November 15, 2021
"During the interview, Winfrey said she thinks women are going to feel 'liberated' by Adele choosing to leave a marriage that wasn’t working, rather than stick it out only for her child."
"'I’ve read where you said you weren’t miserable, but you also knew you weren’t happy,' Winfrey said. 'And so you wanted to bring a happy version of yourself to your son. Which I think is about the best gift anybody can give to their children.'"
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Winfrey said she thinks women are going to feel 'liberated' by Adele choosing to leave a marriage that wasn’t working, rather than stick it out only for her child."
WHO CARES if the marriage helps the child! Marriage is NOT about children! </sarc
I watched a bit of the show:
1. Hard to understand her when she speaks because of her accent, but it disappeared when she sings.
2. Quite the dramatic setting at the Griffith Observatory.
3. Why all the talk about her pain, angst and journey?
4. Oprah lives like a Queen.
5. She wore black. The musicians wore white. Meaning?
My ex wife is on her third ex husband because it's all about her happiness you see. Her kids are a mess. I'm in touch with the first ex, and he is in touch with the latest. We are going to form an Ex husbands club.
A lot of hippie children had miserable deprived childhoods because their parents thought the best thing they could do for their children is follow their own bliss. "My happiness will be their happiness!"
It's really just a bad justification for putting your own desires ahead of the needs of your children. Good parents don't do it.
So If a woman is HAPPY being a coke addicted slut, different guy EACH night, living in squalor,
then THAT, is "about the best gift anybody can give to their children.' ????
I mean if it makes her HAPPY
What if beating her children 'makes her happy'? Is THAT the best gift?
What if sexually abusing, torturing, murdering and EATING her children 'makes her happy'?
is THAT the best gift?
asking for a friend
There should be a choice on your survey that just says: “Whatever Crack Emcee thinks.”
This is really ridiculous and self-serving. If you want a divorce to increase your own happiness level, then do that. But how dare you put the blame for that on your child?! Like it's their fault they might see daddy half as often!
If anyone should know about marriage, children, and weight loss it's the never married, childless, human mudslide Oprah.
It is possible to liberate yourself into misery and loneliness.
There are ties that make us free and happy. (Free from a lot of problems.)
She’ll probably find something else to not be happy about later.
It's too personal, too individual, too unique to each person's own life to have one rule for all. But I know life is short. Too short to be miserable throughout your time here. Marriage can be hard. Parenting can be harder.
I know this: Kids do better with two parents. But that's just not always possible.
And this: Love sometimes runs it's course. Then what?
And this: There are abusive marriages- on both sides. If you find yourself in something like that, you do need to find a way out. Abuse is not love.
And this: Sometimes you wake up and realize you are unfulfilled, not satisfied, and are tired of sitting in a room with another person, not talking, watching TV but not really watching it, wondering when things will change. The answer is they won't until you either work at it or leave it.
And sometimes you hang in there and not leave your marriage until the kids are fully formed, grown to at least young adults on their way. And you end up finding happiness with someone who truly loves you and you walk off into the sunset along the Gulf of Mexico, happy for years to come.
Good luck to everyone.
Feminism was about escaping the incessent drone of the washing machine. Now with computers there are new things for women to be unhappy about. In a win/win, men got porn.
There was a young mother in our office who revealed to the staff a squabble with her husband over the equitable division of career and parenting duties. The older/feminist (and childless) lady in the group couldn't wait to lecture the mom that she should never compromise what she wanted and if husband objects in any way she should drop him like a hot rock.
I found it disturbing and appalling. I imagine young women hear that kind of crap from old biddies all the time.
"The trouble always starts when somebody says that they could be just a little bit more happy." - Steve Martin's character in the movie "Grand Canyon."
In my youth, I briefly worked for a failing non-profit that was headed by a tyrannical woman. During "all-hands" meetings, she would often berate her employees by saying "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."
Why does this need to be discussed? This is Adele's private life.
Please people - you don't need to sit in front of The Oprah to confess your sins.
“Liberated woman leaves bad marriage” was the main premise of network TV when I was a child, from Julia to Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda and One Day at a Time (with alcoholism as co-premise) and many episodes of Love American Style. Oprah used to be good at this sort of thing.
Isn't it revealing that the author states that women are going to feel liberated by Adele leaving her marriage rather than Adele herself feeling liberated from the marriage? Pointing out once again that Oprah's stock-in-trade is enabling women to live vicariously through the lives of their 'betters' like vocalists, movie stars, models, internet influencers, female politicians, etc.
Definitely a reasonable possibility. Not that anyone needs Adele's example, or will find it liberating. Sticking it out for the child is certainly a consideration too, and probably most happy marriages can use that extra impetus as well. But some relationships are so toxic that everyone will benefit by ending them. Case by case basis.
As a parent, I’ve never found the advice and counsel of childless people re: parenting to be of much use.
"bring a happy version of yourself to your son"
Because you can't be happy being faithful to your vows (what's that, you ask) or committed to the happiness of the other.
Anyway, I wouldn't presume to judge other people's marriages, but if they are going to be turned into soft-progressive morality tales, I'll weigh in: it's not that simple. On the other hand, it is simple in x-generation feminism: nobody can be happy unless women are happy, and women can only be happy if they take care of #1, i.e., me, me, me.
To hell with stability and the love of two parents, apparently. No, what is important is that Adele decided her marriage, "wasn't working" and so blew it all up for her own selfish pleasure.
It's not that simple...but Oprah is.
People who do justify their actions in part "because Adele did it" deserve sympathy. They are sheep.
"'I’ve read where you said you weren’t miserable, but you also knew you weren’t happy,' Winfrey said. 'And so you wanted to bring a happy version of yourself to your son. Which I think is about the best gift anybody can give to their children.'"
Is it easy for Oprah to say something like that because she never had kids? Does she oversimplify because she's never been in that situation? Or is there some sadness behind the comment because she never had children to give that "gift" to?
And why does WaPo think we really need to know anything about what Oprah and Adele said? Is it really a burning cause for concern today?
Once you have kids the world is no longer about you.
You chose a man to have a kid with. Hopefully you made a rational choice and you did some work determining if he would be a good father.
If he is living up to his responsibilities then you do the same.
How often will the second choice be better than the first choice? Very rarely.
Mostly because self awareness in most people is zero and they do not adequately address their own shortcomings.
Self awareness in people who get divorces is so close to zero you could probably demonstrate how limits work.
Curious George said...
If anyone should know about marriage, children, and weight loss it's the never married, childless, human mudslide Oprah.
11/15/21, 6:58 AM
^^^^THIS^^^^
Waiting for her to record her cover of Pharrell Williams' song
"Most Powerful Woman in Media Hopes for More Children of Divorce"
Let's throw more money at this staggeringly brilliant woman.
seriously,
Maybe (just Maybe); 'the best gift anybody can give to their children' is to make THEM happy?
There’s no option for
“Who give a shit. It’s Oprah Winfrey”
But I know life is short. Too short to be miserable throughout your time here.
The person in question says she is NOT miserable, just wants out. The influential interviewer hoped women will follow her lead and lower the bar for breaking up their families.
Happy is nice, but often shallow. There is a depth that comes from perseverance in commitment that often brings deep joy.
There's also unhappiness that comes in the rest of life from the frustrations if sealing with broken commitments and not seeing things through.
And unhappiness from ego centric happiness that dismisses the feelings of others
It's a lot like eating that chocolate cake when on a diet. But even more profound because it's forcefeeding kids that cake too.
I've reconsidered my earlier comment. If we badly need to know what Oprah and Adele think about politics, and morals, we should be eager to hear their opinions on child-raising as well.
Mountains of research found that women are indeed more affected by moods and emotions than men. Other mountains of research found that strong and reliable social support is the most effective way to minimize mental health issues and distress.
The 20th and 21st centuries created ever more abstract, idealized, and fantasy media messaging about men, women, and realistic relationship expectations. First with radio, then the silver screen, the Technicolor, then TV, then cable TV, and now social media.
Men are relatively simple soldiers and pack-mules who've perhaps been less affected because they are always required to take the initiative and make things happen. Women look to fantasy perfect women for standards and appropriate life expectations, and often "logically" conclude their lives are failures. The large majority of divorces are formally initiated by women.
It's no so much "me, me, me" as "I must meet others' standards for perfection or everyone will consider me a failure."
I didn't know Oprah was still a thing. Does anyone still watch her show? I was under the impression once she went to cable, she kind of disappeared. At least until the Megan/Prince Harry interview, which wasn't on her show.
You weren’t miserable but you weren’t happy. Sounds like most married people, most of the time, while raising kids and working careers.
Here’s an idea. Have that conversation with your spouse, and find out what’s keeping you from “happiness” and work on happiness AND your marriage, and give THAT gift to your son…
The Me Decade called, and they want their Women's Lib meme back!
"Here's some advice and counsel, dear."
I say it's spinach, and I say to hell with it.
When did these people become our life guides? Why? How?
Hey, Alfalfa… er, rhhardin… where do I sign up for your He-Man Woman Haters Club?
It's rare that I am completely bewildered by someone's musical appeal, but Adele's completely eludes me. Usually I at least get why someone would listen to a certain kind of music, but even acknowledging her positive qualities, there are so much better artists in her genre to listen to. She really is the Nickelback of torch singers. She's not quite as much a disgrace to that genre as Michael Buble is to his, but she's in the ballpark. And if she's bothered by me saying that, she can go cry into all her money.
I wasted many years chasing Happy. It's a delusion.
If one lives long enough, they get the full boat: happy, unhappy, boredom, love, loss, pain, bereavement, the entire experience. If I work really hard at it, I can be less happy. The rest, the unhappiness, boredom, etc., are just part of the ride.
Kind of interesting that every time Adele shows up in the news they reference her weight loss. Seems like the press still thinks of her as the "fat girl".
When men, not exactly miserable in their marriages, decided they could nonetheless be happier if they were no longer married, it used to be called "a midlife crisis." Both the guys I knew who did this were assholes, but neither one was such an asshole that he thought it was a gift to his children.
I wasted years chasing Happy. It's a delusion.
If one lives long enough they get the full boat: happy, unhappy, boredom, love,loss, pain, health, bereavement...the entire experience. Were I to put my mind to it, I could be less happy, but the rest just comes with the package. Enjoy the ride. The entire ride.
Oprah, the barren woman??
I truly think she exemplifies all the worst.
Expecting someone other than yourself to be responsible for your happiness is exactly why you are not happy.
I saw one song and one short snippet of the interview before I turned back to football. I blame Diana. Ever since her interview people, women especially, have been willing to publicly share details of what should be their private life. Whenever a public person is willing to share any form of information about what went on in their marriage, I can’t help being appalled. I can’t watch Oprah interviews - it’s like she’s become the Queen of Grievance. Oh, the unhappiness of the rich and famous. My heart bleeds for them.
Plenty of kids have suffered by having miserable, angry parents stay together for their sake. This is an intensely individual decision, and trying to present it either as an ideal for others to follow or automatically a bad course of action seems too simplistic.
Her weight loss?
She's always "losing weight".
Did Oprak break out her crack pipe for old times sake?
Isn't it revealing that the author states that women are going to feel liberated by Adele leaving her marriage rather than Adele herself feeling liberated from the marriage?
Or rather than people feeling liberated - what are the odds this would be championed if it was a man leaving a woman for the same reasons?
You chose a man to have a kid with. Hopefully you made a rational choice and you did some work determining if he would be a good father.
@Achilles, do young women these days think that far ahead? I had sons and they chose wives who want children and who they think will be good mothers.
Oprah is the world’s foremost authority in the the things she has no first hand knowledge about.
It’s a remarkable achievement. If you stop to consider it.
If anyone should know about marriage, children, and weight loss it's the never married, childless, human mudslide Oprah.
@Curious George, +1
Yeah, we need to remove the stigma of single parents raising kids in homes of divorce.
"Adele choosing to leave a marriage that wasn’t working, rather than stick it out only for her child."
She was married to her child?!? Next they'll be letting women marry each other.
The best gift anybody can give to their children.
Kiwi Crate, talking cookie jar, pull-back vehicles, big bag of giant blocks, their very own ball pit, just for starters...
One of the ironies of Oprah is how her philosophy--her view of psychology, really--is white, middle class, and boomer. Her point of view on her television show was very much a continuation of Phil Donahue's. Recent family studies findings seem to disprove the idea that parents ending a marriage for their own happiness is anything but harmful to kids. If the marriage is abusive, that's different.
"seriously,
Maybe (just Maybe); 'the best gift anybody can give to their children' is to make THEM happy?"
Seriously, you can't expect two rich and self absorbed women (one of whom, as others have pointed out, has never been married and is childless) to think in such terms. These are the kind of people who can walk into the best room of a five star hotel and have the drapes changed because they didn't like the color. In other words, they are used to using their money to bend reality for them.
So if a relationship is not meeting their unrealistic definition of "happiness", the other person becomes as disposable as drapes. No discussion with the other person about why they are unhappy is needed. No adjustments have to be made. It's just "sorry, mommy isn't living a life of perfect happiness so you only get to see daddy on weekends and holidays." Yeah, it's for the children.
A fine example of female solipsism. What if the childs happiness is best served in mom and dad remaining together when there is no abuse going on?
Women blowing up their family because "I'm not haaaappy." has left a trail of dysfunctional children in their wake.
We condemn deadbeat dads who don't support their children financially after a divorce. Which is really about not giving women money for bearing children. Because kids crave parents, not cash.
These are emotionally deadbeat women, only thinking of themselves. Female privilege prevents them from being held accountable in a manner that men are held accountable.
My father left my mother when I was 5. She had to do double duty - work and raise me and three older kids. Being hardcore Catholics helped. Priests and parishioners rallied around her and us. My Mom was athletic, so she got me into sports. No Dad meant I had to learn how things work, what tools did what and how to use them. My garage today is testimony to what you can pick up watching men do stuff. So, children can get along without both parents. Still, for my Mom's sake, I wished my Dad hadn't died.
"what are the odds this would be championed if it was a man leaving a woman for the same reasons?"
It wouldn't. Men have responsibilities. Women have options based on their own happiness being primary. That's the culture championed by feminists, which leaves female privilege accrued under patriarchy intact and frees them from the societal obligations that used to be expected.
Is the whole game about "happiness"?
Adele is a very talented singer, but I don't really give a fuck about anything she has to say if it's not music-related.
Why are people obsessed with celebrities?
Pro tip: they're not your friends.
People only go to Oprah when they want to mislead others. Talking to one side in a divorce is misinformation all by itself.
My daughter is divorced, and she needed to be. But the separation and divorce have been quite hard on my seven-year-old grandson. I try to say positive things to him about his dad, even though his dad is a sorry SOB.
Hair-trigger divorce, and social approval thereof, are by-products of widespread affluence (some would say decadence). One reason is that affluence can mitigate the physical deprivation normally visited upon children when non-affluent families break up. So that makes it easy for affluent parents to pretend the ill effects of divorce on the children are minimal, and it's just a short step from there to "it's good for them." Within even a generally affluent society, though, great harm is caused by holding up the behavior of the most affluent as an example to be emulated by the non-affluent. Oprah Winfrey ought to know that.
Appalling coastal liberal mindset. They should reflect on the type of mores and social rules that brought them to such a rich and open lifestyle in this century. It certainly wasn't drugs, sex, and rock'n'roll by our forefathers over the centuries. Wackos in prior centuries generally died out in one or two generations.
It was different in my house. My father left my mother with 4 kids to support because "HE" wasn't happy. He paid very little in child care...wore all the best designer clothes...hung out with a young crowd partying to his hearts delight, whilst my mother struggled with 3 jobs to bring up 4 kids without any help. Cry me a river for the ones who are so unhappy that they only think about themselves and not the welfare of their kids. Nowadays, they would probably take us away from her, because we were latchkey kids left alone while she had to work.
Looking at the media we're in a modern day Sodom & Gomorrah.
The best gift my mother gave me was giving birth to me. The rest has been gravy.
"1. Hard to understand her when she speaks because of her accent, but it disappeared when she sings."
Same with Ozzy Osbourne for me.
There is no celebrity who is the male equivalent of Oprah.
That would be a male celebrity who was born into poverty, came from a broken family, who excelled in sports broadcasting (but not an athlete), and then started a career as the host of a talk show aimed at an audience of the kind of man who wants to have his own worst male instincts confirmed and applauded. You only live once, cheat on your wife! Spend the kid's college fund on a new Harley! You deserve it!
My parents divorced when I was ten years old.
Divorce is very bad for kids. At some point when you are growing up, you find out that there are problems your parents cannot help you with, or things that they cannot protect you from. I would guess that this happens in the early teens for most kids. The response of the kid is to learn, eventually, to fend for himself or herself, to find their own solutions to problems and to learn how to protect yourself from the people and situations that your parents cannot protect you from. It's called growing up.
When the parents of young children divorce their children are suddenly thrust into that world, where your parents are no longer capable of doing their jobs as parents and instead seem to be actively harming their children. One of them, at least, is going to check out of that child's life, for reasons the child cannot comprehend.
It is brutal. People who come from intact families can not comprehend it.
" ... women are going to feel liberated by Adele chosing to leave a marriage that wasn't working, rather than stick it out only for her child."
Adele isn't the first woman to do this so why would her decision be the one to suddenly or finally makes women "feel liberated"? In fact, Adele's likely financial resources make her situation different and her decision different from most women.
Oprah and Adele agree on a formula for raising beta males.
Oprah and Adele agree on a formula for raising beta males.
Adele's singing style and song choices clearly indicate someone who loves, loves, loves drama. Heck, that's the main reason she's so popular. So it shouldn't be a big surprise that she wasn't happy in a stable marriage, with its typical responsibilities and everyday ups-and-downs.
The real question is whether she'll be any happier divorced -- my guess is no. Around the time she's releasing an album titled "50" and marrying some younger hunk (People magazine: "Fourth Time's the Charm!"), lets hope her then-adult kids will turn out to have gotten through it all okay.
My understanding of the decades of social and psychological studies of the effect of divorce on children is that the data clearly and consistently show that staying together is much better for the kids than divorce (absent a very abusive parent). The little rascals couldn't give a rat's patootie if the parents are "happy" and at maximum self-actualization.
So it's discouraging to see Winfrey asserting as an obvious truth that kids will be better off if they are being raised by separated but happier parents.
Maybe a given parent needs to get a divorce---but don't ever pretend that it's better for the kids.
Had a childless Opus Dei ex-friend, a woman who piously dispersed advice on topics of "children, marriage, motherhood", despite her lack of both personal experience and slavish adherence to overtly controlling religious cult group. Reminded me of Oprah, sans BLM messaging, but same tone-deaf moral superiority freely expressed.
I like Adele, but she's not my role model. Nor, obviously, is Oprah.
It is better for children to be raised by both parents, but only if both parents are functioning adults. If your spouse is a complete fuckup, you are not doing your kids a favor.
My wife still struggles with her decision to stay married to a completely absent husband and father. Once their kid was 18, she divorced him, but still wonders if they would all have been better off if she had made the move 10 years earlier.
It is not about "happiness". It is about the best way to raise kids.
Leaving aside my own family traumas, one of the sorriest days of my life was helping my boyhood friend Bob move his stuff out of the house he and his wife (my own wife's very best friend then) had bought with his father's help. Their daughters were about 6 and 3, and having Bob's M-I-L hanging around didn't help.
According to my wife, Bob was already screwing the woman who eventually became his second wife and, in 2013, his widow. If I know Bob she was probably only one of many when he split, but they obviously made each other happy when they did start living together.
Anyway, while I'm sure Bob's older girl was pretty messed up--she fell for an actual lowlife and had one now quite-screwed-up son before dying young of a weird cancer--the second girl seems OK but probably won't breed.
Me me me me me me me.
What's good for me is good for me.
So what's good for me must be good for thee!
Because it's all about me me me me me me me.
Because if you weren't so me-focused you'd know that most marriages have low points, and practically all of these heal if both refrain from yanking that divorce-lever as soon as either becomes at all dis-satisfied. Or consider the hunk you should have had, instead of the lump you settled for, when the reality is that you probably won't be able to attract even that the next time around.
I knew there was a reason I hated her new song. She sings beautifully but the whole thing is a justification for her selfish actions.
I'd like to determine whether Meghan Markle/Prince Ginger or Oprah/Adele are of lesser importance in my life. But I'm not carrying a magnifying glass at this time.
Astounding that these people are considered worthy of following.
A woman I know divorced her husband several years ago because he was an insensitive, selfish, slob (and he is). Trouble is, now her ex and his girlfriend have primary custody of her (their) son - and the girlfriend sounds like the prototypical wicked stepmother verbally and emotionally abusing the boy while favoring her own, older, son. Sad story all around, but when you divorce, you are ceding a great deal of your ability to be a daily part and influence in your child's life.
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