Arianna Huffington Picks Up where Sandra Tsing Loh Left Off
When last we saw Sandra Tsing Loh, she was writing in The Atlantic Monthly about the wretchedness of her life with two wonderful children whom she dearly loves, and married to a good man with lots of money. Self-described as a woman who doesn't "enjoy" men, Loh advised all and sundry to "avoid marriage."
I'm sure Arianna Huffington agrees. In this piece, she describes the glories of divorce, and in her case, they do indeed seem to be many and varied (Huffington Post, 7/6/09). I don't know if the fact that her ex is worth scads of money has anything to do with Huffington's post-marital bliss, but I suspect it may.
According to her blog post, 12 years after her divorce from Michael, everything is peachy - much better than when they were married. Now, when they vacation together with the kids, neither is picking at the other about trivialities. During dinner, she turns off her cell phone and Blackberry. He tolerates her occasional lateness. The kids love it so much one of them commented that "it's hard to remember you guys are divorced."
Huffington ends by describing her divorce as a "long and arduous journey" and that "we were all the better for having made it." She hopes that "for the sake of the... children" that other divorcing parents take the same journey she and Michael did.
By that I assume she means that she wants divorcing couples to get along and try to make their relationships as good as possible so the kids don't suffer any more than necessary. That's all well and good, but Huffington, while perfectly content to preach divorce to her readers, never seems to see past her own unique situation.
Huffington is rich. By the standards of almost everyone in the world, Huffington is rich. And one of the main problems for divorced and single parents is lack of money. Two people supporting two households is harder than two people supporting one. That shortage of money causes plenty of other problems. Poverty disrupts stability in a number of ways, and stability is what kids thrive on. The poor have trouble living in the same place for long, which means kids change schools a lot. That means they change their friends a lot, change their teachers a lot, etc.
That's not Huffington's problem or her kids'. And speaking of her kids, she doesn't. As is so often the case with these hymns to "the good divorce," the kids are largely read out of the story. Huffington, like Loh, says little about her children. Maybe the kids are fine; I hope so.
But I'd like people like Loh and Huffington to show a little more responsibility about what they write. That would mean they'd need to step outside themselves long enough to notice that, whatever is true of their circumstances, they're likely to be far different from those of most people. Before they too enthusiastically promote divorce, I'd like to see them learn some facts about what happens to most parents and to most kids afterwards.
Sandra and Arianna - you are not the world. You are among the very privileged few. That gives you resources others don't have. That cushions the impacts of a hard world in ways most people can't even imagine, much less rely on. The danger of pieces like yours is that those who lack your means may nevertheless take them to heart. But when the rent comes due for the cashier at Walmart who took your advice, you won't be there to pay it or to advise her on her next step.
Keep that in mind when you write.
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