Were any of our founding fathers men who put their family first?

Question

I mean did Washington, Franklin or someone else actually spend time with their family instead of working constantly to make our country a better place?

Just wondering.

Answer 1

This won't be much of an answer, sorry, more of a speculation on the nature of the question. To answer the question accurately a fair amount of research would have to be done since most easily accessible documents document their public lives which give little indication, only hints, of where they placed their family. But by whose standards are we to determine if they "put their family first?" In contemporary times and by our current standards you can probably argue that many did not. But judging the past too harshly by standards and knowledge they didn't have is unfair. That isn't to say they shouldn't be looked at through that lense as well as a lense contemporary to them, but judging by standards not theirs makes it extremely easy to criticize past historical figures for the parts of their lives that wouldn't hold up to contemporary standards. That is both useless and mostly a self-indulgent intellectual exercise.

Does making personal sacrifice and fighting against what you consider to be an unjust ruler so your children can be free of that ruler constitute putting one's family first? Or do we ignore that because those same people had a concept that was so obviously sexist and racist that we prefer to concentrate on that and use the argument that to only give that freedom to your male children is not putting your family first? For many thinkers of that time it wasn't a conscious separation, so is it each individual that should be critiqued or the procession of civilization from ancient times in the west, with considerable emphasis on religious groups who reenforced these standards, that should be critiqued?

So it all depends how you want to define putting one's family first. If you asked most of them, and even most of their family members, they would probably have answered most emphatically yes, they were doing this primarily for their families. Would we tolerate the same standards today is another question, and we might not be so inclined to give any benefit of the doubt because what passed for fact then about sex/gender, race, marital rights has been exposed as a fair amount of garbage. Just in the last 40 years we have changed our views drastically as a society, so several centuries of knowledge is a lot to hold against someone who didn't have the benefit of that knowledge.

Answer 2

been reading alot about these guys recently,

they where for the most part extremely wealthy slave owners that if they where in love with their wives didn't see it fit to consider them equal in the constitution. G Washington was the richest man in the country. They didn't care about making the country a better place as much as cutting out England so they could make more money. And figuring out how to get the poor whites to fight england instead of revolt the rich colonialists...

I'm not being anti american,,,or anything its just how it was.
It is well known Jefferson cheated on his wife with slaves.

Woman Slaves Indians and non property owning whites where not included in "all men are created equal"

Answer 3

I think it is a tough question. The letters between John and Abigail Adams show much concern for each other and their children, but they endured years of separation. One of Adam's sons became president, another was a sot. Ben Franklin's treatment of his wife was, to me, rather abhorrent. Jefferson is more difficult to figure. He remains "the American Sphinx."