A bourgeois luxury
Glenn Reynolds picks up this quote from the Washington Post …
As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock. . . . Marriage has declined across all income groups, but it has declined far less among couples who make the most money and have the best education. These couples are also less likely to divorce.
… and cites back to his own citation in January to the work of Kay Hymowitz. I discussed this the month before, actually, writing this at Dean’s World:
I’ve fought an uphill battle in these pages for the proposition that we have lost something in our abandonment of traditional morality, especially as regards family life. There are so many unclear empirical questions, though, and so much cultural and religious baggage this conversation has to carry, that I never felt I was making any headway, or could, without recourse to explicitly religious arguments.
That’s why I’m grateful for a link provided in the Kaus article to an article by Kay Hymowitz in City Journal. Hymowitz takes apart the truisms, generalizations, assumptions and illogic that dance around the just plain truth that the socioeconomic, and social, reality for mothers and children — and dads — in households without a husband are worse off, remain worse off, and bestow a future of worse off to their own offspring.
I was, however, quite unable to get any traction in the comments. People ended up defending what great parents certain single parents were, while, in my view, missing the real issue — that traditional morality, as rapidly dwindling as it is in popularity in this country — even among “conservatives” — has something to say about healthy relationships, healthy child-rearing, and healthy adulthoods.
Now even the Post agrees that, empirically speaking, those with the most choice and given the most options more or less choose the most traditional arrangements. Why is that? I can’t say it’s because of a rebirth of religious or “traditional” morality — that’s not happening among elites in the West. But here’s one hint: People who accomplish the most — “couples who make the most money and have the best education” — are the most likely to have gotten to that point by virtue of being accustomed to discipline, i.e., self-denial and delayed gratification. Hence: “These couples are also less likely to divorce.”
Investment pays off. Successful people not only know this, but apply to all aspects of their lives — not only careers and finances. It is true that success in those areas can make you think there’s a shortcut to happiness in the other, arguably more challenging ones — family, love, and making some stab at finding meaning in life. But the only shortcut achieved, usually, is distraction from the truth.
As the research shows, the poor and working class don’t even have that. Nor the leadership — political or spiritual — to suggest where they can find it.
UPDATE: Villanously more.
March 5th, 2007 at 8:27 am
[...] of locals need marriage advice 5 Mar 2007 at 8:12am * love of my L.I.F.E ] 5 Mar 2007 at 7:46am A bourgeois luxury « Likelihood of Success 5 Mar 2007 at 6:56am But here?s one hint: People who accomplish the most ? ?couples who make the [...]
March 5th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Ron,
When I was a child, the Air Force moved us every three years. One realtor showed my father several houses, telling my father, each time, that he — the realtor — would be able to re-sell the house for a lot more money, making them both a handsome profit in three years’ time.
At the end of the tour, the realtor shook his head and said, “Gee, it’s a pity that houses have gotten so expensive here. A decade ago, they were a lot more affordable.”
Lawyers lamenting the death of marriage and the traditional family provoke the same kind of reaction from me that the realtor got from my father.
Here’s advice from the trenches on how to shift the balance back toward marriage and traditional families:
make getting married and having children lower-risk activities.
To a first approximation, divorce today is initiated by wives, is financially and personally ruinous for husbands, and is lucrative for divorce, er, “family” lawyers. When couples have children, it’s worse.
Divorce lawyers have the same effect on marriage and families that malpractice lawyers have on obstetrics and that class-action lawyers have on business: folks have become more reluctant to make themselves potential targets.
One difference is that doctors and corporations can now buy insurance to cover their risk, a cost which they pass on to the consumer. It’s hard for me to imagine what the analogue would be for marriage and children.
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:05 pm
[...] Ironically, by keeping their options open, they’re narrowing them — and, as the anonymous commenter at TigerHawk points out, probably for good. [...]