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We’ve got the power?

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BIRT “the behavior of men is simply a response to the changing behavior of women.” Kay Hymowitz in the New York Post, here.

What I relate to most in the article is the lack of dating norms. If first date activities range between sex and supper, there’s an immediate disconnect while each party figures out where the other stands. (Certainly, in moments, it’s easy enough. Like the time the fellow just up and asked–now how do I feel about one night stands? Hmmmm. Was that a practical or a theoretical question? …Cheque, please…)

Economics and dating

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It was the words “eligible bachelor” that caught my eye. But I love it when economic theories are applied to relationships: 

Where have all the most appealing men gone? Married young, most of them—and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness.

But in this case, the discussion of choice is most interesting: The fact that men are not dragged kicking and screaming into marriage, but rather that they choose to ask, also that women, according to this piece, initiate the asking, and then can choose to say yes or no. Both men and women have a whole lot of autonomy in entering into this thing called marriage. Alas, it eradicates the long suffering looks for being forced into the institution.

Kids these days

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My children Liesl and Kurt are in the same split 5/6 class in school. Liesl and Kurt are pseudonyms: since they sing a mean Sound of Music, I decided to dub my children with their singing part which is more or less age-appropriate and also reflects their birth order and personalities. Because they are my oldest children, Liesl and Kurt are the family’s guinea pigs. Age-appropriate parenting is not the only thing my husband and I experiment on Liesl and Kurt, we also discover new realms of peer interactions at every turn. Enter dating, crushes, flirtation and match-making… Did I mention this was a grade 5/6 class?

Since we shamelessly monitor our family email account, we already had an inkling of the underage equivalent of “Merlot and email don’t mix.” But I have to ask you what I asked Kurt and Liesl – who, I should mention, don’t have mates but associate with people who do – “What on earth are grade 5 kids doing with a boyfriend/girlfriend?” And this I mean both conceptually and practically.

What troubles me, above and beyond wondering how kids get such ideas, is the effect of these pint-sized soap operas on class dynamic. Liesl was up late yesterday evening worrying about recess. She told me: “Nobody plays anymore. Instead, they huddle in their little corners commiserating about their broken hearts and bad-mouthing whoever dumped them.” She concluded: “Playing tag is no fun with 2 players.” So there you have it: little cliques of broken-hearted 10-year-olds who can’t play tag if that other clique is also playing ‘cuz that would be disloyal. The drama has somehow percolated to the younger grades, meaning that Martha and Brigetta are also acquainted with such delicious morsels as whether or not Nick kissed Jen on the bus ride back from ski club. Supper time conversations at my place sound increasingly like a clip from Entertainment Tonight and I don’t mean this as a compliment.

With apologies to Brigitte for yanking the Crusty-Ol’Goat crown so abruptly, I am wondering if I am the only one who sees a problem? Let me be quite blunt here: physical and emotional attraction between these kids is not likely to decrease as they reach adolescence. And by adolescence, I mean the real, medical, adolescence, not the silly state of mind these kids think themselves in. When you start dating and hugging at 10, what do you do at 12 when you meet that “really-really-nice-guy-you-totally-crush-on”? And when you start kissing and fondling at 12, what do you do at 14 when you meet “the-real-love-of-your-life”? And when you start kissing and fondling at 14, what do you do at 16 when your hormones are raging for real and “the-most-adorable-guy” asks you on a date? You become a statistic. A teen sex, teen pregnancy, teen STD, teen abortion statistic. Parents, wake-up! This is not cute!

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Brigitte is: Quite horrified by these stories and does not mind sharing the goat crown.

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Rebecca goes off to reread Wendy Shalit, but first adds: I’m going to enter the bidding for the Crusty Old Goat crown this week, too! Seriously, I’ve seen all too many examples of this, and it makes me contemplate homeschooling and/or single sex schools.

But really, what do we expect when we wallow in today’s popular culture? When 5-year-olds watch prime time television (which they don’t in my house) and see the sexual behaviour that is now considered unworthy of comment, it’s so common, why is it surprising that they think that normal behaviour includes sexual innuendo, kissing, hand holding, and, especially for little girls, the kind of hip-wiggling walk and coquettish behaviour that was in the 19th century literally the province of prostitutes?

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Tanya wonders: Can I send my daughter to school in the 19th century? Do they do that?

Facilitating immaturity

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Great article in today’s Globe by Margaret Wente, discussing the hows and whys of beautiful single women who would like to get married but can’t find a man. She cites Kay Hymowitz, author of Marriage and Caste in America, a smart book, which identifies how marriage is a great protector against poverty (to do the book no justice at all in one sentence). Says Hymowitz:

It is marriage and children that turn boys into men… Now that the single young man can put off family into the hazily distant future, he can – and will – try to stay a child-man…

Adds Wente:

In other words, why grow up, when you can get sex whenever you want and spend 25 hours a week playing with your Xbox 360?

Indeed.  When sex has no ramifications at all and is a separate game entirely from pregnancy and children… Why grow up? It’s just one more reason why the friendly feministas who love abortion are, in a sense, preventing women from reaching their goals and facilitating more Xbox time for aging male adolescents. It’s not very pro-woman in my mind.

Some women don’t want to wed, and sleeping around may suit them fine. But those who do ought to know that sex without consequences is a poor way to get there.

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Véronique adds: Reminds me of a conversation I had with a young man about 12 years ago. I was 22, in my second year of law school and expecting my second child. He was asking me so many questions about the reasons why I “kept” my babies. I felt like an exhibit at the anthropology museum.

At some point, I asked: “You have sex with your girlfriend, don’t you?” He answered: “Yes, of course.” I asked again: “Haven’t you thought about these things?” “About what things?” “Well, what will you do if she gets pregnant?” “Well, I’m too young to be a father!” I replied, “Well, I’m too young to be a mother, but here I am. You didn’t answer my question: What will you do if your girlfriend gets pregnant?” “Well, she would get an abortion.” I asked: “What if she couldn’t? I always thought abortion would be an option until I got pregnant. I knew immediately that I would never be able to go through with it. I think that some women are unable to even contemplate getting abortions. What will you do if your girlfriend is one of them?” “Then it would be her choice. If I choose not to be a father and offer to pay for the abortion, she’s responsible for her choice if she doesn’t want to go through with it.”

Today’s knight in shining armor offers to pay for the abortion. How did our expectations get so low?

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Rebecca adds: I agree with both of you, but would add that it’s marriage and family that makes kids of any age into adults. (Well, ideally. We all know people who manage to be astonishingly adolescent despite spouses and children.) The perpetual adolescents of Friends, Sex and the City etc., generally concerned themselves with the anxieties an earlier generation consigned to high school years: Does he like me? What should I wear? Will he dump me? Should I ask him out? And so on, despite steaming merrily into their 30s and 40s.

Growing up is hard. Marriage and parenthood are hard. (For that matter, running a marathon or finishing a degree are hard. Not many major accomplishments are easy.) In a culture that values immediate gratification, and defines happiness as pleasure, rather than anything more substantial, we have essentially stopped asking people to live adult lives, which often requires foregoing transient pleasure in the short term (uncommitted sex, 40 hours a week of Xbox) for the sake of longer term happiness (building a solid family, being able to support that family.)

Hymowitz is always worth reading. Another author on the same topic is David Blankenhorn, who pointed out that if in the 1990s, fatherlessness led to a “feminization of poverty,” this only came about because of a corresponding masculinization of irresponsibility.

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Andrea adds again: What a fine Valentine’s Day discussion this is: The “feminization of poverty” versus the “masculinization of irresponsibility.” Love it. But perhaps not first date material for the unsuspecting male. (Wait until the second.)

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