Well, the whole “not having slavery” and “everyone can vote” and “maybe people with other skin colors shouldn’t be systematically excluded from stuff” thing is new and experimental as well. Should we keep one foot in the past just in case?
It’s sad you think the natural consequence of women delaying marriage a few years is this. Sounds like guys in your world only see women as being receptacles for their penises. And then you wonder why the ladies aren’t clamoring for marriage.
My belief is that men who want families will eventually figure out that make to marriage desirable to younger women, they will need to actually, you know, do something to make marriage seem more attractive and less risky. If women worry that caregiving and domestic duties will disproportionately fall on their shoulders, guys who are smart will make that fear less likely. They will cook, they will clean, and they will include paternity leave in their conversations about kids.
Men who deserve to have their genes propogated will adapt accordingly, just as women will.
They have to be super, duper damn good to do that. The average worker no way.
I can understand the unfairness of pressure on women to get married before their 30s or 40s due to social or cultural reasons, but the fact that fertility declines around the late 30s/early 40s isn’t offensive, or shouldn’t be.
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We’ve been without slavery for 150 years.
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The complications and problems of integration (and there were some) were mostly all worked out in the 60s and 70s. We’re still figuring out a few things, but for the most part its been resolved. Issues that involve long-term life outcomes (e.g. do men that choose to be househusbands look back with regret on that choice after 30 years?) necessarily have different time horizons.
No.
My point was that just as hundreds of female-empowerment narratives have championed the sisters doing it for themselves, don’t-need-a-man attitude, there are now signs that increasing numbers of men are also “opting out” of the advance your career/then get married and have kids script. Why work hard on that career when you can sit on the sofa playing video games and having either nonmarital sex or (if you’re even less ambitious) porn? See the Seth Rogen oeveure for depictions. It’s a kind of extended adolescence that plenty of feminists have noted and decried, but I’m not sure the decrying will do that much good.
The problem is that while it turns out that Carrie and the girls mostly all eventually do decide to settle down and get hitched and of course, find Mr. Big right there on cue, I’m not sure it works that way. In real life, the successful woman in her 30s looking to get married to a successful man of the same age finds herself in the same dating pool with younger and less successful women. The 33 year old female lawyer may want to marry the 35 year old male doctor, but the doctor may prefer the 26 year old nurse. The converse – the female lawyer marrying the male paralegal (of whatever age) – is much less attractive from the woman’s POV. Especially if he is a only paralegal because he spent his 20s/30s living the Rogen life.
Simply put, “don’t worry, the right person will always come along” is about as good as marriage advice as “do what you love and the money will always come” is for career advice. It can indeed happen that way, and it does work for some people. But were I a parent advising my kid, I’d want them to hedge their bets.
And FTR, much of the above does apply to men as well; dick around on that sofa too long and life may pass you by. But, the harsh reality of biology gives men more time to figure it out and decide what they want than it does women.
Here’s the thing, Furt-- this is not your problem.
Yes, life is complex. Life is inherently about making choices, and every choice we make now narrows our options for the future. There isn’t enough time in our lives to go down every path, and we will all have regrets and “what ifs.” We all are trying to make long term plans while being buffeted by ever changing priorities and massive externalities. Nothing is certain, and there are a million ways to get off the path we had thought we wanted to go down.
That is an inherent risk of freedom. It’s just reality. Women have never been exempt from this, and expanding our options doesn’t make the situation worse.
The situation you describe where women never had to make hard choices or take risks has never existed. We are just people.
Quoted for truth.
It’s basically the gap between the ideal and the realistic. As much as men and women would like to have everything in life conform to their expectations, often men and women have to conform their expectations to life realities instead.
Where is the evidence for this?
And secondly (ignoring your hyperbolic characterization of women’s motives) what does the former have to do with the later? If men are opting out of the marriage/kids track, it only supports the folly in dispensing lop-sided advice about marrying early to women. Who are they supposed to be marrying, if the boys have crazily decided porn is a suitable substitute to female companionship? I mean, if this is true, the delay in marriage could very well be caused by men like this.
This question only makes sense if you think men derive no intrinsic benefit from advancing their careers and are only motivated by sex. I think that is crazy. Most men–just like a growing percentage of women–tie their self worth to their ability to make money and be seen as high status. I’ve seen no indication this motivation is going extinct in men.
I do agree that Seth Rogen archetypes are annoyingly popular. Keep is mind, though, this is only one aspect of dysfunctional masculinity that is promulgated in pop culture, to the possible detriment of society.
Pay attention to the number of depictions that showcase men who are so driven to achieve fortune, fame, or power that they are borderline obsessive. What’s annoying about this is that these men are characterized as much by their screwed up relationships as they are their ambition. For TV shows, look no further than Breaking Bad, True Detective, and Mad Men. For movies, consider whether Bird Man would’ve worked if it was a woman who’d essentially abandoned her family to make it big in showbiz. The answer is no, because we are so condition to see woman as caregivers that failure to properly live up to this role would represent a character flaw too big for us to accept in a female hero. Our expectations for men are so low, in contrast, that we can still see them as “winning” even when they abandon and betray their loved ones.
Do I think men are long overdue for some critique? Yes.
Yes, you keep harping on this. But it’s increasingly obvious you really haven’t showed why you care so much about someone else’s fertility. It’s not like we’re having a population shortage. If having kids ranks as a woman’s biggest priority in life, nature has hormonal mechanisms in place to help ensure she gets what she wants. Just don’t cry when she opts to do artificial insemination because she’s surrounded by Seth Rogens.
But what makes you think women are somehow unaware of this and need your advice?
I’ve been a woman every single second of my life, for decades on end. I have a mother. I have a grandmother. I have a daughter. I have female friends and coworkers. Indeed, about half of the people I know are women. I have close experience with hundreds of married, dating and single women. I have,
from the second I was born, been exposed to a wide range of narratives about career, relationships, marriage and children. It’s a subject that is in the air we breath, from childhood, our teens, young adulthood and adulthood.
Your little one liner isn’t the vital piece of information we need.
You do you realize the OP of the thread you are posting in is specifically *asking *for such advice?
Perhaps you feel that men are unqualified to give advice to their daughters, and that nothing that concerns those daughters is “their problem,” but others feel differently.
I generally listen to my Dad’s advice. He’s a pretty smart and thoughtful guy.
I hope you are giving your daughter as good advice as my father has given me.
Books have been written, both sympathetic and some less so.
I said nothing about women’s motives.
I did characterize a common genre of narrative. Not sure how you’re mixing the two up.
Nobody. And that’s the point.
IF you want to get married, the fact that there aren’t any marriageable guys around when you’re ready may make for an explanation that absolves you of any blame for the situation, but it doesn’t actually fix the problem. If there are in fact fewer “marriageable” men, which the data supports (and “has a job” is a pretty freaking low bar), then it’s all the more reason to tell a young woman not to rule out marrying at 25 instead of assuming there will be a great guy around at 35.
Of course not. Do you not think it is a motivation, and a very big one, especially among young men in their 20s? There is an entire continuum between “no change whatsoever” and “it’s gone extinct.”
I think it’s absolutely detrimental. But if it’s a “truthful caricature” (and I think it is) of reality, I’m going to tell my kids what that reality is, not just what I wish it was.
I can’t speak to Birdman, but I agree with much of this. But I don’t think it’s a matter of 'low" expectations for men, so much as it is the veneration of the badass. These are are horrible men who do terrible things to the people around them … but they look cool as hell doing it.
Women – in the show and in real life – go gaga over Don Draper, knowing full well what a heel he is. And I think it’s safe to say that a guy who carries himself like Heisenberg is gonna do way better on the dating scene than a guy who looks and acts like Walter White. And of course, I’m excluding a big middle there myself, but I think the point holds. The idealized man is cool, suave, etc. etc. Most guys know they’re nowhere close to that, and so … ahhh, fuckit, be Rogen. It’s not like anyone respected or valued Walter before he started selling meth.
Women are in a similar bind, IMO, in regards to appearance: we simultaneously have utterly unrealistic standards of beauty and fitness, and epidemic levels of obesity. I think there’s a de facto message of “If you can’t be Scarlett Johanssen, you might as well give it up and bust out the sweatpants and ice cream.”
Sixty years ago, Marty was a huge commercial and critical success, with Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair playing the romantic leads; she’s a shy, plain girl, he’s a socially awkward guy. But he’s very polite and has a good job, and she is sweet-tempered and tries to look nice, and these are things the film tells us should be respected and valued. I don’t think that movie gets made today, certainly not as major release. (Unless it was played for laughs, with Will Smith teaching Kevin James the smooth moves that impress women) I think that reflects some changes that we’re all worse off for.
Because I’m not a soulless bastard who is uncaring about the needs and concerns of other people? The thread asked for opinions on advice we’d give a daughter. I didn’t see anyone giving the advice I’d agree with, so I threw in my $0.02. Is there someplace we have to sign up to be allowed opinions?
If it’s my daughter, and she deeply wanted marriage and natural childbirth and she has to settle for sperm in a can? Damn right, I’ll cry for her.
It’s not the end of the world, but she’s missed out on a vital human experience that she hoped to have. Would you prefer I say “well, princess, there are other way for you fulfill your hormonal drive to breed, and after all, the population is holding steady at replacement rate, so your genetic contributions aren’t needed.”
Is abstract societal change all that matters? Do we really not worry about the actual human beings ground up in the gears of progress?
Even if all we do care about is “society” and not people, there’s a mountain of evidence that kids do much better in a two-parent home. I want that for my grandkid and all his freinds.
This is what is confusing me. How can one usefully take the advice to “marry in their 20s”? If you haven’t met the right guy, you haven’t–so that advice is useless. Are there really girls out there that are meeting fantastic guys that they like and admire and are attracted to, but are cutting them loose because they don’t want to get married until they are in their 30s, and they figure another one will come along? Is this really a thing?
I mean, I think a lot of women and men delay marrying/having kids for some time, but they don’t break up–they just live together. If that’s the case, you really don’t have to worry about the “pool”.
On the other hand, if I’m in my mid-20s, how can my dad telling me to hurry up and get married help me? Does he really want me to settle on a guy I know I am not really in love with/suited to?
I suspect that there are a few men and women - especially confident, successful, attractive men and women who have always had no lack of admirers - who turn down suitable, good, “qualified” mates because they think they can get an even better one down the road.
It’s sort of like negotiating/brinksmanship/game theory, or stock market strategy. How long do you hold out and when do you settle? At which point do you say, “OK, this person is as good as it gets, I won’t/can’t find better in the future?”
I think such people are only a small minority of the population, but I am sure there are men and women in the world who take such an approach.
If my parent gave me this advice as a 20-something, I’d go ahead and assume they cared more about their happiness (grandchildren YAY!) than with my happiness. It wouldn’t be the first time a parent projected their idea of success onto their children.
I listen to advice from my parents when I solicit it from them. I also listen to their advice when they have first-hand experience in the thing they’re advising me about. Anything else is likely going to be ignored. Fortunately, my parents understand and respect this.
Probably because your arguments in this thread revolve around this caricature of a so-called narrative. If you don’t think this has anything to do with women’s motivations in delaying marriage, it’s curious why you keep bringing it up. It suggests you actually put stock in it. Mixing this up with your belief is only natural given the fact that you appear to be mixing them up.
Okay, so explain how advising your daughters to get married fixes the problem?
She doesn’t need you to tell her that, though. Again, as I keep saying, it is more likely your daughter will be the one pressuring her bf to marry her than the other way around (because he very well might be a Seth Rogen!), so all your advice is going to do is frustrate her.
At any rate, the only way the scarcity you’re talking about is going to arise is if there are plenty of women who get married early. So again, let me reiterate this because these implications seem lost on you: If you think it is in society’s best interest to encourage family creation, it would make infinitely more sense to pressure more sons to get married.
Sex is a motivation, for sure. Is it significant enough to extensively talk about? Hardly. Otherwise, why would women be motivated to do well in school and work hard on their careers, knowing full well the fruits of their labor have little to do with their desirability to the opposite sex? Obviously they are concerned about other things, and there’s no reason to assume men are immune to these concerns.
If I had to speculate on why there are so many “Seth Rogens”, I’d have to say its because of coddling from a young age combined with changing socioeconomic opportunities, low expectations because of weak parenting and poor role models, stigmatization of the trades, and other things. Divorce could be a factor in this too, I don’t know.
Our expectations are low for men when it comes expecting them care about family, kids, marriage, and community.
But women’s standards are becoming more picky (hence, this thread topic). More women than ever are choosing to stay single rather than put up with Draper and Heisenbergs. In fact, they are *looking *for Walter Whites. The Walter Whites will never have hard time (according to your own logic!) of being snatched up, especially in their 30’s and 40’s. Women do want these guys.
Interestingly enough, when women reject the Drapers and Heisenbergs (and Seth Rogens), they get an earful of criticism and unhelpful reminders about their dwindling fertility. See how this works? You advising your daughter to get hitched in her 20’s is pretty much inviting this kind of frustration into her life.
If your daughter wants marriage and family, has tried to make that happen, and hasn’t been successful, why wouldn’t you just be a listening ear? She doesn’t need advice in that situation, just your understanding. You crying for her–as if she’s a broken human being–isn’t going to do much of anything.
I too think a two-parent home is better for kids. Which is why I’m glad I’m marrying the man I found at age 37 instead of the one madly in love with me at age 23. Being with the latter could have very well left me a single parent in a lower tax bracket, and ain’t nobody got time for that broken home nonsense.
Really? I mean, it seems to me that relationships should always be self-justifying–you don’t stick with someone because you think “I’d enjoy being alone more today than I would enjoy being with him, but in ten years, I’d enjoy being with him more than alone, so I will keep him”. Right from the start, I preferred life with my eventual-husband over life alone. If a person hasn’t met anyone that improves their life right now, does **furt **really recommend that they marry them because it’s so inevitable that that having them around will have a marginal benefit later?
But even if you wanted to listen to that advice, how could you have carried it out? That’s why it seems more to be about making women feel anxious and inadequate than actually to be advice.
I think Mr. Right is mostly a myth. It is not generally the case that there is exactly one person who is The One.
It is not terribly romantic, but I suspect there are numbers of people with whom a reasonably mature person could make a happy life with. Yes, there are lots of people with deal-breakers, but there are lots of others who could be, not perfect, but good enough.
A successful marriage is not something you find, it is something you make.
I have been quite happily married for almost 33 years, but if the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan had married someone else before she met me, I don’t doubt I could have found someone else, and been reasonably happy just the same.
And the point of the advice seems to me to be that the pool of “Mr. Good Enough” candidates is going to be smaller at age 35 because most of them are Good Enough for someone else, and since they are Good Enough to be able to maintain a marriage they aren’t divorced. Some few are widowers, but that is rare, and some others are not married for reasons that do not indicate that they are losers. Most of the rest are divorced, indicating that they are less likely to be able to maintain a marriage (second marriages are more likely to divorce than first ones), or unmarried because they are slackers, losers, emotionally paralyzed or immature, or otherwise not Good Enough. Not all - but that is how the odds are.
And the qualities that make a woman attractive peak in her 20s. Feel free to consider me shallow for saying so, but the rude fact is that this is how things are. Yeah yeah, I know - So-and-So the celebrity is gorgeous at 45. But the 40 year old woman who just made partner isn’t competing with So-and-So - she is competing with Suzi the 24 year old who smiles at everyone and has a big rack.
I think the point is, at least in part, that it isn’t all or nothing. Set your standards how you like - but it is not more likely that you will find someone with whom you are really in love ten years from now if you can’t find him now. Less likely, if anything.
Regards,
Shodan
I am not a romantic. I don’t believe that Mr. Right has to appear with a full choir of angels. But one of the most important parts of a good marriage is making a good match, a solid match–someone you can like and respect and trust, who understands and values you. It seems to me that my 30s have been filled with people who made a bad choice in their 20s and have spent ten years in hell trying to find a way to live with someone they don’t much like anymore.
I don’t think it’s about “high” standards or “low” ones, but precise standards–someone who shares your ways of thinking, your values, you priorities. And that can happen early, or it can take a while. And while being overly precise might have potential downsides, being too quick to wed can have horrific consequences as well—people who are fundamentally different can only compromise so far, even if they both want to.