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Saturday, May 31, 2003
"During the weekend of June 7-8, jazz musician Dave Koz will be participating in the Golden Dads campaign, a joint effort sponsored by the National Fatherhood Initiative, Rendezvous Entertainment and Warner Bros. to promote responsible fatherhood." THINKING ABOUT COMPLEXITY (CONT.): On Tom's posting on Stephanie Coontz's constant appeal to "complexity," a couple of thoughts. 1. The appeal to complexity is empirically limitless. After all, social reality IS endlessly complex -- no matter how complicated you make something, it can always be made more complicated. So any responsible analyst inevitably lives in tension with, on the one hand, an interest in variance, and on the other, the value of making reasonable generalizations. Living responsibly with this tension is especially important when you are talking about a subject such as marriage and family life, which is closely bound up with the issue of social norms. But if you just proceed along as if the tension doesn't exist -- if you just use the word "complicated" as a debating tactic -- then the whole excercise becomes silly and pointless. I can tell you from experience, if you tell Stephanie Coontz in a debate that today is Saturday, she will reply, as surely as night follows day, that it's more complicated than that. And course, it is. If it's Saturday afternoon in the U.S., it's Sunday morning in, say, Melbourne. But again, the whole thing is silly unless you are prepared to accept with some level of responsibilty the tension between variance and generalization. 2. The constant appeal to complexity, while usually cloaking itself as a non-moralistic or even anti-moralistic plea for looking at the empirical "data," is itself a clear moral stance -- one that seeks to deligitimate any alternative moral stance by asserting that it violates the principle of complexity. So as a result, no other moral ideas are allowed. How convenient. But is it actually reasonable or helpful to demand that no generalization at all (except the generalization that everything is complicated) is permitted? According to what reasonable epistemology is variance the only subject that sincere people get to discuss? Update: 3. Apart from its use as a debating tactic, as a general moral outlook on life, Stephanie Coontz does not fall on her knees and worship the God of Complexity above all others any more than you do, or I do. For example, if she were to tell you, "racism is wrong," and you were to reply, "What a minute, isn't it more complicated than that?", she would almost certainly say pretty much what any decent reasonable person would say, which is: "Well, discussing complexity is fine, but for our purspose in this conversation, I'm comfortable sticking with the moral generalization that racism is wrong." And she would be right. Friday, May 30, 2003
MAGGIE GALLAGHER WRITES: IN PRAISE OF STEPHANIE COONTZ: Anyone who can write, �Yes, kids raised by married parents do better, on average, than kids raised in divorced- or single-parent homes. Yes, the long-term commitment of marriage confers economic, emotional and even health benefits on adults as well,� as Stephanie Coontz wrote in The American Prospect, belongs with us. CUTTING OUT POOR FAMILIES, CONT.: Earlier this week, I linked to a disturbing New York Times article that detailed how many poor families were excluded from receiving the increased child tax credit in the new tax bill. The New Republic's blog has more. FAMILY LEAVE UPDATE: Earlier this week, I commented that it was odd that the arguments over the Family and Medical Leave Act seemed to be primarily about gender discrimination instead of what's good for families. Slate's Michael Kinsley has more: The chief justice [Rehnquist] writes in a wonderfully matter-of-fact way about "mutually reinforcing stereotypes" about "women's domestic roles" and "a lack of domestic responsibilities for men." About how these "create a self-fulfilling cycle of discrimination" that "force (!) women" to be the "primary family caregiver." And so on. All this is true, of course, but framed in quite an amazingly radical way. Rehnquist simply assumes that stay-at-home mothers are evidence�and victims�of societal discrimination. He assumes it and elevates it to a constitutional principle. APPROACHING OVERKILL: But because Stephanie Coontz�s comment ("The marriage movement says nothing about how we should deal with the 40 percent of kids whose parents are divorced or not married") annoyed me so, let me add one more thing. This is an excerpt from a wonderful article on Alan Booth and Paul Amato, sociologists at Penn State who have done authoritative research on divorce: "Some of that [intergenerational] transmission of divorce," Amato adds, "seems to come from a deficit in interpersonal skills. In our study, we found people who had been divorced were more likely to report not listening to what their spouse was saying or getting angry and losing their temper. One person tried to dominate the marriage. There was an unwillingness to compromise. In a divorced family, children don't learn how to communicate effectively because they don't see their parents modeling it. Many of them grow up and enter marriage without the skills they need to maintain a relationship."This paragraph underscores the lie that the marriage movement neglects children who grow up with divorced or unwed parents. A major element of the marriage movement is marriage education, which attempts to teach relationship skills that would help couples maintain healthy marriages. Yes, marriage education is no cure-all (there is never a cure-all), more research is needed, and so on. But it seems that those 40% of children who grow up outside of intact families could disproportionately benefit from the push to provide subsidized marriage education to couples that want it. Perhaps I�m being unfair to Professor Coontz. Her point, probably, is that the marriage movement isn�t united behind providing more government support for children in single-parent families, who disproportionately suffer from poverty. She�s right; the marriage movement is politically diverse. Some of us would like to see an expanded welfare state. Others wouldn�t. But all of us would like to see more children growing up with the steady, positive involvement of both parents. Thursday, May 29, 2003
CONDOMS: A study suggests that making condoms available in high schools has little or no affect on the likelihood of students being sexually active (the WaPo story on the study emphasizes this finding) OR on rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. It seems, according to this study, that available condoms mainly lead to ... sexually active students using condoms as opposed to other forms of birth control. THE �COMPLEX� COMPLEX (Reply to Coontz, cont.): Stephanie Coontz argues that an obsessive concern about father absence is rooted in a simplistic, moralistic way of looking at our complex, contemporary world. Indeed, next to �nostalgia,� �complex� may be Coontz�s favorite term. A couple of typical quotes: �[C]ontemporary family arrangements are far too complex to be captured in static categories.�Her approach is rather condescending, but as a Marxist academic (scroll down), it�s not surprising that she finds the prole masses ready to burst of out their false consciousness (ok, that�s a cheap shot, of course political discourse is simplistic, and there are some brilliant Marxist analyses out there). The real problem with Coontz�s �it�s all so complex� mantra is that she uses it to evade directly addressing the marriage issue. Is the divorce (or unwed birth) rate (a) too high, (b) too low, or (c) just about right? Well, it�s complex. In general, does fatherlessness harm children? Well, it�s complex. One might say that Coontz�s �it�s all so complex� approach is �an exaggerated reaction to a subject or situation.� Hence, the �complex� complex. But what I find most ironic is that Coontz, master of understanding family complexity, appears unable to comprehend a nuanced pro-marriage message. So, when it comes to children of divorce, �Should we tell them that they're doomed, or should we work with what we've got?" Come on, Professor Coontz, it�s more complex than that! REPLY TO COONTZ, cont'd: Tom is right. People from divorced families almost always say, 'I don't want my kids to grow up the way I did.' And, anecdotally, I find that in conversations it is more often the people from stable, intact families who are much more likely to entertain wide arrays of ideas about family forms, whereas people from divorced families are more likely to say, definitely, if the parents can be married, that's better for the kids. Also, if Coontz thinks the marriage movement says nothing about how we should deal with the 40 percent of kids whose parents are divorced or not married, it's clear she's not reading most of our stuff. Dozens, if not hundreds, of marriage movement leaders write about or work primarily with children and adults from divorced and single parent families, as well as children in stepfamilies. If she'd like to learn more, she could go to the archives at www.smartmarriages.com website and type in the keywords 'children of divorce,' "single parent families,' 'stepfamilies,' etc... Coontz is a master of these throw away statements that sound very dramatic and are also, well, wrong. My favorite one of hers, from a news article years ago, was when she responded to the current research on children of divorce by asking, "Should we tell them that they're doomed, or should we work with what we've got?" The implication that investigating the experiences of children of divorce is "telling them that they are doomed," was astonishing to me. As a child of divorce, I and many of my peers welcome genuine interest in our lives. We already know it's hard. Coontz and the Council on Contemporary Families can't manage to hide that from us. MORE STEPHANIE COONTZ: Coontz, possibly the marriage movement's harshest critic, does agree with research that says marriage is likely the optimal family arrangement, but she is quick to qualify her position. "Look, there is no question that two parents who cooperate are better than one, but the benefits of marriage for both adults and kids disappear in high-conflict marriages or low-conflict but contemptuous, silent marriages." (Dallas Observer, 5/29/03)The benefits of marriage do disappear for children when their parents are abusive or highly antagonistic towards each other. But only about a third of divorces that involve children occur in these high-conflict marriages, according to longitudinal research by Paul Amato and Alan Booth. I�m not aware of any studies on the effects of �low-conflict but contemptuous, silent marriages� on children. Does Coontz have any research to back up her claim? Also, given that Coontz concedes that two cooperative parents are better than one, does she then think it wise to discourage out-of-wedlock childbearing? REPLY TO STEPHANIE COONTZ: "Instead of arguing against single parenthood, they fine-tuned their message and made it pro-marriage, more positive," says Stephanie Coontz, a historian and national co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families. "But the institution of marriage is not the monopoly it once was. Fewer people are getting married. There is a worldwide revolution in family forms. The marriage movement says nothing about how we should deal with the 40 percent of kids whose parents are divorced or not married." Dallas Observer, 5/29/03)Coontz is obviously right that marriage has been weakened throughout the West. Her position is that, given family changes, we need to accept family diversity with open arms and create social policies that support all families. Her argument (�the argument from despair�) has some merit. If the choice were between a Charles Murray-type plan�eliminating safety-net support for single, poor mothers in the hopes that making their lives more miserable would eventually reduce nonmarital childbearing�and a Swedish-style plan�one that�s completely agnostic to marriage and gives generous welfare benefits to all�I�d take the latter in a heartbeat. But that�s clearly a false choice. Theodora Ooms�s �Marriage-Plus� perspective exposes the lie that pro-marriage means abandoning other types of families. Is the marriage movement useless to the 40 percent of children whose parents are divorced or never married? I don�t think so. Most of those children, when they grow up, will want a healthy, lifelong marriage. The marriage movement wants to change the culture so that their marital aspirations are more likely to come true. Also, this is pure conjecture, but I�d guess that those 40 percent of children would not be offended that there are adults out there working to ensure that fewer of their peers experience divorce and father absence. MOTHERHOOD DEBATE (CONT.): The Australian Hotels Association estimates that just about all its staff are back at work by the time their baby is 12 weeks old. This underscores how part-time work is no protection against early return to work. But perhaps you pull beers in a pub with a six-week-old at home for career development. Australia's apparent disapproval of working motherhood is reflected in government programs at both state and federal levels and from successive governments. With the exception of child care, which makes up a mere 12 per cent of Federal Government spending on families, there is no assistance for those adaptive women who want work and family - and in particular those who want to stay home with their own babies.Her rhetoric is excessive, and I find fundamentally evasive the way in which she cloaks her main set of demands -- more taxpayer-provided child care subsidies and other benefits for employed mothers -- in gooey language about "being home with babies." As if her main agenda was more parental time with children, instead of what is obviously is: more mothers in the paid labor force, getting more generous benefits. At the same time, she makes some interesting points. Stephanie Coontz: "The marriage movement says nothing about how we should deal with the 40 percent of kids whose parents are divorced or not married." Dallas Observer, 5/29/03. The Marriage Movement: A Statement of Priniciples: "We firmly believe that every family raising children deserves respect and support." Released 6/29/00. FROM TIME: "Which is stronger -- nature or nurture? The latest science says genes and your experience interact for your whole life." A forthcoming Institute-YMCA-Darmouth Medical School report will address these issues in some detail. AND SOMETHING ELSE IN TEXAS: The Alexander House of Austin (scroll to "Helping Make Marriages Work"), a Catholic apostolate dedicated to strengthening marriage. MARRIAGE IN TEXAS: In the Dallas Observer, Mark Donald has a Texas-sized article on the marriage movement. It's a great piece, with good quotes from Theodora Ooms and Diane Sollee and some engaging examples of real-life couples. Although Donald is admittedly skeptical of the marriage movement, he's open-minded and gives space to all sides. (The printer-friendly link on their website isn't working, but you can get the printer-friendly version of the article here.) A NEW TYPE OF TROPHY WIFE: The gossipy New York Oberserver reports on a new "trend." Instead of ditching their wives for young model types, powerful men--like Jack Welch and Rudy Giuliani--are now ditching their wives for similarly-aged powerful women. The headline is great: "Hot Flash! Trophy Wife Models Are Pass�: Rudy to Jack Welch, Remarrying Geezers Get Middle-Aged Babes With Power Dowries." TRIGGER HAPPY: "And now, the news that every parent dreads. Researchers are reporting today that first-person-shooter video games � the kind that require players to kill or maim enemies or monsters that pop out of nowhere � sharply improve visual attention skills." A TAXING POLICY: Alas, this blog is not the place to engage in class warfare over the recent tax cut. However, I do think it's appropriate here to express frustration that, in the new tax law, many poor families--those making just above minimum wage, who need extra money the most--are excluded from the $400 increase in the child tax credit. Wednesday, May 28, 2003
DIVORCE.COM Offering a simpler and cheaper path to divorce, an ever-growing array of dot-coms, computer-savvy lawyers and state court officials are encouraging unhappily married Americans to arrange their breakups online. WHO'S AFRAID OF THE M-WORD? From a 2002 article in Journal of Marriage and Family: Greif and Zuravin (1989) argue that fathers are much more likely to parent successfully if they are in a stable living arrangement with a woman, show an interest in having the children, and are not serious abusers of alcohol or drugs.Emphasis mine. UPDATE: I may have jumped to conclusions here. The Greif and Zuravin study looks at noncustodial fathers as a potential resource for abused and neglected children. Here's another description of the study: One study of fathers who had gained custody of their children due to abuse or neglect perpetrated by the mother found that the presence of a stabilizing female influence in his household, either a girlfriend or wife, had a positive effect on whether the father gained custody of the children (Greif and Zuravin, 1989).These situations probably do include a significant number of cohabiting fathers. SCHOLARS AND CELEBRITIES: Earlier this year, a study showed that being an involved single father helped men in new relationships. These findings suggest that new mates believe a man invested in his children bodes well for the future of the relationship, study author Dr. Susan D. Stewart of the University of Richmond in Virginia told Reuters Health. ... It shows that the men are "invested in parenting, and women like that," Stewart added.It worked for Eric Benet, husband of "sexiest woman in the world," Halle Berry. �When I first met Eric and saw what a wonderful relationship he had with his daughter, I could not help but fall in love,� Berry wrote on her official web site in June 2001, six months after they wed in California.That father-daughter relationship wasn't a perfect indication of his fitness as a husband, however, as Benet repeatedly cheated on Berry (to the consternation of millions of men, no doubt). Yet it appears that they have "saved their marriage". PROM BLING: As Rebecca Mead reported, weddings are big business, with the average couple spending $24,000 on their big day. But high schools proms are becoming ridiculously expensive, too. According to Conde Nast, the average 17-year-old couple now spends over $1200 for prom night, including tux, dress, flowers, and limo. I remember thinking prom was a big ripoff, but I only spent about $100. I just remember being glad that I could take my date in the new family mini-van instead of our Brady Bunch Buick station wagon. MONEY, BABY: "Husbands are likely to provide significantly higher values for annual income and net worth, while wives are likely to report higher household debt, according to research based on interviews with nearly 1,200 couples over 35 years." CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE � Brooke Lea Foster, a 26-year-old whose parents recently divorced, writes in this month�s Washingtonian Magazine (article not available online): �When a younger couple gets a divorce, they worry about how it will affect the children. My Mom told me that�s partly why she and Dad stayed together for so long. Did it mean that what I saw as a perfect childhood was a lie? � The Washington Times has an article on a recent Heritage Foundation report on marriage and poverty. Also, earlier this week, the Washington Times reported on a bill that would create a Constitutional amendment restricting marriage to heterosexual couples. Throughout the article, when referring to gay unions, marriage is always placed in scare quotes. For example: Advocates expect that once homosexual "marriage" is legal in Massachusetts, New Jersey or another state, homosexual couples will marry, move to another state and seek legal recognition of their unions, thus transporting same-sex "marriage" challenges nationwide.Yes, the Times puts same-sex "marriage" in scare quotes because its editors want to emphasize their belief that same-sex "marriage" couldn't really be marriage. But it really gets annoying. Can't they leave the overuse of scare quotes to post-modern academics? RIGHTS TALK: In the coverage over the Supreme Court decision that upheld the Family and Medical Leave Act for state employees, news reports explained that the purpose of the act was to protect women from sex discrimination in the workplace. How typically American. Certainly, laws should protect women from unjust discrimination. But why frame this particular issue in terms of discrimination and individual rights? Why not argue for such legislation because, as a society, we should support mothers and fathers in the vital work they do as mothers and fathers? It seems that the anti-discrimination argument presupposes that, in our system, marketplace rules take precedence over family obligations. Which, unfortunately, is usually the case. Tuesday, May 27, 2003
JUST DISCRIMINATION: In this week�s letters to �The Ethicist,� a U.S. Navy serviceman writes about buying discounted goods at his base exchange. According to regulations, he can shop for himself and a spouse. However, the serviceman is gay. So he asks The Ethicist if it�s ethical to purchase items for his longtime partner, who would be his spouse if they could legally wed. The Ethicist ultimately tells the writer to comply with Navy rules, but concedes �you're partly right in principle. If one couple is entitled to a discount, then all are. Neither marital status nor sexual orientation should determine who gets a markdown on socks.I disagree. Whether it�s sock discounts, football tickets, or laws governing family dissolution, there�s nothing inherently wrong with making a distinction (i.e., discriminating) between married and unmarried couples. (I do think there should be some exception for gay and lesbian couples, as long as there�s no same-sex marriage.) Because the institution of marriage promotes certain social goods�monogamy, stability, and the best environment for raising children�society has an interest in supporting and rewarding marriage. Married couples almost invariably share a household and a bank account; it makes sense that discounts would apply to both members of that economic partnership. Finally, marital status accords a clear legal and cultural significance to a relationship. But �couples�? What defines a couple as a couple? Cohabitors who share a bank account? A guy and girl who�ve been dating for a week? Need couples be exclusive, e.g., if I were dating two girls at once, would it be ethical to impress them both with a gift of cheap socks? There is a slippery slope when it comes to defining �couples� or �close personal relationships.� There is no compelling reason why the Navy should treat these situations as analogous to marriage. Perhaps The Ethicist means couples who�ve been living together for a significant amount of time�those who are �unmarried to each other,� so to speak. I still don�t buy it. If these couples want to assume the legal benefits and obligations of matrimony, they can get married. There is no compelling interest to weaken social support for marriage by extending marital benefits to couples who, for whatever reason, choose not to marry. P.S. The category �unmarried to each other��the preferred phrase of the Alternatives to Marriage Project�is a good example of conceptually muddy terminology. I�m unmarried to my girlfriend, I�m unmarried to my roommate, I�m unmarried to the guy who sneezed on me in the subway this morning. When it comes down to it, I�m unmarried to some 6 billion people. The term �unmarried to each other� only has meaning in relation to marriage, the legal status of which the Alternatives to Marriage Project wants to weaken. The Supreme Court ruled that the Family and Medical Leave Act applies to state employees: In passing the Family and Medical Leave Act, Congress said it was acting in part to stop discrimination against both women and men. Women had suffered discrimination in hiring and promotions because of assumptions they would shoulder most of the care for children or sick family, and men had suffered discrimination because they were presumed not to need time off to perform the same care, Congress reasoned. Monday, May 26, 2003
"There are circumstances when it might behove an individual mother to give birth preferentially to sons or to daughters. In a paper just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Mhairi Gibson and Ruth Mace, of University College, London, outline such a case in people." FROM BUSINESS WEEK: "The New Gender Gap: From kindergarten to grad school, boys are becoming the second sex." There is nothing new about these data, but isn't there currently a spate of stories on this topic? WEDDING INDUSTRY: Lots of articles recently on the robustness and strength of "the bridal industry" -- here's one in the WaPo and here's one (on Disney weddings) in the NYTs and here's one from Scripps Howard -- mostly stimulated, I think, by Rebecca Mead's great recent article (not available online) in the New Yorker. I heard that Mead has signed a contract to turn that article into a book. I bet it'll be a winner. Sunday, May 25, 2003
MARKETNG VIOLENCE TO CHILDREN: The actual "alternate reality" being sold here is a reality in which an ultra-violent, adult-rated movie like "Matrix Reloaded" can be marketed to a younger audience through a companion video game ... As a parent, what I want to know is this: Who comes up with these ratings systems that allow obscene levels of violence to be marketed to children and teens?And: Why should this matter, you ask? These are just make-believe movies and video games, right? And children know the difference between fantasy and reality, don't they? Well, new brain research indicates that teenagers' brains -- not just children's brains -- are still developing, and that they may store violent images as real memories. The consensus of the public health community, based on more than 30 years of research, is that "viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children." This conclusion was presented to Congress in July 2000 in a joint statement signed by six public health groups. The merchants of violence market their products directly to children, mostly bypassing the parents. Have you seen ads for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City or Outlaw Golf in any magazine that you normally read? By and large, video games are promoted in gaming magazines and on specialty Web sites that are avidly followed by kids. PROBLEM CHILD: Under an agreement that reflects the growing alarm over school costs in Washington's suburbs, the city gave the developer a significant incentive not to attract families with kids: If the building is occupied by more than eight schoolchildren, the developer must pay $15,000 a year for each child above the cap. A census will be conducted annually for five years to determine whether the limit has been breached, and the developer is liable for as much as $225,000 during that period. This novel cash-for-kids deal is, depending on who is talking, either a common-sense means of containing spiraling education costs or a discriminatory swipe at parents with young children. "Pornography's unholy alliance": But more insidiously, the values and lifestyles promoted by Millet and the left-libertarian defenders of porn are precisely those of the market. Discernment and restraint are antithetical to consumerism. Depersonalised sex and the spread of the pornographic style are intensely self-centred, just as the market desires. While Houellebecq's novels are an exploration of the deeper questions of the human condition, Millet's unexamined sexual abandon is wholly consistent with how US corporations have defined the pursuit of happiness. The same can be said of the libertarian defenders of porn in Australia ... The first to attack the Australia Institute discussion paper that I co-authored with Michael Flood last year, Youth and Pornography: Evidence on the Extent of Exposure and Likely Effects, was Kath Albury, a media academic at Sydney University. Albury's defence of pornography is to acknowledge reluctantly that there may be grounds for discomfort with some forms of porn, but then slides away from it and refuse to address it head on ... The ultra-libertarians, including Millet, Lumby, Albury and Marr, are so determined to defend their sexual liberty that they have abandoned their critical faculties. The defence of pornography and the commodification of sex that goes with it are driven by an atavistic desire to hang on to freedoms won long ago and nowhere under serious threat. SOCIOLOGY OF THE OBVIOUS: Reading academic journal articles--especially those authored by postmodern feminist scholars--can get tedious. But every so often you're lucky enough to come across a sentence like this one, from an article titled "Conceiving and Investigating Motherhood: The Decade's Scholarship": Mothering is associated with women because universally, it is women who do the work of mothering. |
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