Last Sunday, the Boston Sunday Globe magazine cover story was Single and Loving It, about single people buying houses, having babies, and vacationing alone - "and they couldn't be happier." The article bothered me on two levels: 1) it makes being single sound like a great adventure, when it's a lonely place for most people and 2) it diminishes the institution of marriage in many ways. First, we'll deal with part 1. I'll save part 2 for another day.
As a woman who was single for most of my adult life (I married late), proclaiming the singles "couldn't be happier" is a crock and we all know it. They certainly could be happier, and I bet that each and every one of those allegedly deliriously happy single people would rather NOT be single. But due to a number of societal trends, there are fewer people interested in marrying, which is a shame for these individual people, and it's unfortunate for the society at large (and for the children they adopt).
What are the trends? The advent of birth control and the sexual revolution is one, which disassociated sex from marriage and procreation (just like the Vatican said it would back then). There simply isn't the value placed on marriage that existed 40 years ago, there's less pressure to get married. Many men are reluctant to commit to marriage, and they can be sexually active without it. Many women are fearful of losing their "independence" in a marriage. Young women are still told to postpone getting married and having kids until they're established in their career. (Pretty bad advice for women who do want kids, start young while you're fertile and energetic). Our culture is vastly more self-absorbed and selfish nowadays. People are more interested in their own individual "self-actualization" than in learning to share their lives with another person. A single woman who wants babies is more concerned with her personal fulfilment than with the child's fulfillment, or the child's right to have a father.
Many of the couples in the article said things like "I'm not willing to settle..." and "It's going to take one hell of girl." The other person has to meet high standards, the other person has to be exceptional. We're talking soul-mate material only! But no one said anything like, "I'm willing to share and compromise, I know there's give-and-take in any relationship. My relationship with another person might come ahead of my personal desires sometimes, there will be some self-sacrifice." Blasphemy in these irreligious times! Nothing is more important than the individual, it's all about me!
It's well documented that married people are happier, they do live longer, their finances are better, they're more altruistic, and their kids are happier, more secure, and also financially better off. Society is better off having stable families taking care of children. There's a good reason your parents and friends are still trying to set you up, they love you and want you to be loved and cared for. Most human beings are happier with someone to share the joys and burdens of life with, including such mundane things as grocery shopping, snuggling on the couch, shovelling the driveway, paying bills, and walking the dog. For me (and my husband), the coupled life beats the single life by a million miles.
I don't buy it that these folks who are dying their hair blue or buying fancy appliances are all that happy about their situation. I'm not saying single people are miserable, I was able to entertain myself quite well in my singleton years. But it's malarkey to say they're happier. A society with more and more single people living alone in their individual houses doesn't sound like it's going in the right direction. Not much of a future there. Who will take care of them in their old age? What will they pass on and to whom?
Advice: Singles should stop pretending they're happy and OK with being single, admit that your life would be richer with a mate. Tell yourself that you want a wife or husband, and make that a priority. Drop the New Age "soul mate" obsession (it's wishful thinking and as baseless as the crushes you had in junior high school.) Develop your personality and strengths so that you are an exceptional person and companion. Relearn how to share and give and compromise. Don't sleep around, you're wasting your energies and spirit. Remember where you came from: a married mother and father (for most of us anyway). That institution is the underpinning of our very society, and dispensing with it isn't likely to be an improvement.
Cross-posted at the Modesty Zone blog, where one commenter said she found it the most offensive post she's ever read there!
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Posted by: Sissy Willis | June 15, 2006 at 07:20 AM
"I bet that each and every one of those allegedly deliriously happy single people would rather NOT be single."
I prefer being single. Probably I'm in the minority. But it's a mistake to assume that one's personal preferences are shared by everyone else. People are very different; one size doesn't fit all.
As for married people living longer - no doubt they do, but I know a few who *wish* they were dead! :-)
Posted by: Michael Prescott | June 15, 2006 at 10:09 AM
OK, Michael, I do believe you, and of course not everyone thinks like me (phew!). I could have said "most of these" folks. I stand corrected.
Posted by: miss kelly | June 15, 2006 at 05:02 PM
Happier Single? Absolutely. I'm more miserable married than I ever was single. Lonely? Nope. I had tons of friends when I was single that I now never see. I'm much more lonely married. The freedom I had in singledom ie. financially, traveling and career prospects came to a grinding halt once married. My husband is a lump on a log. He put on a show while we were dating and is the typical fat, drooling, sports addicted male who goes to church on Sunday for show. After 2 years of "christian" marriage counseling no no avail, I've called it quits...and he's surprised. Now all of a sudden he's "interested" in working it out. No thanks. I was happier and healthier as a single woman and will soon be again. I will never marry, kids are overrated according to all my married friends - especially those whose husbands dump the entire responsibility of child rearing on them.
You say that single women who want children do so for selfish reasons? Well so do married people, honey. Wake up. It's always selfish to bring a life into this world. If people want to stay single - why should you care? Live and let live. If you want to be married - why should single people care? They don't lady. They don't care if you get married - they really don't.
Posted by: Rebecca | June 20, 2006 at 07:10 PM
Rebecca - I'm interested in your statement - "It's always selfish to bring a life into this world." Could you expand on it please?
Posted by: nan | June 20, 2006 at 07:43 PM
Wow, strong opinions here. Rebecca, I'm not in your shoes, and obviously don't know why your life "came to a grinding halt" after getting married. That's not what anyone would want from marriage. But I stand by by my original critique of the article: being single is generally not as glamorous as the article made it sound, it can be quite lonely, especially as one gets older. It's not a healthy state for individuals or for society. Something is very messed up in our culture that people are increasingly unable to enter into and sustain comitted relationships. And same for not having kids, who are the future, and who awill be the stewards of our future too. Not a good sign.
Regarding your friends who think "kids are overrated," that's not the experience of my siblings or my friends with children. They really enjoy their kids a lot. I've watched many of the kids grow into pretty cool adults.
Posted by: miss kelly | June 20, 2006 at 11:29 PM
Sad people are miserable. Happy people are not. Being married has naught to do with happiness or melancholy. Succesful happy people find mates; wise ones find happy, wise mates. All this is right out the window when you remember everyone changes everyday and no one is exactly the same person they were yesterday. And none of that matters too much if you believe God never changes.
Posted by: jerry | June 21, 2006 at 07:57 PM
"Nan" would like me to explain my "it's always selfish to bring children into the world" whether you're single or married. Well here goes: Married or otherwise, the ONLY reason people have children is because they themselves WANT them or feel that their own lives are incomplete without them. Those are purely selfish reasons. No one asks to be born. No one. No one asks to be born in poverty, no one asks to be born dying, no one asks to be born to parents who can't afford to send them to college. Nor does anyone ask to be born to anyone rich. Children are either conceived by "accident" or by selfishness. That is a truth that can't be denied by anyone. In fact, most everything we do in this world is for selfish reasons.
Posted by: Rebecca | June 22, 2006 at 10:42 AM
Rebecca - I'm being perfectly honest here. I had children because my husband is such a wonderful person that I felt he needed to be reproduced in this world - to make it a better world. I have thought about it, and I don't think that's a selfish thing - I think it's a giving thing.
Posted by: nan | June 22, 2006 at 06:00 PM
Nan missed the point. What if the baby grows up to be unsatisfied (as we all are), but perhaps to even a very extreme level? Nan put her own interests/beliefs/feelings above all else when she decided to have a kid "to make the world a better place." Wishful thinking, perhaps a bit unrealistic and self-important, but well-intentioned nonetheless... however, it's still a selfish act. Not a "giving" thing, really. All you did was 'give' life to something which will exist temporarily in a world of dissatisfaction and suffering, which will eventually die, anyway.
Posted by: nate | October 18, 2007 at 01:15 PM