Sometimes people
are stupid. Usually I ignore it,
because every now and then I’m stupid,
and I appreciate it when people ignore that. But when stupidity crosses the line
into harmful, or denigrating, or just flat out wrong…
The ignoring becomes part of the problem.
Like, say, when a
bunch of celebrities sign a petition supporting a child rapist… (Emma Thompson had the good sense to
remove her name, although that doesn’t quite make up for the bad sense of signing
it in the first place.)
Or when a former
Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court (who has supposedly been considered
for the actual Supreme Court) writes
an article for a major news outlet that calls marriage “the most fundamental
thread in the fabric of our American values;” says one of my most difficult
life decisions (planning to become a Single Mother by Choice) is “deliberately
substituting your emotional loss for that of your child;” and concludes with a
blatant fallacy about single parents.
Not so much with
the ignoring.
Let’s start with this notion of marriage as “the most fundamental thread
in the fabric of our American values.”
THE MOST
FUNDAMENTAL THREAD IN THE FABRIC OF OUR AMERICAN VALUES.
Over, say, the
separation of church and state.
The First Amendment (or, for the gun folks, the Second Amendment). The Bill of Rights. THE WHOLE CONSTITUTION, really, with all its goodies like habeus corpus and
civil rights.
These are the most fundamental
threads in the fabric of our American values.
Marriage (unless
you’re gay, but that’s a whole other post) is pretty much a global thing. People in Russia get
married. People in Mexico get
married. People in Egypt and Kenya
and Malaysia and China get married.
Al Qaeda terrorists get
married, folks. The institution of
marriage was around for thousands of years before America even existed, much
less had any values to embrace as our own, and this elevation of The American
Family to some vaunted state of supremacy or superiority is jingoistic at best
and delusional at worst.
In other words:
stupid.
Judge Leah Ward
Sears then goes on to recount her own experiences as a judge, when she saw “the
growing lack of reverence many Americans have for marriage,” and “parents who
didn’t seem able or willing to connect their children’s problems with their own
failure to provide their children with the necessary road map to
self-sufficiency and productivity.”
Now, Judge Sears
(Judge Ward Sears?) may have a point about the growing lack of reverence for
marriage. Divorce rates have
certainly gone up over the last several decades. Then again… is it lack of reverence, or just people
realizing that they don’t have to stay in bad marriages?
Because here’s
the thing. Sometimes, people are… what? Yeah. Stupid.
Sometimes they
marry people they shouldn’t marry.
Sometimes they marry people they should
marry, but then one of them does something stupid and the other one doesn’t
want to be married anymore.
Sometimes both people do
something stupid. Sometimes,
believe it or not, no one does
anything stupid, but life happens and people grow and change and realize they
don’t want to be married anymore.
Sometimes people are toxic together, and realize that the best thing for
all parties involved (including the kids) is to get the hell out of a bad
marriage.
Now, the judge
would have us believe that it’s preferable for all married people to reconcile
their differences and “tough it out.”
That’s just flat
out stupid.
Anyone who knows
anyone raised by parents who stayed married “for the sake of the kids” knows
what a disaster that strategy can be.
I, personally,
have one close friend who suffered through an extremely painful and traumatic
childhood with parents who could not stand
each other, but wouldn’t divorce because of their religion. Should my friend’s parents have risen
above their feelings for each other and maintained a safe space for their
daughter? Of course. But that’s a short term solution. The only long term solution to a
situation like that is divorce, which would have been best for my friend, and
for her parents.
And while Judge
Sears is correct that parents are often unable or unwilling to “connect their
children’s problems with their own failure to provide their children with the necessary
road map to self-sufficiency and productivity,” I fail to see how that
inability/unwillingness relates in any way to whether a child’s parents are
married.
She continues
with the following gem: “… many Americans are failing their children because
they have already failed themselves.
They often enter the court system with domestic problems and low-wage
jobs, slim educational credentials, and no life partners.”
So… because I
don’t have a life partner, I’ve failed myself? Silly me, I thought I just hadn’t met the right guy.
Fortunately,
Sears has some suggestions for fixing “our society.” The first is to “stop glorifying single parenthood,”
although two of the three examples she provides of “single parenthood” are of celebrities who aren't actually parenting single-ly (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and Hallie Berry,
who parents with a long-term boyfriend).
Her other example is Michael Jackson—and whatever you or I may think
about the King of Pop, by all accounts he was an attentive and devoted father.
She also goes out
of her way to include the following “Memo to single mothers by choice: When you
decide to have a child alone in order to fulfill your deep need to parent, you
may be deliberately substituting your emotional loss for that of your child,
who will grow up without a father.”
Charming.
In response, a
single mother by choice on the Choice Mom listserve to which I belong wrote
this:
“If you choose to have children with
the man you are married to (or hoping to be married to, or hoping to find) ,
you must consider the very real possibility that the marriage will fail and
your children will suffer a lot more pain from the divorce and custody roller
coaster (or a dysfunctional / unstable / abusive family situation) than you.
You’ll be inflicting emotional torture on your children by attempting to
satisfy your (and society’s) romantic / economic / sexual / social /
traditional needs.”
Well said, Segal.
Because the point is this: while there may be an ideal way to have
and raise children, very few people will ever achieve that ideal. Married people won’t. Single people won’t.
Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t
all try.
But to tie successful parenting to
marital status is stunningly disingenuous. You’d think Sears would know that, since she herself IS
DIVORCED.
Two more stupid things, and then
my job here is done:
Sears starts her article with a
shout-out to the Obama marriage (which is, indeed, something to be envious
of). Yet, despite her awareness of
the President’s life, she conveniently forgets that Barack Obama was raised by
a single mom. Maybe it’s just me,
but I think there’s an argument to be made that he turned out just fine.
Finally, Sears resorts to the old, worn-out myth about single parents:
“children who grow up in single-parent families are less likely to enjoy the
financial security, educational success and social skills of children living with
their married parents.”
Come on. You’re an educated woman. And that nonsense has been BLOWN out of
the water in study after study.
What matters, what makes the difference in the physical and emotional
health of children, is healthy family dynamics (whether those dynamics are with
married parents, a single parent, or gay parents), educational opportunity, and
financial stability.
Women who choose
to become single moms—women like me, women to whom you directed your
“memo”—tend to be well educated, successful, and financially secure. We choose to become moms, even though
we are single, because we want to share our lives with a child. Because we want to provide a child with
every opportunity to live a happy, rich, rewarding, satisfying life. Or, as the Founding Fathers put it, life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Those, Judge
Sears, are the most fundamental threads in the fabric of our American values.
Annoyingly, Sears
then backtracks at the end of her article, saying that “she would never condemn
anyone who has had a child out of wedlock or who has gone through a
divorce.” Which reminds me of the
scene in Pretty Woman where Richard
Gere says, “I have never treated you like a prostitute,” and Julia Roberts
waits until the door closes behind him, and then says, “You just did.”
Judge Sears, you
just did.
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