Chris thought some more about how to empower a child, then said, "I'm sure it has something to do with making them smart and self-confident, but I'm not sure exactly how to accomplish that."
"Fair enough," replied Anthony. "I wasn't looking for the specifics, but I already told you the answer. To empower your children you need to make them valuable. You need to make them into a person other people would want to be around. Being smart and self-confident are important elements, but not everything.
"Let me ask you a question, what kind of child do you think you will get if you let them decide everything they should do?"
"Probably a spoiled brat," answered Chris.
"Exactly," replied Anthony. "And what kind of child will you get if you made all of their decisions for them?"
"I suppose someone who lacks the confidence to decide things for themselves," answered Chris.
"Close enough," said Anthony. "What you most need to understand is that in both cases you will wind up with a perpetual child. As adults, they will be nothing but victims in life — real or imagined. In order for them to become functioning adults that are in control of their lives, all children require leadership in their lives.
"What is your understanding of what a leader is?"
"The person in charge," said Chris.
"That's all?" responded Anthony. "Then what is a ruler?"
"I guess it's the same thing," said Chris.
"Not even close," continued Anthony. "Although I would be surprised if you did understand the difference, considering that difference is not valued in the society we belong to.
"I want you to carefully consider how you currently believe there is no difference, because the most important thing that you must understand by the time you take your oath is the difference between the two. As a man of this kingdom, your leadership is crucial, yet the last thing we need around here are any rulers.
"We will get more into what leadership really means later, but for now, leaders empower those that follow them, yet rulers create fear and/or dependency, which destroys the power in those that follow them. In both of the cases I presented a minute ago, those children did not have a leader in their lives. The former had nothing, and the later had a ruler.
"So, as a leader of your children, do you let them decide everything in their lives?"
"No," answered Chris.
"Do you decide everything in their lives?" Anthony asked.
"No," replied Chris. "But I don't think I'm any closer to understanding what I should do."
"What you specifically do has to be decided on a case by case basis," said Anthony. "What you should be aiming for is to provide a framework for them to make decisions for them selves with a goal of always making themselves more valuable. You shouldn't be making decisions for them, but you should be making them make decisions. It requires great deal of diligence, but it's not really that hard."
"I'm a little troubled by this notion of making children valuable," said Chris. "Aren't you saying they should conform to society? What about their individuality? Isn't it more empowering to teach children to be confident in who they are?"
"Not at all," replied Anthony. "First of all, you can't teach confidence. Confidence only comes from overcoming adversity, or achieving goals that appear unattainable. That is what is so ridiculous about liberals having their children play games where no one keeps score. There must be a real threat of losing in order to gain any confidence from winning.
"As for individuality, the more valuable you are, the more opportunity you will have to express your individuality. People who are not valuable live desperate lives, and struggle with life-and-death decisions. That is hardly a life where people can live the life they want.
"Besides, there is no cabal of elites deciding what is valuable. As you will find out when we get into economics on some other day, the real 'power of the people' is the populace's ability to decide what is valuable for themselves. As an individual, you can influence what is valuable by convincing others they should want what you have to offer. Rather than conforming to society, you could have society conform to you, but through persuasion, not force of law.
"Take my own daughter for instance. I raised her to be a strong and confident young woman. Even though she knew what I thought of college, I still allowed her to pursue a college scholarship because my focus was on making her valuable, and not at arriving at some destination that I thought was best for her. I didn't decide what was valuable. I let her decide that for herself, yet I made her make that decision. I have never told her she can do what ever she wants.
"And this gets into another aspect that we expect when you raise your children. The last thing we want are children that believe they need to enter our kingdom when they become adults. It's alright if they want to, but not need to. Any need is a sign of dependency, not empowerment.
"That scholarship my daughter pursued offered her another path — one that was not provided by me, but by her — where she could make a life for herself outside of the kingdom if she wished. She has just entered our kingdom, and whether she sticks around will be entirely because she wants to, and not because she feels she needs to. She knows I will not love her less if she decides to go another way."
"That makes sense to me," said Chris. "I could do that. It seems to be nothing more than making them make themselves valuable."
"That's exactly right," confirmed Anthony. "It's not about what you believe is valuable, but getting them to understand that they need to make themselves valuable. What is valuable now may change, but if they get into the process of making themselves valuable, then they will be able to handle whatever life throws at them later on."
Chris paused to think for a moment, then continued, "I see how this works for my children, but I don't see how this applies to women. Isn't this attitude of empowering women a little condescending to them?"
"Of course it is," replied Anthony. "But only if you believe men and women are the same. Do you believe that men and women are the same? Do you believe that the only real difference between them is that they have different genitalia? And that all differences we see are based on the culture we were brought up in?"
"No, I don't," Chris finally said. "I like to consider myself as a good liberal, but I have never really bought into the line that men and women are the same."
Anthony continued. "That's good to hear. Do you know of the Chinese concept of yin and yang.?"
"You mean that circle with the black and white swirls in it?" Chris asked.
"Yeah, that one," said Anthony.
"Not much really," Answered Chris. "It looks real cool, though."
"Yes it does, doesn't it?" said Anthony. "The purpose of the circle is to represent how you must approach anything in this universe if you wish to understand it. This view states that everything is made up of dichotomies, so to understand one side requires an understanding of the other. Things like, you can't really understand what good is unless you understand what bad is. This is particularly true if you want to understand men and women, or masculine and feminine.
"We in this kingdom don't just embrace the concept of yin-yang, we celebrate it; we thank God for it. We apply the dichotomy that yin-yang represent to everything. Even life itself can't be properly understood without death.
"There are many religious aspects to this as well, but we'll save that 'til this afternoon. Let's focus for now on how this applies to men and women. We believe that both men and women are their happiest, and most productive, when men are allowed to be men, and women are allowed to be women. Just because we can do what the other does well, doesn't mean we should.
"On the other hand, modern feminism teaches us that this principle is an illusion. That where we see the yin-yang circle of black and white parts we should in fact see a circle of gray, and that the only reason we see it differently is because that is what we were taught.
"They are the ones that see an illusion. Even their approach to life can't get around the masculine/feminine dichotomy. Where they see teaching women to be self-reliant, we see them teaching women to be men. Since this can't work, and never will, they of course have to blame men, and get laws passed to 'protect' women. For the feminist, it will always be the man's fault for their failure.
"What I really hate about what feminism has done is that it has taught so many women that what they offer as women is meaningless. One of the important principles of yin-yang is that neither side really has an advantage. One side is just as important as the other."
"Wait a second," said Chris. "Are you saying that everything was just fine between men and women before feminism came along?"
"Absolutely not," replied Anthony. "There is no doubt that what women provided in our society was undervalued. What I am saying is that feminism was the wrong response. Their notion that 'A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle" just created more problems. Rather than teaching the value of women, they just added to the chorus that said what women had to offer didn't matter.
"I have gotten into this argument before with people who support feminism. They at once say there are no differences between men and women, yet they say women have something special to offer our society. Well, you can't have it both ways.
"I think the most telling aspect of feminism is that after decades of being bombarded by their dogma, the vast majority of women refuse to refer to themselves as a feminist."
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/2rzaum/next_generation_christian_kingdom_ch05_to_protect