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ymeskhout  2yr ago (text post)   5462 thread views

What is your favorite Motte post ever?

I'm curious about not just what your favorite post is, but also what you think is the GOAT, or perhaps what you think is most illustrative and representative of this space (e.g. what would you show someone to get them intrigued). Please limit your post to only ONE pick and briefly explain why you chose it. This can be from anywhere within the Motte's history thus far, and r/TheThread is a good place to check in case you're having trouble finding something. Asking for a friend.

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The one about step parents being 40 times more likely to abuse kids than biological parents.

That just feels intuitively off to me. I'd want to check if it's adjusted for "step parents are scrutinized more closely so more abuse is documented".

I don't think it's healthy to have the family structure found in the west, period.

Marriage is a sacred bond.

Why is it intuitively off to you? It's the opposite for me -- we see numerous cases in nature of males killing off a rival male's offspring to secure their own genetic legacy, and I would expect people to innately have a much higher level of sympathy for their blood. Of course step parents are significantly more likely to abuse kids -- they're not their kids.

Hm. Might be better to split this into two categories - "step parents" and "adoptive parents". When I think of a step parent in the singular - some new partner of the biological parent who didn't specifically want to adopt a kid - I find it more plausible. "Evil stepmother" and "abusive stepfather" are popular tropes.

I heard recently (I forget from where) that the Wicked Stepmother trope was invented well after the fairytales we associate it with became popular, and the original versions had the bio mothers being villainous. IIRC, it had to do with the change in inheritance traditions from Medieval Europe to Renaissance/early modern dramatically altering the incentives.

Yeah, I'm talking about new partners of biological parents. I don't know how adopted parents are. I would suspect less likely to abuse due to selection effects, but I don't actually know how (dys)functional the American adoption system is.

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