This is true and I have no desire to return to a time where there is no option but to stay together.
This part is totally my opinion, I think the initial effort to try to make a family makes a difference, the fact that mom or dad stopped wilding around enough to try to do it right makes a difference. Even if it turns out they don’t like each other and the whole thing was a mistake you still have the bones of a family. There is not an insignificant number of kids out there who don’t know who their dad was and have no male influence in their lives. I think the “You’ve come a long way” crowd damages both women and the family unit. Being a single parent is not easy, my wife was on the struggle bus every day with her first two daughters, but the difference in the girls from having a father like figure in their life did a lot to give them stability.
And I think single parenthood is a middle class and up affectation. Raising a family on one crappy income is infinitely harder than raising one on a middle class or upper class income.
I don’t think it’s just two parents that makes the difference. It’s family support in general. If you want to look at studies, children who grow up in extended families do even better than just two parent households. It’s the amount of support they get, not who they get it from, I think. You may have a single parent, but if aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. are around, it matters a lot less.
I grew up in a single parent household without extended family, and I think I turned out okay.
I grew up in a mess of a family, single parent for a while, then step mother from Hades.
But, there was usually at least one income and if anyone was sick there was at least one other person to take care of them most of the time. My kids have my wife and I, and then another generation behind us as well as each other at this point.
We’re straying from the original point with anecdotal evidence and exceptions to the rule. Since married or deeply committed couples tend statistically to be better for children society should encourage at least the effort to raise children together. Instead of encouraging single parents through social queues and government subsidies.
Pork fat isn’t as bad for you as people have been led to believe. Well, ‘studies have shown’. Some studies show one thing, some another.
Lard does what butter does, but is less finicky. It makes a crust nice and flaky, a little bit unctuous, it has a great mouth feel without tasting like fat.
Some people are afraid that it will have a taste. It doesn’t. Some would never use it in a fruit pie, only in a meat pie. We use it for everything. Just use the recipe on the box and you’ll never go back.
Even a mix of 75% lard and 25% butter works well. The butter gives a bit more flavour.
That’s why one of the pastie recipes we tried recently recommended swapping up to half the butter for lard as I remembered. I think it was the very dry one, not the really good one with onion-based gravy.
The first batch nearly beat us due to the dough being too dry to work with , so my wife insisted on trying an alternate recipe the first weekend that went so much better.
I do a shortening and butter recipe that works really well. And I’ve done it with lard, just don’t have that laying around as much usually. Shortening can sit in the freezer until time ends.
Pierce Brosnan was heavily criticized for his singing of “SOS” in the first Mamma Mia! film (“water buffalo”, “braying donkey”, “wounded raccoon”). I’ve watched the movie a few times and I think the critics focused on how he sang it instead of factoring in why his character sang it.
In the movie, the song occurs when Sam and Donna are going over their strained relationship and find out they still have feelings for each other. Brosnan’s strained singing fits that scene better than if it was smoother.
If you saw the second movie, it was addressed when he sings parts of it again as he unpacks the pictures he took of Donna on their boat ride. At that point, she is gone and he is trying to carry on.
In fact, the original ABBA version is pretty upbeat and cheerful, not really fitting the lyrics until it gets to the verse about giving it another chance.
