The Federalist
Without institutions to properly instill virtue and shame people, disordered behavior will continue to run rampant.
This past week, a seemingly innocuous TikTok featuring a young woman preparing kielbasa sausage and mac-n-cheese for her family went viral, racking up millions of views across multiple social media platforms.
“Watch out, baby,” the fair-skinned, raven-haired woman warns as her toddler reaches toward the stove in her family’s modest kitchen. “Dinner [in] the trailer park as a 22 year old mom of 4,” the video’s inner caption reads.
On the surface, there is nothing wrong with this; in fact, it appears value-positive. A working-class woman is preparing dinner for her family while her husband is presumably on his way home from work.
However, this appears not to be the case. Yes, the woman’s TikTok page is filled with videos of her celebrating her children and the joys of motherhood — things that ought to be encouraged — but alongside these posts are ones in which she encourages “yeeting that fetus,” proudly acknowledges aborting her fifth child, dismisses drug use while pregnant, admits being a mom by day and “[pornstar] by night,” and promotes her decision to be both a “young mom and a [sex worker].”
To be sure, “Mama c’s” page is filled with videos of her trying to provide for her family. She seems like a caring and loving mother, but by any objective, honest standard, her life and priorities are disordered, and they are increasingly commonplace as the West continues to reinforce perverse cultural and economic incentives that divorce our political economy and materialist pursuits from civic virtue and basic truths about human decency…
