House of Eratosthenes

Others have taken their shots at this. They’ve provided all sorts of answers: Bad boys are confident, they make their own rules, or you’re imagining it all, or, or, or. My own reading is that women are people and people are flawed. And it’s becoming a bigger and bigger problem, because we’re just too affluent. We are victims of our own success.

Good Girls Love Bad Boys One of my ongoing concerns is that following the end of World War II, life in the western world has become softer, although a lot of people don’t think so and have reason not to think so. But it’s true overall, and as a result of this softness our evolving cultures have lost focus. This can be debated, but not reasonably. The spectacle of poor put-upon people who need free health care, food stamps, job training and child care, etc. etc. etc. lining up around the block for the latest $2,000 phone is proof enough of our skewed priorities.

I came of age during the transition. My brother and I were raised in a strict, Protestant, Scandinavian-reflecting household. And I can see back then, and the moment in which I’m typing this sentence, every single minute in between, society as we have known it has been embroiled in this ongoing debate: Are women attracted to jerks? Do nice guys really finish last?

And it’s like any other ongoing debate.

We have one answer blasted at us from all directions, sustained by some unseen force, volume amped up to eleven.

And then we have the truth, which is the opposite of that.

We shouldn’t be debating whether or not women are attracted to jerks. It’s a silly waste of time. We should be immersing ourselves in the question of why.

Children, back in the old days, were disciplined. Today we think back on that with horror. Smacking in the butt. The generation before, smacking in the butt with a device built for butt smacking, like a paddle. Before that, bare butt cheeks and you cut your own branch. Welts. It’s all child abuse! Build the perfect society by getting rid of it! Well, today we have problems and the problems come from children not being disciplined.

Back then, children were disciplined, and women did not pick bad boys. They picked whoever was likely to afford them a lifetime of prosperity, or failing that, at least of some measure of security. And their fathers did the picking. Now fathers are mostly absent, reduced to child support checks, and their mothers are too distracted by their dating life as a single mom to attend to replacement-fatherhood, or for that matter motherhood. Discipline is gone and parents are gone too. Girls go after the bad boys and then deny they’re doing it. This has become the enduring symbol of the girl with “daddy issues.”

This has been noticed and complained about by others more articulate than me.

After being told for literally a lifetime “Actually, girls want nice boys” and seeing throughout that lifetime that reality is the opposite, a new thought occurs to me.

Yes, parental involvement is a factor, and has been in retreat. Discipline is a factor, and it has been in retreat. But there is something else.

“Do X, because Mom and Dad want you to do X” is not the deciding factor. It never was that.

Kids did not think “I’d better do it, or my butt will get whacked.” If corporal punishment is the source of discipline, and it is proper, it should be done maybe once or twice throughout the *entire* childhood. If it’s routine, it’s abuse — and people have always thought that. I wasn’t around a century ago. But I know of no solid evidence that contradicts this.

Also, there have always been conflicts between parents and children. It’s an open question, to me, whether back in the day children did things just because their parents wanted them to do those things. I’ve been told so, it seems to be the case, but I don’t really know that for sure.

Here’s my deep thought:

I think, back in the olden days, when your parents wanted you to do something, it was an implicit part of the message “And then you will enjoy this affluence and/or financial security.” This resonated even if & when it was entirely unspoken. Because starvation was a real concern. After we made some inroads in this battle to drive famine from the planet forever, we found this was a long slow slog and there were still hungry people. Then, the prospect of actual starvation was replaced by simple financial distress. Month left at the end of the money.

Bit by bit, generation by generation, people worried about that less and less. The consequences of running out of money and exhausting credit, were tapered down, blunted, diluted. Although you wouldn’t know that from talking to people. A lot of people think they’re still suffering. But their great grandparents aren’t around to compare notes on it.

People aren’t really worried about starving to death.

But here’s the key point: If they are worried about it; what their parents have to say about things, has very little to do with addressing that concern. Parents do not talk to their children about how to be rich. It seems selfish. In those rare households where such conversations do take place, it’s got something to do with going to college. Got your fund all saved up, get in there and pull out a decent grade point average, then get that good job. That’s it.

The rest of the parental advice is something like “So when are you going to give me some grandchildren?” The ‘rents are silly, can’t do math, I can’t even afford my apartment rent so let’s find a way to terminate this phone call and then I have to clock in at my second job.

It’s tougher for the girls, I think. We’re just gaslighting the boys into “Be the kind and considerate well dressed little gentlemen, Windsor Knot in your tie and handkerchief in your pocket, shoes properly shined and the girls will flock to you” and leaving it up to us to learn this is the exact opposite of what’s real. The girls are being hounded out of any connection between their financial prospects, and the character & ability of some man. No, those two things are to remain entirely disconnected. You must not connect them. Must not must not must not!! Men are to be easily replaced. Even after you’ve had kids with them. In fact, especially then, because each child is a claim on his wallet, which is the only good thing about him, while you go shopping for another man.

But even with alimony and child support, man-shopping and man-exchanging is expensive.

We end up with these teeming throngs of single moms, competing with each other for a “good man.” And they hear their current woes are because they chose the jackass, like all women do. You can’t blame them for retorting with anecdotes. “No, I’ve always wanted a good man. I married him and he changed.”

We’re supposed to empathize with the women. Well, that’s true, we should. And it works. If you put a little work into it, you can see things from their perspective, and it is different. They didn’t pick the bad boy. Or if they did, they didn’t realize it. They weren’t lying about their motivations. They were genuinely surprised.

But — they didn’t pick the fella the way their great great grandfathers picked out their great grandfathers for their great grandmothers. They didn’t do it out of a fear of starvation.

These modern women, who are picking a “good man, not a bad one,” as they come of age and are ready to start dating…not wanting to be a slut, not wanting to be an OnlyFans model, not up for the feminist drivel, wanting men and women to get along, wanting to marry one man and have all her children by that one man, wanting to start a sensible, sane household…how do they pick the guy today?

“He makes me laugh.”

See, we not only have lost our fear of starving to death. The ‘rents could be threatening to cut the children out of the will; or, maybe, enticing them with an implied promise to include them, or reinstate them. The attachment to future financial prospects can be that clearly defined, and the kids still aren’t going to listen. We’re too removed from starvation. Victims of our own success, like I said up top.

This is true even in right-wing, fundamentalist Christian, God-fearing households. From the woman’s consideration, as well as the consideration of parents who counsel their children about what kind of mate to pick. Parental guidance has little to do with financial footing in the future. Closest we come to that, now, is “Make sure you get, and/or that he has gotten, a good college education with a high GPA.”

But that has very little to do with solvency anymore. The diploma has been reduced to an emblem showing you’ve been properly indoctrinated to “Diversity is our strength,” “There are 53 genders” and “America was founded in 1619 to preserve slavery.”

We’ve won the war against famine.

It could be the worst thing that ever happened to us. Especially our women.

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Good Girls Love Bad BoysSunday, October 25th, 2026

Good Girls Love Bad Boys
Sunday, October 25th, 2026