The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Extended Family Values

Re: Extended Family Values

John — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:54:06 -0000

I can understand where Just Karl is coming from.

I have this fight with my mother (who raised my brother and I as a single woman) all the time.

The key point in Just Karl's post is this: as long as pregnancy remains something that a man 'does' to a woman, women will remain victimized. True empowerment for women will include giving up the idea that because they carry the child, they own the child. Fathers are excluded from so many decisions, is it any wonder some of them just don't show up at all?

Re: Extended Family Values

John E. - Agn Stoic — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:47:26 -0000

If the issue is fatherhood obligation, then it begins with reproductive choice. Women have it, men do not.

Posted by Just Karl | February 15, 2009 12:43 AM

I can think of two reproductive choices men can make to avoid fatherhood obligation.

One has a 100% success rate, the other has a near 100% success rate.

I leave the rest as an exercise for the reader.

Re: Extended Family Values

Thomas R — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:15:19 -0000

Well I'm often more at variance with Dreher than Douthat. In fact that's why I kind-of quit commenting there for awhile. Although I've done so again I don't necessarily think that was wise and may back off.

However Dreher is something of an uber-pessimist and is basically counter-cultural. He seems to be leaning toward "tune in to tradition Christianity, turn on to a communitarian way of life, and drop-out of the Godless decadent West." So if his little "worlds apart" stigmatize people it's not much different than the Amish, lesbian separatists, or even some utopian-socialist communes. Granted I think he's meaning unmarried parents should generally be "stigmatized", but realistically I don't think he believes that'd happen or work.

Re: Extended Family Values

Just Karl — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:43:01 -0000

There are many men who have paid 18 years of child support for a one-night stand.

This is a travesty. If the issue is fatherhood obligation, then it begins with reproductive choice. Women have it, men do not. Every time a woman becomes pregnant, a man's freedom is at risk. We need to figure out a way to require the consent of both parties to undertake the obligation of raising a child, even if it's not through marriage. Society should not force parenthood on anyone.

Re: Extended Family Values

bread & roses — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:14:10 -0000

Stonetools: "What TNC is arguing here is that love conquers all. Where there is love, there is true family, and that institution/structure doesn’t matter."

Absolutely not. He's arguing that commitment, time, attention, and responsibility conquer all. "I'm arguing for a world--and have argued for a world--where people are stigmatized for not performing the most elemental of duties."

Duty. Not love (not that there's anything wrong with love, or that it's unnecessary. It's just not sufficient).

"Let’s put it another away. In any long-term relationship, there comes a time when you don’t love that person, or that person’s child. The strong temptation will be to call U Haul, pack up, and be gone. In an informal relationship, you can do that, and be gone by 5 pm that day. THE END. TNC could do that tomorrow (his father did it 3 times)."

1. TNC's father stuck around for him and all of his children, as he has said over and over and over.

2. Marriage creates some more obligations (contracts) but a person's legal obligation to support their children is not dependent, in the US, on marriage. It is dependent on genetic relatedness and a history of having taken responsibility for the children. There are many men who have paid 18 years of child support for a one-night stand.

Yes, institutions are important to encourage and enforce responsibility- institutions like the legal obligation to pay child support. And just because there are such institutions doesn't mean that the people who work outside them are not being responsible. Lots and lots of people don't pay child support- because they are there actively supporting their children, as opposed to supporting them with monthly checks. The institution only needs to be called in when the individuals fail at their duties.

I really loved this post, Ta-Nehisi. It strikes me that conservatives conflate the institution of marriage and the institution of parenthood, and they aren't the same thing. You don't need the one for the other. All kinds of statistical, social, broad-brush arguments can be made about a strong institution of parenthood being good for society, the well-being of children, and the well-being of all of us who have to live with the children who have been raised well or badly. Its worth some coercion and stigmatizing of individuals, some social engineering. It's worth forcing people, once they've become parents, to live up to certain standards and responsibilities. But marriage? I think each marriage has to live up to its own standards. Having a social model is useful; but it's a lot less critical that it be any one way or another than with parenthood.

Re: Extended Family Values

John E. - Agn. Stoic — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 22:49:07 -0000

It is worth noting that Rod Dreher at:

http: //blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/...

stated "Having children outside of marriage should be stigmatized, for the common good," but steadfastly refused to provide any examples of how that would play out in action.

He finally closed comments on that post when enough people started calling on him to detail how he would go about stigmatizing unwed parents.

Re: Extended Family Values

JonF — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:45:11 -0000

Re: Staying together over a period of time does not make one married.

Once upon a time it did. Once upon a time there was no such thing as a marriage license and even the Church recognized as married any couple that had commited to each other, even if just by private say-so.

And if we are gong to talk about single-parent families, we should make sure that those families really do have just a single parent. Families where there's two parents in the home who happen not be legally married do not qualify.

Re: Extended Family Values

Just Karl — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:28:49 -0000

I'm interested in encouraging active involvement in your child's school, and stigmatizing ignoring the teacher's phone calls. I'm interested in encouraging fathers to put in as much manpower as they can summon, and stigmatizing those who walk out.

Social conservatives are arguing for a world where people are stigmatized for being unmarried. I'm arguing for a world--and have argued for a world--where people are stigmatized for not performing the most elemental of duties.

It seems to me that people are already stigmatized for not performing the most elemental of duties. Ta-Nehisi's world already exists. (but exactly how society at-large is supposed to know who is ignoring the teacher remains unclear)

So, the rest of the argument boils down to Coats screaming STOP STIGMATIZING ME! at social conservatives. This is not particularly enlightening.

What would advance the argument is some discussion on where the current lines are drawn between what is accepted/stigmatized/made illegal. I'm willing to be convinced that lines should be redrawn. But if someone suggests that we move them, I'd like to know where they plan to redraw them. And what exactly does removing a stigma entail? No more stink-eyes?

I'm much less interested in Coats defending his history, than in Coats and Douthat using their respective family experience to explore where we should draw the lines in situations like we have with this octuplet woman in California. TNC needs to go deeper than 'what if she were black'?

Re: Extended Family Values

lt — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:42:35 -0000

Thomas - Those are important distinctions, but I don't think you can dismiss that phenomenon by talking about Evangelicals 'letting their kids run around.' They've made a huge cultural push towards a certain ideal, not only of marriage but of abstinence-only education, opposition to gay rights, choice, and even birth control in many cases. These are places the standards Douthat and Dreher call for are presumably strongly in place, in spite of any underlying religious differences. It seems more than fair to point out that this project has failed on its own terms.

Re: Extended Family Values

Thomas R — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:04:10 -0000

The red-states that's most true of are dominated by Evangelical Protestants. Baptists in particular seem to allow their kids to have a "running around" period before they get born-again in their 30s or so.

Conservative Catholics and Lutherans don't work like that. They are also less likely to divorce or have these other problems. Teen birth and divorce rates are low in both Nebraska and the Dakotas. Mormon divorce rates are also low provided they marry a Mormon. (When it comes to interfaith marriages ones involving a Mormon have a fairly high divorce rate)

States like Alaska, Wyoming, Montana are not Evangelical, but they're also highly Republican without being particularly religious at all. (Palin is an outlier for her state, which is among the least religious in the nation) Those states are more "Guns, low-taxes, and strip-mining" Republicans.

It is unfortunate social conservatism is represented by a specific element of Protestantism, but irrelevant here. Douthat is Catholic and Dreher is Orthodox.

Re: Extended Family Values

lt — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 08:24:24 -0000

A great post and lots of great comments. Here's something else that rarely gets mentioned: folks like Ross are always saying it's ok to hold up their model as best because it is best, and it's all us permissive liberals who lead to family breakdown. But you look at the stats. & all the red states where the stigma against alternatives is presumably the highest have higher rates of divorce, teen pregnancy, etc. etc. It's almost like stigmatizing people isn't a good way to get good outcomes, or something!

You can't hate people for their own good.

Re: Extended Family Values

Christina L — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 07:32:10 -0000

Stonetools wrote: "In marriage, you have to go through a lot more, and have second and third thoughts, before you end a relationship once for all. I think that saves a lot of relationships at the margin. When the love is flowing and the sex is good and everyone’s working and the baby isn’t sick, it is easy to think that love conquers all. When trouble comes, that‘s when that institutional support and inertia does help."

No offense, but I find this argument to be b.s.

A piece of paper does not stop someone from calling the U-Haul truck, as you put it earlier in your post, stoonetools. Actually, what stops someone from jumping ship without giving it an effort is love, not the institution. There have been plenty of spouses who have left their partner high and dry, despite being legally married to them. And there have been plenty of people who stay together because, despite their troubles, they love and respect each other (and their kids) too much to just walk out. Maybe they end up getting a divorce, but they work out something to make the parenting aspect function.

The major value of institutions like marriage is that they allow those OUTSIDE the relationship to recognize the relationship as legitimate. If two people decide for themselves that relationship is a long-term, functioning relationship and they don't need outsiders to recognize it as such, then I don't see how marriage in and of itself is particularly meaningful. It's how people function as partners that matters. Sometimes, getting married is a way of displaying the commitment, and I believe everyone should have that option. But sometimes, people choose to show their commitment in other ways. That should be acceptable, too.

As TNC said, it's the practices, not the institutions, that matter. As for the chicken-egg debate (do institutions create good practices or do good practices lead to institutional stability), that doesn't matter to me. For some people, institutions are the cause. For others, institutions are the result. For others still, practices and institutions don't go together. It's this variety that leads me to agree with TNC and disagree with Ross: creating one institutional norm is not productive.

Re: Extended Family Values

Thomas R — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:53:54 -0000

"Do married people have better outcomes because of the marriage itself? Or is it that people who are more likely to marry, produce better outcomes?" TNC

TR: Although socially conservative I have to admit this is a good point. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. It's like how they started thinking families should eat dinner together because the families who did were more successful. However it seems likely that a mediocre to poorly functioning family would remain so even if they ate together. In fact I know of families whose "meals together" led to their worst fights some of which spiraled into fairly nasty physical abuse. For the "good families" eating together may have been just a "symptom" rather than being a cause.

Still it seems logical that some forms of families would work better than others. In other social spheres certain forms organize better than others. This doesn't mean the modern nuclear family is best. Grandparents and kin should probably have a greater role than they do in it while romantic love should have a much weaker role. Things like compatibility, mental stability, being able to tolerate each other's relatives, and sharing the same religion are likely more important for a lasting relationship. Being in love with each other is good, but not strictly necessary. ("Marriage doesn't have to about love" is ironically brought to you on Valentine's Day) Then again I'm a celibate so what do I know?

Anyway saying some forms are better doesn't have to mean totally stigmatizing others. This is why I don't like that "culture war" term. I think you can discourage your own kids from certain arrangements, and see certain arrangements as sub-optimal on average, without being mean to people. A B-student did poorer than an A-student, but it doesn't mean B-student must be condemned as a moron.

Re: Extended Family Values

PeterGuillam — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:37:35 -0000

"I've been struggling to understand for the past half hour how the heck Dreher thinks its a compliment and not a slap in the face to refer to someone else's family structure as "broken." The inherent sense of entitlement required to make such a statement with a straight face astounds."

And Ross' backhanded compliment to the exceptionality of TNC's family also strikes me the same way. "Gee TNC, we all know how awesome and great and exceptional your family are, so that automatically makes it not the norm, so your argument regarding this based on your family situation is irrelevant and totally doesn't count".

Thanks a lot, Ross. I'm sure TNC really appreciate the compliment.

Re: Extended Family Values

MikeSchilling — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:20:35 -0000

Social conservatives are interested in encouraging one model, and stigmatizing all others. I'm interested in encouraging practices and stigmatizing others.

Statistics show that kids from traditional families grow up to be better proofreaders.

Re: Extended Family Values

MAJeff — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:51:54 -0000

oops...poorly worded last response.

"Marital status" is a regularly used variable. "married" only applies to couples that are married.

Re: Extended Family Values

MAJeff — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:50:34 -0000

But how many studies distinguish between a committed long-term relationship where the same two parents are there, in the house, from birth through college and are married, and the same relationship where they are not?

All of them. "Marital status" is a regularly used variable. It only applies to couples that are married.

Re: Extended Family Values

MAJeff — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:49:39 -0000

Incidentally, the same-sex parent data make me think marriage is at least partially shorthand for "stable family grouping."

No, marriage is a specific form of relationship. There are a lot of relationships that are stable family groupings, including lots of same-sex couples, many of whom are raising children. In only two states can those specific couples marry, but in all 50 they've been coupling and forming families without the benefit of marriage for years. Marriage provides a whole lot of things that these other arrangements don't, like tax benefits with regard to inheritance, access to health insurance, access to pensions, visitation and funerary rights, next-of-kin relationships, "legitimacy" with regard to children.... Unmarried couples may be able to gain access to some of the benefits, rights, and obligations of marriage in some political jurisdictions, but they're not married.

Re: Extended Family Values

Deborah — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:48:39 -0000

@MAJeff: But how many studies distinguish between a committed long-term relationship where the same two parents are there, in the house, from birth through college and are married, and the same relationship where they are not? Such pairs are becoming more common but have they, as with lesbian parents, become so much so that someone has done the married v. partnered-for-decades outcomes in a study? I'd actually be very interested in whether there's any difference; my guess would be no.

And damn, when I talked above about family dinners as something my husband and I default into, I meant to include the bad example that we both recognize we should exercise more but keep failing to do so--we don't prioritize it to be something we do without thinking, the way we do dinner. (Neither did our parents. Coincidence? I think not.)

Re: Extended Family Values

Sorn — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:40:13 -0000

I think the disagreement between TNC and Ross is grounded in basic differences between how they see the world.

TNC is arguing from a specific perspective. Ross is arguing from a general perspective. This is like a microscope saying to a telescope "You're wrong." And the telescope saying, "No You're Wrong."

The basic divide between liberal and conservative on the issue of marriage is a debate between empiricism and idealism. I don't think it has anything to do with being a democrat or being a republican. The idealistic view of marriage says, "X is the standard we should try to conform to the standard." The empirical view of marriage asks "What works for individual people?"

Personally I think we need both sides of the argument in order to develop a workable model regarding marriage or any other question. Our lives are never defined completely by generalizations or by individual circumstances, but rather by compromise.

Re: Extended Family Values

Deborah — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:35:20 -0000

Incidentally, the same-sex parent data make me think marriage is at least partially shorthand for "stable family grouping."

A lesbian couple I know agreed with one brother that he would be the stable male model in their daughters' lives, flying up for Dad-at-school events and the like. ( A grandpa was confusing the grandkids by the time their children were being adopted.)

Older, financially-secure single parents by choice are usually portrayed working through all the "This is how I will afford it, this is who will back me up, this is the relative who can be a long-term opposite-sex role model" issues. And I would bet less likely than their 20-something counterparts to have an array of parentish figures moving in and out of the kid's life.

Re: Extended Family Values

MAJeff — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:26:45 -0000

And sorry, but I'm afraid you and Kenyatta count as married for most such sociological experiments.

Um, no. [Sociologist here] They may be a family, and even a long-term couple, but they're not married. Staying together over a period of time does not make one married. Getting married makes one married. A license and state recognition makes one married.

Re: Extended Family Values

Deborah — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:17:46 -0000

We've all seen the data on marriage, and outcomes. We all know that in the aggregate marriage comes out on top. But this really doesn't help us in this debate, because we don't why. Do married people have better outcomes because of the marriage itself? Or is it that people who are more likely to marry, produce better outcomes?

Or is it a feedback loop, with marriage and the behaviors that go with it reinforcing each other? It is not getting married that counts in these studies, after all, it is staying married--that class full of students at Harvard who pop up their hands when you ask "Are your parents married?" not "Were they married when you were conceived?" I think a big part of that is your default--if times are tough in your marriage, do you default to "shit happens, and we will get through this" or to "time for a change"?

And sorry, but I'm afraid you and Kenyatta count as married for most such sociological experiments. You're both there. You're (I assume) not on the "this is okay but of course I may meet someone far more fabulous next month" that is behind one half of a lot of nonmarriages. (jmho) You're like lesbians! For whom the data (gay men too) were finally collected, and it turns out their kids turn out exactly like everyone else, with the minor caveat they're more likely to as teens have dated opposite to their primary sexual orientation.

I think the marriage as default bit also ties into something I noticed about childrearing, one-time stressors versus your life. A mother spending less time with her newborn because of medical crisis (my mother almost died when I was born and didn't hold me for two weeks) but who post-crisis is a loving mother (mine was) will not be a huge negative; it's what you do day in day out for years that counts. The opposite is people who say "I should do X for my kids, but life today is just too complex and busy for that to even be possible anymore." They're setting the terms of the kid's life to be what they consider less ideal, but just because it would require effort.

The one that presently gets me on this is how incredibly difficult it is for a family to just eat dinner together. It really isn't; my husband works long hours, I work, both kids are involved in activities, and we eat together virtually every night. A missing kid is likely dinnering at a friend's family dinner. And yet whenever an article arrives to argue for the family dinner, because of all that pro-family dinner research that won't be explained away, it always starts with Of course it is nearly impossible to eat together, but if you are convinced and want to try this extreme lifestyle... (Incidentally this one is a kid boon for married parents, single, filling-in relatives, etc.)

We eat dinner together because we prioritize it; it's our default for what a family does. And yes, we were raised that way. That, I think, is a "who gets married/being married" example

I'm interested in encouraging practices and stigmatizing others.

I think this is exactly the right approach.

There's a strong temptation to explain away results one doesn't like. Social conservatives want to explain away "Two moms, totally normal." Atheists want to explain away "Regular churchgoers live longer and healthier." (The atheists are quite mad about this. "Obviously the relevant factor is the community, and I have friends, so I will garner the same health benefits. Because otherwise It Just Isn't Fair!") I wanted to disregard "Unhappy marriage is better for kids than divorce" except that I've seen enough little kids to understand that one.

An approach I liked, in a brain development book, was to look at all the things that had been found to correlate with bright well-adjusted children. Stable family. No television before 2 and then strictly limited and supervised. And if you know you're at risk (you're pregnant and the dad took a hike) it's good to know everything on the list and how it can work for you. Maybe of 10 things 2 are already not happening, but you're seeing how the other 8 can be integrated. (e.g. You can turn off the tv for everyone, make sure to give him plenty of time out of a stroller, and do that family dinner thing.)

Re: Extended Family Values

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:03:35 -0000

Rajesh,

I thought he literally used the word "stigmatize" in his post.

Also, this idea that marriage is the only sure way to make sure fathers, father is, as I said, amazingly sweeping. I have laid out the particulars of my life and what works for me. I don't assume that works for everyone else. I sometimes get the feeling that I'm hearing from people who, themselves, need marriage to make them do the right thing. I don't object to that. We all have our struggles. But your struggle isn't everyone's struggle. We're all sinners. But it takes some stones to assume that we all are struggling with the same sins.

Re: Extended Family Values

Rajesh — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:34:30 -0000

Ta-Nehisi, great post.

I'm a greater defender of marriage than you are but you have made me think & for that I thank you. My thoughts are a bit too muddled to put down just now.

One minor point. I think you're being a bit unfair to Ross (not Rod) when you say he stigmatises non traditional marriages.

His approach seems to me to be one that would encourage traditional forms whilst being neutral on non-traditional forms.