https://werd.io/2023/doing-it-all

Interesting to see what, in generations past, might have been a gendered (female) striving for "having it all" (entailing time with children, family and a career) has crossed over into the masculine space.

Sounds like Ben's got some basic priorities set, which is really the only thing necessary. Beyond this, every parent, especially of new babies, in the W.E.I.R.D. culture is tired. By this measurement he's doing it "right". What is missing is an interpersonal culture around him of extended family and immediate community of daily interaction to help normalize his conditions. Missing this he's attempting to replace the lack of experience with this area by reaching out to his online community, which may provide a dramatically different and biased sample.

Some of the "it takes a village" (to raise a child) still operates on many facets, but dramatically missing is the day-to-day direct care and help that many parents need.

Our capitalistic culture has again, in this case of parenting in the W.E.I.R.D. world, managed to privatize the profits and socialize the losses. Here the losses in Ben's case are on his physical well-being (tiredness) and his mental state wondering if his case is "normal". A further loss is the erosion of his desire for a family unit and cohesion of community which the system is attempting to sever by playing on his desire to "have it all". Giving in to the pull of work at the expense of family only drives the system closer to collapse.

Boroditsky, Lera. How Language Shapes the Way We Think. Streaming Video. TED | TEDWomen 2017, 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think.

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKK7wGAYP6k

Meador, Jake. “The Misunderstood Reason Millions of Americans Stopped Going to Church.” The Atlantic, July 29, 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/christian-church-communitiy-participation-drop/674843/.

Meador looks at how churches might offer better community as a balm to W.E.I.R.D. lifeways and toxic capitalism.

Why must religion be the source for these communal and social supports? Why can't alternate social structures or institutions handle these functions?

Is this why the religious right is also so heavily opposed to governmental social support programs? Are they replacing some of the needs and communal desires people in need have? Why couldn't increased governmental support programs be broader and more holistic in their leanings to cover not only social supports, but human contact and community building as well.

Do some of these tensions between a mixed W.E.I.R.D. and non-W.E.I.R.D Americans cause a lot of the split political identities we see in the last few decades? What is the balm for this during the transition?

Extreme focus on financial and professional success has driven people to give less time to communal spaces and experiences including religious life.

Is this specific to America's brand of toxic capitalism or do other WEIRD economies experience this?

I love this acronym!

IJzerman, H., Dutra, N., Silan, M., Adetula, A., Brown, D. M. B., & Forscher, and P. (2021). Psychological Science Needs the Entire Globe. APS Observer, 34(5). https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/global-psych-science

I'll have to bump up Tyson Yunkaporta's work on my reading list, particularly the cited text:

Yunkaporta T. Sand talk: how Indigenous thinking can save the world. Melbourne, Victoria: Text Publishing Company; 2019.