Posted on 04/23/2014 3:09:52 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
".......... Lily, just like better-off men and women, believes that marriage means an unqualified commitment to the other spouse. When you marry someone, you support him in hard times. You stick with him when he disappoints you. You visit him if he ends up in jail. And you encourage him to become an important part of your children’s lives. It’s just that Lily doesn’t believe that Carl is worth that commitment. Nor does she believe that she will meet someone who will meet her standards anytime soon, and the statistics back her up.
The economy has changed. A higher percentage of men today than 50 years ago have trouble finding steady employment, securing raises and promotions, or remaining sober and productive. Blue-collar men like Carl have lost ground while more highly educated men have gained. The unemployment rate for all men ages 20–24 is almost 13 percent, and those with only a high school education are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as those with a college degree. Moreover, many of the jobs that are available have become less reliable than they were for Carl’s dad. They don’t pay as well, last as long, or offer promotions or training. Carl has quit more than one job because he got fed up with his boss. More recently, he was laid off because construction work dried up during a particularly cold spell during the winter. After the layoff, he hung around with his friends, drinking and playing video games. Lily finally had enough when she found out that Carl had run up several hundred dollars in expenses on her credit card......."
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Seems to me the problem, other than risking parenthood with the irresponsible, is that we’re raising too many Carls. How is it that he feels free to quit so many jobs? I assume unemployment helped him after the layoff from construction, but before that? Were his parents taking him in? Was she supporting him?
I agree with Murray, but how did we end up with so many deadbeats in the upcoming generation? It’s not as if we’ve always had high-paying union jobs to keep the low skilled in line, men used to work for any kind of job they could get.
I didn’t read about him being a substance abuser or a girlfriend beater. Just a loafer.
"...ends up in jail"? One's presence in jail is often a matter of bad or stupid choices, even in the current ridiculous and overregulated political environment.
Marriage is a social partnership for a man and a woman to raise children. In the old days, successful partnerships often resulted in romantic love. Sometimes, they even started that way.
Today, marriage takes place only if full, rich Love completely overwhelms both parties -- then you can have a wedding. If the bloom ever comes off that rose, then it's time to rush to the divorce lawyer.
If the economics were a little different, I think more people would grasp the basic social benefits of making a social partnership work. Love is a really nice thing, but the partnership needs to be primary. A lot of people want to live inside a Hollywood movie. Well ... they don't.
Modern feminists spend all their days disparaging the concept of marriage and of men learning to be real men and then are disappointed when they can't find any marriageable men.
“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
I have nieces in this woman’s situation, except they married their deadbeats.People need to stop enabling them. Curbing illegal immigration so that there are jobs they can handle would also help.
Notice how they make “Lily” out to be the smart, savvy one, but she managed to get herself knocked up by a loser like Carl, and she will most likely pick losers like Carl and the sexter for the rest of her life. She should just concentrate on the child now, but she likely won’t.
“You visit him if he ends up in jail. And you encourage him to become an important part of your children’s lives.”
Just what the country needs—more children emulating felons.
This article makes me laugh. I see an awful lot of Anglo blue collar guys marrying Latin women— because they retain some notion of femininity vs. their Anglo female counterparts. I follow the immigration debate and think somewhere around half of it is business wanting cheap labor, but I also think it has to do with putting idiotic American feminists in their place and getting some actual women for guys to marry.
people came over and the men worked...they worked....not glorious jobs...not well paid jobs...just a job with a paycheck...
if you got lucky, you could get a better job but you never ever left the job you had until the new job was given to you....
the work ethic has just changed...
I work with mostly women and I'll tell you that so many really support their husbands who have lesser jobs....but the key is, the men work....maybe don't earn much...but they work....
when two people trust each doing the best they can, the marriage can work beautifully...
I don't get it.
This is America.... no matter how poor you are there IS soap and water... yet this crowd always looks like they just crawled out of a gutter.
Anyway...what I REALLLLY don't GET is the idea that women MUST bear children even before they are able to support them...(married or not). What ever happened to the logic of WAITING until the parent (and especially the child) does not suffer because the inevitable consequences of privation and indigence were ignored?
Yep. And pride and joy went into the raising of family, so having a so-so job wasn’t such a burden.
Again, I keep going back to how Carl can afford to quit his jobs so readily. Someone has been enabling him.
And your post made me laugh.
Are you really suggesting that illegal immigration is supported/tolerated and perhaps soon to be legal for many, partially out of a need for American guys to get a group of subservient women to date/marry?
I think for some American men who turn their back on American women, it’s a cover for some other, very obvious issues that American women see and run away from.
1) In the past, it was "work or starve". Today, you can work for a while until you qualify for unemployment, arrange to get laid off, and loaf for a few months.
2) In the past, you were much less likely to get laid if you weren't "commitment-qualified".
Yes, I agree, and Carl undoubtedly was loafing on unemployment after he got laid off.
But what about those jobs he quit? He shouldn’t have got unemployment after that. Someone was enabling him.
But even if he was loafing on the girlfriend’s dime, couldn’t he have then taken on the task of childcare for his kid until he found a new job? I’m pretty sure I’d try to avoid having kids with a loafer, but even if that’s what he was, as long as he wasn’t criminal or abusive I’d do what I could to maximize my kids’ proximity to and relationship with their father. That is just so very critical.
Like wanting a contract concubine and house servant who also holds a full-time job?
Some writers have suggested that the explosion of divorce in the 70s is a factor. Many of today's young adults learned from their parents that, if something requires too much effort, you just quit.
Excellent point, too, about the fact that someone must be housing and feeding Carl, if he's not holding a job.
There’s a high level of probability that Carl was raised in a family just like the one he and Lily have created; one in which a string of male figures drift in and out of their baby mamas’ and their babies’ lives.
Carl is a perpetual man child because he was never immersed day to day in how a real man should behave.
Why even say “no”? Just kill the parasitic lump of cells if it happens to come along after a one night stand.
It’s not like it’s a human baby or anything. It’s only something to care about when YOU want to care about it, not before. Before, it’s a lump of cells. When you decide and only then is it an actual human being.
You are woman, shout the mighty roar of sexual freedom! You shouldn’t be bothered with antiquated notions of child bearing. There are wombs for rent for that when you get too old to have your own after a successful career anyway; really there are tons of women looking for the highest paying customer to rent their womb. What could go wrong? It’s not like they are in desperate need of cash, because of drug addictions or mental problems or anything like that. Besides, everything can be bought and sold, including human bodies, so that makes it ok.
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.