Most American families in which a single man fathers seven kids by four mothers don't produce engineers, Pixar programmers, and writers for the Atlantic. And that's why norms matter, why institutions matter - and sometimes why stigmas matter as well. Not for the sake of Ta-Nehisi's partner and child - I think things are going to turn out pretty well for the family Coates no matter what - but for the sake of all those people who won't be as lucky in their mate and in their parents.Dreher:
...there's no way that a family like Ta-Nehisi's ("My Dad has seven kids by four women...") can or should be held up as normative, no matter how well the kids turned out. If they turned out fine -- as they seem to have done -- then they beat the odds. Most kids emerging from that kind of broken family system will not be so lucky.I appreciate Ross's compliment. But what your seeing here is a slick, if unconscious, changing of the subject. I don't think you'll find me arguing, in any post, that seven kids by four women should be held up as the norm, or as any sort of model. That's the key difference between Ross, other social conservatives and me. I don't believe that my family structure is a solution. Ross Does. I can tell you why I am what I am, to the best of my abilities. But for the actual work of a long-term relationship, for those deep truths that are exchanged between you and yours in the dead of night, I offer no answers. How could I possibly know?
Which isn't to say that I reject norms and standards--it's just that I'm not particularly interested in Ross and Rod's norms and standards. We've all seen the data on marriage, and outcomes. We all know that in the aggregate marriage comes out on top. But this really doesn't help us in this debate, because we don't why. Do married people have better outcomes because of the marriage itself? Or is it that people who are more likely to marry, produce better outcomes? Put differently, I need to see evidence that marriage causes people to raise better kids, as opposed to people who are likely to raise better kids tending to get married. What if we found that atheist, in the aggregate, earned more money, were less likely to commit crimes and more likely to send their kids to college. Should we then stigmatize all believers?
Social conservatives are interested in encouraging one model, and stigmatizing all others. I'm interested in encouraging practices and stigmatizing others. I'm interested in encouraging active involvement in your child's school, and stigmatizing ignoring the teacher's phone calls. I'm interested in encouraging fathers to put in as much manpower as they can summon, and stigmatizing those who walk out.
My point wasn't that my family structure, then or now, should be held up as model. But that in families which social conservatives dismiss on paper, you can find the same values and behaviors that you'd hope to find in a nuclear/traditional family. Ross is effectively arguing that these families should be dismissed anyway--regardless of whether they hold the same practical values that social conservatives hold. Social conservatives are arguing for a world where people are stigmatized for being unmarried. I'm arguing for a world--and have argued for a world--where people are stigmatized for not performing the most elemental of duties.
Which brings me back to Rod's point that I come from a "broken family system" that "beat the odds." I find that so interesting, mostly because I suspect that if you examined the practices and norms taught in my house, in any detail, you'd never say such a thing. Put differently, I never felt the odds were against me. I felt the odds were against all of my friends whose fathers were out.The kids in my family had the exact thing that social conservatives claim will save us--two loving, and involved parents. We were not beating the odds in any real way that the odds mattered. And we certainly never saw ourselves as "broken." We were trying to do, what right people try to do.
Also an addendum: My brother Malik doesn't work at Pixar. He works at Dreamworks. I saw his/my grandmother the other night before a reading, and she kindly corrected me.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Regarding you and Kenyatta not being married, you might want to look at New York's laws on Common Law Marriage. Because you just might be married. Sure sounds as if you two are married for all practical purposes.
"Social conservatives are interested in encouraging one model, and stigmatizing all others."
I think that quote hits the nail on the head for me. It's the commitment of parents with their children that matter not what type of social contract the parents are engaged in, not the number of marriages (or no marriages) the parents may have had, not the gender of the parents.
Does the two parent, different gender model work because it is superior or is our society created around that model giving it an inherent advantage? That's the thing both Ross and Rod are ignoring (or don't want which is, i guess, more their point) in my opinion. The lessening of societal stigmas on non-traditional families has led to more support structures for their children: expanded day care, flex time, etc. More support can help to create more success.
Social conservatives are arguing for a world where people are stigmatized for being unmarried. I'm arguing for a world--and have argued for a world--where people are stigmatized for not performing the most elemental of duties.
What is it about conservatives that they want some outward sign - literally, some shibboleth - by which they can identify friend from foe? Maybe it's because they regard the 'culture war' as the moral equivalent of war, while the rest of us just want to get on with living our lives. If you feel like you're in a war, you want simple tests to define who's on your side and who isn't.
So they stigmatize people who aren't in traditional marriages, rather than looking at the underlying reality, in this case the underlying reality of whether a parent is "performing the most elemental of duties."
You'd think a bunch of people who identify themselves as followers of an unseen God would be fundamentally interested in underlying realities, but that's not the way it shakes out.
I never felt the odds were against me. I felt the odds were against all of my friends who's fathers were out.
Exactly. Despite the unconventional nature of your family, your father was there for you (and his entire extended brood) the whole time you were growing up, so it shouldn't be surprising or seen as 'beating the odds' that all of you grew up to be responsible, productive adults.
I can understand some situations where people want to look at a stand-in for the thing that matters, rather than the thing itself. If you're doing statistical studies of a population, it may be a lot easier to identify children raised in two-parent households than to identify children raised by two parents who both took their responsibilities seriously.
But stigmatizing on the basis of the stand-in, instead of the thing itself, is just plain wrong.
And lazy too, I might add. I used to teach math, and kids would always ask me for quick ways of getting to the answer. I can understand why they wanted to go for the shortcut rather than for deeper understanding, because they weren't all called to be math geeks like me.
But the social conservatives feel they are called to tell right from wrong with respect to what families do, and yet they go for the shortcut anyway.
I can have no respect for people like that.
Having been through two of them--each for 6 years, so that gives me 12 years to validate my claims upon--I believe there exists a whole host of mitigating factors substantiating success within this realm.
Foremost, the stability factor. You are in one place with one person so you are not wandering in the desert for 40 days and nights in search of truth, etc. There is a support system when life
hands one rough edges. Finally people treat married people as less of a threat--especially women--and more of a trusted confidant.
Unfortunately or this Ross character, a valid certificate doesn't create this. I know many folks I think of as married who in actuality are not, legally. So is it the piece of paper or the relationship and its perception?
Children of myriad, different parentage is no instant pudding recipe for disaster, either. There
may be better cooperation between those parents than just two who would destroy each other to have control over their children. Maybe one mom is strong enough to raise children alone and give them excellent values and tools for success, despite their fathering variety.
Conservatives by definition--as Lincoln reminded us--are stuck in old ways, thus rendering them obsolte from the outset.
Beautifully made point, but I don't think Rod and Ross will get it. You see, they'll just say that the practices are produced by the institution, and that your family's practices were "lucky" etc. Nonetheless, you have them pinned on the pragmatic question: if the test of social values is "what works," then what if Christian beliefs don't "work"? How about believing in a patriarchal God, or believing Paul about the need for women to stay in the background? Are those principles negotiable for Dreher based on what the social science tells us? On what terms would that be judged?
Folks like Ross and Rod seem so comic when you put their arguments in historical context. Would they have argued in the early 60's for women not entering the work force? All the same "norm" arguments applied then (sure, women sometimes succeeded, but in the aggregate they should be making cookies). Uncular's right-- responsible social commentators would be asking what policies would encourage family-friendly practices, not just clucking at families that don't look like they can uphold such practices.
Exactly. Despite the unconventional nature of your family, your father was there for you (and his entire extended brood) the whole time you were growing up, so it shouldn't be surprising or seen as 'beating the odds' that all of you grew up to be responsible, productive adults.
And it drives me crazy that the social conservatives who would otherwise-- have otherwise been-- pounding home the Importance of Fatherhood just ignore the presence of a father here, because it would detract from their point...somehow.
For the record, I think it's important whenever possible to have two committed, engaged parents and both male and female role models. I don't really give a shit how you work it out. I couldn't tell you if half of my daughter's classmates' parents are legally married or not. But I can sure tell you whose parents are part of the picture, and whose are deadbeats. And you probably could too, just by studying their behavior.
And I hate to keep pointing this out but their 'normative' is bullshit. Go read The Good Earth, or a biography of Constantine, or the story of King David and come back to me with 'normative.' The two-parent nuclear family living in its own home without the support of grandparents was an invention of the 20th century, and we all know it. The more you ignore that reality, the more you're telling me not to take you seriously.
And I want to point out that I agree with low-tech cyclist too. Nicely put.
Put differently, I never felt the odds were against me. I felt the odds were against all of my friends who's fathers were out.The kids in my family had the exact thing that social conservatives claim will save us--two loving, and involved parents. We were not beating the odds in any real way that the odds mattered.
But isn't your book supposed to be about how you beat the the nearly insurmountable odds to make it out of the ghetto? You mean the odds weren't against you? Then what was the point of the book anyway?
Uh...just teasing, TNC!
What matters is that 2 parents are there for their children, not whether there is a piece of paper binding them together. I know too many children who live with single parent relationships... and more than a few have parents who are married and living together
I find Ross' point (at least the graf presented here) a little specious. Most American families in which a married man and woman parent three children don't produce engineers, Dreamworks programmers, and writers for the [i]Atlantic[/i].
I think love, sacrifice and trust are what make any relationship or family a success. Being a traditional 2 parent nuclear family doesn't guarantee those virtues to a child, nor does not being in one necessarily deprive a child of them.
Thanks for the reminder.
I'm interested in encouraging practices and stigmatizing others.
And this is exactly how it should be approached. However, the response you would (or will) receive from such insight is that the institution of marriage and a "traditional, nuclear family" is what creates such action. A two-parent upbringing results in the practices you encourage...at least from the perspective of the conservative, which is why there is no argument against the traditional family being anything other than ideal and why the single-mother parentage is not ideal.
The fact of the matter is today, a large percentage of the population is not being raised in the "ideal traditional family". And yet the apocolypse hasn't occurred. The improtance lies with HOW a child is raised, not with WHO raises the child. Don't expect this ever to sink in. It will always be acknowledged by conservative and always folled by a "but". - "Well of course how the child is raised is improtant, but isn't a positive upbringing with two parents, mother and father, simply better?"
TNC,
I think that you and your siblings (and many people I know personally) are proof that, while "traditional family structure" is valuable, the true predictor of kids' success is involved parenting. And by "parenting," I mean birth parents (married, "together" or even divorced), adoptive parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, whatever.
The example I always use to illustrate this is a friend of mine whose parents divorced before I ever knew him (we met when we were both 12). He lived with his mom, but his dad was always nearby and made sure he had a relationship with his kids, if not with their mom.
TNC, it was clear from your memoir that your dad was a decent guy, and was concerned with imparting knowledge and wisdom to his kids.
I was born in Baltimore, but raised in the lily white suburb of Towson. My parents never split up. Both had/have Master's degrees.
However, my dad was 62 years older than me, had developed dementia by the time I was 12, and died of cancer when I was 21. I never truly got to know him, through no fault of his or mine.
Do I wish I had your dad, TNC? You bet.
It's about mentoring, not traditional family structure.
I've been struggling to understand for the past half hour how the heck Dreher thinks its a compliment and not a slap in the face to refer to someone else's family structure as "broken." The inherent sense of entitlement required to make such a statement with a straight face astounds.
Do married people have better outcomes because of the marriage itself? Or is it that people who are more likely to marry, produce better outcomes?
Never thought about that question, and I can see that both could be a factor in some arrangements. It reminds me of the Mozart theory of making babies smarter. Does playing a Mozart cd make your baby get good grades later in life, or are the types of people who have Mozart cd's the kind that more often than not provide a positive environment for a child to thrive?
I know anecdotes aren't data, but I will through out my gut feeling. Raising kids is a pain in the ass that, if done properly, takes a hell of a lot of effort. The huge advantage of the two parent system is that there is more parenting and more supervision. When I was a busboy, the owner of the restaurant was away one night. The waiters broke out the reefer and shit just didn't get done correctly. Same thing with kids.
It also allows one parent time to decompress. A single parent is bound to be more stressed because there is no other parent to watch the kids when you really need some time to yourself. I suppose in a society were there are so many one parent households, arguing over whether two parents, who are living together and are raising their children right, are married or not seems to be the least of our problems.
I have seen situations where the piece of paper kept a marriage going that otherwise probably would have failed. Depending on the situation, this is a blessing or a curse. If a guy turns 40 and starts freaking out but will get over, then the fact that a marriage is hard to dissolve is a good thing. If the relationship is toxic and the parties string it out because lawyers are expensive or any other reason, then marriage can cause kids to live in an unideal atmosphere.
As a white, Jewish guy with an incredibly stable nuclear family, I just want to say this was truly a fantastic post. It made me rethink the way I will argue this issue. I'm about the polar opposite of a social conservative, but this post really hit home in explaining *why* I'm not a social conservative in the political sense.
Thanks for writing this up.
Nailed it.
I've been having some interesting and pleasant exchanges with Alan Johnson, both privately and on TheAmericanScene.com, and have offered that underneath the particulars, a lot of his posts seem to ask the same question:
“Am I getting where I want when I want? If I’m not, what might I do differently? A different mode of travel? A different destination?”
Go to the Newark train station at rush hour. No doubt most of those men are doing their level best to be good providers -- as far as they are able to understand what that means. But how many of them are giving their children what they need to have the kind of success that Clan Coates has had?
Yes, Clan Coates is an outlier. But so is Ross's family. Which family's example of what is good for the children can more easily be followed by a simple act of will, and which family's example is simply an accident of birth?
I like your focus on practices and not necessarily organization. Two parents four kids, nuclear family or not don't matter if the parents don't pay attention to their children. The nuclear family doesn't matter if the kids are not encouraged to have focus or have no reason to respect their parents. The conservative inability to understand that other models can be effective and have been effective in the past, is a tempting reason to avoid debating with them.
"Social conservatives are interested in encouraging one model, and stigmatizing all others. I'm interested in encouraging practices and stigmatizing others."
While I agree that what's ultimately more important is how we behave rather then the circumstances we find ourselves in I don't think we should trivialize the importance of models. Social models aren't simply means for stigmatizing and sorting people into groups, part of living is coming up with models for who we want to be and where we want to end up in our lives.
I'm a 22 year old male, product of divorced parents one of whom is gay and I have always considered myself profoundly lucky for the upbringing they gave me. Despite that though when I think about who I want to be in 15-20yrs the model I have in my head is a more traditional nuclear family. Now according to the statistics its more then likely that life will find a way to push me off that path and what will really matter will be the character I show in response to those challenges, like for instances fathering a child in the next couple years.
Where I think social conservatives go awry is when they believe they have to stigmatize non-traditional outcomes regardless of the character and dignity the actors have displayed in the face of adversity. Conversely they disproportionally fail to effectively criticize personal and moral failing when they occur inside nuclear families.
Is pot really a gateway drug, or is just that people who are willing to smoke pot are more likely to be willing to blow lines?
People never think hard enough about these things.
Also
Ross and his fellow traveller seem forever trapped in arguing against the selfishness (sexual and otherwise) that was so much a part of the post-sexual revolution 70s.
Yes, Ross, Rod, whoever, I get it. I was an era of selfishness and excess; and we're still recovering from the explosion of norms (that if Ross et al) are to be believed, have served us perfectly for time immemorial.
I'm a big believer in process, rigor and dicpline. Just go with the fuckign program and that's going to take care of 87 1/2 of the job. But where Ross, Rod, etc lose me is their eagerness to demonize anything that deviates from their (painfully limited) understanding of normal.
Yo Rod! Have you ever watched an episode of Yo Gaba Gaba? I know that watching it disqualifies my beautiful blonde haired blue eyed girls from playing with your perfect specimens of American childhood, but just for the sake of expanding your horizons, you ought to tune in for a couple of shows.
Another great post, Mr. Coates. Some fine analysis of what separates liberal from conservative in our current understanding of the words, I think.
I'd take it another half-step I think (haven't had my coffee yet, so forgive me if this goes astray), but I think a related point that Ross and Rod and their fellow travelers often fail to acknowledge is that they find better outcomes among people subscribing to the "correct" form of institutions like marriage or religious faith because those "correct" folks define what those better outcomes are.
It's the same kind of blind spot that allows them to think that opposing gay marriage isn't an act of bigotry but a noble defense of "eternal" institutions like marriage-- as if their forefathers hadn't defined, and redefined marriage over and over again over the centuries to align it with their interests.
Doug,
I don't disagree with your analysis of the two-parent family. I think very few people think the ideal situation is single-parenting. Being a Dad myself, I have no idea how folks make it work. But they do. Both of my parents came from single-parent homes. But that doesn't mean I think it should be held up as the model. In the sense that two concerned parents means more attention than one concerned parent, I agree with you.
The conservative inability to understand that other models can be effective and have been effective in the past, is a tempting reason to avoid debating with them.
As one of the more conservative members of this community (though not really a social conservative), I disagree with this. There are important points brought up by the conservative side because on the liberal side, sometimes things go too far as well. You have a Gloria Steinem who says things like a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. There are liberals who mock the nuclear family.
I am not saying they should be stigmatizing parents who are doing right by their kids, but I think that things sometimes swing too far and deviancy gets defined down as Sen Moynihan once wrote.
You've more patient w/ their s@#$ than I am. they probably think you're one of those magical negroes, too. Can you do "be gone"?
And thank you for making my point DougEMI
How long ago did Gloria Steinem say this? Does anyone (besides you, Ross, Rod, and a handful of lost in the weeds "liberals") care what Steinem thinks?
The culture war is over. Plenty of damage done all around. Plenty of sorting out left to do. Plenty of trying to figure our way out of unrealistic antisocial policies and presumptions; about sex, drugs, spending, saving, eduction. And somehow the most exciting answer socons can come up with is claim it's all Gloria Steinem's fault and rip Andy and Aaron's wedding bands off their fingers.
Time to grow up and get real.
I, too, say it: fantastic post.
The model/practice distinction is very useful. Also worth asking along these lines: does the model view make it difficult to see through to the practices? Plenty of odd, bad practices can lurk inside instances of the "right" model.
Also, let me reiterate another commenter. Does Ross have numbers that say 1-and-1s produce a higher % of engineers vs. 1-and-4s? Is there a significant set of data on the latter? Your point regarding whether marriage itself is significant vs. those who marry plays here as well, of course.
Thanks again.
As one of the more conservative members of this community (though not really a social conservative), I disagree with this. There are important points brought up by the conservative side because on the liberal side, sometimes things go too far as well. You have a Gloria Steinem who says things like a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. There are liberals who mock the nuclear family.
I guess lesbians don't exist in Doug's world. Or maybe they're living their lives the wrong way, and are in denial that they really do need a man.
Tony, my inclusion of that was in response to another poster arguing whether social conservatives should have a place in the debate. I brought it up to show that there is value to having a push against one side if it goes too far. I don't know when Steinem said that, but I do know Maureen Dowd wrote "Are Men Necessary?" in this decade.
If I was unclear in my earlier posts in this thread, I want you to know I am not taking the side of Douthat or Dreher. I argued that the problem isn't Ta and his partner and it isn't because Adam married Steve instead of Eve; the problem is more along the lines of what Palin's daughter got herself into.
I think there's a somewhat stronger conservative argument to be made here, though I'm not sure I quite buy it myself. But basically, what we want, overall, is something that Ta-Nehisi in his unconventional family got: that kind of love, involvement, support, and discipline of involved parents and extended family. That's enormously important. I suspect (but don't know) that most conservatives would agree that these are at least among the things we'd hope to have for all families, including single parent families (some will be widows/widowers raising their kids, with no whiff at all of sexual revolution me-ism), remarried parents, and all the rest.
But what do we know about how to get those things? That is, if we want to maximize the number of kids that get raised with lots of parental involvement, the safety net of a family that cares and is involved, love and discipline and support, what sorts of social structures and surrounding law do we know that will let us do that?
One thing we know how to do is something like a nuclear family--two married parents, hopefully with some surrounding family and community support, trying to raise their kids together. That's not the only way, it may not be the best way, but it's a way we actually know how to do. (This strikes me as the best argument for recognizing gay marriage, especially where there are kids involved.)
Similarly, we have some idea about the kind of social and legal structures that support that. Making it painful for a dad to abandon his kids is probably something we can do legally and socially. Making divorce less acceptable, encouraging people to wait a few years before having kids to make sure the marriage stays together (assuming that's good advice), etc., are things we can do socially. (We can also make divorce harder legally, but I'm not sure whether that would really help.)
There may be many other better ways to get the desired support and love and discipline and safety for the kids of a more-or-less traditional marriage. But unless we know how to make that happen, we may be better off supporting the more traditional model of marriage, with slow evolutionary changes over time to expand its benefits.
Well, in defense of Ross here…………….
What TNC is arguing here is that love conquers all. Where there is love, there is true family, and that institution/structure doesn’t matter.
RD says , on the other hand, that institutions does matter. People who enter into institutional marriages tend to stay together longer, and do better raising kids. He doesn’t argue, as TNC and some commenters say that we should around stigmatizing alternative arrangements in some systematic way. That’s a side point. He uses stigma once in a throwaway line at the end. His main argument is that institutional marriage helps to save some relationships that would have sunk if the institutional support wasn’t there. In other words, love may conquer all, but sometimes love needs help.
Let’s put it another away. In any long-term relationship, there comes a time when you don’t love that person, or that person’s child. The strong temptation will be to call U Haul, pack up, and be gone. In an informal relationship, you can do that, and be gone by 5 pm that day. THE END. TNC could do that tomorrow (his father did it 3 times). In marriage, you have to go through a lot more, and have second and third thoughts, before you end a relationship once for all. I think that saves a lot of relationships at the margin. When the love is flowing and the sex is good and everyone’s working and the baby isn’t sick, it is easy to think that love conquers all. When trouble comes, that‘s when that institutional support and inertia does help.
Again , ideally, everyone will do right, as TNC calls for. In real life, everyone does NOT do right. That’s why there are locks on our doors and why there are divorce and child support laws. TNC may not FEEL lucky that his father was there for him, but as the data show, he really WAS lucky. From society’s standpoint, you can’t rely on the ideal happening: you have to make laws and build institutions based on what people actually DO. And many men do not do as TNC and his father does.
I guess lesbians don't exist in Doug's world. Or maybe they're living their lives the wrong way, and are in denial that they really do need a man.
I think you are infering something from my words that I clearly didn't mean. The context of the Steinem quote is that women (in general) no longer need men. It can be argued that the saying is in jest to mock the long held belief that women are dependent upon men or the opposite arguement is that it is dismissive of the male contribution to society. If it is taken further, it can be seen as an undervaluing of fatherhood.
I can assure you my point was not that lesbians don't exist, are living in sin or all they need is "a real man" to show them how things are. I believe none of those things.
Ease up on Doug. I think his only point is that sweeping statements aren't the province of any "side."
That said...
Stonetools: "What TNC is arguing here is that love conquers all. Where there is love, there is true family, and that institution/structure doesn’t matter."
Wow.
It can be argued that the saying is in jest to mock the long held belief that women are dependent upon men or the opposite arguement is that it is dismissive of the male contribution to society.
The historical context of Steinem's quote is important. She wasn't referring to some simple "long-held belief." She was writing in a period when the "need" for a man was an enforced dependency. For crying out loud, women at that time were fighting for such rights as the ability to have credit in their own names and equal access to employment opportunities. At that time, it was still legal in every state for a man to rape his wife. That context is not unimportant.
This is more or less exactly the advice I gave to Andy on the eve of his wedding, which he posted to the Dish:
I don't think TNC is arguing that his experience isn't unusual. I think his argument is that both his experience and Bristol Palin's experience are treated as strangely exceptional, with too much emphasis on form, and not enough on function.
For crying out loud, women at that time were fighting for such rights as the ability to have credit in their own names and equal access to employment opportunities. At that time, it was still legal in every state for a man to rape his wife. That context is not unimportant.
It's also important to note that she didn't say a child needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
I argued that the problem isn't Ta and his partner and it isn't because Adam married Steve instead of Eve; the problem is more along the lines of what Palin's daughter got herself into.
Let's also note that Bristol Palin has just the sort of family that the conservatives tout as ideal. Oops.
Let’s put it another away. In any long-term relationship, there comes a time when you don’t love that person, or that person’s child. The strong temptation will be to call U Haul, pack up, and be gone. In an informal relationship, you can do that, and be gone by 5 pm that day. THE END.
There are almost no long-term relationships, at least of the 'live in' variety, in which that is true. Where do you stay when you pack up the U-Haul? Who gets the sofa? Sure, some people do it, but some married people do it too.
Fair enough. As a Madisonian I excuse my own doctrinaire beliefs about the 2nd Amendment as a necessary counterbalance to equally radical beliefs on the other side of the question.
None the less, I feel the greatest poison in our body politic today is the dominance of most inflammatory in defining issues and terms. My own efforts to market our films have given my a first hand lesson both in how much easier it is get attention by yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, and how unnecessary, and ultimately counter productive it is.
One of the reasons I like this blog so much (host and commenters both) is that I see it as (a small part of) an answer to a question that I've been asking since 1992 at least: What comes next?
I spent several years as the single parent of my little girl, now nine years old. But I was one of the acceptable single parents - my wife died. The cancer post is also digging at me today.
I've spent a lot of time in the last five years working with a lot of families that are pretty messed up - I volunteer at a bereavement center for children, and mostly work with the adults who bring those children.
The one thing I see consistently in families that are coping well under the circumstances and families that are getting crushed is their involvement with a support community. It can be family, but it doesn't have to be. I can attest to the idea that two people are better than one if they are really engaged in the child's life. For five years, my dad has picked up my girl from after school care and taken her to Chick Fil A and spent three or so hours playing or whatever. I think they have missed four Tuesdays in five years. It is an unbelievable gift to my daughter and to me. My mom, having raised four boys, enjoyed the heck out of shopping for girls clothes and taking her to get their nails done and whatever.
That's the kind of stuff that produces good kids. It still pisses me off that she didn't get that kind of love and support from her mother, who was absolutely amazing. Both of my wives (that sounds weird to my ears, but whatever) came from families where their parents are divorced and remarried, and so my daughter has an astonishing ten grandparents. And they love her in different ways, and some of them are better than others, and it is a weird and sprawling family. But she is loved and cherished by them all, and is the better for it.
"The strong temptation will be to call U Haul, pack up, and be gone. In an informal relationship, you can do that, and be gone by 5 pm that day. THE END. TNC could do that tomorrow..."
I'm not going to go into a long rant, or even make a counter-argument, because I think it's as bullshit as "til death do us part" in a culture where half of all marriages fail, but that line really pissed me off.
Short version: TNC could NOT do that tomorrow and be who he his. Lots of married guys can and do. Maybe there is some scenario where TNC becomes chronically depressed, loses his ability to write, descends into alcoholism, loses all hope and abandons his family - anything is possible in this world. But a marriage license wouldn't likely alter such a dire circumstance.
Also "Ross and Rod" happen to be bigots who don't deserve their audience, beyond the insular religous right echo chamber. People who promote their static faith in institutions as the key to reinforcing core values, as opposed to promoting core values, even as institutions change and often fail, as the key to reinforcing values, are useless in those moments when values are, in fact, being challenged by social, economic and cultural shifts. Intellectually and morally exhausted. Also, no one is arguing to weaken or limit the institution of marriage. "Liberals" are arguing to expand it, with an emphasis on the core values of love and committment as opposed to biology. Which is ironic when you think about who is on which side of this debate.
"There are liberals who mock the nuclear family."
No there aren't. Unless you're also willing to accept "There are social conservatives who believe gay people deserve to be imprisoned and are doomed to burn in hell for eternity." Actually, the latter statement is more empirically true than the "straw-feminazi" nonsense you dredge up.
Sorry - I said "short version" and I lied. Anyway - that "TNC could do that tomorrow" line pissed me off. I know it wasn't meant personally, but if it's not true "personally" it's also not true - or special pleading at best - in a world where marriage routiinely fails to keep families intact. My own view on TNC is that he's married, i.e. joined and united in his heart and soul and choices and daily life with a woman he loves and their child - no doubt more married than a lot of guys who have been to the altar. Should fate dramatically alter that fundamental fact of their lives, at least in my state - and I assume NY - his lack of "paper" wouldn't have any impact on his legal responsbilitiies to his children, so that's a canard.
I brought it up to show that there is value to having a push against one side if it goes too far. I don't know when Steinem said that, but I do know Maureen Dowd wrote "Are Men Necessary?" in this decade.
For MoDo to be an appropriate example, she'd have to represent one side or the other of some debate.
Let's just say the left sure ain't claiming her as one of their own. So unless the right side of the political spectrum wants to adopt her...
DougEMI
This is exactly what I am talking about. Maybe some women don't need a man. Outside of religious doggerel where is it written that women have to be linked to a man? The amazing ability of some/many conservatives to avoid the proof that successful alternative models provide is either a heightened level of solipsism, extreme delusion or blunt emotional/intellectual dishonesty. I never said anything critical about the nuclear family nor did Coates. You seemed to have fallen into a defensive posture swinging absolute generalizations w/o considering exceptions to "rules". Talking about extremes,for a mindset that prides itself on its faith in individual initiative and innovation, contemporary conservatives seem to have no faith in the variegated possibilities of human life.
From a historical and personal perspective, I have to say I'm skeptical about the tendency to reify the two-parent model family, not least because it may be as much an artifact from a brief window of time.
My grandmother was raised on a farm by her sister's family: her parents died when she was young. My grandfather on that side died when my father was 17 or so, and my grandmother on the other side died when my mom was eight or nine.
The interesting point -- beyond that my grandparents were pretty unlucky -- is that pre-1955, this experience was much closer to the norm, people died off at a rate that made a solely nuclear family something of a risky gamble.
(It's interesting, by the way, that 'The Brady Bunch' alludes to this risk, in that it was a fusion nuclear family -- though a 'clean' one where the respective spouses had conveniently died off.)
Bottom line: perhaps we'd do as well to measure the 'outcomes' for children of the simple, portable nuclear family against outcomes from a much less remarkable coherent extended family, not least because such a family cluster is far closer to the historical norm.
The interesting question about the debate itself is when and under what conditions it moves to address the more relevant policy questions -- one of the functions of the family is to provide a form of social insurance for all concerned. Indeed Frost's grim line (from Death of the Hired Man?") comes to mind: "home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in." But this raises the classic question; what is the role of the state, the society, or the larger (i.e. non-family) community in providing this social insurance.
Thank you. Well said. Needs to be said, over and over and over.
My parents were divorced when I was in 5th grade. I'm just old enough that this was a first in our small town school, and I the price for having a mother who was suddenly "sexually available." It didn't matter what our morals were; it mattered that we were a treat to the stability of the community.
If I look at the roots of my liberalism, I find them in this and in environmentalism. (I grew up on one of the most polluted rivers in the country; now cleaned up enough to swim in and eat fish from, thanks to the Clean Water Act.)
I too often find conservatives concerned with appearances, but not with substance. I, on the other hand, know that a single mother working herself to the bone to raise kids alone can teach excellent morals; a far-away dad can still be involved and provide love and security in his love. And a church that upholds appearances instead of individuals is sinful.
And truth be told, most or Ross's diatribes on family values are so lacking in value for real families that they make me laugh. Mostly, I think he's brainwashed into thinking people who belong to a church are better, and I really am tired his looking-down-his nose.
It's what you do, day by day, that matters. I've met more sinful people then I care to say who used the cover of church-going to protect their sinful ways; people who pass the responsibility for right and wrong off to someone else.
Most of all, I'm thrilled that Obama's making it cool to be a good dad. It should be cooled, it's one of the two most important jobs out there. (The other is Michelle's role: Mom.)
Tony, I agree with you on that, it is the Ann Coulter types who gets the attention, at least until the act gets stale. You are right, this blog is certainly an escape from that kind of thinking.
No there aren't. Unless you're also willing to accept "There are social conservatives who believe gay people deserve to be imprisoned and are doomed to burn in hell for eternity."
Of course I am willing to accept that someone like Pat Robertson thinks that gays will burn in hell. Two different sides can both be full of shit on things.
Let's say we accept the conventi0nal conservative prescription about marriage and family, rather than look at the actual structures, their shortcomings and negative as well as positive effects historically, or note, say, that families before the telephone and apartment high rises were largely multi rather than single generation affairs.
Let's say most folks would like stable, long term, sanctified and legally protected romantic relationships with a single partner and some children who are given all the opportunities possible to grow up in a healthy, protected environment with the best of all possibilities for educational and ultimately satisfying and well paying career opportunities--something like one of those 50s sitcoms in which Father Knows Best.
Let's say that our soundtrack is the romantic popular music of a day gone by and our romantic comedies do not involve making a pornographic film. And yet, for an infinite variety of reasons, some of which are external, others internal, our relationships don't work out, and our children no matter how much we love them don't live up to society's standards of success. What then?
We don't live in an ideal world. While it's true some people reject for a variety of reasons, some of them quite healthy, the so called family norms, most people would like the fantasy at least in their imaginations.
But the world doesn't fit our romantic fantasies as these guys want to prescribe it. I think of the lines by early 20th century poet Antonio Machado to the effect more are shipwrecked on the seas of love than in the ocean.
The world is what it is--some nuclear families are riddled with disfunction, a third to a half end in divorce. That's the way it is. Some people have enough juice in them to make the most of the hands they're dealt because they love and because love has such rich rewards.
The conservative conjecture insofar as I can see is, not only classist in its relevantly economic bias, but a bunch of moral posturing that rarely has much virtue or value when confronted with the heart and mind wrenching experiences we have during the crises of our intimate lives.
@brucds
Hey, I'm not trying to get personal here. I'm not saying that that TNC WOULD do that. I'm saying he COULD. And you are right to say that married guys walk out too. Its just harder for them to do it.
My own view is that TNC is married in spirit, too. Great. But, legally, its just easier for him to cut the cord.And if he was a different kind of guy, that would really, really matter.
Should fate dramatically alter that fundamental fact of their lives, at least in my state - and I assume NY - his lack of "paper" wouldn't have any impact on his legal responsibilities to his children, so that's a canard.
Well, the state would make him pay child support. There is more to being a father than that, of course. And there is the whole inheritance thing......
The plain fact is that long-term relationships are hard. Even within institutions, they fail about half the time. Trying to do the LT relationship outside the institution seems to work out less well in the long run. I see though that the "love conquers all" meme is strong on this site though:-).
I'm interested in encouraging practices and stigmatizing others. I'm interested in encouraging active involvement in your child's school, and stigmatizing ignoring the teacher's phone calls. I'm interested in encouraging fathers to put in as much manpower as they can summon, and stigmatizing those who walk out.
I think this gets to the heart of the matter. There are conditions that need to exist and things that need to happen for children to come up right (and to make adults--with and without children--productive members of society). They need to have some discipline, love and attention from some adult. They need to have someone who pushes them to excel, but picks them up when they fall.
How that happens is not the most important thing--what's important is that it occurs.
There are some people who are going to make sure this occurs for their children regardless of what their situation is. There are others who will never provide the necessities no matter how they are so encouraged. In the middle, however there are some set of people who might provide those things in some circumstances and not in others. Conservatives seem to think that it's best for everyone if these folks are married before having kids and then raise them in a two parent household.
TNC, if I understand him correctly, is saying that we ought to find ways other than encouraging marriage to engender the desired behaviors in the folks who aren't necessarily going to act right of their own accord. I think that's probably true, but I don't know exactly what those ways should be.
Its interesting that posters blast RD for stigmatizing " alternative relationships" but are OK with TNC' s call for stigmatizing deadbeat dads. Why is that though? What's wrong with deadbeat dads? What makes them wrong and us right? Who decides? AND why should we use the law and/or social stigmatization to coerce them to do right ? Could it be that institutions and social expectations have a role to play in this? just saying.........
sansouci, I am not arguing that every woman needs a man and I haven't taken anything that Ta-Nehisi or the commenters wrote as an assault on the nuclear family. What I have been trying to say throughout,(and apparently rather poorly) is that there are good values that conservatives bring to the table in a discussion of family.(and to inoculate my comment, yes there are awful things conservatives bring to the debate) If you believe that many women want to have children, and that many women are heterosexual, then it would be best for the child in most cases to have a father. So that is why I take exception with the idea women don't need men.
If the woman in question is a lesbian, and she wants to have kids, then it would be best for that child to have two mothers. I think that many women need a man, just like men who want kids need a woman if that is the sexual preference. If it isn't, the kid should then have two fathers.
I don't think once in this thread I said a critical word about families headed by two women, two men, or by two unmarried partners of different sexes. I have seen these arrangement work and I have seen these fail, just like many relationships that involved a marriage certificate. So I am not closed minded when it comes to families that aren't what Falwell considered traditional.
What I believe is that getting married is easy, when I was young and stupid, I filled out all the paperwork and it happened. What is difficult is raising children properly. It is tedious getting one's kids out of bed when they don't want to go to school or making them eat right or be respectful to other people. The focus should be on parenting and not on the ceremony
Its interesting that posters blast RD for stigmatizing " alternative relationships" but are OK with TNC' s call for stigmatizing deadbeat dads. Why is that though? What's wrong with deadbeat dads? What makes them wrong and us right? Who decides? AND why should we use the law and/or social stigmatization to coerce them to do right ? Could it be that institutions and social expectations have a role to play in this? just saying.........
disingenuousness alert.
Data related to this point..
I don't have the cite here--but I remember coming across the fact during the election, that if you analyzed the demographics and economics of the United States, that you found out that on average, states whose populations voted democratic more than republican were also the ones with the highest education, lowest divorce rates, highest incomes, lowest religious attendance rates, and a few other such statistics..
In other words, being a liberal, rather than a social conservative tended to produce all of the stuff that the social conservatives seem to think is so important and which they castigate liberals for destroying.
It's for these kinds of reasons that I cannot take people like Ross seriously. They like to pick and choose their statistics and, more importantly, they try to claim that no other way besides theirs is possible--when the data speaks otherwise.
Also.. I find their remarkable desire not to support "social sanctions" against ignorance to be amazingly hypocritical. They will blow a gasket at any sign of "moral relativism," but are firm believers of "intellectual relativism" when the facts contradict their own personal beliefs.
Pure Bullshit, that is...
Matt, you make a good point: Where I think social conservatives go awry is when they believe they have to stigmatize non-traditional outcomes regardless of the character and dignity the actors have displayed in the face of adversity. Conversely they disproportionally fail to effectively criticize personal and moral failing when they occur inside nuclear families.
I'm not sure it's necessary to stigmatize all non-traditional family arrangements in order to be pro-marriage. I appreciated RD's post just for giving an explanation, a reason for marriage-the-institution. Outside of religion I don't hear many of those. And I don't see why RD's argument for marriage's value could not be used to argue in favor of gay marriage as well.
I think the question at hand is, can we retain "family values" in our society without marriage as a model? And here we should be clear that, obviously, we can in individuals and family units of various configurations, but that's not the question. The question is on the level of society and public policy. There is not an obvious answer in my mind, now that I pose the question, though I have chosen to live in accordance with "social conservatism" (or at least mostly - it depends on the social conservative what the model for women is).
Maybe I'm not the "social conservative" many other commenters seem so upset by - and I do get that, because sometimes they drive me nuts, too. But I didn't find RD's ideas upsetting, and certainly not in the same tenor of self-righteous paranoia as some others. But I am also married, and I'd like to have kids, and my dream is very along "social conservative" lines, and honestly, I could use some institutional support. That was what I took away from reading RD's post: "yeah, that's why I got married - I need the extra help."
I would like to live in a world in which marriage is viewed as valuable, a thing to - I want to say cherish, and protect. I can hear the obvious question, "Protect from who? The sluts and gays???" No. I am the one most likely to fuck up my marriage. It needs to be protected from me, from my selfishness and shortcomings and illusions. But the thing is, I need you to help me. I need somebody outside my marriage, outside myself, telling me that this relationship is worth fighting for, reminding me of what I would lose if I walked away.
You don't have be be married to have the sort of community that supports your relationship like this, but it does seems to me that on an institutional level, that is what marriage is supposed to provide. That's what it's good for.
No, I should not stay married just for the tax credit. But anyone who has been in a relationship, married or not, would acknowledge that sometimes you have keep at it even when your heart is not in it. If marriage encourages people to keep at it, to stay in the game, even when they would rather go, then it stands to reason that some of those married people keeping at it would, in time, find that their heart has come back into it too. And that's valuable. Then again, maybe what I am really talking about is hope.
Ta-Nehisi - Long-time reader, first-time caller here. I just wanted to thank you for your eloquent defense of the non-traditional family model. Or rather, of the idea that it isn't the physical structure that matters, but the values and behaviors that the parents/step-parents/etc. teach.
I remember reading the chapter on child psychology in Psych 101 in college, and it listed "divorce" as one of the three greatest "childhood traumas" a kid could go through -- alongside beatings and sexual abuse. Do I think that my two happy homes make me the equivalent of an underage rape victim? No, I do not. I don't know if I've ever been angrier. So, thanks again. It needs to be said more often.
If I remember my history classes correctly, the "two parents and children" family is actually an oddity. Even the Victorians, who romantisized the beejesus out of "family" were making one up as they went. The rich, including the wealthier merchant classes, married for money and/or to extend the family's power/influence/wealth into the next generation. Children were cared for by servants and saw their parents once a day on a good day. The "lower classes" married for security, whenever they married at all (the legal existence of "common law marriage" was not eliminated in Europe until 2006, when Scotland abolished it). And, of course, all of the rights within the institutions went to the men.
Spare me the fantasy. I grew up in a wonderful two parent family and I'm grateful for it every day. My best friend grew up in the original "nuclear family from hell" and dreamed every night of a divorce or a death in the family just to escape the abuse.
"Two different sides can both be full of shit on things. "
There's a movement of social conservatives led by prominent, influential activists within the "mainstream" of the GOP that believe all sorts of nasty things about gays (despite the "hate the sin, love the sinner" dodge) and want to keep them from having equal rights under the law (to the detriment of many children, incidentally, but not to any heterosexual couples, as is argued.) They spend big bucks and organize millions to promote their agenda, but there is no movement or recognizeable, organized cohort of liberals that mock marriage, despite passages one might dredge up from radical feminist polemics over the years. So this isn't a "both sides full of shit" deal in any meaningful sense. I can't think of any liberals, as such, who mock marriage. Comedians mock marriage. That's about it.
Incidentally, the tail of my last comment about comedians reminded me of the fact that the stereotype, cultural cliche, or whatever that exists in our society of folks who don't like marriage isn't gays, people who live together "in sin" or even feminists - it's married people who've been at it for a while and are, to some degree, failing. Gay comedians, atheist comedians, or "alternative lifestyle" comedians don't rely on "take my wife...please" jokes for half their acts. As I remember, outsider comic George Carlin didn't do dumb wife jokes - maybe because he was happily married and was devastated when his wife passed away. But mocking marriage - most often by serially married heterosexuals paying big alimony bucks - is utterly mainstream, even in "socially conservative" circles.
I'm not saying that that TNC WOULD do that. I'm saying he COULD. And you are right to say that married guys walk out too. Its just harder for them to do it.
My own view is that TNC is married in spirit, too. Great. But, legally, its just easier for him to cut the cord.
Sure, it is legally more difficult for individuals who entered a contract to separate. However, this is a legal disctinction, not an emotional distinction. It is just as easy for a married wife or husband to abandon their children and family either physically or emotionally. The contract of marriage provides legal benefits to two individuals, and if they marry in the church, spiritual benefits. But that guarantees nothing in the long run.
I'd like to see some support that two people who have long-term relationships and children together have shorter or less successful relationships than people in institutional marriages. Or is that simply assummed? And children born out-of-wedlock are not adequate measures for this theory. A one-night stand is not a "long-term relationship".
I don't think anyone is arguing against the institution of marriage and what an important role a married mother and father have on the development of their child. I think what is arguable is that the same child can receive the same or similar level of development and love without the two-parent family. Again, it seems to be that most agree it is not WHO is doing the raising, but rather HOW the raising is conducted. And the number of reasonable posters (although many of you may be certifiably crazy for all I know) who have claimed to come from divorced, single-parent, or non-traditional upbringings, which I am also a product of course, seems to bear that point out.
"legally, its just easier for him to cut the cord"
Not to his kid, which is what matters from a societal perspective. Two adults in a voluntary relationship are responsible for their own choices, so if a guy walks on his live-in girlfriend or vice versa, the state doesn't have an interest in that. The "sanctification" of marriage - with all due respect to childless couples - is because in most cases it is presumed children will be involved. Of course, childless marriages that end in divorce result in legal entanglements that are statutory and don't need to be litigated Hollywood-style in order to access the bread-winner's bank account. Adults know about this stuff and make wise or unwise decisions in that context. Personally I wouldn't get married unless the relationship was reaching the "lets have kids" stage, in which case I see a functional rationale. I think lots of younger folks are increasingly approaching marriage from that perspective, which I believe is healthy because it isn't just about "romantic love" but about responsibilities to a family. But mature people are perfectly capable of assuming those responsibilities without a marriage license.
And the societal interest kicks in legally when folks become parents, married or not.
It truly bugs me when people use "scientific" data in the most unscientific way to bolster their political opinions.
Ross is engaging in a classic confusion of correlation with causation. In science, if we had data that showed a correlation between the modern nuclear family and good outcomes for children, we wouldn't assume the nuclear family, in and of itself, *caused* the good outcome. We would run experiments to eliminate other causes before jumping to that conclusion.
We might wonder if nuclear families do better because of the involvement of more than one adult. That would involve breaking down the data in a different way, and if it held up, we might then check if families with three or four committed adults tend to have even better outcomes for children. Then we might ask: is there more benefit if the adults are biologically related to each other? To the children? Can differences be explained by the greater social support for biological families or does it go beyond that? Is there a number of involved adults where the benefits for children plateau? Or decrease? Etc. We would be poking that data every which way before venturing an opinion on its prescriptive meaning.
But hey, this isn't about science, or trying to figure out what really works best for kids, is it?
@DougEMI
The nuclear family, as has been stated above, is a historical anomaly. Most cultures historically and contemporarily utilized extended family structures (enslaved Africans in the West affecting fictive kin in lieu of recognized familial organization of biological connections). It seems to me the issue is not whether there are two parents in the house (and I agree single parent homes have greater financial difficulties which can negatively effect a child's life chances) but if the child(-ren) but whether the parents are getting the type of support they need to best produce positive life outcomes. Whether that support is in the house or in the community or even coming from the state ultimately does not matter. Trying to limit the structure of that support or the demographic of that support misses the point.
Ta-Nehisi, great post.
I'm a greater defender of marriage than you are but you have made me think & for that I thank you. My thoughts are a bit too muddled to put down just now.
One minor point. I think you're being a bit unfair to Ross (not Rod) when you say he stigmatises non traditional marriages.
His approach seems to me to be one that would encourage traditional forms whilst being neutral on non-traditional forms.
Rajesh,
I thought he literally used the word "stigmatize" in his post.
Also, this idea that marriage is the only sure way to make sure fathers, father is, as I said, amazingly sweeping. I have laid out the particulars of my life and what works for me. I don't assume that works for everyone else. I sometimes get the feeling that I'm hearing from people who, themselves, need marriage to make them do the right thing. I don't object to that. We all have our struggles. But your struggle isn't everyone's struggle. We're all sinners. But it takes some stones to assume that we all are struggling with the same sins.
We've all seen the data on marriage, and outcomes. We all know that in the aggregate marriage comes out on top. But this really doesn't help us in this debate, because we don't why. Do married people have better outcomes because of the marriage itself? Or is it that people who are more likely to marry, produce better outcomes?
Or is it a feedback loop, with marriage and the behaviors that go with it reinforcing each other? It is not getting married that counts in these studies, after all, it is staying married--that class full of students at Harvard who pop up their hands when you ask "Are your parents married?" not "Were they married when you were conceived?" I think a big part of that is your default--if times are tough in your marriage, do you default to "shit happens, and we will get through this" or to "time for a change"?
And sorry, but I'm afraid you and Kenyatta count as married for most such sociological experiments. You're both there. You're (I assume) not on the "this is okay but of course I may meet someone far more fabulous next month" that is behind one half of a lot of nonmarriages. (jmho) You're like lesbians! For whom the data (gay men too) were finally collected, and it turns out their kids turn out exactly like everyone else, with the minor caveat they're more likely to as teens have dated opposite to their primary sexual orientation.
I think the marriage as default bit also ties into something I noticed about childrearing, one-time stressors versus your life. A mother spending less time with her newborn because of medical crisis (my mother almost died when I was born and didn't hold me for two weeks) but who post-crisis is a loving mother (mine was) will not be a huge negative; it's what you do day in day out for years that counts. The opposite is people who say "I should do X for my kids, but life today is just too complex and busy for that to even be possible anymore." They're setting the terms of the kid's life to be what they consider less ideal, but just because it would require effort.
The one that presently gets me on this is how incredibly difficult it is for a family to just eat dinner together. It really isn't; my husband works long hours, I work, both kids are involved in activities, and we eat together virtually every night. A missing kid is likely dinnering at a friend's family dinner. And yet whenever an article arrives to argue for the family dinner, because of all that pro-family dinner research that won't be explained away, it always starts with Of course it is nearly impossible to eat together, but if you are convinced and want to try this extreme lifestyle... (Incidentally this one is a kid boon for married parents, single, filling-in relatives, etc.)
We eat dinner together because we prioritize it; it's our default for what a family does. And yes, we were raised that way. That, I think, is a "who gets married/being married" example
I'm interested in encouraging practices and stigmatizing others.
I think this is exactly the right approach.
There's a strong temptation to explain away results one doesn't like. Social conservatives want to explain away "Two moms, totally normal." Atheists want to explain away "Regular churchgoers live longer and healthier." (The atheists are quite mad about this. "Obviously the relevant factor is the community, and I have friends, so I will garner the same health benefits. Because otherwise It Just Isn't Fair!") I wanted to disregard "Unhappy marriage is better for kids than divorce" except that I've seen enough little kids to understand that one.
An approach I liked, in a brain development book, was to look at all the things that had been found to correlate with bright well-adjusted children. Stable family. No television before 2 and then strictly limited and supervised. And if you know you're at risk (you're pregnant and the dad took a hike) it's good to know everything on the list and how it can work for you. Maybe of 10 things 2 are already not happening, but you're seeing how the other 8 can be integrated. (e.g. You can turn off the tv for everyone, make sure to give him plenty of time out of a stroller, and do that family dinner thing.)
And sorry, but I'm afraid you and Kenyatta count as married for most such sociological experiments.
Um, no. [Sociologist here] They may be a family, and even a long-term couple, but they're not married. Staying together over a period of time does not make one married. Getting married makes one married. A license and state recognition makes one married.
Incidentally, the same-sex parent data make me think marriage is at least partially shorthand for "stable family grouping."
A lesbian couple I know agreed with one brother that he would be the stable male model in their daughters' lives, flying up for Dad-at-school events and the like. ( A grandpa was confusing the grandkids by the time their children were being adopted.)
Older, financially-secure single parents by choice are usually portrayed working through all the "This is how I will afford it, this is who will back me up, this is the relative who can be a long-term opposite-sex role model" issues. And I would bet less likely than their 20-something counterparts to have an array of parentish figures moving in and out of the kid's life.
I think the disagreement between TNC and Ross is grounded in basic differences between how they see the world.
TNC is arguing from a specific perspective. Ross is arguing from a general perspective. This is like a microscope saying to a telescope "You're wrong." And the telescope saying, "No You're Wrong."
The basic divide between liberal and conservative on the issue of marriage is a debate between empiricism and idealism. I don't think it has anything to do with being a democrat or being a republican. The idealistic view of marriage says, "X is the standard we should try to conform to the standard." The empirical view of marriage asks "What works for individual people?"
Personally I think we need both sides of the argument in order to develop a workable model regarding marriage or any other question. Our lives are never defined completely by generalizations or by individual circumstances, but rather by compromise.
@MAJeff: But how many studies distinguish between a committed long-term relationship where the same two parents are there, in the house, from birth through college and are married, and the same relationship where they are not? Such pairs are becoming more common but have they, as with lesbian parents, become so much so that someone has done the married v. partnered-for-decades outcomes in a study? I'd actually be very interested in whether there's any difference; my guess would be no.
And damn, when I talked above about family dinners as something my husband and I default into, I meant to include the bad example that we both recognize we should exercise more but keep failing to do so--we don't prioritize it to be something we do without thinking, the way we do dinner. (Neither did our parents. Coincidence? I think not.)
Incidentally, the same-sex parent data make me think marriage is at least partially shorthand for "stable family grouping."
No, marriage is a specific form of relationship. There are a lot of relationships that are stable family groupings, including lots of same-sex couples, many of whom are raising children. In only two states can those specific couples marry, but in all 50 they've been coupling and forming families without the benefit of marriage for years. Marriage provides a whole lot of things that these other arrangements don't, like tax benefits with regard to inheritance, access to health insurance, access to pensions, visitation and funerary rights, next-of-kin relationships, "legitimacy" with regard to children.... Unmarried couples may be able to gain access to some of the benefits, rights, and obligations of marriage in some political jurisdictions, but they're not married.
But how many studies distinguish between a committed long-term relationship where the same two parents are there, in the house, from birth through college and are married, and the same relationship where they are not?
All of them. "Marital status" is a regularly used variable. It only applies to couples that are married.
oops...poorly worded last response.
"Marital status" is a regularly used variable. "married" only applies to couples that are married.
Social conservatives are interested in encouraging one model, and stigmatizing all others. I'm interested in encouraging practices and stigmatizing others.
Statistics show that kids from traditional families grow up to be better proofreaders.
"I've been struggling to understand for the past half hour how the heck Dreher thinks its a compliment and not a slap in the face to refer to someone else's family structure as "broken." The inherent sense of entitlement required to make such a statement with a straight face astounds."
And Ross' backhanded compliment to the exceptionality of TNC's family also strikes me the same way. "Gee TNC, we all know how awesome and great and exceptional your family are, so that automatically makes it not the norm, so your argument regarding this based on your family situation is irrelevant and totally doesn't count".
Thanks a lot, Ross. I'm sure TNC really appreciate the compliment.
"Do married people have better outcomes because of the marriage itself? Or is it that people who are more likely to marry, produce better outcomes?" TNC
TR: Although socially conservative I have to admit this is a good point. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. It's like how they started thinking families should eat dinner together because the families who did were more successful. However it seems likely that a mediocre to poorly functioning family would remain so even if they ate together. In fact I know of families whose "meals together" led to their worst fights some of which spiraled into fairly nasty physical abuse. For the "good families" eating together may have been just a "symptom" rather than being a cause.
Still it seems logical that some forms of families would work better than others. In other social spheres certain forms organize better than others. This doesn't mean the modern nuclear family is best. Grandparents and kin should probably have a greater role than they do in it while romantic love should have a much weaker role. Things like compatibility, mental stability, being able to tolerate each other's relatives, and sharing the same religion are likely more important for a lasting relationship. Being in love with each other is good, but not strictly necessary. ("Marriage doesn't have to about love" is ironically brought to you on Valentine's Day) Then again I'm a celibate so what do I know?
Anyway saying some forms are better doesn't have to mean totally stigmatizing others. This is why I don't like that "culture war" term. I think you can discourage your own kids from certain arrangements, and see certain arrangements as sub-optimal on average, without being mean to people. A B-student did poorer than an A-student, but it doesn't mean B-student must be condemned as a moron.
Stonetools wrote: "In marriage, you have to go through a lot more, and have second and third thoughts, before you end a relationship once for all. I think that saves a lot of relationships at the margin. When the love is flowing and the sex is good and everyone’s working and the baby isn’t sick, it is easy to think that love conquers all. When trouble comes, that‘s when that institutional support and inertia does help."
No offense, but I find this argument to be b.s.
A piece of paper does not stop someone from calling the U-Haul truck, as you put it earlier in your post, stoonetools. Actually, what stops someone from jumping ship without giving it an effort is love, not the institution. There have been plenty of spouses who have left their partner high and dry, despite being legally married to them. And there have been plenty of people who stay together because, despite their troubles, they love and respect each other (and their kids) too much to just walk out. Maybe they end up getting a divorce, but they work out something to make the parenting aspect function.
The major value of institutions like marriage is that they allow those OUTSIDE the relationship to recognize the relationship as legitimate. If two people decide for themselves that relationship is a long-term, functioning relationship and they don't need outsiders to recognize it as such, then I don't see how marriage in and of itself is particularly meaningful. It's how people function as partners that matters. Sometimes, getting married is a way of displaying the commitment, and I believe everyone should have that option. But sometimes, people choose to show their commitment in other ways. That should be acceptable, too.
As TNC said, it's the practices, not the institutions, that matter. As for the chicken-egg debate (do institutions create good practices or do good practices lead to institutional stability), that doesn't matter to me. For some people, institutions are the cause. For others, institutions are the result. For others still, practices and institutions don't go together. It's this variety that leads me to agree with TNC and disagree with Ross: creating one institutional norm is not productive.
A great post and lots of great comments. Here's something else that rarely gets mentioned: folks like Ross are always saying it's ok to hold up their model as best because it is best, and it's all us permissive liberals who lead to family breakdown. But you look at the stats. & all the red states where the stigma against alternatives is presumably the highest have higher rates of divorce, teen pregnancy, etc. etc. It's almost like stigmatizing people isn't a good way to get good outcomes, or something!
You can't hate people for their own good.
The red-states that's most true of are dominated by Evangelical Protestants. Baptists in particular seem to allow their kids to have a "running around" period before they get born-again in their 30s or so.
Conservative Catholics and Lutherans don't work like that. They are also less likely to divorce or have these other problems. Teen birth and divorce rates are low in both Nebraska and the Dakotas. Mormon divorce rates are also low provided they marry a Mormon. (When it comes to interfaith marriages ones involving a Mormon have a fairly high divorce rate)
States like Alaska, Wyoming, Montana are not Evangelical, but they're also highly Republican without being particularly religious at all. (Palin is an outlier for her state, which is among the least religious in the nation) Those states are more "Guns, low-taxes, and strip-mining" Republicans.
It is unfortunate social conservatism is represented by a specific element of Protestantism, but irrelevant here. Douthat is Catholic and Dreher is Orthodox.
Thomas - Those are important distinctions, but I don't think you can dismiss that phenomenon by talking about Evangelicals 'letting their kids run around.' They've made a huge cultural push towards a certain ideal, not only of marriage but of abstinence-only education, opposition to gay rights, choice, and even birth control in many cases. These are places the standards Douthat and Dreher call for are presumably strongly in place, in spite of any underlying religious differences. It seems more than fair to point out that this project has failed on its own terms.
It seems to me that people are already stigmatized for not performing the most elemental of duties. Ta-Nehisi's world already exists. (but exactly how society at-large is supposed to know who is ignoring the teacher remains unclear)
So, the rest of the argument boils down to Coats screaming STOP STIGMATIZING ME! at social conservatives. This is not particularly enlightening.
What would advance the argument is some discussion on where the current lines are drawn between what is accepted/stigmatized/made illegal. I'm willing to be convinced that lines should be redrawn. But if someone suggests that we move them, I'd like to know where they plan to redraw them. And what exactly does removing a stigma entail? No more stink-eyes?
I'm much less interested in Coats defending his history, than in Coats and Douthat using their respective family experience to explore where we should draw the lines in situations like we have with this octuplet woman in California. TNC needs to go deeper than 'what if she were black'?
Re: Staying together over a period of time does not make one married.
Once upon a time it did. Once upon a time there was no such thing as a marriage license and even the Church recognized as married any couple that had commited to each other, even if just by private say-so.
And if we are gong to talk about single-parent families, we should make sure that those families really do have just a single parent. Families where there's two parents in the home who happen not be legally married do not qualify.
It is worth noting that Rod Dreher at:
http: //blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/02/stigmatizing-unmarriage_comments.html
stated "Having children outside of marriage should be stigmatized, for the common good," but steadfastly refused to provide any examples of how that would play out in action.
He finally closed comments on that post when enough people started calling on him to detail how he would go about stigmatizing unwed parents.
Stonetools: "What TNC is arguing here is that love conquers all. Where there is love, there is true family, and that institution/structure doesn’t matter."
Absolutely not. He's arguing that commitment, time, attention, and responsibility conquer all. "I'm arguing for a world--and have argued for a world--where people are stigmatized for not performing the most elemental of duties."
Duty. Not love (not that there's anything wrong with love, or that it's unnecessary. It's just not sufficient).
"Let’s put it another away. In any long-term relationship, there comes a time when you don’t love that person, or that person’s child. The strong temptation will be to call U Haul, pack up, and be gone. In an informal relationship, you can do that, and be gone by 5 pm that day. THE END. TNC could do that tomorrow (his father did it 3 times)."
1. TNC's father stuck around for him and all of his children, as he has said over and over and over.
2. Marriage creates some more obligations (contracts) but a person's legal obligation to support their children is not dependent, in the US, on marriage. It is dependent on genetic relatedness and a history of having taken responsibility for the children. There are many men who have paid 18 years of child support for a one-night stand.
Yes, institutions are important to encourage and enforce responsibility- institutions like the legal obligation to pay child support. And just because there are such institutions doesn't mean that the people who work outside them are not being responsible. Lots and lots of people don't pay child support- because they are there actively supporting their children, as opposed to supporting them with monthly checks. The institution only needs to be called in when the individuals fail at their duties.
I really loved this post, Ta-Nehisi. It strikes me that conservatives conflate the institution of marriage and the institution of parenthood, and they aren't the same thing. You don't need the one for the other. All kinds of statistical, social, broad-brush arguments can be made about a strong institution of parenthood being good for society, the well-being of children, and the well-being of all of us who have to live with the children who have been raised well or badly. Its worth some coercion and stigmatizing of individuals, some social engineering. It's worth forcing people, once they've become parents, to live up to certain standards and responsibilities. But marriage? I think each marriage has to live up to its own standards. Having a social model is useful; but it's a lot less critical that it be any one way or another than with parenthood.
There are many men who have paid 18 years of child support for a one-night stand.
This is a travesty. If the issue is fatherhood obligation, then it begins with reproductive choice. Women have it, men do not. Every time a woman becomes pregnant, a man's freedom is at risk. We need to figure out a way to require the consent of both parties to undertake the obligation of raising a child, even if it's not through marriage. Society should not force parenthood on anyone.
Well I'm often more at variance with Dreher than Douthat. In fact that's why I kind-of quit commenting there for awhile. Although I've done so again I don't necessarily think that was wise and may back off.
However Dreher is something of an uber-pessimist and is basically counter-cultural. He seems to be leaning toward "tune in to tradition Christianity, turn on to a communitarian way of life, and drop-out of the Godless decadent West." So if his little "worlds apart" stigmatize people it's not much different than the Amish, lesbian separatists, or even some utopian-socialist communes. Granted I think he's meaning unmarried parents should generally be "stigmatized", but realistically I don't think he believes that'd happen or work.
If the issue is fatherhood obligation, then it begins with reproductive choice. Women have it, men do not.
Posted by Just Karl | February 15, 2009 12:43 AM
I can think of two reproductive choices men can make to avoid fatherhood obligation.
One has a 100% success rate, the other has a near 100% success rate.
I leave the rest as an exercise for the reader.
I can understand where Just Karl is coming from.
I have this fight with my mother (who raised my brother and I as a single woman) all the time.
The key point in Just Karl's post is this: as long as pregnancy remains something that a man 'does' to a woman, women will remain victimized. True empowerment for women will include giving up the idea that because they carry the child, they own the child. Fathers are excluded from so many decisions, is it any wonder some of them just don't show up at all?