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I will take you at your word and answer this. I do admit that I was tempted to go into Ayn Rand mode, like when she was asked why she didn't have any children (I witnessed this live). Her answer, with hands on her hips and in a belligerent pose, was: "It's none of your damn business!" (Wild applause back then.)
The reason I was tempted is that according to the the way you phrased the question, it came off as implying "Gotcha! See? You're a hypocrite!" It didn't come off as an attempt to understand. This might be my impression, however.
Anyway, on to the principles. Like I said, I will not provide details that I prefer to keep to myself right now. I suppose I could email you. If you are really interested, email me and I will decide how much I wish to confide in you. If you need a review, I told the story of the context in my article, "Like a Lamb to the Slaughter." I will discuss some of the principles here, since you asked, but not the details.
To start with, you used a phrase about something that I "appear to be advocating." What would that be? I have been very specific - several times now - that I am not advocating anything at all right at the moment other than a need to examine this issue from all angles. Well, I also have been advocating recently that I see no need for sacrifice of either the adult or the child. That is a new position but it is true. I hold strongly that Objectivism should not preach sacrifice.
Like you said, why shy away from truth? Certainly not because it makes some people uncomfortable or that some people don't like me. Truth doesn't have any one human being or some kind of group of people as an owner - it only has reality.
Next point: the context I was in back when I left my family was one of being forced into a choice: either conform to the tribe or leave. Brazilian law would not let me leave with my boys, so my choice boiled down to: teach your boys by example that you must to conform to the tribe, even when you disagree with the lying and the manipulation, or create a doubt in their minds. I chose the second.
If my wife's family had been poor, it would have been easy simply to get up and leave with my family. As the tribe was rich, there were too many obstacles for me to deal with. I chose what I felt best for my boys and it broke my heart. Staying would have done that too. I had no other choice short of suicide or murder, which were not options to me. If I had to make that choice again in the exact same circumstances, I would make the exact same choice. If I had to choose to marry that woman again, I would not.
Your question actually does not cause me such discomfort that I need to shy away from truth. (Once again, there's that nasty psychologizing by innuendo.) You have no idea of how I was crucified by ALL of my acquaintances back then. I had a small public standing at that time - I was frequently in the news, so this episode made the society grape vine. I can tell you that Catholics have a lot more experience at crucifixion by questioning and innuendo than Objectivists - who are pikers by comparison.
To my weary satisfaction, I have heard one person after another who crucified me at that time, but who kept in contact with my ex and my boys, tell me that I was right in the end. (Inside myself, what I really feel is, "Big fucking deal. What good does their change of opinion do my boys?")
Essentially I was run off and my kids were wrenched from me by rich folks. That is a great deal different than finding a starving stray kid somewhere. These are two different issues with different moral principles involved. However there is one principle that does connect them. It is a psychological one and the connection is me.
Since I felt that loss so deeply (it devastated me), this has probably inclined me to look at things from the child's view. The intensity of that emotional experience was on par with what I went through when I first read Atlas Shrugged. This experience came from reality and I have not been able to forget that, no matter how hard I have tried to fit it into an Objectivist mold. It exists.
The upside is that I no longer dismiss children philosophically as easily as I once did. This experience has allowed me to see that children are nothing more than a "logical inconvenience" to many Objectivists (to use a phrase I just wrote to a friend). It has allowed me to question whether the whole of human nature is present and accounted for in Objectivist ethics, or if there are areas that need more discussion and thought. I am now able to ask why the Objectivist concept of rights essentially refers to one stage of development (adult productive stage), yet man goes through several. It has allowed me to break a hardening of the categories in my thinking and question all premises, even the most sacred ones.
It has allowed me not to shy away from looking at the truth, even in the face of peer pressure and derision.
And it has allowed me ultimately to conclude that Objectivism does not need to be rejected because it leaves things out - people can add to it.
More questions?
Michael
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Children are educated by what the grown-up is, and not by his talk.
