“Two parents can earn two incomes, meaning less poverty.” So says Kristof. And sure, two parents can both work . . . if they can afford child daycare. But the usual case for anyone making less than $120,000 a year is that the cost of daycare completely devours the second income. So what you wind up with is the same poverty, but with both parents absent during the day.
And, of course, THAT is conservative anathema, too! Mommies should be home being mommies! The stay-at-home mom of the 1950s is to be revered. And scorned for being lazy and worthless. And celebrated for being dedicated. And driven into penury for not contributing to the economy. And held up as a role model. And derided for wasting her life.
I guess it all works out in some completely dissonant dystopia in conservatives' heads. But here in the real world? Not so much.
Marriage makes you divorced and impoverished; I’m living proof. Although, perhaps impoverished part is a bit of an embellishment. That said, the divorced part is true.
Just ask Trump, Giuliani and Gingrich. They loved married so much, they each got divorced twice and married three times....:)
"allowing for a second that getting married is a ‘personal choice’ in a way that going to college isn’t"
Huh? Ya mean in marriage there's 2 deciders whereas in college entrance exams there's only one? Does that mean colleges can FORCE me into the classroom? Alternately, can I force college into accepting me?
Sep 19, 2023·edited Sep 19, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
I've been married a long time. We raised 3 kids, put them through college.
I drive a 12 year old Honda subcompact and plan on working until I die. My kids are all doing well. When it's time, my wife and I will have our choice of nice yard barns to live in.
Did Brooks mention if a second, much younger wife pays the same kind of marriage dividends the first marriage does? Seems like it would cost more than it pays.
And yet, maybe the pro-marriage riff from the wing nuts is just more of their perversions like what they do to language. In this case, the case is made, as it were, by just making up shit while ignoring why the poors are disinterested in marriage. (Of course, the young poors’ futures are so shitty they don’t feel any great need to marry what with being some sort of debt serf for life, global warming worsening because the leaders are disinterested in doing anything much about it, the nation on the verge of becoming an authoritarian state and so on and so forth.) I guess I should add that were these people so pro-marriage, they’d implement the requirements of a living wage for full time workers and affordable, available healthcare.
As for Kristof (not his birth name), don’t get me started on him except to add to the usual rant from which I’m saving you is a special case in the Times cohort of columnists: he’s the only one we dislike for just being dumb as a brick. At best. Chaser: he was considered for becoming the Times’ editor although it was never likely.
On top of everything else, these nincompoops always leave out the part about how a lot of those 'low-education men' who make next to no money (if they're employable at all) ALSO demand that women treat them with all kinds of unearned respect and deference, because penis. Why would a poor working woman with two kids, say, want to add another mouth to feed to her family, who will ALSO demand to be kowtowed to, waited on and praised for his manly manliness, while contributing nothing of value to her family? Who might even turn violent and destructive if he feels he's not getting the respect that is his right as a Y-chromosome possessor?
THIS is why they're trying to undermine women's ability to get educations, good jobs and independent financial security -- first, by banning abortion, with birth control coming up next. They want to return to a world in which a woman's only hope for survival is to get hitched to a man, ANY man, no matter how dumb, lazy, violent or useless he might be. Of course, the resulting "families" will be just as poor and wretched as ever, only they'll all be PROPERLY MARRIED, and every resentful incel will have his very own wife to leech off of, abuse and vent his spite on -- Republican nirvana!
I like to think that these kinds of conservative pronouncements -- which sound at first like the most transparent, shameless lies -- might actually be sincere and truthful reports from an Alternate Universe, which have somehow crossed the dimensional barrier into our reality! So, for example, the complaint that liberals are devious hypocrites because they get married themselves while undermining marriage in The Culture actually makes sense if it originates in a world in which Krugman and Graeber were just caught sending anthrax powder to wedding chapels across the nation.
(Of course, even in that wildly different universe, conservatives like Brooks are still showing their devotion to marriage by trading in their own wives for younger models, on the theory that if one marriage is good, multiple marriages are even better!)
Have you ever noticed that the home-life of your average therapist and pastor tends to be more chaotic than the rest of us?
The same can be said for pundits! Marriage, like everything in life, can be a blessing or a curse. Sometimes both, depending on the day.
My advice: choose wisely. It works for many and doesn’t for others. However, If someone tells you marriage will result in wealth and riches; consider all the red state welfare queens; with three kids and an abusive and drug addled husband.
Speaking of "talk one way, live another way," there are the conservatives like Bill Kristol who preach the necessity of religion as the glue that holds society together (and keeps Those People from jacking your car), while showing a certain... indifference to religious practice in their own lives.
If anything, popular culture is ridiculously, over-the-top pro-marriage. There are a zillion tv shows about weddings, and every reality show is supposed to culminate in one. Maybe the Poors are just waiting until they have $100k saved up to do it properly?
That was a good read. Of course, I don't think "marriage makes you rich." The "evidence" seems mostly anecdotal. So anything I say about it is anecdotal.
My ex-wife was very clever. She insisted that I bathe and put my daughter to bed every evening for the first few (until 6-7) years of her life. At the time, it often felt like a pain in the ass. Now, she's almost 21 and is the most important person in my life. That's what my marriage gave to me. Like I said, anecdotal
Marriage makes you married!
I guess if I'm part of The Solution I gotta go out and...
sharpen my pitchfork!
“Two parents can earn two incomes, meaning less poverty.” So says Kristof. And sure, two parents can both work . . . if they can afford child daycare. But the usual case for anyone making less than $120,000 a year is that the cost of daycare completely devours the second income. So what you wind up with is the same poverty, but with both parents absent during the day.
And, of course, THAT is conservative anathema, too! Mommies should be home being mommies! The stay-at-home mom of the 1950s is to be revered. And scorned for being lazy and worthless. And celebrated for being dedicated. And driven into penury for not contributing to the economy. And held up as a role model. And derided for wasting her life.
I guess it all works out in some completely dissonant dystopia in conservatives' heads. But here in the real world? Not so much.
Marriage makes you divorced and impoverished; I’m living proof. Although, perhaps impoverished part is a bit of an embellishment. That said, the divorced part is true.
Just ask Trump, Giuliani and Gingrich. They loved married so much, they each got divorced twice and married three times....:)
"allowing for a second that getting married is a ‘personal choice’ in a way that going to college isn’t"
Huh? Ya mean in marriage there's 2 deciders whereas in college entrance exams there's only one? Does that mean colleges can FORCE me into the classroom? Alternately, can I force college into accepting me?
It's just too damn early for this...
I've been married a long time. We raised 3 kids, put them through college.
I drive a 12 year old Honda subcompact and plan on working until I die. My kids are all doing well. When it's time, my wife and I will have our choice of nice yard barns to live in.
Did Brooks mention if a second, much younger wife pays the same kind of marriage dividends the first marriage does? Seems like it would cost more than it pays.
I wish David Brooks would just shut the f^*% up.
And yet, maybe the pro-marriage riff from the wing nuts is just more of their perversions like what they do to language. In this case, the case is made, as it were, by just making up shit while ignoring why the poors are disinterested in marriage. (Of course, the young poors’ futures are so shitty they don’t feel any great need to marry what with being some sort of debt serf for life, global warming worsening because the leaders are disinterested in doing anything much about it, the nation on the verge of becoming an authoritarian state and so on and so forth.) I guess I should add that were these people so pro-marriage, they’d implement the requirements of a living wage for full time workers and affordable, available healthcare.
As for Kristof (not his birth name), don’t get me started on him except to add to the usual rant from which I’m saving you is a special case in the Times cohort of columnists: he’s the only one we dislike for just being dumb as a brick. At best. Chaser: he was considered for becoming the Times’ editor although it was never likely.
On top of everything else, these nincompoops always leave out the part about how a lot of those 'low-education men' who make next to no money (if they're employable at all) ALSO demand that women treat them with all kinds of unearned respect and deference, because penis. Why would a poor working woman with two kids, say, want to add another mouth to feed to her family, who will ALSO demand to be kowtowed to, waited on and praised for his manly manliness, while contributing nothing of value to her family? Who might even turn violent and destructive if he feels he's not getting the respect that is his right as a Y-chromosome possessor?
THIS is why they're trying to undermine women's ability to get educations, good jobs and independent financial security -- first, by banning abortion, with birth control coming up next. They want to return to a world in which a woman's only hope for survival is to get hitched to a man, ANY man, no matter how dumb, lazy, violent or useless he might be. Of course, the resulting "families" will be just as poor and wretched as ever, only they'll all be PROPERLY MARRIED, and every resentful incel will have his very own wife to leech off of, abuse and vent his spite on -- Republican nirvana!
I like to think that these kinds of conservative pronouncements -- which sound at first like the most transparent, shameless lies -- might actually be sincere and truthful reports from an Alternate Universe, which have somehow crossed the dimensional barrier into our reality! So, for example, the complaint that liberals are devious hypocrites because they get married themselves while undermining marriage in The Culture actually makes sense if it originates in a world in which Krugman and Graeber were just caught sending anthrax powder to wedding chapels across the nation.
(Of course, even in that wildly different universe, conservatives like Brooks are still showing their devotion to marriage by trading in their own wives for younger models, on the theory that if one marriage is good, multiple marriages are even better!)
Have you ever noticed that the home-life of your average therapist and pastor tends to be more chaotic than the rest of us?
The same can be said for pundits! Marriage, like everything in life, can be a blessing or a curse. Sometimes both, depending on the day.
My advice: choose wisely. It works for many and doesn’t for others. However, If someone tells you marriage will result in wealth and riches; consider all the red state welfare queens; with three kids and an abusive and drug addled husband.
It truly worked out well for them...:)
Speaking of "talk one way, live another way," there are the conservatives like Bill Kristol who preach the necessity of religion as the glue that holds society together (and keeps Those People from jacking your car), while showing a certain... indifference to religious practice in their own lives.
The recent revival of animus toward no-fault divorce laws is another symptom of this. Once you are married, you better damn well STAY married!
If anything, popular culture is ridiculously, over-the-top pro-marriage. There are a zillion tv shows about weddings, and every reality show is supposed to culminate in one. Maybe the Poors are just waiting until they have $100k saved up to do it properly?
That was a good read. Of course, I don't think "marriage makes you rich." The "evidence" seems mostly anecdotal. So anything I say about it is anecdotal.
My ex-wife was very clever. She insisted that I bathe and put my daughter to bed every evening for the first few (until 6-7) years of her life. At the time, it often felt like a pain in the ass. Now, she's almost 21 and is the most important person in my life. That's what my marriage gave to me. Like I said, anecdotal
You’ll pardon me if I don’t take marriage advice from David “Hey, Where All the White Interns At?” Brooks.