Said Glynnis MacNicol, in "Why Is Marriage Less Attractive Than Ever? The era of relationship discontent" (NYT).
"I think with online dating — even in my experience of it — the gamification leaves you with this sense of, you know, I don’t like this one; I’ll move on to the next one.... Previously, there was no comparison. The only avenue to happiness and satisfaction was through marriage and motherhood. Anyone outside of that was the lonely spinster aunt in the attic.... And then you add to that, in a country that does not provide child care or much support for women who do want to be parents, you hear a lot of stories about that path in life and how punishing it is. And in comparison to the alternative, when the alternative for the first time in history is starting to look far more enjoyable, I think contributes to this sense of, well, what is the point of this?"
I'm giving this my old and seldom-used "paradox of choice" tag.
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We used to provide a lot of support for young mothers, mothers in general, and their children, they were called husbands. But the problem with husbands is that the men willing to do that job usually are not the same men that have a wide choice of women to have sex with, and women prefer men who have choices, and now with dating apps, they can enroll themselves on a roster of women that an attractive man keeps, many of whom he will not be seen in public with.
But the solution, as always, is more government.
Everyone gets to make choices and choices have consequences.
Men also get a vote and with some women the vote is best exercised prior to marriage.
"Anyone outside of that was the lonely spinster aunt..."
Lots of strawwoman argumentation going on here.
A husband and wife have an unPlanned child. The husband and wife cooperate to raise their unPlanned Posterity.
Keep women affordable, available, reusable, and taxable?
Social liberal club is dysfunctional.
Commit. Don't abort.
"..not seeing a path forward to those things in the structures that have been presented.."
in WHAT ways?
the "go to college, get a degree, get a career, get old" way?
the "find the hottest man you can find, and let him use you" way?
i'm SURE they Don't mean, the
"smile at the boy next door, go to prom and MAYBE kiss on the porch" way
Close extended families and tight knit communities created the village to raise kids. Hillary Clinton’s premise wasn’t wrong, but government and strangers cannot provide that role since in the end neither actually cares about someone else’s kids.
"...in a country that does not provide child care..."
Ah, I see, THAT's the problem. There used to be a solution for child care. Parents. Two. Mom and Dad living together, raising their children. Now we need Hillary's "village" utopia for a "country that provides child care."
..."And then you add to that, in a country that does not provide child care or much support for women..."
Entitle much?
Just category error all around
most women DON'T find most men attractive, at all..
until they get to know them.
[this has Always been true]
most women WON'T get to know men, at all;
unless they find them attractive.
[this, is the new reality ]
“the alternative is starting to look far more enjoyable”
What alternative—endlessly doom scrolling, attending No Kings rallies, and excessive travel to exotic places to document on Instagram? That alternative?!
meanwhile, the Amish keep having kids and kids and kids..
This sounds a lot like a question being posed by Richard Dawson on Family Feud. ..."The Audience sez....."
It's Trump's fault.
Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature. Check your ego at the door. Reconcile.
Oh for fuck's sake- why not just ask the government to provide the sperm.
LOL because leftist women have left the field of eligibility for their field of dreams. Just ask Julia. She don't need no men.
"And then you add to that, in a country that does not provide child care or much support for women who do want to be parents"
Unadulterated 100% pure grade A bullshit. They say this shit because they believe you should pay for it.
Does the NYT ever discuss the struggle of men and families?
Silly question.
The issue will never find resolution when only one side is discussed.
This is shifting the blame. What I hear is a great deal of pessimism about the future of our planet, our negative impact on the planet, would the planet be better off if humans didn’t exist. All this crap has been spoon fed to young kids since day care. And now global warming no longer a worry so let’s give young people something new to worry about.
Women hold all the cards when it comes to sex/dating/marriage. It's hard to revel in your carefully engineered sense of victimhood when you hold all the cards.
The author is someone who you think it is. Pure selfish hedonism.
https://www.glynnismacnicol.com/
I just came from a relative's wedding where the photographer was a 20 something due in five weeks with a two year old at home, still getting things done snapping away in her wedding finery and Chuck Taylors....a woman in the wedding with a tiny one in the sling thingie, not a word of objection from either...part of the problem is lack of effort, an abundance of entitlement and the shift in cultural expectations for certain young women...
It's been a century since the spinster aunts escaped the family home for the bright lights of the city. Surely women have adapted to this freedom from Society conformity by now?
With the job— or at least the sense that the job was a possibility— came a feeling of comparative economic independence. With the feeling of economic independence came a slackening of husbandly and parental authority. Maiden aunts and unmarried daughters were leaving the shelter of the family roof to install themselves in kitchenette apartments of their own. For city-dwellers the home was steadily becoming less of a shrine, more of a dormitory— a place of casual shelter where one stopped overnight on the way from the restaurant and the movie theater to the office. Yet even the job did not provide the American woman with that complete satisfaction which the management of a mechanized home no longer furnished. She still had energies and emotions to burn; she was ready for the revolution.
---‘Only Yesterday An Informal History Of The Nineteen Twenties’, Frederick Lewis Allen (1931)
Perhaps the revolution to destroy the nuclear family put forth by feminist leaders of the early 1970s was ill-advised?
In any case, marriage has been on decline since the 1960s. The percentage of those Never-Married-at-Age-40 bottomed out in 1980 (those born in 1940) at 6%. It has since risen. Passing the 1910 value of 16% in 2000 (those born in 1960) and hitting 25% in 2022 for early Millennials.
There has been nothing in the socialization at school or in popular media to alter this trajectory since 1985. So it is unlikely marriage will grow in popularity in the near term.
I see an assumption that child care should be free while mom goes off to work...or I assume to work some profession. I assume...
Who says you have to put your kids in daycare? I didn't.
@rehajm, the modern American woman of the last 45 years quite literally believes government (her husband) shouldn't require her to do anything, and if she decides to do something, said decision should come with complete emotional and economic support free of charge.
Why? Because 'Princess' exists. How dare you think that isn't enough reason!
People in their 20s and 30s avoid the reality that, in virtually all marriages, sexual ardor dims over time; each partner tends to take the good things about the other for granted, and focus asymmetrically on the other's limitations; the challenges of career and parenthood interfere with the relationship they had when they got married; and lots of unexpected stuff happens. Only grounded resilient people have a good chance to be happy in marriage, and there aren't that many grounded resilient people.
"...and there aren't that many grounded resilient people."
American women especially....not anymore.
Conversely, when women of this mindset do marry, the husband’s salary is for necessities and the woman’s salary is for her pleasure, desires and interests, but unappreciative of efforts of the man who provided the necessities.
While most men will accept the first aspect and second aspects as a provider, only the most submissive of men tolerate the lack of appreciation and respect for their efforts.
More and more men have learned that they don’t want to slave away for an unappreciative woman.
Chris Rock nailed it. Men don’t need much, they will be content if they get the big piece of chicken.
https://youtu.be/8h1BEMMDuMI
"a country that does not provide child care or much support for women who do want to be parents"
Are we doing "The Life of Julia" propaganda again? Or maybe: Are we still doing "The Life of Julia" propaganda?
Part of the problem is the modern economics that doesn't have a middle class so people are working multiple jobs to pay for a shitbox apartment, a semi-reliable automobile, groceries and the Vig on their student loans. Whatever we do we mustn't blame all of the billionaire money changers who have stolen the American dream with the help from the United States Senate and House of Representatives.
In fact, they need a big beautiful ballroom to party in so that they don't have to take a shit in a porta potty.
meanwhile, the Amish keep having kids and kids and kids..
100 years from now, the Amish will be 20% of the population. Mormons will be 30%. Muslims will be 30% if not more. Orthodox Jews and traditional Catholics and quiver-full Evangelicals will make up much of the rest. White leftists not affiliated with a church will be less than 5%.
“It is a part of the destiny of man, wrote Malcolm Muggeridge, “to pursue both power and love, knowing them to be incompatible.
‘Here am I, captain of a legion of Rome,’ a recently discovered inscription runs, ‘who served in the Libyan Desert and learns and ponders this truth: There are in life but two things, love and power, and no one has both.’ ”
(Anthony Esolen, Wise as Pigeons, Harmless as Snakes)
That is the choice--pursuing the power that gives independence or pursuing the love that can give happiness.
Re: childcare
The Lincoln Park neighborhood in Chicago is awash with formerly retail storefronts that have become for profit, pre-school childcare sites. The park outside our building is full of two -abreast chains of children being guided to and from the park by their minders. Check out the childcare facility at the top of Chicago's premier vertical mall, 900 North Michigan.
Somehow, young couples are finding a way forward even in intensely urban, reputedly crime-ridden Chicago.
Conservative women are having nearly as many children as decades ago. The change is almost entirely among progressive women.
From the article:
"Previously, there was no comparison. The only avenue to happiness and satisfaction was through marriage and motherhood."
No. Even in that era, there were options. So "only" is a lie.
"Anyone outside of that was the lonely spinster aunt in the attic...."
My grandmother's sister, never married, lived and made her career in Chicago, Paris, Nice (St. Paul-de-Vence), and NYC before passing well into her Nineties. No lonely spinster life for her.
"And then you add to that, in a country that does not provide child care or much support for women who do want to be parents, you hear a lot of stories about that path in life and how punishing it is."
Punishing? Perhaps for some, not for most. The push for government child care is another step toward "we're your mom and dad now."
"And in comparison to the alternative, when the alternative for the first time in history is starting to look far more enjoyable,"
Enjoyable? Maybe for a while. Marry, divorce, then do it again if your standards aren't met. End up a lonely divorcee. Then, where's the enjoyment?
Althouse added:
"I'm giving this my old and seldom-used "paradox of choice" tag."
Is it a paradox when there are three ways to live, and if the new alternative may be the least satisfying?
Hillary Clinton's tune has changed. It doesn't take a village to raise a family. It takes lots and lots of immigrants to have the children Americans can't be bothered having. It also takes a government to support them.
Hokey as it is, the Hallmark Channel may not be entirely wrong. Once you've tasted the lights of the big city, you realize that the single life may not be as enjoyable in middle or old age as it was in your twenties.
On the other hand, looking at people who married once or twice, didn't like it, and lived out their lives alone, suggests that for some people getting married isn't a sure-fire cure for late in life aloneness or loneliness.
I'm giving this my old and seldom-used "paradox of choice" tag.
It's the "emotionally retarded children" tag.
Decide what you want, then go after it. And if your decision was wrong, that's on you.
Or admit you're not competent to be an adult, and find someone to take care of you
This morning I drove past two single family homes in an ordinary neighborhood in the middle of Santa Clara Valley, CA. Both operating as daycares, which I had not seen before. Both with signage in Spanish. Both busy with drop-offs.
"The only avenue to happiness and satisfaction was through marriage and motherhood. Anyone outside of that was the lonely spinster aunt in the attic."
Indeed. Some things never change. I guess the attic is furnished a bit more comfortably these days.
NYT: "People Still Want to Marry. Why Aren’t They?"
Zavier's opinion: Government has for decades increasingly appropriated traditional familial prerogatives: providing food, shelter, education, infusing civic and moral values. Government decisions are often arbitrary, by bureaucrats detached and protected from accountability.
I blame voters who allowed compassion to displace a healthy distrust of Government, and failed to adequately supervise elected representatives.
Government destroyed the very meaning of "marriage" - with or without children.
There is your answer. Sad but true.
Daycare is more of a thing because single income families are much much harder to maintain.
This quote below by Jupiter reminds me of that old rolling Stones song:
What a drag it is getting old
"Kids are different today, " I hear every mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill, there's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of her mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day
"Things are different today, " I hear every mother say
Cooking fresh food for her husband's just a drag
So she buys an instant cake, and she burns a frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter of her mother's little helper
And two help her on her way, get her through her busy day
Doctor, please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old
"Men just aren't the same today, " I hear every mother say
They just don't appreciate that you get tired
They're so hard to satisfy, you can tranquilize your mind
So go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And four help you through the night, help to minimize your plight
Doctor, please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old
"Life's just much too hard today, " I hear every mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore
And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose
No more running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day
Hey
"The only avenue to happiness and satisfaction was through marriage and motherhood. Anyone outside of that was the lonely spinster aunt in the attic."
Indeed. Some things never change. I guess the attic is furnished a bit more comfortably these days.
The best reason to have children? So there's someone around who cares about you in your declining years. I see what my parents and in-laws are going through as they start down that dark path we will all take someday and I am relieved that we are around to help them. No state agency will act in your best interest when you get old.
Look up Glynnis MacNichol. Everyone may be a narcissist nowadays, but she comes off as an especially monstrous "Eat, Prey, Love" narcissist. This is not her first venture in the "childless and single in my forties and loving it" genre. But then she has a book to sell, so she won't stop talking about her wonderful life.
A number of recent articles point to the difference in reproduction rates of conservatives vs. leftists, with the conclusion that conservatives are reproducing at a rate that insures growth. The other factor to consider is that money flows one way only, from the old to the young.
Evolved human mating preferences have not changed, but women (and men) now have far greater access to comparison data than before the Web.
Women have always sought the "best" mates, and real research shows they tend to be unhappy when settling for anything less than the best. See royal concubines, see harems, see mistresses. Women routinely derive status and success from their mates.
Men have pretty good awareness of their competitiveness, and they rate women as mates more accurately than women rate themselves (women inflate their own attractiveness and status). A mediocre man will make advances to mediocre women, while a mediocre woman will delay and delay before "settling" for an equal.
With the Web, women are exposed to social competition like never before and pushed their mating standards to outer space. Elon Musk has 14 children from 4 women, and he could have 4,000 children from 400 women if he wanted. Billionaires attract many women, just like the strongest wolf or deer attracts females.
Women who do not fixate on selfies and "likes" shall inherit the Earth.
in a country that does not provide child care or much support for women who do want to be parents, you hear a lot of stories about that path in life and how punishing it is.
Oddly enough, the negative "stories about that path in life" come almost exclusively from childless leftist women.
My son’s insta feed is full of past female classmates in their late thirties getting together to carve pumpkins and other things they ought to be doing with their children, who are missing.
"Fred Drinkwater said...
This morning I drove past two single family homes in an ordinary neighborhood in the middle of Santa Clara Valley, CA. Both operating as daycares, which I had not seen before. Both with signage in Spanish. Both busy with drop-offs."
Indian daycare also common in Santa Clara Valley. For fun, check demographics of each city, and the schools.
“Somehow, young couples are finding a way forward even in intensely urban, reputedly crime-ridden Chicago.”
Good to hear.
I had four children and when they were small I worked part time picking up shifts during my husband’s time off his job. Never had to use daycare.
Not all young couples can manage that sort of scheduling and do need daycare, like one of my daughters did. Her wages as an attorney were far higher than her husband’s who was in marketing. So she staying home to be full time parent wasn’t happening and her husband was unwilling to give up his job he loved.
My two little grandsons did well in daycare. My daughter made enough money to pay for the best daycare in Madison, which was fortunate for her, not all young couples are so fortunate.
There are plenty of liberal couples getting married and having children and making childcare and the marriage work. Young women choosing to stay unmarried isn’t just happening in liberal circles. I know plenty of conservatives families whose grown children still haven’t married or had children in their mid-30’s.
Day care costs about $15,000 per year for one kid. That is lower than alimony! And day care is deductible. Obviously that does not make working unprofitable, or the women would quit working. Actuary Mommy and Engineer Mommy are fine. The hardship goes to single women with kids who have very low income and they can get Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) government money for child care.
And when the kid is old enough, school is daycare.
I know plenty of conservatives families whose grown children still haven’t married or had children in their mid-30’s.
That may be, but numbers are of the essence, and marginal differences add up dramatically over the medium to long term.
My very far right-wing son was married in his 20's and may end up with four kids. My liberal daughter will probably be a lifelong spinster, or at best marry late and have no kids.
We are going to outbreed you and replace you, Inga. The Left is demographically doomed now that the supply of surly foreigners intended to replace us has been cut off, and the billionaires and NGO's who conspired to finance the invasion are all going to prison and will be stripped of their assets under RICO.
No state agency will act in your best interest when you get old.
No state agency can EVER be counted upon to act in your best interest, at any age. Government is a self-licking ice cream cone, a jobs program for lazy moochers with worthless college degrees, a playground for sociopathic tyrants great and small, an endless fount of graft and corruption, and in most times and places has proved to be the most evil enemy that humanity has.
Unless children are actively taught to hate government, to undermine it and sabotage it and hold it up for ridicule and contempt, to constantly work to strip it of revenue, personnel, power, and legitimacy, the end result is always slavery and misery and death.
FUCK government and FUCK all those who love it for its own sake. They are my enemies, not my countrymen.
Well, uh, OK, then. Ummm.... just gonna say it seemed like more whining from the AWFLs.
All those single mothers looking for some simp to help pay the bills are coming up short. And some of those mothers have more than one dependent child. Go and ask Pearl.
“We are going to outbreed you and replace you, Inga.”
LOL. So how many children and grandchildren do you have? I’ve got 5 grandchildren. What I’ve seen here over the years in these comment sections are people who are most concerned over the birth rate have been mostly men who never married or had children. I’m sure there are women who also are concerned about the declining birth rate, but I’d suggest getting your own conservative young adult children to marry and have children first. As I said, I know of several conservative families whose conservative grown children haven’t yet married or procreated and are well into their 30’s. All my daughters married in their 20’s, all liberals.
At the feart of this is the "Hillary Contradiction"
It takes a village v. The government can't create a village.
I think contributes to this sense of, well, what is the point of this?"
After reading today's Bleat (Lileks), there appears to be a lot of that going around.
They FA'd and are finding out. It must be someone else's fault. Charlie Kirk couldn't possibly have been right.
Conservatives have more children. An old article from 2020, but citing several studies.
https://www.aei.org/articles/the-conservative-fertility-advantage/
My very first comment on Althouse was in a thread on this very subject. I remember being arch (in a very nice, non-confrontational, way) to some cat lady who got quite shirty. Makes me nostalgic. Except for the whole Obama thing.
I'm sorry but this is a load of horseshit. People aren't having children because they can't be bothered. Nothing more. There have been many generations that were a lot worse off than this one and they managed because it meant something to them. This one can't be bothered to figure it out.
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