Sheila and her husband, Kendall, have been married for 37 years. They have five children and a black Lab named Largo.

Listen to Sheila’s previous interview here.

John C. Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You

Subscribe now

So what exactly is cultural appropriation? It’s often described as someone adopting elements from a culture that’s not their own—a hairstyle, a piece of clothing, a way of speaking, or even a form of exercise (like yoga).Everyday feminism takes this a step further, explaining that cultural appropriation happens when a dominant group borrows from a culture they’ve historically oppressed. It doesn’t matter if you personally haven’t oppressed that group—only that someone of your race or ethnicity has. I've seen more recent definitions go even further, saying appropriation is the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of another culture’s elements. It seems those qualifiers were added to make sure the people understand that cultural appropriation is capital B, BAD.

But here’s the thing: America is a country built on shared values, not a shared ethnic background. So, in my opinion, being anti–cultural appropriation is anti-American. The logic behind cultural appropriation doesn’t hold up. If taking something from another culture is wrong, then you can’t participate in anything your culture didn’t invent.

By that logic, white people invented tap dance. If you know the history of tap, you might say, “No way, that was created by Black Americans in the South.” And you'd be right—but tap was actually an appropriation of Irish clog dancing. Poor Irish immigrants and poor Black Americans lived in close proximity in the South. Both groups faced discrimination and deep socioeconomic struggles.(Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals explains this in more detail.) The two communities ended up borrowing quite a bit from each other. It’s just a fact: Black Americans appropriated Irish clogging to help create tap—and I’m glad they did. But by cultural appropriation nazi standards, that would mean only the Irish should be allowed to tap. If Black dancers couldn’t participate in tap, we’d never have had Savion Glover, arguably the greatest tap dancer of all time.

Ballet isn’t part of African culture—so say goodbye to Misty Copeland. If hip-hop is a Black American invention, then someone better tell those Korean dance teams to stop. Classical music doesn’t come from Asian culture—so forget about Yo-Yo Ma. Opera began in Italy—so if you’re not Italian, don’t even bother. Flutes originated in China, so apparently every kid in my high school’s flute section was way out of line.

The arts are an easy example, but you can apply this logic to nearly every aspect of human creativity. If people weren’t allowed to cross cultural lines, we’d lose so much of our shared progress. Weren’t we all told growing up that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? If someone uses something from your culture to create something new, they probably do respect your culture. Why else would they use it?

Now, if a white person makes a dream catcher and claims, “Hey, I invented this,” I could understand the outrage. But that’s rarely, if ever, what happens in these supposed cases of cultural appropriation.

But the woke think they got ya on that second definition of cultural appropriation—that only oppressors can appropriate—meaning white people can’t borrow from any other culture, while “the oppressed” can borrow freely.

This definition backfires. Instead of empowering marginalized groups to preserve their culture, it ends up harming minority entrepreneurs. If white people are only allowed to wear jeans and eat Italian food, then that amazing taco stand is going to take a hit. Black rappers? You’ve just lost 70-75% of your audience. The UFC? They’d see a huge drop in ratings—and not just from viewers. They’d lose athletes too. Dana White himself would be out. His name is literally White! How much more offensive can it get??!!

I knew the idea of cultural appropriation had gone too far when some friends admired a dress I own. It’s a beautiful, colorful, handmade piece I bought from an online shop selling garments made by African artisans. My friends raved about it, so I asked one of them why she didn’t get one too. She told me she was afraid people would get mad—because she’s white.

And sadly, she’s probably right. Someone might get mad. But the person who gets mad that a white woman supported a black designer is, frankly, a fool.

Why would anyone want to discourage 77% of Americans from buying goods made by minorities? Do you want minority cultures in the U.S. to vanish? Because without the economic support of white Americans, many culture-based businesses would fail. And do we not want white consumers helping lift artisans in developing countries out of poverty by buying their work? It breaks my heart to think about the income those African dressmakers are missing out on because white women have been bullied into silence—into fear of appreciating something beautiful that isn’t “theirs.”

So appropriate away, I say. Without cultural appropriation, we wouldn’t have tap dance or the blues or MMA—or ice cream cones—or me! I’ll be teaching my own children to follow a few simple rules:

1. Give credit where credit is due.
   Don’t claim you created something you didn’t.

2. Don’t wildly misrepresent a culture.
   Don’t claim you’re giving props to Native-Americans when you’re in a skimpy outfit with feathers and just want to dress provocatively.

That’s pretty much it. Be respectful but be a sponge. If Ethiopian-Texas BBQ fusion isn’t proof we need more cross-cultural appropriation, I don’t know what is.

Subscribe now

Latasha founded CHESS (Christian Home Educators Support System), a homeschool co-op, support group, and microschool, and EPIC (Empowering Parents Igniting Communities), a parental rights organization. She is the Illinois State Coordinator for ParentalRights.org and a 1776 Unites Achiever.

Register for the Chicago Home Educators’ Summit today!

Other stuff:

• Latasha’s Christian Academy: Ky’Ijel Group Christian Academy

• Latasha’s Twitter: @LatashaHFields

• Latasha’s YouTube Channel

• Latasha on the Free Black Thought podcast

Subscribe now

Ask a Christian if they want to glorify God, and they’ll say yes. Ask a Christian if they trust in God’s plan, and they’ll say yes. Ask a Christian if they want to or have given their life to Christ, and they’ll say yes... but over and over again, I run into a subject where modern-day Christians are not willing to “give their lives to Christ,” and that is with family planning.

The Bible is very clear about the significance of children. Apart from Jesus Himself, children may be the greatest gift The Father has given us. “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” — Psalm 127:3-5.

God desires us to have and cherish children. His first command about procreation is found in Genesis. The books of John, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs all affirm that children bring joy. Philippians teaches that having children can make us better people. Throughout the Bible, children are described as gifts and blessings. The command to “be fruitful and multiply” suggests, at the very least, having three children.

I don’t see how any honest person can read the Bible and not conclude that having children in abundance is something pleasing to the Lord.

This seems to be an uncomfortable truth for a lot of young Christians. It is rare to hear a Christian say, “I will have as many children as the Lord blesses me with.” Instead, many Christians choose to have as many children as they feel comfortable with. They want children based on their own timing, not God’s. Many Christians are not fully open to God’s plan when it comes to family planning. “I want to hit XYZ career milestone first,” “We’re waiting until we have XYZ amount of money,” or “We’re going to stop at two” could be rejections of God’s plan for your family.

Christians often cite their careers or current financial situation as reasons to delay having children. However, this concern doesn’t even hold much weight from a secular perspective, as research shows that being married and having any kind of employment is typically enough to ensure a family’s needs are met. Even the definition of “needs” has been drastically redefined by society. Many families are reluctant to have more children if it means sacrificing luxury, like trips to Hawaii, buying new items, or having more personal freedom. Raising children certainly requires sacrifice, but God doesn’t call us to live comfortably. If His plan for us involves having five children, as Christians, we should praise His generosity, not actively avoid it. Christians often seem to lose faith in God’s ability to provide when it comes to children.

Contraception is, for some Christians, a way of rejecting God’s will. I’ve heard the argument that as long as someone is "open" to the idea of having children—meaning they wouldn’t get an abortion if they became pregnant—then birth control is acceptable. The reasoning is that since God can do anything, if He wants you to have children, He will make it happen, regardless of whether you're using protection. By that logic, why not schedule an abortion? If God truly intends for you to have the baby, He could make the abortion fail. While it’s true that God is all-powerful, this line of reasoning is intellectually dishonest. God also grants us free will, allowing us to choose the direction of our lives rather than forcing us to love and obey Him.

Let’s say you have a friend who wants to be married but, for years, hasn’t found their match. At the same time, this friend doesn’t make much of an effort to meet people and is more of a homebody. You probably wouldn’t blame their loneliness on God’s unwillingness to provide; instead, you’d rightly tell them they need to get out of the house more if they want to meet someone! While, yes, God could make the pizza delivery guy their soulmate, human effort is often part of putting God’s plan into action. The same principle applies to contraception: you can’t claim to be "open" to the idea of children while actively taking steps to prevent them, both literally and figuratively.

Now, there is one form of birth control that I do believe gets the theological okay, and that is natural family planning (NFP). I have to give credit to Catholics here. No, natural family planning is not the "rhythm method"; it is much more scientific and precise. Women track their temperature, pay attention to their vaginal discharge, and monitor their periods to pinpoint when they’re ovulating and avoid intercourse during that time. When done correctly, this method is up to 99% effective, the same as other popular forms of birth control.

The difference is that NFP leaves the invitation open for God’s intervention, both symbolically and literally. Not only that, but NFP requires effort and constant communication between partners. Methods like pills, condoms, or an insertion device are easy, mindless, and habitual. A couple will only commit to NFP if they have legitimate, serious concerns about having children, making it a more intentional and thoughtful approach.

NFP forces couples to ask themselves every month if avoiding children is truly worth the effort. Couples must constantly check in on their marriage. A simple question like “Why shouldn’t we have a child right now?” opens the door to all kinds of follow-up questions that could reveal issues one partner might not have realized. “I don’t feel financially secure,” “I’m still struggling from the last pregnancy,” “I don’t feel close to you right now,” “I want to move,” etc. These are all important discussions that couples practicing NFP must address head-on every month. Commitment, communication, consideration, and self-control are all key to NFP. This is why NFP has a bonus side effect: the reported divorce rate among couples who use NFP is as low as 0% and even the most conservative estimates place divorce rates among NFP users at just 9.6%.

Now, someone always brings this up in the comments: none of this is to say that married couples who are unable to conceive somehow have a less holy union. Children are not the only way the Lord blesses us, and the number of children a couple has is not indicative of their faithfulness to God. Likewise, if a woman has a condition that makes pregnancy life-threatening, then contraception may become an appropriate choice. In both of these cases, adoption is still an option I would encourage Christians in these situations to explore—this may very well be God’s calling for you. I also admit that it is likely children are simply not part of God’s plan for every married couple.

Worth noting is that even secular women are becoming more and more interested in NFP for the health and relationship benefits. It’s funny how often scripture-based lifestyle advice turns out to be good for humans, religious or not. Dr Jolene Brighten has been a champion for NFP or what she calls the fertility awareness method. Her book Beyond the Pill is a best seller.

Regardless of any earthly benefit, the question for Christians should always be: Are my actions glorifying God? This means being open to following God’s plan and celebrating the gifts He gives you, whether they align with the plan you were hoping for or not. Christians act unbiblically when they try to restrict or perfectly time the number of blessings (children) God gives them, planning their family according to their own will instead of God’s. Wishing for a life according to God’s will while using birth control is like saying, “God, let me live according to Your plan... unless Your plan is for me to have children right now, in which case, I’m not interested.”

Connie Morgan is a Christian, wife, and mother located in the Pacific Northwest. She has a background in economics and public relations and has worked in higher ed and marketing. She served five years in the United States military as a military intelligence officer. Her main research and writing interests are the family, education, and personal liberty generally. Connie is a founding member of Free Black Thought. She is the regular host of the Free Black Thought Podcast. She tweets here.

The first rule of marriage: There is marriage and everything else, and everything else doesn’t count. I’m talking about ‘relationships’, which are basically transitory adventures into self-indulgence or usury depending upon who has the upper hand. But I don’t want to talk about relationships other than marriage other than as bad examples, or things that, depending upon your ultimate needs could destroy some fraction of your married life. That is true even if you’re not yet even married.

You see, the difficulty in dealing with jumping over that hurdle and getting married is that most Americans today think that they can survive its dissolution. So when I talk about marriage, the first thing I had to reflect on my thinking about marriage. I asked myself what’s the worst thing that could happen. So pretend I’m giving you advice - with the understanding that I don’t think any woman has ever asked me for marriage advice.

On background, I got married when I was 33 years old. I would guess that between the ages of 16 and 33, what 17 years? I had at least 17 girlfriends. So let that be the unofficial number - and by girlfriends I mean women that I have known intimately in that old Biblical sense. Seventeen Girlfriends is another book. The point is I didn’t marry my highschool sweetheart. I had most every opportunity to be wild, and when I turned 30 I was beginning to get bored with breaking hearts, especially my own.

When guys ask me, I tell them to think of the top three characteristics they want in a woman. Presuming they are mature enough to know themselves, they can readily identify these things. And quite frankly I think every man knows ‘their type’. That kind of counts. My type is a look. The look is Zoe Saldana in Lioness. For me ‘my type’ was syrup on the banana split, not the banana or the ice cream. I wanted suave elegance. I wanted smarts. I wanted independent-mindedness. So I would say that if you get one out of three, toss her back. That would be a fishing metaphor. If you get three out of three, beware you might be in over your head. That’s a Moby Dick metaphor. Two out of three ain’t bad. Work with it.

You don’t want to be the guy who is always saying “I’m the luckiest guy in the world.” because you managed to get three for three. You want to be the guy who says “We are an effective team.” But I’m getting ahead of myself. When you’ve got two or three out of three the next step is to go through this mental exercise, which is via negativa. And I think it’s the more important question that clarifies what one, two, or three out of three means. Think of everything you know about her, especially the negative things. Now imagine the thing you fear most about her. What can you imagine her actually doing that would absolutely devastate you seven years into your marriage? Be honest. You come home and there is that awful, unbearable thing right in your face. Would you still marry her today? Would it be worth it?

See? If you get three out of three, you’d probably be extra vulnerable and then you would be extra destroyed. You’d go psychotic, or maybe - yeah well I never really deserved her anyway. “I should have known.” One out of three, and you would also be saying “I should have known.” Like when the wheel falls off your beater. Yeah whatever. So two out of three is the happiest medium. It worked for me, anyway.

Rule number one in marriage. Don’t question the marriage. This is an ironclad rule. You have to be in it for life. You have to get to the point at which you realize with some finality that you never want to be married with anybody else, ever. Not for the kids’ sake. Not for your family’s sake. For your own sake. For her sake. In other words what you want is not her so much as you want to be married to her. You want to be subservient to the marriage. Questioning the marriage is like making bomb jokes at the airport in Tel Aviv. It’s like climbing outside the balcony railing on the 23rd floor. It’s playing Russian roulette with your own sanity. Don’t question the marriage. Remember you said it would be worth it even if she did that thing.

You have an excuse, the slightest excuse, if you don’t get to seven years. I said you have to get to the point of finality. You have to survive the Seven Year Itch. Every temptation you may or may not have imagined crawls up and down your spine. Lots of things can change in seven years. So rule number two is to survive the itch. Sure you changed. Sure she changed. Sure life has changed in ways you couldn’t predict. So what else is new? Sickness? Health? Richer? Poorer? A more real excuse is a felony conviction, or clinical psychosis, or complete alienation of one or both families. How about a couple miscarriages? How about a devastating car accident? Such things cannot be overcome by attraction or romance. There has to be commitment. The marriage is bigger than you. But marriage isn’t bigger than absolute tragedy. Either way, you don’t come out clean. Just don’t make it from your lack of faith. Don’t renege because you lost your nerve. Professional counselors have seen enough to know if you’re in a truly tragic situation.

I’ve had the situation when I got to that moment when I told myself I was ready to walk. I had three kids and I thought about giving it all up and moving to Brazil. Just gone. But I looked 20 years into the future and I did it for the kids. Honestly. I could see walking out on my wife but not on my family. So I guess rule three is that when it comes down to it. Marriage is about family. Hers, plus yours, plus both of yours together. That’s the deal. If you don’t want to be family, don’t get married. Sure you can say this year is whatever this year is and marriage changes all the time and it’s what we wanted it to be that’s why we wrote our own vows and blah blah blah. The short metaphor on this is, play the piano etude the way Chopin wrote it, don’t change the notes to make it convenient for you. You can have it your way with relationships. Marriage is marriage. You don’t get to change the rules. You don’t get to play your own notes and call it Chopin. Yeah I know I said don’t do it for the kids, but I didn’t know all of this going in. Eventually, I went all in. I beat the itch.

I think the craziest thing about marriage, at least mine, is that we remain our own people. All that talk about two becoming one. Nope. We’re not joined at the hip or codependent or anything like that. When people asked us about how we remained happy, we decided that the answer was ‘separate bathrooms’. So true. It’s our marriage and we renewed our vows on our tenth anniversary.

Have a joint bank account. Have your own bank accounts as well. In time, you’ll figure out which one is the financial genius. You’ll figure out which one is the slob. You have to make accommodations for all that. She will want you to kill the spiders and take out the trash and chase away that possum in the backyard. Do it. She never paid attention to changing the oil on the minivan. The engine light came on, and it was too late. We survived. Neither of us depended on our parents; we never ran away from each other. There was never a TV show about a married couple that quite got our dynamic. The closest was Dennis Haysbert and Regina Taylor in The Unit. We’re both kind of take-charge people. We enjoy being responsible. Heads on straight and headstrong.

The thing to work on is the household, not each other so much. I’m not trying to change her. It’s not going to happen. She’s not trying to change me. It’s not going to happen. It’s about what we can do together, even when we’re in over our heads. We give each other our strengths. That’s why we’re here.

Marriage is public. Take advantage of the fact. Everybody knows what marriage is supposed to be, so you can use the pride to motivate you and the shame to keep your flaky butt in line. Go to the parties together. Throw parties together. Be out and about with your spouse and with your kids. Throw yourself into it socially. Brave Disneyland. Halloween. Easter. Picture Day. Promotions. Dads & Grads. All that boring middle-class stuff. You are not Brad Pitt. You can’t get away with it. You’re Fred and she’s Wilma. Get over yourself. You’ll always have that one big party with family or the reunion that works and people will remember it for years. This is the time for you to be on the ball. You are the family holding it all together, exhaustingly handling all the chaos. You are a working family. This is the meat of it. Work it.

On the other hand, maybe you are like Will and Ariel Durant and are more devoted to your careers than anything else. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t dislike DINKs, but I kind of do dislike power couples, especially if they’re swingers. Too much ego. They are unsubordinated to marriage. Really that’s how marriage works, and I understand if your ego is too big. Like I said, I walked to the brink before I turned 40.

Marriage is about a steady supply of sex from a reliable source. At least it is for men. I’ve got friends. I’ve got the greatest books and music in history. I’ve got my career. I’ve got the entire planet to fascinate me. But I pursue my craving for sex. I’ve got to have it, and I’m restless until my wife knocks me out. Hangry doesn’t even come close. Here’s the thing to appreciate though. Women know more women, and how women think than men do. It’s not until we’re 40 that we realize how much women take our desire for granted. It’s only when we start balding, going pear-shaped and huff and puff going up the stairs that our desire doesn’t have the upper hand. Most men know how much work they put in to accommodate whatever that particular woman wants, especially when they play coy. At some point, all women fail to be automatically desirable. We can smell the failure. We have been attuned to functional allure for decades. A mature woman doesn’t sweat it like they used to. Then eventually we fall back to being 12 years old. You’re icky and you don’t play football. That’s when the habits of thought, love and respect take over. Man when you turn 40, you really want to be in a good marriage. Leopard skin pants just don’t work any longer.

What happens in a mature marriage is kind of magical. It happens somewhere around 17 years in, or whenever you get the first kid into college or the service or out of the house under welcome circumstances. Or maybe it happens earlier on that big road trip with all the kids. You kind of breathe and say, “We actually did this. We held it together.” You start to get that kind of frumpy comfort. You find yourself at a concert with a headliner who was first a star when you were in high school, like Elton John or Chaka Khan. Or both, in New Orleans at the Jazz Fest.

Now you’re on the verge of doing that thing. The last big thing in your life, and you have to deal with health or some kind of inevitably big setback. Me, I got through tax issues, health issues, deaths in the family, down years at work. I survived a lot of shit. But when you get frumpy comfy you are the exact opposite of that scared handsome couple with the adorable kiddies playing it by ear just scraping by. You’re able to comfort yourself and others through panics. You don’t mind looking at each other’s scars, moles and fillings. You can be careful and meticulous with each other, not because you’re trying to ‘keep it new,’ but because you can handle just about anything together, including each others’ most annoying habits and those of others. You’ve been keeping your kids away from bad influences. Some of your righteousness is second nature now. It’s a different kind of love. It’s the recognition of having been in love all that time.

We still haven’t buried our parents but we’re watching them become frail and fragile. Maybe we will be like that sooner than they were. But we made a life together. We’re on the other side of the hill with decades of lessons learned, pounds put on, dreams deferred, and piles of middle class junk in the garage. But we never did an artificial Christmas tree. We never threw things at each other. We also follow a rule that our attorney friend Jen said. Don’t ask a question if you think you can’t handle any answer. So there’s no need for deception. We are honest together. We’re individuals apart. We take our own me-time. We are not merged into some co-dependent blob. We have peace, or as I say, “Daddy’s house is full of love.” No matter where we wander, we all love coming home.

Tolstoy wrote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” That’s because a proper marriage is about creating a harmonious home, period. The rules are clear; that’s why there is marriage and everything else. Everything else is the work of chaos and disorder, and when you finally recognize that everything else doesn’t matter, then you understand exactly was does matter in marriage. It’s actually about not compromising yourself. Shakespeare wrote, “Tell the truth and shame the devil!”. Proverbs 12:22 says, “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy.” So does a happy spouse.

Michael DC Bowen is a co-founder of Free Black Thought, a Stoic writer, author of the award-winning blog Cobb, and data engineer. He has been published in Newsweek, was a regular NPR contributor, host at Cafe Utne, and founder of the Conservative Brotherhood and Rights Universal. His online writing projects on political, cultural and philosophical subjects reach back over 23 years. His latest project, is Stoic Observations, where a previous version of this essay was posted. He currently co-hosts the podcast Free Thoughts with Bowen & Twyman, hosted by Free Black Thought. Michael lives with his wife and three children in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter.

Black people are consistently used by the political left as a tool to manipulate well-intentioned Americans into submission. If you don’t like the welfare state, you don’t care about black people starving. If you don’t want to forgive student loan debt, you don’t want blacks to financially catch up to whites. If you don’t want people to be fat, you probably hate black bodies. White guilt is a club used to beat people into political corners. Abortion is no exception, but the insult of using black people to promote abortion goes further than subtle racism. The rhetoric used to push abortion as a black necessity is littered with inconsistencies and logical fallacies.

The political left has three main campaigns driving their quest for so-called racial equity. The first, simply put is Black Lives Matter (BLM) both the slogan and the organization. The second could be called “Historical Racism Damnation,” in other words; if it’s ever been linked to racism, tear it down. The third campaign could be called “Western Ideas are White Supremacy,” in other words; spreading western tradition to other cultures is racist and wrong. Abortion may be the best example of ignoring political tenets in order to promote a cause.

Black Lives Matter as a phrase semantically conflicts with pro-abortion fervor. Does black life only matter outside the womb? Black babies are aborted at a far greater rate than any other ethnic group in America. Blacks make up 13% of the U.S. population but make up 38% of aborted babies. Once the largest minority in America, blacks have been surpassed by Hispanics. Estimates vary but the black population in America could be as much as 50% higher today without abortion. If that were the case, blacks would outnumber Hispanics by about 10 million. Ask a white liberal if they think it’s a good thing abortion has kept the black population at bay and watch them twist into ideological knots. At what point does a black life start to matter?

As an organization, BLM states that it is a response to systemic racism. If the racism they highlight is as pervasive as claimed, one might ask: who is more vulnerable to injustice than a Black baby born to a white mother? Black Lives Matter supports abortion on demand for any reason, but does the issue of race-selective abortion raise concerns? It would be interesting to hear from social justice advocates whether they view it as acceptable for a white woman to terminate a pregnancy simply to hide an interracial relationship. Ask a social justice warrior if it's a good thing white women can kill their black baby so daddy won’t find out they slept with a black boy and watch them twist into ideological knots.

Historical racism equals damnation to the political left; statues must be torn down and buildings must be renamed. To be fair, the pro-choice left has recently been more honest when it comes to the racist roots of abortion. In 2020, Planned Parenthood announced they were removing Margaret Sanger’s name from their center over her racist legacy. Getting rid of her name is a nice gesture but I hear no calls for Planned Parenthood buildings to be moved or torn down. This despite Sanger’s legacy perpetuated in the 86% of Planned Parenthood abortion facilities located in minority neighborhoods.

Is it not incredibly racist to claim society is better off when minority women abort their babies as Margaret Sanger claimed? The assumption that black women need abortion to get ahead, whereas white women don’t is beyond offensive. The implication is either black women aren’t capable of controlling our sexual urges as well as white women, we are too stupid or poor to use contraception or we are not capable of dealing with an unplanned baby the way white women are.

Ask a black progressive why black women should kill their babies more than white women and watch them twist into ideological knots. And I challenge anyone to bring me one iota of data showing the lives of black women have improved due to abortion. If abortion was a ticket to monetary prosperity black women would be the financial leaders of this country.

As Dr. Delores Grier said in 1989:

“Black women never demonstrated, demanded or even requested the right to an abortion. We’ve been asking for the right to decent housing, the right to education, in fact the right to health care…And all we’ve been given, free of charge, is the right to kill our unborn child.”

Dr. Grier points out that if a black woman asked for medical care but did not have insurance she would be turned away but if she wanted an abortion without insurance she would be given one for free no questions asked. Is this not reflective of a history of systemic racism? Is it possible that more black than white women abort their babies not by coincidence but by design?

And this brings me to the third racial justice campaign of the political left, “western ideas are white supremacy.” Hard work and being on time are western ideas that shouldn’t be promoted to black communities who have their own cultures and customs. If western culture shouldn’t be put upon blacks this creates a major problem for abortion advocates.

Abortion is not historically a popular idea among black Americans or Africans. It is only when indoctrinated in western thought that black people begin aborting their babies. When looking at global abortion trends, the African continent is far behind westernized countries. Today, the vast majority of women in sub-Saharan Africa live where abortion is moderately or severely restricted. Usually abortions are only performed for the health of the mother. The abortion rate in the United States of 195 abortions per 1,000 live births is nearly six times the African rate of 33 abortions per 1,000 live births.

According to social science research, Africans place a higher value on parenthood and children compared to those living in industrialized countries. “It takes a village to raise a child” is an African saying. Africans have an entire social structure designed around assisting each other in the raising of children. Author Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti says it this way:

“Along with the depth of our spiritual connectedness, Afrikans are the most family/child-centered people on the planet. We place nothing above our children, except that which will bring them into existence and allow us to rear them in the way of our Ancestors.”

Polling data on abortion opinion in Africa is almost non-existent but one study found that over 75% of South Africans (arguably the most westernized country in Africa) thought abortion “always wrong” in the case of family poverty and over half of South Africans still thought abortion “always wrong” as a response to fetal anomaly. This isn’t just about access, many Africans simply do not support abortion.

Despite polling, cultural cues, and abortion statistics showing that much of Africa is not supportive of abortion, the Gates Foundation has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to so-called family planning initiatives with the explicit goal of increasing access to abortion. In response to the western push for abortion in Africa, a non-profit organization called Culture of Life Africa was formed. Among other actions, they released a video pleading with Joe Biden to stop funding abortion in Africa. Yet, I don’t see widespread criticism from the left about this modern form of colonization led by figures like Gates and Biden. As Culture of Life Africa founder Obianuju Ekeocha has said:

“We are thirsty and they give us condoms! We are hungry and they offer us contraceptive pills! We are sick and they offer us the most modern techniques of abortion! We are naked and they lead us into the arms of sexual hedonism! We are imprisoned by poverty and they offer us sexual liberation! Silent tears roll down for Africa in a modern world that can neither see our pain nor hear our cry for help.”

Ask a leftist if the west needs to change indigenous people’s tradition of life to one of abortion and watch them twist into ideological knots.

No matter where you fall on the abortion debate let’s be honest about the tactics being used in the town square. Black people are a political tool used to push whatever agenda is currently at the top of the headlines and right now it is abortion. When it comes to pro-choice rhetoric, leftist philosophies are thrown out the window in order to push an agenda on the coattails of white guilt. If you want legalized abortion just say it, don’t pretend it’s not at odds with promoting black life, not without historical shame or in line with values traditionally held by those of African descent.

Connie Morgan is a Christian, wife, and mother located in the Pacific Northwest. She has a background in economics and public relations and has worked in higher ed and marketing. She served five years in the United States military as a military intelligence officer. Her main research and writing interests are the family, education, and personal liberty generally. Connie is a founding member of Free Black Thought. She is the regular host of the Free Black Thought Podcast. She tweets here.

Choosing what books your children read is serious business. At least it should be. Even picture books should be carefully curated. I am fully convinced that if parents treated reading with the level of reverence they do for sports or other extracurricular activities the country would be a lot better off. Some parents do. Others want to do so, but maybe don’t even know where to begin when creating a library for their child. The picture book industry is flooded with books, many of which promote what I would call unhealthy, abnormal, or straight up toxic values to children. The diversity genre is particularly poisoned. Does a parent like me who is sick of racial essentialism even need to make diversity within picture books a priority? 

As a founder of Free Black Thought (FBT) I have helped uplift the voices of those who take a stand against racial essentialism, decry the excesses of critical theory, and/or even call for the abolishment of race as a concept altogether. To be quite honest I think many in the free-thinking community simply have race-topic exhaustion. 

Because FBT and likeminded people push so hard against racial essentialism and even promote raceless philosophies we may come across as not valuing any form of diversity outside of diversity of thought. This isn’t true. Some of us may be exhausted of talking about racial problems but very few of us ever tire of admiring the beauty of physical and ethnic diversity within the human race.

Celebrating diversity of thought goes without saying. You’re consuming Free Black Thought content right now so you must be interested in diversity of thought. While I don’t believe a boardroom needs to have quotas of black or Asian or white people to be moral and effective, I do love that humans come in a variety of colors. I love admiring art as an outgrowth of different cultures. I love learning about ethnic traditions different than mine. I love listening to other languages even if I don’t understand them. And yes, sometimes diversity is good simply for diversity’s sake. I want my kids to know some people have darker skin tones and some people have lighter skin tones just as I want them to know some people have big feet and some people are very short and some people have freckles and some people have dimples. Appreciating the variety in mankind is admiring the creativity of God. 

I do want the characters in the picture books I read for my children to look a variety of ways. However, I don’t want my kids to be race-obsessed. I want them to be so used to the idea that humans come in many different forms that they hardly notice the differences at all. Picture books are a tool to help me accomplish this. 

We enjoy picture books starring people of every background and phenotype in my home but for this list I will stick to books with black characters. My criteria are as follows:

1. The book is not “woke.” I acknowledge the word woke has evolved but in this context I mean no racial essentialism, no victim Olympics, no third-wave feminism, no gender ideology, and so on. I don’t want single parenthood or divorce normalized or celebrated. I don’t want obesity declared perfectly healthy. I also don’t want New-Agey spiritualism.
   
   Ibram X. Kendi’s Anti-Racist Baby and Matt de la Peña’s Milo Imagines the World are examples of books I would not put on my shelf. Anti-Racist Baby for obvious reasons but Milo Imagines the World is a bit more subtle. Milo Imagines the World normalizes a mother being in prison. Not only could this be viewed as a black stereotype, I don't want impressionable young minds (we’re talking 2 - 5 year olds) wondering if they might have to visit mom in prison one day. Even if I was in prison, I wouldn’t want them reading this book and believing imprisoned moms represent some sort of norm, because they don’t.

2. The story is actually good. This is one of the biggest challenges across all picture books; most of them are trash. They have lame stories that barely have a plot. What my father calls “baby self-help books” have become all the rage and are all terrible. Titles I would avoid include Jimmy Learns to Share by Abigail Street, It’s OK to Be Angry by Alana Atkins-Jamison and Anala Jamison, and You’re a Special Kid by Nina Linde or anything that sounds similar. Pro tip: If the moral of the story is in the title it’s usually a book you can skip. This is another reason I would skip over books like Kendi’s Anti-Racist Baby. Even if I adhered to its critical theory-inspired ethos, I don’t want the main plot point made so blatantly obvious. Blatant moralizing is not how children learn morals through art. We all complain when a movie or TV show is “preachy.” Why do we force these preachy books on our own children? Matthew A. Cherry’s Hair Love and Grace Byers’s I Am Enough are other examples of this genre.
   
   Charlotte Mason, the British education reformer who died a century ago this year, is a great guide to assessing picture books. The education pioneer said, “Let children feed on the good, the excellent, the great! Don't get in their way with little lectures, facts, and guided tours!” Your children need excellent stories not pandering instruction. Figuring out whether a picture book is good or not really isn’t rocket science. Is it one you reach for? Or do you silently moan when your child brings it to you? As the great C.S. Lewis said, “A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”
   
   Here it is appropriate to insert a note on Ezra Jack Keats. For many, the first wholesome picture book that features a black child that comes to mind would be something by Keats, especially his Caldecott-Medal winning book The Snowy Day at this time of year. I do have a couple of Keats’s books on my shelf and we do read them. While the classic books about Peter and his innocent adventures aren’t woke and aren’t preachy I never get excited when my child brings them to me. The illustrations are fine but they don’t excite me either. In my opinion Keats books are a bit dull. Although I wouldn’t insist you avoid buying a Keats book, none of his will appear on my list. Controversial, perhaps, but I am nothing if not unorthodox.

3. Race is not a key plot point. If you search picture books with black characters on Amazon you will almost exclusively get results featuring woke books, baby self-help books, or non-woke books about racism. In fact, non-woke books about racism aren't difficult to find. Amazon will recommend tons of books about interracial friendships in the Jim Crow South, or historical black figures who battled racism, or stories of families struggling against racism. I am not saying one can’t use picture books to teach about racism. I am cautioning you against having too many books like that on your shelf. If every time a young child encounters a book with a black character it ends up being about racism, they may start to avoid any book they see with a black character, assuming it will be the same lesson they’ve heard before. Worse, they may come to believe that dealing with racism is the only interesting thing about black people. And even worse still, they may come to develop a victim mentality if they are black themselves.
   
   I will probably do a “non-woke picture books about racism” list eventually, but those are not difficult to find, so I’ll hold off for now. What is harder to find is good stories that happen to feature black characters. Books with a good story where the ethnic heritage of the characters are not ostentatiously and preachily central to the plot. 

Here is my definitive but not exhaustive list of picture books featuring black characters that aren’t woke, are good stories, and are not about race. In no particular order:

Best Classic: Corduroy 

Author/Illustrator: Don Freeman

Yes, the bear is the main character but the child who takes Corduroy home is a well-dressed little black girl with a stylish mother. This is the perfect example of a sweet story that could be told with a child of any ethnic background but in this case it just so happens that she’s black.

Best Christmas Book: The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll

Author: Patricia C. McKissack    Illustrator: Jerry Pinkey

Set during the Great Depression, this is a classic lesson on the importance of putting family before materialism.

Best Book With Scripture: The Lord’s Prayer

Illustrator: Tim Ladwig

The only words in this book are the Lord’s prayer. The illustrations are wonderful and tell a story all on their own. 

Best Christian Book: When God Made You

Author: Matthew Paul Turner    Illustrator: David Catrow

I am a sucker for lots of color so I love the illustrations in this book. Many rhyming books are corny and terrible but this book has great wordflow. I take small issue with a couple of lines in the book:  “you - yes YOU - in all of your glory, bring color and rhythm and rhyme to God’s story.” In my home, glory is always associated with Christ and not human achievement so that line is slightly problematic for me. Another line says, “God dreams about all that in you will be true.” We also teach God’s omnipotence in my home so insinuating that perhaps God doesn’t know the future is a little sticky. However, I don’t think the author was trying to push any strong theological perspective on kids. I feel I can explain the qualms I have to my children while enjoying the overall message and lovely illustrations. Matthew Paul Turner has another children’s book titled What Is God Like? I received it as a gift and promptly got rid of it due to its woke imagery and its teaching on the nature of God that bordered on the heretical.

Best Adventure Story Book: The Secret Shortcut

Author/Illustrator: Mark Teague

This was an all time favorite in my house as a kid. Two boys are always late to school. One day they decide to take a secret shortcut in order to be on time at last. One of the boys is black and one is white. Race is never mentioned in the story and plays no role in the plot.

Best African Legend: Abiyoyo

Author: Pete Seeger    Illustrator: Michael Hays

I’ll be honest with you. Most of the African fables and fairytales I have read are not good. It’s not that they are woke or offensive. I tend to find the writing less than inspiring, the morals underwhelming or heavy handed, and for some reason I have yet to come across one with illustrations I like. Before you start sending me suggestions we’ve tried at least a half dozen ranging from Anasi and the Golden Pot to Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears. If it’s a bestseller, I have read it. Really, it comes as no surprise that my favorite find so far is an old publication that no longer gets much promotion. Abiyoyo is an adaptation of a South African lullaby and folktale about a boy and his father who save the town from a giant. Reading this book for my kids takes me back to my theater days. 

Best Out of Print: What Mary Jo Shared

Author: Janice May Udry    Illustrator: Varies based on publication

This was originally published in 1966. A cute little girl cannot decide what to bring to class to share. This book is a subtle reminder of the importance of fathers.  

Best Book with a Mixed Child: Titch and Daisy

Author/Illustrator: Pat Hutchins

This is another book that is out of print. A story of a little girl and boy who can't find each other at a party. The story itself isn’t that impressive but my kids love trying to “find Daisy” in the pictures. Another interesting thing about this book is that there are black and white children at the birthday party but the black children outnumber the white children, and no big deal is made of it. A subtle thing you don’t see often. Although not a board book, this is another one I would recommend for kids just starting to listen to and look at picture books. 

Best Book About a Boy: The Summer Nick Taught His Cats To Read 

Author: Curtis Manley    Illustrator: Kate Berube

A quirky tale about a boy teaching his cats to read. One cat takes to it and the other is quite the grumpuss. 

Best Book About a Girl: Cherries and Cherry Pits

Author/Illustrator: Vera B. Williams

This story is about a little girl in the city who loves to tell stories by drawing. The young artist’s name is Bidemmi so this book will expose your children to unique names. The character does point out that one of the figures she draws is an “old white woman” but it is not with any animosity and is simply her statement of a fact.

Best Book in an Urban Setting: Flower Garden

Author: Eve Bunting    Illustrator: Kathryn Hewitt

This is a simple story of giving with wonderful full color illustrations. What's not to love about a tale that is warm, sunny, and full of flowers? The family in this story live in a city apartment, which may either convey a sense of familiarity to your children or expose them to an unfamiliar way of living.

Best Book in a Rural Setting: The Old Truck

Author/Illustrator: Jarrett Pumphrey and Jerome Pumphrey

The story features a black farming family. In a refreshing twist, the daughter doesn’t run away to the city but instead stays and continues her family's work with the help of some familiar farm equipment.

Best Book Set in the Past: Down the Road

Author: Alice Schertle    Illustrator: E.B. Lewis

The backdrop, the watercolor stylings, and the fact that the mother gives her daughter “a handful of coins” to buy a dozen eggs indicate that this story is set in the ‘60s or ‘70s (even though the book was published in 1995). It’s very difficult to find a book set in this era with black characters that doesn’t focus on moralizing about race. Instead, what you get with this book is a lesson on forgiveness and parental love. 

Best Biographical Book: Wilma Unlimited

Author: Kathleen Krull    Illustrator: David Diaz

I have very few non-fiction or biographical picture books on my shelf but this is one I cherish. It is the reason that throughout my youth if anyone ever asked who my hero was I’d say Wilma Rudolph. This book joyfully tells the story of Wilma Rudolph’s journey from a polio stricken child to a gold medalist. If I’m in the right mood, it might even make me cry.

Best Multicultural Book: Chicken Sunday

Author/Illustrator: Patricia Polacco

This book features a strong friendship between a Russian girl and a black Baptist family. There is bigotry in this book but it’s not directed at the black characters but at a Jewish man. It’s very rare for a book with black characters to feature prejudice that is not anti-black. It’s an important and subtle way to show children that, unfortunately, most if not all people have faced some form of discrimination. Oppression is not unique to black people. This story also highlights cross-cultural, cross-racial, and cross-religious friendships.

Best Board Book: Peekaboo Morning

Author/Illustrator: Rachel Isadora

Such a simple book, but it delighted my babies. A great “first book” for tiny people who are just starting to show interest in books. 

Best Book with More: Rainbow Stew

Author/Illustrator: Cathryn Falwell

This category is for any book with a recipe, a craft, or some other activity included. Rainbow Stew takes the reader through the process of gathering vegetables and turning them into soup on a rainy day. Your kids can try it out themselves with the recipe that is included. Note: they may have to find their veggies at the grocery store and not in an incredible yard garden like the one depicted in the book.

Best Animal Book: Petite Rouge 

Author: Mike Artell    Illustrator: Jim Harris

How can a book feature animal characters and still be considered a “black book”? The animals are culturally Cajun, which is an admixture of French (by way of Acadia), Native American, and African/African-American cultural strands. The book re-tells Little Red Riding Hood, Cajun style. I am not sure who gets more excited to read this book. My husband and me or our kids. The rhyming is delightfully silly and the illustrations offer so much for the eye to explore. One of our favorite stanzas:

Dey don’ be gone long
When dey see by a stomp,
A big, long, green log
Dat got plenty a’ bomp

Best Book Featuring Old Characters: When I Am Old With You

Author: Angela Johnson    Illustrator: David Soman

It doesn’t get much sweeter than this book. A look into what a child thinks being old is like. Quite frankly, he’s probably not far off the mark. 

Best Poetry Book: Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie

Author/Illustrator: Robbin Gourley

This book could’ve been in a number of the categories. It is a story about culinary legend Edna Lewis, who introduced the rest of America to Southern cuisine. It’s not so much a poetry book as a book with poetry in it. My family loves chanting the short poems in this book. It is told in such a way that if you didn’t know better you’d think it was just a story about a farming family. That’s the way picture book biographies should work. Entertaining stories that just so happen to be about real people.

Best Book About Family: My Family Plays Music

Author: Judy Cox    Illustrator: Elbrite Brown

I love that this book shows black people playing all kinds of music in all kinds of genres. A black guy in a polka band? That’s pretty freaking awesome. This book, like the classic Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin is a great way to introduce children to instruments. I am amazed at how many instruments my kids remember and recognize just from reading picture books.

Best Non-Fiction Book: Over and Under the Pond

Author: Kate Messner    Illustrator: Christopher Silas Neal

There is something about the art in this book that soothes me. I think it is more the color scheme than anything else because usually this style/technique doesn’t draw me in. I like that this book doesn’t shy away from big vocabulary words either.

Connie Morgan is a Christian, wife, and mother located in the Pacific Northwest. She has a background in economics and public relations and has worked in higher ed and marketing. She served five years in the United States military as a military intelligence officer. Her main research and writing interests are the family, education, and personal liberty generally. Connie is a founding member of Free Black Thought. She is the regular host of the Free Black Thought Podcast. She tweets here.

Biological differences between men and women matter. Because of these differences, men tend to be bigger and stronger, while women tend to be smaller and more flexible. Women tend to be more focused on people, whereas men tend to be more focused on “things.” Men generally prefer solving finite problems, while women often enjoy artistic challenges. This isn’t my opinion; these are facts based on evolutionary and biological research. As I’ve said many times, men and women are different, and that’s a beautiful thing.

It’s concerning that modern culture (starting in the 60s but really becoming a mainstream train of thought in the 90s) doesn’t recognize this when it comes to sex. TV shows, movies, books, blogs, and magazines all tell us that sex is exactly the same for men and women. What I mean is that promiscuity, one-night stands, and casual sex were once thought to be more sought after by men. Now we’re told that women should celebrate their participation in any of the above as well. Instead of teaching men that maybe they should be a little more like women when it comes to sexual activity, we teach women they should be more like men. At the same time, we’re told men are pigs! If that’s the case, then why is the response for women to act more like men when it comes to sex?

In a perfect world, we would all live morally perfect sexual lives. In such a world, you could have the same conversation about sex with your son as you would with your daughter. But it’s not a perfect world, and people certainly aren’t perfect. Sex is different for men and women, and there’s plenty of research to back up this statement.

Pregnancy
The most obvious difference between the sexes is that women can become pregnant. Condoms don’t always work, and hormonal birth control doesn’t always work either; I know of women who have gotten pregnant while using both of these contraceptives. The only way to ensure you don’t get pregnant is to not have sex. The maternal death rate in the United States is around 32.9 deaths per 100,000 births, and pregnancy also has other life-changing complications. Pregnancy takes a toll on a woman’s body and is not something to be taken lightly, even when planned.

If a woman conceives, she can’t keep it a secret for long, unlike a man, who cannot conceive. Even if a woman decides to have an abortion, there are potential side effects, including the risk of death in some cases. If a mother wants to give the baby up for adoption, the act of carrying a life and giving birth adds an emotional complexity that sometimes leads a mother to change her mind after initially agreeing to the adoption. Pregnancies—especially unplanned ones—can lead to emotional consequences that women endure but men can often avoid.

For this reason my dad’s advice to my brother and I was “don’t have sex with anyone you couldn’t do business with.” I say he told this to my brother but I actually don’t know if he did but he certainly said it to me on more than one occasion. Why me and not my brother? Because it is more relevant to me. If I get pregnant and I keep the baby, I am 1) forever connected to the baby’s father even if we are not in a relationship and 2) more locked into the responsibility than he is.  From conception, the mother is literally and therefore emotionally more connected to the baby, making it harder for her to run away from the responsibility.

For this reason, my dad’s advice to my brother and me was, “Don’t have sex with anyone you couldn’t do business with.” I say he told this to my brother, but I actually don’t know if he did; he certainly said it to me on more than one occasion. Why me and not my brother? Because it is more relevant to me. If I get pregnant I am 1) forever connected to the baby’s father, even if we are not in a relationship, and 2) more locked into the responsibility than he is. From conception, the mother is literally and emotionally more connected to the baby, making it harder for her to run away from that responsibility.

I do know that my father told my brother, “If you get a girl pregnant, you’re pregnant too” (metaphorically). But in reality, we all know that especially in the baby’s early years, from breastfeeding to dirty diapers, the mother does much of the heavy lifting.

Injuries
Believe it or not, sex-related injuries are a fairly common occurrence. Did you know that 30% of women report having pain or discomfort the last time they had sex, compared to only 5% of men? The pain could be due to a variety of factors, including vaginal tearing, yeast infections, and urinary tract infections. The main injury men experience from sex that women don’t is a broken penis. It sounds serious, but it is extremely uncommon. To give you some perspective, in 13 years of analyzing medical records in a region with over 3 million people, researchers found only 42 patients with confirmed penile fractures. Yeast infections alone affect over 75% of women in their lifetime.

Forget pregnancy, sex is just more likely to cause overall discomfort for women.

Sexual Standards
While everyone who has interacted with men and women knows this, for some reason, it’s controversial to say that men and women are different emotionally when it comes to sex. There are countless studies to back this up. The median number of sexual partners for a woman in America is three, while it’s five for a man. Let’s be real here: when it comes to gender, which one has an easier time finding someone willing to go to bed with them? I know very few women who couldn’t come home with a guy every Friday night if they wanted to. In contrast, I know men who try to come home with a woman every Friday night and fail most of the time. The standard for the average woman is higher than the standard for the average man. Most women report that they do not marry the man who gave them “the best sex of their life,” but instead look for a loving, multi-dimensional relationship.

This theory has been tested in other experiments where a male and female walk around asking complete strangers if they would have sex with them. Seventy-five percent of males agreed to have sex with a complete stranger, while 0% of women agreed. This was the biggest gender difference ever discovered in psychological science. In a less scientific but still fun version of this experiment, some YouTubers repeated it, finding that less than 1% of women agreed to have sex with a stranger compared to 30% of men. Clearly, men are a little more eager to engage in casual sex than women, but why is that?

Emotional Differences
You may think women aren’t as into casual sex because of safety concerns, fear of pregnancy, or fear of being discovered, but studies have also found that even when men and women are surveyed under the premise that none of these concerns would be an issue, women are still far less interested in casual sex than men. Still think patriarchy is to blame? Researchers have found that in the most egalitarian societies, the difference in the desire for promiscuity between genders actually grows larger. Furthermore, across all societies on Earth, even the least patriarchal, women consistently show less interest in casual sex.

Researchers have also found that men are far more interested in a two-women, one-man threesome than women are in any threesome combination. Men are also more likely to have fantasies about short-term sexual relationships and imagine having sex with more partners than women do. Additionally, men spend more on prostitutes, strippers, and porn. Need I go on? This seems like common sense to me, but I have to cover my bases.

So why do women crave longer-term relationships? Why do women yearn for romance over cheap lust? Why is it that 84% of romance novel readers are women and romantic comedies are aptly nicknamed “chick flicks”? Because men and women process emotions differently.

Studies using brain imaging and blood tests have found that men are less reactive to negative emotions because negative signals spend more time in the part of their brains associated with reasoning. A study from the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and the University of Montreal examined the amygdala (the brain’s threat detector) and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (the brain’s regulator of perception, reasoning, and emotional regulation) and found that these two areas interacted more with men when they viewed negative images compared to women.

Coauthor Stéphane Potvin, an associate professor in the University of Montreal’s Department of Psychiatry, said in a press release:

“A stronger connection between these areas in men suggests they have a more analytical than emotional approach when dealing with negative emotions. It is possible that women tend to focus more on the feelings generated by these stimuli, while men remain somewhat ‘passive’ toward negative emotions, trying to analyze the stimuli and their impact.”

Okay, so that explains why women may tend to be more feelings-focused (not a bad thing, by the way). But why does sex make us—especially women—get all emotional? While I have my own spiritual theories, the science isn’t conclusive. However, sex does appear to have a much longer-lasting emotional effect on women.

A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that as a woman’s number of sexual partners increased before marriage, so did her likelihood of divorce. Women with over ten sexual partners are most likely to divorce, while the odds of divorce are lowest among those with one or zero premarital sex partners. The same is not true for men, meaning marital success doesn’t seem to correlate with the number of partners a man has had before marriage. However, both men and women report greater satisfaction with their sex lives the fewer sexual partners they’ve had.

We all know intuitively that sex affects men and women differently, both physically and mentally. Why do so many pretend we have the same attitude? And if we’re choosing to promote one attitude over the other, why are we pushing the male attitude toward sex onto women instead of the other way around? Virtually all data shows that the fewer sexual partners you have, the more fulfilling your relationships will be.

If someone gives different advice to a female regarding sex compared to a male, don’t call them sexist; perhaps they are simply acknowledging that sex has different consequences for men and women, which isn’t sexist at all. They may be aware that a woman has more to lose every time she engages in sexual activity.

One should be picky about whom you sleep with. (I’ll be teaching my kids to wait until marriage.) Not only should it be a privilege for someone to share a bed with you, but it should also contribute to a romantic connection that you and your partner are both equally interested in pursuing and maintaining.

Connie Morgan is a Christian, wife, and mother located in the Pacific Northwest. She has a background in economics and public relations and has worked in higher ed and marketing. She served five years in the United States military as a military intelligence officer. Her main research and writing interests are the family, education, and personal liberty generally. Connie is a founding member of Free Black Thought. She is the regular host of the Free Black Thought Podcast. She tweets here.

At Free Black Moms we believe moms should take seriously the entertainment we choose to expose our children to. Pixar’s Brave is not the best movie the renowned studio has ever made but despite the efforts to be feminist, progressive and/or modern it passes the smell test.

Recently I re-watched the movie Brave; the Pixar flick about the Scottish princess who doesn’t want to get married…so naturally she turns her mom into a bear. She’s also really good with a bow and arrow. It’s not Pixar’s best. The plot has already been done (it’s repackaged Freaky Friday) but it’s still an above average cartoon and the soundtrack and visuals are fantastic. Brave works as a story because even though it is an attempt to modernize the Disney princess it is still rooted in reality.

Brave is a different kind of princess movie as there is no prince. The story is about a relationship between a girl and her mother, not a girl and her crush. Because there was no prince, many feminists approved of the movie. Disney was proud this isn’t your typical princess story. Brave came out in 2012 and was when I noticed Disney really adopting a more “modern” approach to storytelling. There were some critiques of the plot being a little basic and the heroine (Merida) being a little too stereotypical school girl tomboy but no one seemed to notice the obvious. 

[spoilers ahead]

Despite its best intentions Brave makes the case for gender roles and in an intelligent way. In the prologue a mother and father combine to protect their child from a bear. The mother grabs the child and runs while the father stays and fights the bear losing his leg in the process. Women protect children. Men protect women.

One of the funniest scenes in the movie is when three different tribes arrive with their finest warriors vying to win Princess Merida’s hand. Chaos quickly ensues and all the men are brawling in the hall. Even the king is getting in on the fun. It’s not until Merida’s mother, the queen, calmly walks to the front of the room and commands the men to stop that things settle down. Men are wild. Women calm men down.

Later in the movie Merida comes across the same bear that took her father’s leg. The only reason she escapes the bear’s clutches (despite being an excellent shot with her bow) is because her mother who is now also a bear helps her get away. There is no way Merida would’ve survived the attack had not Merida’s mother literally been a bear. Women aren’t able to take down big strong foes with their bare hands except in fantasies involving special powers and abilities.

Part of the movie’s charm is that it even showcases male vs female attraction. Males are visual creatures who think about a specific topic more often than women. At the very end of the movie the queen gets turned back into a human and is unclothed except for the blanket she is wrapped in. Her husband doesn’t at first realize that it’s awkward for his bride to be naked under a blanket in front of a crowd because he also tries to get a peak. I actually chuckled at this part because every woman has had the experience of doing some sort of normal seemingly non-sexual task whilst inadvertently turning their man on. (I once stood on my toes fully clothed reaching for something up high and my husband took notice.)

Merida can handle a bow better than any of the fellas but war requires brute strength too. This was especially true in olden times but is still important today. The average U.S. soldier carries 60 pounds in gear. Special Ops forces carry even more weight. I’m realizing Brave also makes the case for concealed carry. Guns are the only equalizer in a literal battle between the sexes. Merida may be a better shot with a bow and arrow but bows and arrows require physical strength and stamina. Merida would tire of shooting her bow faster than a man would. 

Brave is an example of the art itself not reflecting the intentions of the artist. I don’t think the makers of Brave sat down with the goal of writing a conservative story. A tradcon mom may pass over this film after listening to interviews or reading articles about it. At first glance one might think it to be a dose of feminist propaganda.

Yet one of the main themes of Brave is also a founding axiom of conservatism. Men are needed to fend off bears and fight wars; women make sure that’s not all they do.

The fact is, any story involving male and female relationships that doesn't acknowledge this truth won’t resonate with anyone. Despite being “progressive” Brave is rooted in timeless truths. This doesn’t mean women can’t be tough and men can’t be sensitive. Merida is a badass and her dad has a soft side but women and men are designed to do different things. 

Brave showcases the dynamics of men and women but in a subtle way. Who is the title of the movie referring to? The bravest person in the movie isn’t Merida who ran to a witch to solve her problems with magic. Nor is it Merida’s mother who couldn't fathom the idea of jigging the system by not forcing her daughter to marry. The bravest person in the movie is Merida’s father. Even after getting his leg ripped off by a bear he didn’t hesitate to charge into battle against the very same bear in order to protect his wife and children.

Connie Morgan is a Christian, wife, and mother located in the Pacific Northwest. She has a background in economics and public relations and has worked in higher ed and marketing. She served five years in the United States military as a military intelligence officer. Her main research and writing interests are the family, education, and personal liberty generally. Connie is a founding member of Free Black Thought. She is the regular host of the Free Black Thought Podcast. She tweets here.