Posted on 04/27/2017 6:58:00 PM PDT by BJ1
The 21st century is the age of living single.
Today, the number of single adults in the U.S. — and many other nations around the world — is unprecedented. And the numbers don’t just say people are staying single longer before settling down. More are staying single for life. A 2014 Pew Report estimates that by the time today’s young adults reach the age of 50, about one in four of them will have never married.
The ascendancy of single living has left some in a panic. U.S. News & World Report, for example, cautioned that Americans think the country’s moral values are bad and getting worse, and one of the top reasons for their concern is the large number of people remaining single.
But instead of fretting, maybe we should celebrate.
I’m a social scientist, and I’ve spent the past two decades researching and writing about single people. I’ve found that the rise of single living is a boon to our cities and towns and communities, our relatives and friends and neighbors. This trend has the chance to redefine the traditional meaning — and confines — of home, family, and community. Ties That Bind
For years, communities across the country have been organized by clusters of nuclear families living in suburban homes. But there are some signs that this arrangement isn’t working out so well.
These houses are often too isolating, too far from work and from one another. According to a national survey ongoing since 1974, Americans have never been less likely to be friends with their neighbors than they are now, with neighborliness lowest in the suburbs.
But studies have also shown that single people are bucking those trends. For example, they are more likely than married people to encourage, help and socialize with their friends and neighbors. They are also more likely to visit, support, advise and stay in touch with their siblings and parents.
In fact, people who live alone are often the life of their cities and towns. They tend to participate in more civic groups and public events, enroll in more art and music classes, and go out to dinner more often than people who live with others. Single people, regardless of whether they live alone or with others, also volunteer more for social service organizations, educational groups, hospitals and organizations devoted to the arts than people who are married.
In contrast, when couples move in together or get married, they tend to become more insular, even if they don’t have children. Building Strength and Resilience
Unfortunately, single life continues to be stigmatized, with single people routinely stereotyped as less secure and more self-centered than married people. They’re said to die sooner, alone and sad.
Yet studies of people who live alone typically find that most are doing just fine; they don’t feel isolated, nor are they sad and lonely.
Reports of the early death of single people have also been greatly exaggerated, as have claims that marriage transforms miserable, sickly single people into happy and healthy spouses.
In some significant ways, it’s the single people who are doing particularly well.
For example, people with more diversified relationship portfolios tend to be more satisfied with their lives. In contrast, the insularity of couples who move in together or get married can leave them vulnerable to poorer mental health.
Studies have shown that people who stay single develop more confidence in their own opinions and undergo more personal growth and development than people who marry. For example, they value meaningful work more than married people do. They may also have more opportunities to enjoy the solitude that many of them savor. Redefining the Family and Home
Married people often put their spouse (and, for some, kids) at the center of their lives. That’s what they’re expected to do, and often it’s also what they want to do.
But single people are expanding the traditional boundaries of family. The people they care about the most might include family in the traditional sense. But they’ll also loop in friends, ex-partners, and mentors. It’s a bigger, more inclusive family of people who matter.
For many single people, single-family suburban homes aren’t going to offer them the balance between sociability and solitude that they crave. They are instead finding or creating a variety of different lifespaces.
Sometimes you’ll see 21st-century variations of traditional arrangements, like multi-generational households that allow for privacy and independence as well as social interaction. Others — and not just the very young — are living with their friends or other families of choice.
Those who cherish their alone time will often choose to live alone. Some have committed romantic relationships but choose to live in places of their own, a lifestyle of “living apart together.”
Some of the most fascinating innovations are pursued by people who seek both solitude and easy sociability. These individuals might move into their own apartment, but it’s in a building or neighborhood where friends and family are already living. They might buy a duplex with a close friend, or explore cohousing communities or pocket neighborhoods, which are communities of small homes clustered around shared spaces such as courtyards or gardens.
Single parents are also innovating. Single mothers, for example, can go to CoAbode to try to find other single mothers with whom they can share a home and a life. Other single people might want to raise children with the full support of another parent. Now they can look for a partner in parenting — with no expectations for romance or marriage — at websites such as Family by Design and Modamily.
As the potential for living a full and meaningful single life becomes more widely known, living single will become more of a genuine choice. And when living single is a real choice, then getting married will be, too. Fewer people will marry as a way of fleeing single life or simply doing what they are expected to do, and more will choose it because it’s what they really want.
If current trends continue, successive generations will have unprecedented opportunities to pursue the life that suits them best, rather than the one that is prescribed.
It’s not scalable...
How good is your way of life if you will not have children to perpetuate it once you are gone?
Until they turn 65 or 70... and there is no one around to care for them.
“Until they turn 65 or 70... and there is no one around to care for them.”
That’s easy.
When they get old, you raise their property taxes so high that they have to sell their house to young rich people and then move out of town.
It’s what local governments do.
I can guarantee you that widowers living alone are being counted among these statistics and skewing the supposed good things “singles” supposedly do.
Young single people dont do much of anything except chase skirts and go out to eat.
Bump
How Godless. The singles described here are coasting on the societal norms inherited from a Christian nation. Their children and/or their Godless grandchildren will see nothing wrong with sin - because they’ll believe that there is no such thing - only power.
“The future belongs to those who show up ... “
Crazy, faithless, feckless women.
Welcome to Idiocracy.
lol
who cares “when you are gone”
What they should be worried about is who will take care of them when they are OLD!
Some of them are alone. Many of my kids’ friends are single and sad. They want someone in their lives, but are having trouble finding mates who share their values in this decadent world.
As long as it is the ugly people that aren’t breeding.....
I'mm not so sure. I don't know if they mean single mothers too, but there is a lot of emotional development in having a family and raising children.
How about an RV ...
On The Road Again!
That is a shame; however, this article is about people who are single and do NOT, supposedly want to EVER get married. But the premise is a big fat LIE; the older these people get, the more alone they are and the more unhappy.
“If current trends continue, successive generations will have unprecedented opportunities to pursue the life that suits them best, rather than the one that is prescribed.”
Ummmm don’t you sorta need uhhhh kids to have successive generations?
“According to a national survey ongoing since 1974, Americans have never been less likely to be friends with their neighbors than they are now, with neighborliness lowest in the suburbs. “
—
Baloney !
I’ve lived in suburbs since 1960-——and we always had friends and good neighbors.
.
Well, everyone has different experiences there. I’ve lived in the same house for 25 years, and neighbors have come and gone. I barely know who.lives in my neighbors houses . One house was never for sale that I know of. Just one day I saw someone needs new move in. And have never spoken to or seen who lives there. They keep a low profile never see them in the yard or outside at all.
IF you get to raise your children.
The thing everyone is missing is the risks involved in getting married and having kids. Your wife at any point can cheat, leave, and take everything including the kids. Do you want to be a wage slave the rest of your life? Do you want to join the millions of single fathers who get destroyed by broken, bias, and corrupt family courts?
If Conservatives and Republicans want to address this issue, start by fixing family courts, eliminating alimony, supporting shared parenting. Start removing the risks to marriage and reducing the number of single parent homes. Address the cultural and legal issues surrounding this.
I see your point. I was a single adult until marriage at age 30. I saw being single as a transitional phase till I got married. I never wanted to be single an entire adult life.
There, fixed it!
Attending PTA meetings and other school functions, interacting with the parents of my children's friends, etc. - heck, even going ice-skating in my 50s: Those are all activities on which I would miss out if I hadn't had children.
Regards,
“Attending PTA meetings and other school functions, interacting with the parents of my children’s friends, etc. - heck, even going ice-skating in my 50s: Those are all activities on which I would miss out if I hadn’t had children.”
—
True,but even childless couple or singles meet people and do things.
.
.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.