One other thing: after 12 years of study kid got a doctorate, and a new job. Right afterward, came home to visit family and friends. First question everywhere: “So is there anyone special in your life?”
Clearly many people prioritize marriage or at least having a partner.
Remember the 1978 movie “An Unmarried Woman”? The message seemed to be that women need to stand on their own before getting into a long term relationship, or maybe instead of. The ending wasn’t clear. But Jill Clayburgh turned down a post-divorce relationship with Alan Bates in favor of independence! Our values are reflected in movies of the times, and the 1970’s were very different from now. (And of course they were upper class white folks and she could afford to be alone.)
Here’s a different NYTimes opinion piece on marriage from Charles Blow (gift article):
Note this:
Paul Dolan, a behavioral scientist at the London School of Economics, says that while men, in the aggregate, could benefit from marriage because it calms them down and makes them take fewer risks, women, again in the aggregate, don’t receive the same benefits. On the contrary, according to Dolan, the happiest subgroup is women who never marry or have children.
That is a shame and I can honestly say that does not happen in my extended family or among our friends. I can’t remember anyone ever asking my kids if they had “anyone special” in their lives. Now, my D22 will happily tell you she has a girlfriend now and she really does seem thrilled with the relationship, but my older kid is not dating anyone, but will talk your ear off about vet medicine.
@Sweetgum - totally agree and I have been married for almost 43 years. I do think it’s important to have people close in your life, but that can be someone other than a spouse.
I think this is a conservative white male who longs for the “good old days”. I read the comments in NYT online and several people pointed out that married men are happier than married women. Interestingly the author himself divorced his first wife and married a woman several years younger.
One thing I learned in a class in college (late 1970’s) was that for every 7 women who married in her early 20’s (common then) by 20 years later 3 of the 7 will be divorced and 1 will be widowed. This stuck with me. I have advised my own D (happily married) to not give up her career.
So you don’t think there’s anything qualitatively different (better) over the course of multiple decades about living in the first of these situations (with a piece of paper or not) compared to the other four?
If a relationship doesn’t work out, then maybe you end up in one of those other situations, but you don’t start one with the expectation of being widowed or divorced or living alone/with dogs.
I don’t think it’s paternalistic to hope that your kids (of both genders) gain some experience with intimate relationships, and don’t ignore/reject that possibility completely.
Definitely no I do not. Absolutely not. I could not more emphatically.
I mean my friend who was widowed young went through a really rough time, but she has emerged on the other side now and has a great group of friends and family (kids, siblings, parents). Would she be happier if her husband was still alive? Probably so because he was a great guy. But is she happier now than most people are? Including many married people? Probably so.
My friends who are divorced are very very happily divorced and would probably be miserable to still be in their marriages.
My friends who are single by choice seem very content to make their own way in life and do a lot of traveling, some solo, some with friends. I’m jealous of all they get to do. Two of them are getting together this weekend in Portland where one lives. They are both divorced. One has been single for about 30 years (since I first knew her) and one has been single about 15 years and seems much happier for it.
I know folks who have never married (I know many of them) and they do not seem sad and lonely. They seem happy and are able to direct their lives as they see fit and not have to coordinate finances or make sure their partner is okay with their decisions. They get to do what fulfills them w/o having to answer to anyone else.
I do not think they would be happier in a romantic relationship whether married or unmarried. Not everyone is and I thought that opinion piece was super gross and white man paternalistic.
I agree with you. I would prefer that my children marry if they are able to do so. I hope they are able to find partners ready for a long-term legal commitment. It takes a lot of effort by both partners to make it work but the institution is widely accepted world wide for a reason.
My SisIL was single all her life. She seemed pretty happy with her career (dentist), hiking, travel, dog, and attending lots of premier movies. My brother seems a bit lonely at times. He’s been a bachelor all his life but has long term friendships with several women.
My D has never had any romantic nor intimate relationship that we are aware of but many good male and female friends abd a very close friend group. S is happy with his fiancée and they will have been together about 7 years by the time they’re married. They will likely have one or children, i suspect, as does my niece who has a baby and chatted with them about it.
Actually I want to say I think that prioritizing marriage over everything else is an offensive notion and a dangerous one.
It’s offensive when people look down on unmarried folks like they are lesser than married folks. I just can’t imagine how anyone thinks this is okay.
It’s dangerous because this is the attitude that keeps many people (women and others) in situations of domestic abuse (physical and emotional/mental).
So no, I do not think married people are happier or “qualitatively different (better)” than unmarried folks.
I do not care one iota if my kids get married. I do care that they are happy and have people around them who love them and get them, but I don’t care if that is a romantic partner or good friends or their sibling.
I also do not care if my kids have kids. In many ways I think it would be a lot easier for them if they didn’t. Kids cost a lot and my kids aren’t going into high money making careers right now. Plus the world is going to hell in a hand basket and there are too many people in this world anyway.
Would I welcome a grandkid? Absolutely and I would love them with all my heart. Would I be happy if my kids got married? I would if their partner was a good person who treated them well and they loved each other and wanted to be married. Would I be sad if my kids to decide to forgo marriage or parenthood? Absolutely not. It’s their lives. They don’t owe me grandkids or a big wedding.
(BTW, I would absolutely prefer that if my kids do get married they don’t have a big wedding because I do not like big weddings (to attend or to have for myself), but I’d do it if they wanted.)
D20 is seriously considering spending the next several years abroad. Neither marriage nor children is on her radar at this point, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. As @Sweetgum says, it’s her life.
It doesn’t make me sad at all - right now I can only see one of my children ever being interested in having children, maybe the only one also interested in traditional marriage as of now. Could they change their mind, or their siblings change theirs? Sure, and I will be fine either way.
I think I could have written your post word for word, including hoping my kids don’t have a big wedding. One will likely get engaged next year and I can see them having a decent sized wedding. Ditto for the other if they go that route. But as MOG at least I don’t have to pay for it! I can grit my teeth for my kids for sure.
In both cases I can see the MOB getting very excited and into the planning of the events. If it were up to me, I’d be pushing for them to elope!! There are a million things I’d rather spend $$$ on
Perfectly understandable! Our kids wanted a bare minimum thing they could plan and finance… then it dawned on me that’s probably the biggest party we can help throwing in our lives… as someone else will be planning our wake/funeral/you name it.
Me too. Lots of things I would want to spend money on , but as MOG last year, we still gave them a few thousand, so did the bride’s family. But, they paid for most of it themselves. They definitely wanted a more expensive wedding than I would have chosen, but it wasn’t my wedding! I feel glad that we could at least help some. It was beautiful and glad they didn’t elope! They had a very small Covid ceremony in 2000, which family only saw via Zoom. I was just grateful to be there in person the second time around!
I hope that my DD partner’s family recognize that this days they can’t expect bride’s family to pay for a wedding alone even if we can afford it. It will be an even split or kids will need to figure out themselves. They are getting highly educated, high earner who also happens to be beautiful and is a whole package. For reference, my son paid for the wedding because his wife and her family couldn’t contribute anything.
That’s the thing - I hate parties, all parties, and parties where I would have an important role and not be able to slink away are even worse, but I’d do it for my kids.
