Why Is the Pundit Class Suddenly So Marriage-Obsessed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of young single grandmothers and aunties raise their grandchildren with single mothers. That’s common in some circles.

This shifts the responsibilities of men (the father) even more squarely onto the shoulders of even more women than just the mother. This is not sustainable for a healthy culture.

It also creates a self-fulfilling cycle of male irresponsibility—Disengaged, low-investment, irresponsible men leave women alone with kids who raise disengaged, irresponsible boys, who grow up into disengaged, irresponsible men that women leave, etc etc. Look at cultural circles where this is de facto the case: their outcomes are abysmal.

We saw evidence of this in the precipitous drop in crime rates in the 90s. Post-Roe v. Wade, women who weren't in a position to raise children well were more likely to get abortions. That led to fewer damaged, irresponsible boys and, therefore, lower crime rates. We should reinstate Roe.

I disagree—all the millenial women complaining presently got married to loser manchildren who were not aborted after Roe. It’s the product of a decimation of moral virtue and cultural values, which is what the pundits are ostensibly trying to restore.

The past was, more or less, a moral hell hole. Just look at how we treated gay people until very recently.

It's not so black and white. Yes as to the treatment of gay people. But in the past, it was, for example, much easier to support a family on one relatively low income. It was easier to pay for housing, medical care (even though it was inferior in many ways), and education. People tended to be more connected to their communities because it was where they were raised, so they had families, friends, churches, and other charitable organizations willing and able to help. Society has become, in many ways, much more cruel generally even as we moreso recognize that it is wrong to mistreat people based on sexual orientation, gender, race, etc.

I think a lot of the good aspects you note about life in the past is probably colored by nostalgia. How good was life for the average black woman? The average West Virginian white laborer (an example I raise, because I remember reading about Bobby Kennedy highlighting Appalachian poverty in 1968)? The wife of the average Southern rural sharecropper?

Probably my only point is that generalizations are hard to substantiate and, as the man said, "the good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."

[Anonymous]

I am happily married but in my opinion marriage among the younger millennials and generation Z will not work for many reasons. The first being the inability to compromise. And the second the unrealistic expectations you have from your partner. And finally, divorce has been trivialized so much that people egg you to divorce as soon as things are not working out. There an ingrained belief today that the grass is “permanently” green on the other side. Also women have achieved so much on their own and to convince them that they need a husband is not a trivial task. The truth is 20 years from now, at least in the United States, I can honestly see marriage rate dropping by half compared to today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of young single grandmothers and aunties raise their grandchildren with single mothers. That’s common in some circles.

And in general, on average, outcomes for these children are worse than in the average two-parent household.

Yes it’s usually due to an absentee father situation, lack of education or an unskilled labor with a day laborer situation. That plus children in ones late teens and early 20s before marriage, if at all.

[Anonymous]

Marriages have declined by 60% since the 1970s in the United States

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of young single grandmothers and aunties raise their grandchildren with single mothers. That’s common in some circles.

This shifts the responsibilities of men (the father) even more squarely onto the shoulders of even more women than just the mother. This is not sustainable for a healthy culture.

It also creates a self-fulfilling cycle of male irresponsibility—Disengaged, low-investment, irresponsible men leave women alone with kids who raise disengaged, irresponsible boys, who grow up into disengaged, irresponsible men that women leave, etc etc. Look at cultural circles where this is de facto the case: their outcomes are abysmal.

Yes.

So different that in the 1960s

Michelle Obama’s books flirts with this all as well. What happened since then… can’t blame external people for all of your choices, behaviors, decisions, and actions….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are two points getting conflated here that are addressed somewhat in the Politico article. One point is that the people who are dysfunctional or not at all inclined to support a family (e.g., drug addicts, the chronically unemployed by choice) are not the ones who the experts think should be marrying. They shouldn't be having kids, but that's a different issue. We are talking about encouraging people who are otherwise functional people to get married.

The second point is that we should take steps as a society to make it easier to stay married and raise children. There is a LOT of disagreement about what those policies are or even what the policy considerations should be. But no one is suggesting that there are not likely policy solutions to the question of why people don't want to get or stay married.

Yes that’s on the delinquent male side.

And on the delinquent female side, she wants to be needed and wanted so another baby serves that purpose.

No education, no skills, no work experience, you make up a new “purpose” every year or two via a baby with whatever boyfriend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am happily married but in my opinion marriage among the younger millennials and generation Z will not work for many reasons. The first being the inability to compromise. And the second the unrealistic expectations you have from your partner. And finally, divorce has been trivialized so much that people egg you to divorce as soon as things are not working out. There an ingrained belief today that the grass is “permanently” green on the other side. Also women have achieved so much on their own and to convince them that they need a husband is not a trivial task. The truth is 20 years from now, at least in the United States, I can honestly see marriage rate dropping by half compared to today.

I kind of agree but then I look at older generations and they have no ability to compromise either. Very stuck in their ways. I think in the past people just didn't interact as much or in some many arenas and so marriage was about just a few things and not so much of an enmeshment. Plus it was just fashionable and there were more rules in society so behaving badly was frowned upon. I don't know for sure what happened in previous generations. I just know previous generations were not more open minded and compromising.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Writing scoldy articles about marriage makes David Brooks feel better about leaving his wife for his much younger research assistant.

Remember when he did an IG Live and had to shut it down because everyone kept writing "If you hate millennials so much, why did you marry one" in the chat?

That is brilliant. Those people, thank you. I don’t have Instagram otherwise I would have joined you.

I hope the one he married is good at saying nothing ever. Keep sweet, prey, and obey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Marriages have declined by 60% since the 1970s in the United States

Not coincidentally, that's also about the time banks were required to let women hold accounts.

[Anonymous]

What’s a pundit in this situation??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are two points getting conflated here that are addressed somewhat in the Politico article. One point is that the people who are dysfunctional or not at all inclined to support a family (e.g., drug addicts, the chronically unemployed by choice) are not the ones who the experts think should be marrying. They shouldn't be having kids, but that's a different issue. We are talking about encouraging people who are otherwise functional people to get married.

The second point is that we should take steps as a society to make it easier to stay married and raise children. There is a LOT of disagreement about what those policies are or even what the policy considerations should be. But no one is suggesting that there are not likely policy solutions to the question of why people don't want to get or stay married.

But if you look at all those studies closely, there are no controls for being functional. That’s the whole point - they compare married couples vs single parents and ignoring the huge selection bias. There is a big difference between a woman who decided to become a single mother by choice and used a sperm donor vs a woman who ended up parenting single because the father is not good for anything.

[Anonymous]

There is child decline going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are two points getting conflated here that are addressed somewhat in the Politico article. One point is that the people who are dysfunctional or not at all inclined to support a family (e.g., drug addicts, the chronically unemployed by choice) are not the ones who the experts think should be marrying. They shouldn't be having kids, but that's a different issue. We are talking about encouraging people who are otherwise functional people to get married.

The second point is that we should take steps as a society to make it easier to stay married and raise children. There is a LOT of disagreement about what those policies are or even what the policy considerations should be. But no one is suggesting that there are not likely policy solutions to the question of why people don't want to get or stay married.

But if you look at all those studies closely, there are no controls for being functional. That’s the whole point - they compare married couples vs single parents and ignoring the huge selection bias. There is a big difference between a woman who decided to become a single mother by choice and used a sperm donor vs a woman who ended up parenting single because the father is not good for anything.

I think you need to point to the study and its controls to say that there is selection bias. Certainly there are plenty of ways to control for that. With a sufficiently large study population and adequate control variables, you could control for dysfunctional two-parent and one-parent households enough to draw some solid conclusions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am happily married but in my opinion marriage among the younger millennials and generation Z will not work for many reasons. The first being the inability to compromise. And the second the unrealistic expectations you have from your partner. And finally, divorce has been trivialized so much that people egg you to divorce as soon as things are not working out. There an ingrained belief today that the grass is “permanently” green on the other side. Also women have achieved so much on their own and to convince them that they need a husband is not a trivial task. The truth is 20 years from now, at least in the United States, I can honestly see marriage rate dropping by half compared to today.

I agree. Part of me is cool with that, but having kids myself, a big part is sad that kids in the future, their norm may be to have a tenuous parental situation, or be raised by one parents and that could impact their development or the nation on the whole.

But yes, people are probably more selfish these days. Boomers are selfish in old age. Now kids are being raised by parents who treat them like equals all the time and let them do wild sht. And social media causing narcissism. And now fking robots will take all the jobs. Wowowowoowo.

[Anonymous]

[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of young single grandmothers and aunties raise their grandchildren with single mothers. That’s common in some circles.

This shifts the responsibilities of men (the father) even more squarely onto the shoulders of even more women than just the mother. This is not sustainable for a healthy culture.

It also creates a self-fulfilling cycle of male irresponsibility—Disengaged, low-investment, irresponsible men leave women alone with kids who raise disengaged, irresponsible boys, who grow up into disengaged, irresponsible men that women leave, etc etc. Look at cultural circles where this is de facto the case: their outcomes are abysmal.

We saw evidence of this in the precipitous drop in crime rates in the 90s. Post-Roe v. Wade, women who weren't in a position to raise children well were more likely to get abortions. That led to fewer damaged, irresponsible boys and, therefore, lower crime rates. We should reinstate Roe.

I disagree—all the millenial women complaining presently got married to loser manchildren who were not aborted after Roe. It’s the product of a decimation of moral virtue and cultural values, which is what the pundits are ostensibly trying to restore.

I doubt they all married man children. Men are more inclined to want to contribute in a more equitable way to domestic duties these days than their fathers did.

What’s probably happening is that women on average emote much more than men, and are more likely to vocalize their woes, also this generation is generally weaker and more inclined to complain and wear their mental health on their sleeve, and are making their complaints known with bitter tik tok videos.

Basically it’s a future of weaklings who would probably roll over if it was WW2 and just cry about lack of safe spaces.