Inspirational Quotes by Midge Decter (American Journalist)

Midge Decter (1927–2022,) née Rosenthal, was an American journalist, author, and editor. Originally a liberal, she was one of the pioneers of the neoconservative movement in the 1970s and 1980s. A staunch critic of the women’s movement, she asserted that modern birth control, not the movement itself, was responsible for advances by women in society.

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Decter graduated from the University of Minnesota (1948) and moved to New York City to pursue a career in journalism. Decter began working as an editor at Commentary magazine, a publication known for its conservative and Jewish perspectives. She eventually became the magazine’s executive editor, a position she held until 1990. During her tenure, she was known for her sharp and incisive writing on topics ranging from feminism to foreign policy.

Decter was also a prolific author, with several books to her credit. Liberal Parents, Radical Children (1975) analyzed the counterculture of the 1960s and blamed the radicalism of that era on a failure of liberal parenting. The New Chastity and Other Arguments (1980) was a polemic against the feminist movement and argued that it was harmful to women.

Throughout her career, Decter was a prominent voice in conservative circles and was involved in many organizations, including the Committee on the Present Danger, a group dedicated to promoting a strong U.S. defense policy. She was also a vocal critic of the Soviet Union and supported the policies of President Ronald Reagan during the Cold War.

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It might sound a paradoxical thing to say—for surely never has a generation of children occupied more sheer hours of parental time—but the truth is that we neglected you. We allowed you a charade of trivial freedoms in order to avoid making those impositions on you that are in the end both the training ground and proving ground for true independence. We pronounced you strong when you were still weak in order to avoid the struggles with you that would have fed your true strength. We proclaimed you sound when you were foolish in order to avoid taking part in the long, slow, slogging effort that is the only route to genuine maturity of mind and feeling. Thus, it was no small anomaly of your growing up that while you were the most indulged generation, you were also in many ways the most abandoned to your own meager devices by those into whose safe-keeping you had been given.
—Midge Decter
Topics: Children

The hatred of the youth culture for adult society is not a disinterested judgment but a terror-ridden refusal to be hooked into the, if you will, ecological chain of breathing, growing, and dying. It is the demand, in other words, to remain children.
—Midge Decter
Topics: Youth

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Inspirational Quotes by Midge Decter (American Journalist)

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