Why Is the Pundit Class Suddenly So Marriage-Obsessed?

[Anonymous]

It is not a very feminist thing to do to get married to a a man!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because society is struggling, children are struggling and our birth rate is falling.

That doesn't mean that their ideas will work, but I think that's why it's coming up.

Also, control of women is a priority for some pundit groups.

Agreed. The research is quite clear that children raised in two parent households fair much better, even when controlling for income. It really does a disservice to children and society to ignore reality.

There are serious correlation/causation questions that need to be answered before this tells us very much that we can use.

NP - No, there aren’t. No one reasonable disagrees that children fare better when there are more resources (attention (since neither mommy or daddy is dating other unrelated parties), money (since only paying for 1 household) etc.) going towards their care.

Economist here and I have to agree that that link between correlation and causation is very clear here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because society is struggling, children are struggling and our birth rate is falling.

That doesn't mean that their ideas will work, but I think that's why it's coming up.

Also, control of women is a priority for some pundit groups.

Agreed. The research is quite clear that children raised in two parent households fair much better, even when controlling for income. It really does a disservice to children and society to ignore reality.

There are serious correlation/causation questions that need to be answered before this tells us very much that we can use.

NP - No, there aren’t. No one reasonable disagrees that children fare better when there are more resources (attention (since neither mommy or daddy is dating other unrelated parties), money (since only paying for 1 household) etc.) going towards their care.

But this argument ignores many assumptions - the hugest being the acceptance of our currently structured society (in terms of child care, caregiving in general, pay inequity, health care and college costs), and another being that children wouldn't have more resources where Mom and Dad can both work and both contribute equally to childcare. Women's careers are hampered by the current structure. Pay gap aside. I know a lot of 2 parent families that are earning $150k/50K, where, with proper societal support, they could be earning 150K/150K. The women are smart and could earn more but are hampered by unevenly split childcare loads.

I'd like to see a comparison between one and two parent families in European countries which have equal parental leave, public or financially supported childcare from age 1, good public schools, a food safety net, universal low cost healthcare and low cost university. That describes many European and Nordic countries.

US society is set up to 1) not pay women equally and 2) not allow or facilitate them to work equally and 3) push women out of the work force to capture women's free or low cost labor in childcare, eldercare and caregiving occupations. No wonder 2 parent families look better.

And the idea that 2 parent families like better is *on average*. There are many families where one parent's dysfunctionality means it is better divorce (abuse, addiction, mental illness, etc.) and raise a child in a healthy home 50% of the time. These divorced families have no support to make up for the one parent's dysfunction.

[Anonymous]

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?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t think of another institution that has financially, emotionally, and physically ruined more women and made more women desperately unhappy than marriage. It’s telling that not one person among the experts interviewed for OP’s article could name a there single benefit to women of getting married. Speaking as a very unhappily married millennial woman, I am thrilled to see that more and more women in the next generation are sidestepping the hellpit that marriage is for most of us.

LOL there's no benefit to a 2nd income?

No benefit to sharing the burdens of raising kids (for those who want them)?

Okay then.

[Anonymous]

I'm a happily married woman and I think these types of articles are stupid. No one is going to get married because David Brooks thinks they should.

[Anonymous]

American men are getting married...in other countries, to women in Thailand, the Philippines, Columbia, Vietnam, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because society is struggling, children are struggling and our birth rate is falling.

That doesn't mean that their ideas will work, but I think that's why it's coming up.

Also, control of women is a priority for some pundit groups.

Agreed. The research is quite clear that children raised in two parent households fair much better, even when controlling for income. It really does a disservice to children and society to ignore reality.

There are serious correlation/causation questions that need to be answered before this tells us very much that we can use.

NP - No, there aren’t. No one reasonable disagrees that children fare better when there are more resources (attention (since neither mommy or daddy is dating other unrelated parties), money (since only paying for 1 household) etc.) going towards their care.

However, you are (quite unreasonably) assuming that in any marriage both partners are contributing some resources. Many divorced couples are divorced because one of the partners was actually a major drain, emotionally, physically and/or financially, on the family resources, and the other partner and kid(s) are better off after dropping the dead weight. They might be behind a family where both parents are contributing, but definitely ahead of where they’ve been before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t think of another institution that has financially, emotionally, and physically ruined more women and made more women desperately unhappy than marriage. It’s telling that not one person among the experts interviewed for OP’s article could name a there single benefit to women of getting married. Speaking as a very unhappily married millennial woman, I am thrilled to see that more and more women in the next generation are sidestepping the hellpit that marriage is for most of us.

LOL there's no benefit to a 2nd income?

No benefit to sharing the burdens of raising kids (for those who want them)?

Okay then.

Why would a single woman need a second income? Use your brain, honey.

And as far as your second question goes, isn’t it time we stopped pretending that most men are actually helping to raise their offspring? Existing in the same household while refusing to care for their own offspring beyond resentfully and incompetently doing what they’re nagged into is the norm for most men. Yes, I said “most,” not “some.”

[Anonymous]

They aren’t getting married because so many benefits go away when you get married. You look richer on paper to the government when you’re married vs living together. And then because they aren’t married, they do break up easier versus working it out.

I’m not sure how to fix this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t think of another institution that has financially, emotionally, and physically ruined more women and made more women desperately unhappy than marriage. It’s telling that not one person among the experts interviewed for OP’s article could name a there single benefit to women of getting married. Speaking as a very unhappily married millennial woman, I am thrilled to see that more and more women in the next generation are sidestepping the hellpit that marriage is for most of us.

+1

My parents had a successful traditional marriage and are still in love after 56 years.
Even so, I knew by my early twenties that marriage was a bad deal for women. I'm so glad that younger women are figuring this out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:American men are getting married...in other countries, to women in Thailand, the Philippines, Columbia, Vietnam, etc.

You mean Colombia?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because society is struggling, children are struggling and our birth rate is falling.

That doesn't mean that their ideas will work, but I think that's why it's coming up.

Also, control of women is a priority for some pundit groups.

Agreed. The research is quite clear that children raised in two parent households fair much better, even when controlling for income. It really does a disservice to children and society to ignore reality.

There are serious correlation/causation questions that need to be answered before this tells us very much that we can use.

NP - No, there aren’t. No one reasonable disagrees that children fare better when there are more resources (attention (since neither mommy or daddy is dating other unrelated parties), money (since only paying for 1 household) etc.) going towards their care.

Economist here and I have to agree that that link between correlation and causation is very clear here.

But do people become financially better off and stable because they marry, or are they more likely to marry because they are financially better off/stable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t think of another institution that has financially, emotionally, and physically ruined more women and made more women desperately unhappy than marriage. It’s telling that not one person among the experts interviewed for OP’s article could name a there single benefit to women of getting married. Speaking as a very unhappily married millennial woman, I am thrilled to see that more and more women in the next generation are sidestepping the hellpit that marriage is for most of us.

LOL there's no benefit to a 2nd income?

No benefit to sharing the burdens of raising kids (for those who want them)?

Okay then.

Why would a single woman need a second income? Use your brain, honey.

And as far as your second question goes, isn’t it time we stopped pretending that most men are actually helping to raise their offspring? Existing in the same household while refusing to care for their own offspring beyond resentfully and incompetently doing what they’re nagged into is the norm for most men. Yes, I said “most,” not “some.”

Married men live longer and are healthier than single men. The same is not true for married women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Yup. David Brooks is so NOT the person to push the importance of marriage.

You never know what’s happening in someone’s marriage. Who knows if his wife was a karen or had some other mental issue

True. But we do know what David Brooks choose to write about.