I can’t decide - Part of me agrees with some of his conclusions, on the other hand his facile dismissal of the yearning and the effort required to build relationships and families that go beyond themselves makes me think he’s a kind of a whiny, self absorbed 33 year old baby.
I’d say it’s the work of an uber-troll. Judging by the predictable outraged responses, it’s pretty successful.
The article isn’t that well-written, but I do think that marriage and children are largely the result of self-delusion.
For children, especially–most parents lie to others, and probably to themselves, that their children make them happy. The data doesn’t support the hypothesis. And unlike work, you can’t argue that you somehow owe it to society to have kids. It’s an utterly selfish act that doesn’t even have the upside of making the parents happy.
Children may not make you happier, but I’m pretty sure grandchildren do 
The author is pretty cavalier in his universalising. Just to pick one - on the subject of work, here is an article he wrote on his various workplaces. I have never, in nearly two decades in the workforce, experienced anything like any of those examples, and I rather wonder just how much creative editing has gone into those descriptions.
And I have absolutely nothing against people taking frequent sabbaticals from work (in fact, I’m on one myself right now), or not getting hitched and having kids if it’s not their bag, but the article just screams “I can’t find a job that doesn’t suck, or a girl who will put up with my shit and I’m BITTER AND TWISTED”
The guy is a douche.
First off, his list is backwards. Maturity is defined first by “WORK” rather than “MARRIAGE” and “CHILDREN”. It’s always been that way. Even in traditional societies, people were expected to earn their keep in tangible ways before moving out on their own and starting their own families. He says that people who don’t get married or have children are viewed as failures, while those who are unemployed are viewed as odd–and writes this in such a way as to suggest that being “odd” is worse than being a “failure”. But he’s wrong on both accounts. The first hallmark of a loser is not having a job and not wanting one. And such a person is seen as the ultimate failure. Not having a spouse and kids marks you as odd, and depending on how much you care, the stigma is not that big of a deal. You can be a happy, well-esteemed, respectable adult without being married or having kids. But living in Mommy and Daddy’s basement with no interest in ever leaving? Yeah, that’s pretty childish.
He says there is no value to office work, in contrast to what pediatricians and death-row inmate advocates do. Office work is so broad of a category to make this just a ridiculous statement. Pediatricians do not manage their own accounts or answer their own phone calls or schedule their own appointments. And “welfare exploiters” don’t just go down to the town well and fill up buckets with money to take home. They are processed by office workers, have their cases overseen by office workers, and have their checks mailed to them by office workers. Indeed, the luxuries that he’s no doubt taken for granted–like clean water, bountiful electricity, and safe food–would be impossible without some underappreciated office worker sitting in front of a spreadsheet all day.
Like I said, the guy is a douche if he believes even a fraction of that.
Monstro pinned it so well that I don’t have much left to contribute.
Dude’s a loser.
Thanks for posting this. I don’t entirely agree with this essay, because I do think people can be happy in very long-term monogamous relationships, but I’m generally on his side, especially about work.
Didn’t read, but from the section you quoted I love how he spins being 33, unmarried, and unemployed as making him comparable to Jesus.
I’m guessing this was written to get naive college girls into bed. Bitter, smug, and basically someone who wrote off his life years before through a lack of imagination. I have plenty of friends who are happy without marriage or children and who have found meaningful jobs that contribute. It can be done if you are willing to take your head out of your ass and put a little gasp work into looking.
He sounds like a refugee from the Occupy movement.
What amazes me are that there are people on that website who agree with this dude.
I have my own nihilistic streak, but I also gotta eat. Eating requires some level of effort. As long is it’s through my own effort, I can maintain some delusion of control and freedom. At least more control and freedom than the alternative. To me, this is worth everything.
All the things he rails against about adulthood are not requirements of adulthood. Like consumerism. There are plenty of adults who don’t have “Kia payments” or crushing debt. Just like there are plenty of adults who don’t do office jobs, have kids, or a SO. And I have a feeling that this guy has parents who aren’t even nagging him about getting married or having kids or working in an office. His entire position is a strawman.
I could barely read through half of it, before I reached the notion he’s a spoiled rotten, naïve douche.
It’s not about what makes you happy, which implies a state you must eventually come down from; it’s about being content. But he’s too busy eating Froot Loops to realize that.
Different strokes for different folks, of course, did he even pause to think some poeple want to have kids because they just do; not as some ulterior motive or agenda? Just because you’re such a coward that you don’t even want to have a career, so you don’t have to fail speaks volumes about how much of a passive-aggressive mooch he probably really is. Hubris.
They probably wish he’d move out of their basement and leave them to live their lives, though.
Second, earlier article:
I think he has a point. There is certainly a lot of mind numbing mediocrity in companies. I know I am extremely lucky to have a job I like, where I am appreciated, and am protected from most of the idiocy of upper management.
The expectation that life should never be boring or tedious is a bit childish though.
Really… there is nothing that prevents someone from being an adult and deciding not to be part of the rat race, as long as s/he assumes the burden of doing so. If I want to assume a childfree frugal-living/back to nature subsistence alternative-economy lifestyle just so I’m not beholden to someone else, I’m free to do that if I’m, guess what, a competent adult.
Nothing about adulthood really forces someone into marriage/mating, childrearing or conventional labor, those are things you engage in because of some reward you value above merely surviving at a low stress level (or often just out of necessity in case of labor).
So, is he saying he’s against being cornered into this socioculturally normative definition: “start a family, get a regular job”, of what is required to make you adult? If so, OK, no problem with that, it is a narrow definition that needs to be broadened and it’s only about the external signs of social adulthood. But I’m not clear on what’s his alternative that would apply to everyone.
You do realize that the linked article doesn’t provide anything that might properly be called, “data,” but is itself mere speculation, right?
Personally, after being a 33-year-old “self-employed,” (increasingly indistinguishable from “unemployed,”) unmarried and childless person, I am vastly happier as married man working my ass off to support my kids. I would be exponentially more happy if I could somehow have my family and not have to schlep eight hours a day to keep it going, but I wouldn’t be without them for anything.
Dude’s an idiot - but he’ll figure it out eventually, if he’s very lucky.
If he’s found something that works for him, I’m all for it. I imagine a lot of the agression is defensiveness against people who insist it is “immature” or “abnormal” to choose not to settle down. People who live a slightly different lifestyle, especially when it comes to something as cherished and fundamental to people as the family, have always been on te receiving end of a lot of flack.
I think the fact that he is in Washington plays a role, too. DC has a pretty dysfunctional culture among people in their 20s and 30s. This is the land of networking, schmoozing, working 18 hour days, existing from happy hour to happy hour, and generally just spending all of your life and energy on ambition. I remember a while back someone asked me what my hobby was. I was dumbstruck. I haven’t had a hobby since I moved here. I don’t know anyone who has hobbies. All we have is ambition.
That level of ambition is pretty incompatible with being a well-rounded person and maintaining real relationships, so DC is full of late-20s/early 30s singles who literally don’t have time for anything but booty calls. I remember going to a club with a 23 year old- he was shocked. All of the people in clubs here are older ladies and older men dancing off their after work cocktails.
And this is great, except ambitious people want it ALL, and so what happens is people hit that age, freak out, and then rush to get married and get the kid out so that the can go on with their lives. The pairing and breeding happens so fast (busy people, biological clock, gotta move fast, gotta get results) that you can’t help but feel like it’s like things getting checked on a list. And yes, I am hitting that myself. Of course, this isn’t a great way to start a happy marriage, and these things dissolve. Then you’ve got two overworked, overambitious people with a messy custody arrangement, a kid they never really wanted and have absolutely no time to take care of, and nobody is happy at all.
So I can certainly see why he’d want to take leave of that whole mess. It’s not a good way to live.
I have a friend in her 50s. Not married, no kids (ever, but she was married once). Lives out of her truck. Does art and migrant labor to pay for food and gas. She, however, is self supporting. (How she is going to be self supporting when she is old and ill, I’m not sure, but she is now - and I have a feeling she will continue to be, she isn’t the dependent type.
You don’t have to join the rat race. She’s living a happy and fulfilled life outside it. She is very much an adult - one with an eccentric lifestyle. But she isn’t living in Mom and Dad’s basement either.
I was interested in the assertion that having kids does not make you happier. I’ve got two little kids, and while I love them very much, sometimes the highlight of my day is when they finally go to sleep. I became a father late in life, so I know what I’m missing: hours and hours of free time. On top of that there’s guilt (they’re watching too much TV, aren’t they? I should make more money to provide for them and simultaneously spend more time with them) and stress (acting calm is hard when you’re short on sleep and the one year old just learned how to spit).
So I googled it. Looks like no, having kids does not make you happier-- we’re talking study after study, here. I bet being a grandparent probably does make people happy, but for bad, revenge-related, reasons.
First, he talks about how awful sex is with the same person year after year, and how variety is the spice of life. I’ve done both, and sex with the same person means you learn what really turns each other on, and it gets better year after year. Maybe it’s different for men, but I find that each new lover has to be broken in, and that doesn’t happen in one night.
And considering he’s living in DC, on the dole, I highly doubt he’s finding a lot of women willing to have casual sex with him, if the culture is as you guys say.
Second, my guess is that the author is clinically depressed. One trait I’ve noticed to a greater or lesser degree among depressives (myself included) is a belief that the world is a horrible place, and everyone who goes along with it are sheep, secretly terribly unhappy, etc. Only the depressed person sees the world for how it “really is”.
Third, his insights are nothing new. I’ve been reading stories on the internet for the past 14 years about how you don’t have to follow “the script” to be happy and fulfilled in life, and I’m sure people have been writing about it for FAR longer.
I give it a 2/10, because his spelling and grammar were acceptable.