Way way OT: Marriage rates in the US
So, I thought I would throw out what I think is an interesting topic that is (hopefully) non-political and can effectively distract us from the COVID madness.
I read an interesting NPR article in my Quora feed basically saying that marriage is at an all time low in the US. As a preface, I'm happily married to a Hispanic immigrant. My reaction to the article was "so be it, if people are not choosing to be married, then that's OK with me, its none of my business". Her reaction was the opposite: "this is so bad for society. If people don't marry, then they don't have someone to live life with and have children"
I chalked it up to cultural differences which is no big deal, but it got us to talking to the question of: "why is it this way?" I certainly have some thoughts on this, but I think because almost all of my close guy friends are married, I don't think of it as an issue. My wife has several/many older (i.e. late 30s) girlfriends who are not married and are not anywhere near being married...and that has caused A LOT of drama.
But I thought I would just throw it out to the board to discuss. Mods delete if its too OT.
So, what say you MgoBoard?
For the two adults, I don't think it matters much.
Where it causes a problem is with kids. When people don't get married, they have less of a reason to stick around and work through their differences. So when they're free to come and go (at least in their minds), I believe that puts kids in a precarious position.
As someone who works with kids on a regular basis (and I know I'm not the only one here, so I'm not special), I see a lot of kids with "daddy" issues or "mommy" issues who deal with depression, anger, etc. because they live in a single-parent household.
Can you be unmarried and have two great parents? Sure. Can you have a great stepdad or stepmom? Sure.
But if your biological dad (or mom) isn't in your life, it almost always seems to cause problems.
I agree, having kids is a bigger deal than being married.
married 20 years and counting- with three kids (hopefully not counting)
on my second dog
Whether it’s recruiting or another topic, I always appreciate and love hearing your perspective Magnus.
Broken homes make broken people, seen it way, way, way too many times. Don't fuck up your kids.
Hi.
Fuck you.
Signed,
Every adopted kid everywhere
Not sure if you're serious...
Well Magnus, were you serious when you typed, "But if your biological dad (or mom) isn't in your life, it almost always seems to cause problems." at the end of your post?
Because that is completely untrue and an absolute insult to millions of adopted people who disprove your bullshit on a daily basis.
So, if you were serious, let me repeat that you can go fuck yourself.
If you weren't serious, you can go fuck yourself.
Chill dude. I think you can understand the context and intent of his post. While I can't speak for Magnus, I think he was referring to the concept of a having a 2-parent home and that not having one parent (whether biological or adopted) in the equation leads to issues. I'm sure he meant no ill-will towards adopted kids. And I'm sure you know that too.
Magnus is able to defend himself. He's a working writer, so one would assume he knows how to use words, and chooses them carefully to make a point.
I spent the majority of my childhood dealing with assholes like him, and even now into my middle age I still hear it from people who think they're funny or that they know best. There is no demonstrable benefit to being raised by biological parents instead of adoptive parents.
Dude, relax. It's pretty clear from Magnus's post that having two parents, the same two since birth, is preferable to one. And his use of biological makes sense in that context. I don't see any evidence that he even considered adopted kids in his post, since they're irrelevant to the discussion. He didn't mean to insult you personally, or adoptees in general.
This is correct. I'm not talking about kids put up for adoption at birth. I'm talking about dad left when you were 2 years old, mom's in prison, mom and dad both remarried, etc.
I dated a girl once who was adopted at birth. She was fantastically well adjusted and had a great family. I'm not talking about that.
As a parent of both an adopted child and a biological child, and whose spouse was adopted, from what I have observed, what you are saying, Magnus, is correct. It is about giving kids a safe, loving and comfortable environment where their needs a met and they can feel the situation tomorrow will be the same as today. It's fear of loss, chaos, and lack of stability that screws people up as much as anything.
Seeing two parents who love them working together to ensure all of this is critical to raising happy, well adjusted kids. When mom or dad leaves, regardless what some wish to believe, the kid doesn't rationalize it logically as being about mom and dad, they see it as being about them, and what the loss does to them.
First of all, I didn't say it has a negative effect on ALL children.
Second, I've seen it with my own eyes. The kids I have the most discipline problems with are children of a single parent or a broken marriage or a missing parent.
Third, here's a quote from a study that was the first Google search hit:
"Those whose parents had divorced were more likely to fail to progress at school. Children who were in what the researchers characterised as a "fragile family", where parents were cohabiting or there was a lone parent, were twice as likely not to graduate from high school. Prof. McLanahan said the data showed that even a child in a stable single-parent household was likely to do worse on some measures than a child of a married couple." (LINK)
Not going to get into a long, heated debate on this. But have at it if you want.
Have a great day!
A better statement would (probably) be to say that having missing/separated parents will often have a negative impact on children's lives (not in all cases, but more often than not). Does this necessitate that the children will have severe problems? Of course not, but the extent of negative effects can be widely varied.
A better statement would have been to not mention a biological relation between parent and child. Because any belief that a biological relationship makes a parent "better" is simply pseudoscience bullshit.
I'm adopted too and took no offense to Magnus' post. He's a regular and great poster here and his own blog is great too. "Biological" didn't even jump out to me after I first read his post. My Dad passed away several years ago but my Mom and Dad were/are my "parents" and they stayed together through thick and thin. That mattered as opposed to anyone's reference to adopted or biological.
You need to take a deep breath and relax. Your irrational anger towards his comment is only serving as supporting evidence for his statement.
As someone who lives in a household with two therapists that help people with severe mental health issues, his comment was mostly fair. I might have phrased it in a different way. Instead of saying “almost all people with parent issues have problems”, I probably would have phrased it as “many people who have mental health issues tend to have parent issues”. Most mental illness is a result of some sort of trauma, and in many instances that trauma is a result of a divided household. Not receiving the love and care to the level they need from both parents is one of the reasons, if not the number one reason, that people form these illnesses.
In the end, I find nothing wrong with the comment that you took offense to. I recommend you not take everything you read on the internet so personally, and understand that he was not attacking adopted people with his comment. Hope you can find some positives on this Sunday to put your energy into and enjoy the day.
Where did anyone stipulate that this applied only to biological parents? The discussion is about the effects of divorce (or other forms of parental discord/separation) on children.
Hey,
Fuck off
Best,
Mantis
I'm adopted. Fuck you.
Fwiw ive seen both sides of this, but I celebrate adoption whenever someone is brave enough to take on that special kind of responsibility.
Well said. It's all about the kids.
Plenty of studies show humans are much, much happier in monogamous relationships, as well. However, the kids are the big thing here.
In my opinion 99% of the world's problems are due to unloved, unwanted kids who get irreparably fucked up.
If my kids don't get married, it's ok by me. There's a lot of divorce in my family, and it's actually somewhat shocking that I'm still married based on what was modeled before me. I think my son will get married because he loves kids, but I don't know about my daughter. She's fiercely independent. I'd like my kids to have kids, but for purely selfish reasons, as I'd love to have grandchildren. As far as society goes, I'm pretty laissez faire about it. Que sera sera.
I think a healthy society is in a large way the result of healthy marriages that produce stable children. It's just on average and statistically proven that this is the best way to sustain good humans. If you were a social human engineering deity this is the ideal you would set.
This doesn't mean that people who don't marry are bad, or that all people born from bad marriages or from single-family homes are all bad. Not at all.
For rational, self aware, emotionally healthy people they can choose to marry or not marry and be perfectly happy in life. And be in non-traditional relationships and have children and be great parents.
For those that are not, I think social institutions like marriage are necessary drivers of structure and purpose in life. Even if it leads to deep unhappiness. In my experience, for these people this structure generally makes them better parents than they otherwise would be.
I'm somewhat thinking out aloud though.
I mean you're entitled to wish we lived in a world that more closely resembled your personal value system. If you choose to act towards making that a reality, then all the more power to you.
I'm married and my wife and I are very co-dependent (this quarantine we're spending 95% of our time together up from 80% pre-quarantine), so needless to say I get a lot out of marriage. But I don't happen to care one bit that my wife and I chose this together and other people are free to lead according to their own path.
I just wish we lived in a world with fewer shitty humans.
I'd like that last line printed on a t-shirt.
The last line, isn't that the truth. Even the shitty humans wish there were less shitty humans.
I simply do not see how I would benefit from marriage. First, divorce laws are very hostile to men. I am 40 now and have a lot of financial assets, so I stand to lose a lot if I get married. All my wife would have to do is say “I’m not happy anymore”, leave, and take my stuff (and 75% of divorces are initiated by women). So why gamble with your future and retirement savings? Second, a lot of married people my age seem miserable, especially when they have kids.
This is just my perspective from where I am now with life. If I got married in my 20s when we both were broke and starting out life and careers it would probably be a little different.
That’s somewhat of the stance I’m taking. Men are seeing it as way too risky of a proposition, but still control the conduit to getting into a relationship and marriage. What I mean is that men still have to take the lead 90% of the time in asking a woman out, and 100% of the time in asking for marriage.
Women are more powerful and independent these days which is a good thing, but have to still have to “wait” for a man to ask her out and court her. It seems that men and women aren’t aligned in this regard. Imagine a world where women start asking men out, and furthermore start proposing to men.
you look at life differently than me....
which is probably why you are rich and why I drive a Subaru with 250,000 miles on it
I think this is underestimated as a reason to not get married once your past, say, your early 30s.
By the time you reach your mid 30s, with any luck you’ve had a decent 10-15 years in a career of some sort and have some retirement savings, not to mention the likelihood of home ownership and other assets, whatever they are. If you’re good in your career and have advanced in any way, hopefully you’ve been able double your salary or even better since you started out. It’s a risk if you’re not certain
By the time you reach your mid 30s, with any luck you’ve had a decent 10-15 years in a career of some sort and have some retirement savings, not to mention the likelihood of home ownership and other assets, whatever they are. If you’re good in your career and have advanced in any way, hopefully you’ve been able double your salary or even better since you started out.
I think the scenario you're playing out is not that common any more. There are a few of my friends that did that, but a good chunk that did not. Those that did were fortunate. I went back to school for a career change at 28, didn't start working in my field until 34, and am just now engaged at 41 and don't own a home yet.
Studies have shown that men are happier in marriage than women are, and are unhappier when the marriage ends than women are. This doesn't correlate with your argument about money, but that can go both ways, too. What if the wife earns more than the husband? I think if you're a person of means and your spouse isn't, you have to weigh the benefits of getting married. If I was older than 35 and didn't want kids, I wouldn't get married for reasons above. Men like being taken care of (you guys know you do!) and I don't think I'd be into that after being single for so long. I also wouldn't want to co-mingle my money. If you want kids, totally different story.
A small funny aside that your post reminds me of.
I got married for the first (and hopefully only) time in my very late 30s. By then, I had accumulated some wealth and had been pretty good about taking care of myself.
My wife, who is a Hispanic immigrant as mentioned, loved to “take care of me” which includes doing a lot of traditional things like cooking and cleaning. She loves doing these things. Sounds good, right? Well, I kinda like to cook and I kinda miss doing my own laundry. I’ve even snuck in a doing my own load of laundry from time to time (I mean, she doesn’t know how to wash my underwear!) and I feel like I’m cheating on her when I do so.
I don't do my husband's laundry but he would not complain one bit if I did it.
Doing laundry isn't the same thing as cheating. Cheating is when you bang someone else.
Semi-seriously, may I suggest finding a financial peer? Or, at least someone who is some degree of independently wealthy?
Yes, that has unfortunately been a bit of a challenge because they women in my area of the country who fit that description tend to be overly focused on their careers and in some cases workaholics. The other challenge has been to find someone with the same financial principles as me. I tend to be a saver and very good with money, but a lot of my peers seems to want to spend, spend, spend. Another challenge is to find women who are not divorced with children.
This reminds me of something my 20 year old son told me the other day. He's a pitcher. He said to me, "I'm going to have to marry a rotational athlete if I want to have an elite rotational athlete child who gets drafted in the first round."
Dude. At 40, almost unavoidable at that age. But I understand your position. Lots of baggage. You’ll need to look a lot younger.
One of wife’s close friend back home is drop dead gorgeous (like Telemundo telenovela hot). And she’s a great woman. Problem is, she’s a widow with a young daughter. All she wants to do is find a man to share a life with and show her and her daughter love...and damn she’ll no doubt reciprocate. I have some single guys friends not in my immediate circle who won’t go near her.
A lot of guys don’t want anything to do with a woman with kids even if the kids are their own.
Am I understanding you right, bluewings, that there are men who don't want anything to do with a woman with kids even if he fathered those kids?
I’m not completely closed off to the idea. Depends on the circumstances. Had a messy divorce and have two or three young kids? Pass. Have a kid and widowed? Open to it. Divorced and have a kid who is older (high school/college age). Open to it.
I dated a girl with two kids for a few months. Had never met the kids. She was done having kids and wanted marriage and a life like she had before. A stay at home mom. Soooooo....I’m supposed to provide for the 3 of you while you stay home all day. No thanks.
I simply do not see how I would benefit from marriage.
Not dying alone. Seriously...I'd be curious if you feel the same way when you're towards the end of your career.
That’s what family (siblings) and friends are for.
That’s what family (siblings) and friends are for.
They'll have their own families. When it comes to the end of your life and your health is beginning to go down, the only people that will be there for you is likely your spouse and your kids.
The counter to that is that once you're dead you won't care.
Decades of happy singledom (at least for the poster who mentions they prefer that) and potentially a few months of dying alone at the end of life vs. decades of being not as happy and having someone you know there to change your diaper in those last few months?
If I'm a person who prefers singledom I'll take the decades in my favor every single time.