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I have a friend who reads way, way faster than I do. He also has a much larger working vocabulary, and reads through stuff I really don't want to, which I may or may not comprehend as fully - even if I did comprehend it all, it would likely take me so much longer to read, I'd never get through it all anyway. Sometimes I'll accept his sources without reading them myself, because it would be too damn much work to try. Sometimes I read them anyway.
We don't always agree, but sometimes we do.
He claims marriage is on a downward spiral (I'm sure there are lots of statistics to back him up on this one). It is no longer as financially viable of a contract, at least with low income folks, and whether or not one sees value in it, the trends are that fewer people are getting married and if they do it is at later ages.
After posting this (sorry he tends to be long winded), discussion on his comments turned towards creating a viable alternative for raising children up to be healthy adults, since an absence of a reliable male role model adversely affects children. I found the combined pessimism (marriage is dying) and optimism (we can all change human patterns and get men to care more about unrelated children and find a way to get all of us working together for the good of children everywhere - insert Kumbaya song here) to be laughable.
If we can't even get people to make good choices with regards to their children given social pressures to have successful, long term, commited relationships (aka: marriage), how in the hell do we expect to get people to behave well with regards to their kids when freed from those sorts of social constraints.
It is far too easy for a person to get swept up into the heady newness of a relationship. The glowing honeymoon stage (sans the wedding). If we don't have any social rules in place that say, "No, I know she's hot and makes you feel all tingly, but a good person makes this whole marriage thing work", why oh why would anyone think that there would develop more stability for kids. There will be less.
Maybe I'm exhibiting my cultural bias here, but I want my kids to get married someday. I want my grandkids to grow up in a stable home, where the Dad comes home every night, and the parents make financial and life decisions together.
I want my kids to be happy. Not just the this feels good in the moment variety, but the look back with satisfaction on their life choices type of happy. You know, the grown up kind. Something far less likely to happen without taking on the responsibility of caring for other people in ones day to day life - you know, the spouse and kid variety.
We don't always agree, but sometimes we do.
He claims marriage is on a downward spiral (I'm sure there are lots of statistics to back him up on this one). It is no longer as financially viable of a contract, at least with low income folks, and whether or not one sees value in it, the trends are that fewer people are getting married and if they do it is at later ages.
After posting this (sorry he tends to be long winded), discussion on his comments turned towards creating a viable alternative for raising children up to be healthy adults, since an absence of a reliable male role model adversely affects children. I found the combined pessimism (marriage is dying) and optimism (we can all change human patterns and get men to care more about unrelated children and find a way to get all of us working together for the good of children everywhere - insert Kumbaya song here) to be laughable.
If we can't even get people to make good choices with regards to their children given social pressures to have successful, long term, commited relationships (aka: marriage), how in the hell do we expect to get people to behave well with regards to their kids when freed from those sorts of social constraints.
It is far too easy for a person to get swept up into the heady newness of a relationship. The glowing honeymoon stage (sans the wedding). If we don't have any social rules in place that say, "No, I know she's hot and makes you feel all tingly, but a good person makes this whole marriage thing work", why oh why would anyone think that there would develop more stability for kids. There will be less.
Maybe I'm exhibiting my cultural bias here, but I want my kids to get married someday. I want my grandkids to grow up in a stable home, where the Dad comes home every night, and the parents make financial and life decisions together.
I want my kids to be happy. Not just the this feels good in the moment variety, but the look back with satisfaction on their life choices type of happy. You know, the grown up kind. Something far less likely to happen without taking on the responsibility of caring for other people in ones day to day life - you know, the spouse and kid variety.
