think it has a lot to do with religion, when you’re told your entire life how it’s basically your purpose to have a family and care for them to the best of your abilities, you’ll fight a lot more for those things.

Science is great in showing us how and why the world works, it hasn’t given us a reason yet to live, or to act properly.

(I’m not relgious, and never will be, although sometimes I’d like to be.)

Ah3_ 1 9h35m

Don't forget that

xxxkings88 1 9h46m

The US lost its meta narrative of christian values and the country’s protestant roots of maintaining virtues around the ‘60s when it was deemed that having a secular approach to the structure of society was better than teaching people the lessons found in religion.

Ghriszly 3 10h0m

America was founded as a secular nation. No.matter how much you want your religion to be the official one it never was and never will be

xxxkings88 3 10h3m

Not really, the pilgrims first colonized the nation to enjoy religious freedom. the founding fathers embedded religious values and virtues into our constitution and founding documents.

kbruen 1 9h46m

What to do when the opinion seems maybe popular but it's wrong regardless?

What you're doing here is taking correlation and deriving causation.

People have always had mental problems. It's just that we only recently started properly talking about them. Before, you either were ok or you were tortured in Mount Massive Asylum.

Having a stable family growing up helps, but that's far from the only thing causing problems.

For example, take mass shootings: schools tolerate and sometimes encourage bullying (not as official policy, of course). Kids are tortured in schools from that perspective. Do you think a kid tortured in school will turn out normal? Maybe, probably not.

That, combined with close to zero access to proper mental health for people who need it is a recipe for disaster.

High divorce rates are just due to normalisation of divorce. Before that, you had toxic marriages where even domestic violence was a thing. And a child growing up in such a family certainly won't appreciate that the parents didn't divorce.

I think I've made my point. Family values are nice, but there are way more, bigger issues here.

Also, for your suggestions at the end ("America needs..."): sounds good, but capitalism is a suicidal system in which you need to work yourself to death with no free time for stuff like family, having children, creating the next generation of the country. The purpose of capitalism is to squeeze as much work out of you for profit today, no matter how much it destroys the future. And America, especially Republicans, are in love with capitalism. Anything against it is automatically communist and struck down.

Technical-Midnight-2 0 14m

ragingsilently 0 45m

Ronald Reagan regretted no fault divorce. Said it devalued weddings

Markus2822 0 3h32m

Definitely agree and I think that the lack of people pushing for families is really hurting them

dogethousandaire 0 4h12m

That doesn’t sound like a family values problem, it sounds like a capitalism problem.

Gottorevolt 0 4h29m

I'd say the issue is that nowadays just to be able to survive people have to work longer hours for the same paycheck 50 years ago even though everything costs more. So in reality I'd say capitalism is at fault because capitalism does not care for the people under it.

GoodForOlderCats 0 5h17m

Who told their great grandma how to use Reddit? I haven’t seen this much bullshit outside of the history book

lavieennoir94 0 5h46m

I want to drive around in a car shouting this through a megaphone. Yes. Just, yes. This. Especially the marriage part.

TheFfrog 0 7h50m

I'm Italian and I have to admit food and conviviality is extremely important for us. I remember I was always shocked by how many TV shows and movies set in the states show families not eating together. Like the children taking their plate and glass and go upstairs to eat in their room.

That shit wouldn't last a second in my house, my parents have always been super clear that if we are all in the house we eat together, period. You don't come to dinner when you are called, you're not having dinner! My mom will get seriously fucking pissed if we just take a few minutes to finish something before going downstairs or if she has to set the table herself, that's just a must in my house.

I think I ate in my room maybe a couple times over the last year cause I started university and had exams right after lunchtime and I wanted to reread everything but that's it.

Now me and my brother are all teenagers and we have school and my parents obviously work so often we don't have lunch together because we either don't come home at the same time or don't come home at all. But dinner is still a must, and often also breakfast. We will literally wait for my brother to come home from his sport trainings and eat super late just to be together, and I love every bit of it.

I don't know how much this actually looks like what is portraid on TV in America, but that just always struck with me.

boomabcd 0 8h18m

People should not divorce, they need to learn marriage is a serious commitment.

arbys-sauce 0 8h22m

Even adult offspring don't take divorce well.

My parents didn't divorce until I was 23. It still fucked me up for awhile.

Eletricherry575 -1 5h19m

But the divorce rates are going down?

Masterdeetectiv 2 5h42m

Marriage rates are going down as well

loveallgelfling -1 5h24m

Emile Durkheim called, he wants his theory back

NJComicArtist -1 5h38m

My mom was home throughout my childhood and most of my teens

& psychologically, I'm a fucking trainwreck

fakeredditemailz 1 5h52m

Why do you think you are a train wreck?

NJComicArtist 0 5h58m

Overly strict parents, narcissistic father who refuses to deal with his own issues, not being allowed to properly express myself, less attention from them compared to my younger brothers, being compared to others constantly, zero support in what I want to do with my life.

fakeredditemailz 3 6h2m

I’m sorry you went thru that. It is brave of you to share. I hope you found someone that can help you organize your thoughts and work thru your emotions.

NJComicArtist 1 6h3m

Working on that.

Plus, being a comic book artist/comic book writer actually helps a lot.

terafufad -1 5h44m

jpfeif29 -1 6h4m

Also remember that single motherhood is super high the nuclear family is very important for people to be able to grow up to be good citizens.

ContentBug2 -1 6h57m

Yep! The death of the family unit is killing this country. One of the Popes actually predicted this would happen. The final battle would be fought over the family and it’s happening. To bad we have strayed so far in this country and people don’t see it as the problem. But I have believed for a long long time the death of the family and like of care for life have contributed to our downfall.

JKmusclebunny 2 7h57m

The “death of the family unit” isn’t causing schizophrenia

ipiyushj -1 8h4m

Focus on liberal ideas and many other such things don't teach us to compromise. In a family and in a marriage, compromises have to be made as in real life.

We need to teach kids that there is a coat to everything you do and you get. Well, this is the cost of more than necessary importance given to an individual and not making compromises.

grade-A-benchwarmer -2 4h18m

nope, screens 100% screens, too much time on a phone or in front of the tv fuck you up, the ability for your mind to rest, your ability to communicate with other people, and all this attributes to higher anxiety and stress, 2 key factors in mental health

JKmusclebunny 1 7h59m

Watching tv didn’t give me bipolar disorder

sizl -2 7h20m

Religion used to teach morality but as people abandoned religion it was replaced with television and other media. Those mediums tried to carry the torch of teaching morals through storytelling with shows such as Different Strokes and Family Matters but lately that has also been abandoned in favor of steaming services that only care about profits. Nothing is really filling the void of teaching anymore. People will say “well parents should teach their kids!” Well yes, but who teaches the parents?

I’m not arguing that we need religion. I’m not religious at all but we do seem to be drifting away from teaching morals to better our society.

JKmusclebunny 6 7h48m

Religion teaches hate

sizl 1 8h34m

People use religion to justify their hatred. People can hate without religion just fine. Just look at racism and xenophobia. Other religions like Buddhism do not preach hate.

Besides, I’m not arguing to bring back religion. I’m saying we need to fill the void. But the problem is people will never agree on what morality means.

Journeyman1993 -3 2h26m

Definitely not even slightly unpopular

ButterBrother3000 -4 2h9m

This was all made so much worse because of Donald Trump. We’ll be feeling mental health affects because of him for years.

ChineseVirus_69 7 2h15m

What a low IQ comment.

Redditors, sigh

Scarlet_Skye 4 2h58m

Look, I don't really like him either, but you can't blame the former president for all your problems.

Responsible_Wash_430 2 4h17m

You’re unintentionally hilarious.

ChineseVirus_69 -4 2h14m

B-B-B-UTTTTTT affirmative action is the answer right?

LordWeaselton -4 3h10m

I diagnose you with boomer

The86godking -4 3h11m

Ok so to add to this. People are literally paid to have kids in America. Poor people specifically seem adamant about having more kids than they can handle because it equals a bigger paycheck. It's unreal that there isn't a limit on how many kids you can have per income level. It seems fucked up but it would prevent more kids from being forced to grow up in broken households, often by single mothers, who are terrible parents, because they never learned to take care of themselves first. If you work minimum wage and live in a run down apartment you shouldn't be allowed to have kids.

pleaseexcusemethanks 11 4h30m

Or minimum wage could actually be increased to a living wage so that people could actually afford children and not depend on financial aid from the government. And you just straight up said single mothers are bad parent. Wow. Plenty of single mothers are perfectly fine parents. Are single dads terrible parents too? Or just the women?

The86godking 0 4h41m

Ok so I wouldn't think I'd have to explain why minimum wage is not the answer but I will. If you increase wages you'll have to increase the cost of things again which would put us all back in the same position, idk how people don't understand how inflation works. The more people that need things i.e. the more people overproduce, the higher living costs will go because of the cost to produce and disperse resources. Also the more we have to consume and the further we have to expand because of overproduction the more harm we do to the earth and the worse we leave it for these kids who are already growing up harder and harder as generations go on.

Also, I think you should learn how commas work as I clearly said that these kids are being forced to grow up in broken households, often by single women, who are terrible parents. Meaning that there are more single mothers than single fathers. That, and it also implies that the more children someone has the worse of a parent they become by association, this is due to not being able to give proper care and attention each child. I hope I've cleared that up a little bit. I'm not implying that single mothers are bad mothers. In fact my mother was a single parent and was doing good until she lost control and had 3 more kids, then she became the worst version of a parent I'd ever known because she couldn't keep up with the 4 of us.

FartBox_BeatBox 4 10h19m

Not sure if you've noticed or not but inflation is already pretty insane. I wouldn't go back to a minimum wage job right now either.

The86godking 1 11h51m

Right and it will only get worse if minimum wage increases. Inflation has gotten so bad because people are refusing to go back. It's become a pretty bad circle of shit at this point

SAHDadWithDaughter -4 6h3m

Oh fuck off, rightoid. Congrats on something truly unpopular, I guess.

rkoll45 7 8h25m

He made a valid point backed with a good explanation and all you can say is “fuck off rightoid?” Looks like somebody hit too close to home for you

Miller_TM 2 11h49m

OP oversimplified the actual problems.

The problem is the cost is living has gotten WAAAAAY higher than wages, which barely budged in the last 20 years.

It's easy to tell that OP is the kid of a rich family just by looking at the post and replies made by them, it SCREAMS privilege.

rkoll45 1 12h3m

Well you clearly just oversimplified it too by blaming housing prices for it all. It’s obviously a complex problem with a lot of causes and family dynamics and support systems plays a role in it, I’d even say a major role.

fakeredditemailz -17 6h4m

Your wife wears the pants in your house?.... beta much

SAHDadWithDaughter 13 6h8m

My wife and I are a team, kid. Grow up. Back away from the chans and touch grass.

fakeredditemailz -16 6h50m

What does your wife’s boyfriend think about you being a beta bitch? A man that can’t provide for his family is a boy!

SAHDadWithDaughter 14 7h1m

Luckily for me, your opinion of my life means absolutely nothing. Since you are fixated due to being incapable of thinking of more than one thing at a time, I'm disabled and my wife has a masters degree and great career. And I am proud to be able to raise my little girl. I love it, actually.

It's 2021, son. Time to get some new material. You are displaying the level of intelligence I expected from someone who typed up that op though, so I'm not shocked by your childish outbursts. You are who I expected you to be. A childish, reactionary wingcuck, going through his NPC dialogue options and screeching them out.

fakeredditemailz -7 7h7m

Ohh... so sorry. I didn’t know you were DISABLED. The HANDICAPPED have it rough as it already is. I wouldn’t wish being DISABLED on my worst enemy. I am so blessed to not be disabled, like you.

I hope they find a cure for your disability. #wheelchairramp #fightforthecure #disabilitylivesmatter

notcallipygian 10 11h6m

what the fuck? so you don't believe both genders can contribute equally to the household income? the man HAS to be the one earning/earning more?

bendable17 8 7h0m

Or, a man that can’t provide for his family is one of many victims of capitalism

Low_Importance_9503 -9 48m

Isn’t this Cosby’s argument? Something about America needing more black fathers but then also legitimizing drugging and raping women

SnowHeader 7 1h35m

What world are you living in?

In what place would you find it legal to drug and rape women?

Stop bullshitting out of your ass

Low_Importance_9503 1 1h47m

Exactly. thats what he tried to legitimize. In one of his books he talks about him seeing sex like a goal. The man is the one trying the score and the woman is the goalie. He tries to make the argument that the man should try everything he can to score and is justified in trying. This was before it came out that he was a monster and made lots of his “wisdom” seem predatory and disgusting.

Minute-Objective-787 1 5h15m

Cosby was a predator. Deal with it. It's too bad he had to be black, but sexual predators come in all shapes and sizes and colors and genders.

Minute-Objective-787 1 5h13m

You're right! A big phony he is. The word "Daddy" means something else to him entirely. Ew!

Egan__ -11 50m

Its the Christians fault

cinchrony 3h34m

Throw in the fact that living with parents when you’re an adult is considered shameful. People say “oh there’s exceptions, as long as you’re contributing/taking care of your parents there’s nothing wrong, etc.” but still judge/assume regardless. The stress and pressure to get out of the house as soon as possible, no matter the cost, or reason, or whether or not you’re ready is something I wish we could do away with.

PumpkinCrumpet 6h4m

The changes to emphasize family needs to happen at the corporate and policy level rather than just at the individual level. I know so many people working 60-80 hours a week making very little. Job security is also not there. When and how are they going to focus on their kids when they're so stressed out and all they worry about is surviving?

pullup_ 9h42m

According to the Texas Department of Corrections, 85% of youth in jail grew up in a fatherless household. Causality? Maybe, definitely correlated

barkley128 9h51m

Also not sufficient knowledge on drugs. They will fuck up your feelings, problems start when you don't associate that with them, but with your life.

UseHerN4m3 9h52m

I see what you’re getting at but you’re straying disturbingly close to Serena Joy territory.

Winter-Tangelo9656 9h57m

Yis. I too, agree with your post.

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