Newsweek on ‘Single Mothers by Choice’ (Part II)
Background: Newsweek magazine writer Lorraine Ali briefly quotes from my co-authored column Rise in Out-of-Wedlock Births Is Bad News for America’s Kids (Washington Times, 12/4/06) in her new piece Knocking Yourself Up–Some women laugh about turkey basters replacing Mr. Right. The ongoing debate over going it alone (Newsweek, 11/5/07). The piece centers around Louise Sloan, author of the new guidebook Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom. Sloan now has a fatherless 16-month-old son. The piece favors women who decide to have fatherless children. To learn more, click here.
In the article, Ali writes “Sloan found herself single at 41, though she’d always considered herself ‘definitely the marrying kind.’” A few comments:
1) This is a common claim made by single mothers by choice but I don’t buy it. Sloan didn’t “find herself single at 41″–she chose to be single at 41. If she wants to be single, fine, that’s her choice, but it’s a choice, not an accident.
The choice probably stems from the excessive pickiness which afflicts some women–they’re always so good at finding reasons why this guy and that guy and all guys somehow aren’t right for them or aren’t good enough. I wrote about this in some detail in my co-authored column Men Blamed for Marriage Decline but Women’s Relationship Wounds Often Self-Inflicted (Chicago Tribune, 1/21/07). Feminist bloggers Catherine Price of Salon.com/Broadsheet and Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon called the column “Hateful” and “Virulent” but sorry, I think it was neither and I stick by it. I wrote:
“The current trend away from marriage and towards divorce and/or remaining single has more to do with overcritical women and their excessive expectations than it does with unsuitable men…
“Nobody would dispute that, in selecting a mate, women are more discerning than men. This is an evolutionary necessity–a woman must carefully evaluate who is likely to remain loyal to her and protect and provide for her and her children. If a man and a woman go on a blind date and don’t hit it off, the man will shrug and say ‘it went OK.’ The woman will give five reasons why he’s not right for her.
“A woman’s discerning, critical nature doesn’t disappear on her wedding day. Most marital problems and marriage counseling sessions revolve around why the wife is unhappy with her husband, even though they could just as easily be about why the husband is unhappy with the wife. In this common pre-divorce scenario there are only two possibilities-either she’s a great wife and he’s a lousy husband, or she’s far more critical of him than he is of her. Usually it’s the latter.
“Despite this week’s media homilies, it’s doubtful that many men or women are truly happy alone. Much of women’s cheerful ‘I don’t need a man/I love my cats’ reaction has a hollow ring to it, and sounds a lot more like whistling in the dark than a celebration.
“Yes, there are some men who make poor mates, but not nearly enough to account for the divorce epidemic and the decline of marriage. While it’s easy and popular to blame men, many of the wounds women bear from failed relationships and loneliness are self-inflicted.”
2) The degree to which women are (or claim to be) in denial about how they “find themselves single” as they approach or pass 40 has surprised me on numerous occasions. One example was during my debate on the Roman v. Roman Texas frozen embryo case on Fox’s nationally-syndicated Morning Show with Mike and Juliet in June. In the case, the couple had tried for several years to have a child (and had one miscarriage) before undergoing infertility treatments. The day before the embryos were to be implanted, Randy Roman told his then-wife Augusta that he was troubled by certain aspects of their relationship and wanted to wait to implant the embryos until they had resolved their problems. They went to counseling for six months and later divorced. Augusta, 47, still wants to have the children, and Randy has refused.
On the show I debated the issue with Augusta Roman and her attorney Becky Reitz. The co-hosts, Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy, were sympathetic to Augusta, and Juliet at one point got annoyed over my suggestion that Augusta could adopt a child instead of having one herself. I also questioned Augusta’s decision to blame the fact that she never had a child on Randy, pointing out that she’s 47 years-old and had had many opportunities.
Huddy got very angry at me, saying that what I said could apply to her (at age 37) and that it wasn’t her (Juliet’s) decision to not have had a kid yet. I didn’t want to push the issue too far because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and it wasn’t central to what we were debating, but we sparred briefly over it and I found it hard to believe that Juliet could claim that she hadn’t exercised a choice in the matter. To watch the video of the odd exchange, click here.
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Stumble It!
November 1st, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Ultimately these women are at the end of their biological contributive time. They either use the eggs they have, or the lineage that would stem from them, dies.
These are the women who took the feminist plan, and then do not choose to go gently into that good nite without leaving their cards in for the next hand, so to speak.
One only has to think for a while to realize, that from the first common life form though the years all the way to you, the person you are, is a unbroken multibillion year lineage!!!
That through all that time, life never chose to not be. So there is a really strong tug by our biology to get together so that we can be. You can’t shut it off. But what is starting to happen, and this ‘trend’ is biology still trying to meet its mandate. The people using ideology and such to manipulate (influence) others, have created a ‘soft’ eugenics program that distracts women till they go over “lineage death”, which comes way before real death. Its also a kind of selective breeding program where the women and men mix up in non optimum pairs (ergo the poorly put article recently on morlocks and eloi).
Do note that ideology effects the smart and the learned (bourgeois), much more than it affects the less able (lumpen proletariat). So what you have is the smart, or the more capable and able, taking a bow out of human future. Their influences change the very substance of who we are and who we can become as a human animal.
This woman has decided at the last minute, that she doesn’t want to not participate in the future of mankind. She has reasoned, quite correctly, that having a child from a random unknown man, is better (for her and her lineage) than not having a child at all (though much worse than if she selected a best partner earlier while there were better partners to select (good partners stay married so there is a limited supply and it dwindles faster than the total number of potential partners)).
The thing that Mr. Sacks draws attention to by saying it’s a common claim, actually is her having to share (help the others) her information, and saying in an odd way, that having a kid by selecting the other half of your contribution, and doing that earlier was the better choice. Saying it this way allows her to pass the information and not violate her feeling part of the group she is aligned with.
There is going to be a lot more of this. The feminist socialists are banking on all these demographic effects, and the dependency effects to help reach their goals that are not hidden (communist socialism (as mackinon, and de bouvier and others say).
There are a lot of women that are right about to slam up against the “lineage death” since so many have put things off in denial of their own selves and in denial of their potential partners biology. Its doubtful that the way things are now that they will realize that it’s the feminists instructions that caused them to put things off. That their vanity and envy were used to make them too busy and such to be part of what life is really about.
In the best of worlds they would mobilize to save other women from this… in the worst hey will be spiteful and help others self exterminate in favor of some ‘soft’ eugenics and guided mating through ideological games, and resource manipulation.
Ultimately our ancestors had it right… they were intimate with the world, something we have lost, and the farther we get from life affirming cultural practices (which are reinforeced by biology), the less intimate we are. I will rest my case by leaving an old poem that says it better. its by Robert Herrick titled “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And the same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
[modern contemporaries may prefer pink floyds dark side of the moon for a similar message. I like em all, so your mileage may vary]