Susan's Musings

Life Isn't Fair

A short while ago, National Public Radio ran a piece entitled, “Many Women Underestimate Fertility Clock's Clang.” It related the results of a recent study showing that most women are ignorant of the young age at which one’s chances of easily conceiving begin rapidly falling. Women who heed the prevalent cry to concentrate on their careers or focus on fun in their twenties are often shocked and saddened when they find that they may have missed a fertility window.

I give credit to NPR (which is different than saying that I think NPR should be taxpayer funded, but that’s another matter) for covering this story. As they report, there was a “vicious backlash” by women’s rights groups to an ad campaign ten years ago which was designed to make women aware of their bodies’ timetable. It seems that some groups feel that vast efforts should be made to educate women about how much they can achieve professionally while keeping them ignorant of the possible price of that achievement.

All choices have consequence; “having it all” just isn’t always possible.  While feminism led to some positive and necessary changes, many of us would argue that it resulted in quite a number of negative ones as well.   The twin sirens of ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ lead many into troubled waters brimming with unhappiness.

There was a period when one of our daughters would ask for a bowl of “Life Isn’t Fair” cereal. Not yet able to read the cereal box she heard her older siblings referring to it as “Life” and she recognized the opening word of a phrase my husband and I repeatedly used.

In a house full of young children, there was a lot that didn’t seem fair. Perhaps one child received an invitation to a birthday party while the others didn’t; perhaps the child at the birthday party missed a fun family outing. If one child outgrew her shoes more rapidly than a sibling, we felt no compunction about getting a new pair for only the growing child. While there was much that was equally shared – like chicken pox and hopefully, at the end of the day, love – there were seven children with individual talents, personalities and situations. This meant that each one sometimes got a little more and at other times a little less. The cry of “it’s not fair” might have precipitated some sympathy, but also the reply, “Life isn’t fair.” My husband and I thought that was an important life lesson to absorb; not as a call to be passive but in recognition that learning that certain realities are built into this world helps one live more successfully.

Yet the idea that life must be fair persists.  The NPR article quoted a woman who struggled to conceive for many years as saying, “The ticking biological clock is not a burden women should bear alone.”   In her view, men should be equally concerned. After all, that would be only fair.   After years of celebrating the separation of sex and reproduction and demanding that a woman’s body is entirely her own business, it seems a bit weak to yell, “It’s not fair,” when reality intrudes.

The impending Health Care legislation raises lots of questions of fairness. A great deal is unknown about the Health Care bill that passed in 2010, including whether it is constitutional and if the upcoming presidential election will completely change the rules. But meanwhile, there are a lot of ambiguities about how it will actually work. Nancy Pelosi’s infamous words that Congress needed to pass the bill so that we could find out what was in it were hardly reassuring. One could conclude that the bill is a Pandora’s Box.

Let’s posit a number of thirty-five year old women, who made different life choices. I may be drawing these virtual women in broad strokes, but I do think that the situations described aren’t out of bounds.

Amanda loved to travel and while she always pictured a husband and children in her life, she thought that both she and her future family would be happier if she satiated her wanderlust before settling down. Never motivated by money she combined volunteer work abroad with occasional short-term jobs that financed further travel. Confident that Mr. Right would be around once she was ready; she has been disappointed in the quality of men she has met since returning home. Deciding that she can raise a child on her own she is discovering that not only will child care be outrageously expensive, but even getting pregnant may come with a hefty price tag.

Casey got married during college, despite the protestations of her friends who thought she was much too young. She and her husband both wanted a large family and they now have six children ranging from thirteen down to two years old. Finances are always tight, particularly since the couple manages on one salary so that Casey can homeschool the children.

Brianna always knew that she wanted to be a doctor and met her husband in medical school. Having established their careers after years of study (and a great deal of student debt), they agree that it is time to begin their family. As older first-time parents, they are realistic about possibly needing invasive medical procedures to get pregnant and know that both the pregnancy and their children face a statistically higher chance of medical complications.

Marcy never went to college. She had her first baby at seventeen and her second by a different father, at nineteen. She was married for a short time during her twenties and had two more children. She thinks it’s ridiculous that minimum wage is so low and believes that companies should be required to provide day care. How else will she and her children have a chance to move forward in life?

Amanda, Brianna, Casey and Marcy had different opportunities and made different choices. But they are where they are. Do Casey and her husband need to pay higher taxes so that Amanda and Brianna can receive fertility treatments? Is it selfish for Casey and her husband to want lower tax rates so they can save money and travel once their children are older? Should Amanda not have been allowed to travel or choose her own employment since it delayed her becoming a taxpayer?  Is it unfair that Brianna and her husband have an income which will allow them access to all sorts of specialists which their prospective children might need, and is Marcy entitled to the same level of psychological and medical help for hers?

Life isn’t fair. Government’s utopian and futile attempts to make it so tend to backfire. In the real world, human beings cannot be equal precisely because they are human beings with differing needs, desires and choices. Equality before the law is American; equality of outcome as a policy is the opposite of the freedom to choose life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Eighteen and Pregnant

Shortly after hearing the news that four of our friends became great-grandparents, I came across a news item about an upcoming reality show. The producers are seeking women in their thirties who are grandmothers. Well, the daughter of one of our friends fits that description.

It seems though, that the grandmother in this case won’t meet the show’s criteria. Yes, she’s in her thirties, but she got married at eighteen and has, with her husband, built a beautiful, large family. Their daughter in turn, also got married at eighteen, and both her parents’ and the groom’s parents’ blessings accompanied the young couple down the aisle. The new baby’s arrival, about a year later, was anticipated and desired.

Not only is this new grandma’s family intact, a fact which makes it uninteresting to reality TV, but the family members’ lives are boring. Cameras placed in their home would show people working, living, loving and learning. Throw in some shooting hoops, piano practice and family meals and all in all there is little to engage the viewer. No hysterical quarrels with lots of profanity and violence; no dark secrets waiting to be revealed; not even a mid-life crisis on the horizon. There is certainly no thirty something woman appalled that her daughter is thrusting her back into infant care because the new mother is too immature to handle the baby herself. Not only is the family boring by TV standards, but they would never allow cameras into their home, understanding that the sanctity of a family deserves privacy.

Granted, very few eighteen year olds today are mature enough to marry and few couples as young as this are mature enough to begin families. Of course, more years don’t automatically add maturity and it is possible to spend those years destructively, doing things which add burdensome baggage to one’s life, making a healthy lifelong relationship less likely. Certainly, most girls who become single mothers in their teens are placing obstacles to success in their lives and the lives of their babies. Shows such as this potential new one or its predecessors, “Teen Mom” and “16 and Pregnant” may indeed show the difficulties young, unwed mothers face, but they also help to normalize those situations.  I think the overwhelming majority of girls who do get pregnant as teenagers would express disbelief that it is possible that girls close to their age could actually be mature enough to marry with reasonable expectations of having a long and happy marriage.  While they hopefully will discover that having a baby can propel one to maturity, they haven’t understood the equation that maturity should precede becoming a mother. They may have heard of women marrying young and establishing families back in the 18^th or 19^th centuries, but certainly not today. My friends’ families would baffle them.

I recently read the words of a highly successful woman who grew up in a home which was 180 degrees from that of my friends’ daughter, the new grandmother. Poverty, abuse, even child rape were this famous personality’s childhood companions. She wrote how watching the 1950 and 1960’s sitcoms which are derided today, like Leave it to Beaver or Father’s Knows Best showed her that her own shattered family wasn’t the only paradigm to follow. There were happy families in the world.

It may well be true that the old sitcoms didn’t depict the lives of all Americans. Certainly, many of the actors in the sitcoms were not privileged to have the wonderful homes they portrayed. But neither were these fantasy shows. There actually were and are homes where husbands and wives adore each other, where parents are respected and where children are brought up with both love and values.  There are families where a couple who has celebrated their own 50^th wedding anniversary can gaze at their newborn great-granddaughter filled with optimism and faith that her young parents are committed to her and to each other. 

The books that students read in school and the movies and shows they watch may well reflect contemporary realities. How sad that they don’t provide visions of marriages and of peaceful homes where one man and one woman dedicate their lives to each other and their children. By not giving glimpses of what is, even in today’s day and age still attainable, we are depriving those who have not been blessed to have such examples in their own lives of even imagining that such a thing is possible.

Generation to Generation

Many years ago when I was leaving to spend a year studying abroad, my grandmother asked me for a favor.  When I got to Israel, would I please go spend a Shabbat with a dear friend of hers? Pepi had escaped from Europe and arrived in Israel just before the Holocaust’s full fury unfolded.  As my grandmother told me of her friend, it became clear that my grandmother, who arrived in America prior to World War I, had never met this woman.

 Pepi came from the same town as my grandfather and was friends with his younger sister. While my grandfather didn’t remember her, she remembered how her friend’s older brother left for the United States before the First World War.  After the Holocaust, she tracked down his address and from her new home in Israel wrote to him with details about his parents’ and sister’s deaths. My grandmother responded and a friendship was born. My mother and aunt remember packing boxes of warm clothing to be sent overseas; a struggling American family helping out an even less comfortable Israeli one. When my grandmother told me about Pepi, I knew there was something special about this friendship.  Everyone else in my grandmother’s circle of friends addressed each other as “Mrs. So and So” despite years of acquaintance, yet this woman was to be known, even to me, by a diminutive of her first name.

 I admit to being apprehensive about visiting Pepi. A Shabbat visit would last for at least 25 hours, which could be interminable. Even my grandmother had never spoken with her; their interaction was entirely through the mail. Not only was she an unknown, elderly widow, but she didn’t speak any English. My Hebrew was pretty good, but what if I didn’t understand her or we had nothing to say? However, I adored my grandmother and would have done anything she asked. I duly called Pepi shortly after my arrival in Israel and arranged to travel north to her home.

My fears were allayed them moment she opened her apartment door. The pre-Shabbat aromas wafting into the hall transported me to my grandmother’s apartment. Her loving embrace did the same. Pepi’s daughters told me of their excitement when a package from America arrived and how the candies tucked into pockets of sweaters and jackets made them feel wealthy and privileged. I was instantly grafted into the four generations of their Israeli family.

 I came to adore my time with Pepi and regularly returned through the year. Each time I left her home I carried a package filled with food including a still warm kokosh cake that has never been equaled.  When I returned to the States I stayed in touch with Pepi and we both mourned when, shortly thereafter, my grandmother passed away. A few years later Pepi rejoiced with me when my husband and I gave our eldest child my grandmother’s name, Rivka Leah.

Ten years later, Pepi too was gone. When our youngest daughter was born, my husband and I gave her the middle name Penina – Pepi’s given name. I prayed that our Tamara Penina would have the unwavering faith in God, effervescent joy in life and heartwarming demeanor of her namesake.  

Since Tamara’s birth it has given me a particular thrill to see my eldest and youngest girls together. Their namesakes never got to experience that physical closeness, at least in this world. Almost ten years ago, Tamara helped me address invitations for her sister’s wedding and a few weeks ago my Rivka Leah and her husband opened their home to host a Shabbat wedding celebration for Tamara and her new husband.

There is a Hebrew word, nachat (sometimes pronounced nachas) which is impossible to translate into English. It is a combination of joy, pride and intense satisfaction among other emotions. It is what parents pray to receive from their children’s lives. That Shabbat, I experienced tremendous nachat, and I knew that my grandmother and her beloved friend, Pepi, rejoiced with me.

Overflowing Gratitude

Earlier this week, my husband and I joyfully celebrated our youngest daughter’s wedding. God has given us the enormous privilege of escorting our six daughters to the chuppah – the marriage canopy.   He has presented us with six outstanding men to embrace into our family, finally giving our son, Ari, the brothers he desperately craved throughout his childhood.

Our family spent Shabbat before the wedding together, hosted by long-time family friends. One of our daughters reminisced about the time she frantically called me up to  report that one of her siblings was chasing another sibling around the kitchen with a butcher knife. Another recalled how frequently she was exiled to walk around our block holding hands with another offending sibling, my chosen punishment for cases of incessant bickering. At times we thought that we would be fortunate if future sibling relationships would be frosty rather than hostile; we couldn’t even envision loving.

We were sorely, and mistakenly, lacking in faith. As they have matured and grown, our children have become one another’s staunchest supports. They provide one another with emotional, financial and physical care. They have sacrificed their own comforts for their siblings. (A special shout out to Ruthie and Asher who came from their home in Israel for Miriam’s wedding two months ago only to be confronted with Tamara’s engagement. They made great sacrifices to stay in the States through the latter’s wedding.) We were thrilled by the palpable love among all our children on Tamara’s special day.

There is another reason my husband and my emotions at this wedding were so intense. This was the only one of all our children’s marriages that took place in the city where we spent the first fifteen years of our own marriage. During that time we led an amazing synagogue, Pacific Jewish Center. Its members, most of whom were single when they first came to my husband’s Torah classes, were not only our students but also our closest friends. My husband officiated at most of their marriages. They rejoiced with us at Tamara’s birth and it is impossible to describe the special feeling of having so many of them, as well as our newer friends, share in the birth of her new life as a married woman.

God’s bounteous blessings have kept tears of gratitude and joy running down my cheeks this week. My constant prayer is that Elliot and Tamara, along with all our children, build homes which bring pleasure and delight to our Creator.

 

 

Here Comes the Promotion; There Goes the Marriage

All right. That wasn’t exactly what the large letters at the top of April 28’s Wall Street Journal declared, enticing one to read the related article in the Personal Journal section. It was actually “Here Come the Baby; There Goes the Marriage.” But wouldn’t my suggested title work as well? How about any of the following:

 Here Comes the Mortgage; There Goes the Marriage

Here Comes the Illness; There Goes the Marriage

Here Comes Real Life; There Goes the Marriage

 Statistics cited in the article claim that, “About two-thirds of couples see the quality of their relationship drop within three years of the birth of a child.”  Counseling services, psychotherapists and classes are stepping up to help married couples keep the lines of communication open during this stressful period. 

I don’t know many people who buy a car based only on how the car performs in good weather and great roadway conditions. We want to know how the car holds up in stop and go traffic, on pot-holed roads and in a collision. When we buy clothing we want assurances that our new dress won’t look good only when it is new but also after repeated laundering. A teacher’s mettle is tested around children who aren’t ideal students and a doctor who handles strep throat flawlessly but who falls apart when a patient has more complex symptoms isn’t a very good doctor. 

Why are we surprised when couples who are happy before their marriages hit the inevitable bumps in the road, struggle once complicated and messy real life kicks in? Until the marriage is tested, whether by negative occurrences such as job loss or the death of a parent, or by joyous occasions like the birth of a child, getting a job promotion or a monetary windfall, the marriage is still in the show room or on the hanger. Taxing events do stress marriages, but they often reveal fault lines which up till then were camouflaged. 

I’m not minimizing the upheaval that arrives with a new baby, particularly the first-born. But I question how out of touch with reality young couples are if they need to spend hundreds of dollars to be taught that keeping lines of communication open and making sure to have non-child-focused time together is important.  Could it be that the base assumption so many bring into their marriages – this marriage is about making me happy – is wrong? 

In college, I took a course on the immigrant experience in America. Our term project included interviewing an immigrant, and I took the opportunity to chat with my grandmother. At that point, she and my grandfather had celebrated close to sixty years of marriage and in my eyes their relationship was as solid as the heavy, wooden armoire in their guest room.  The atmosphere in their home was peaceful and joyful.  With the self-centeredness of youth, I assumed it was naturally that way. 

As my grandmother answered my questions, I remember being dumb-founded as she uncovered memories from years long past. At one point, she recalled how, early in their marriage, her father-in-law arrived from Europe to stay with them. He was a difficult man, and almost as an aside, my grandmother said something which granted me marriage wisdom I never forgot.  She said, “That was a difficult year. I guess if it was today, we would just have gotten divorced. But who knew from that then?” 

While my great-grandfather went back to Europe, the years that followed were full of different challenges.  Intense poverty during the Depression and my mother’s contracting polio were among other trials they faced. My grandparents watched three sons go to war and while they rejoiced in their safe return, the end of the war brought with it the knowledge that their parents, siblings, nieces and nephews in Europe had been murdered by the Nazis. 

I’m sure there were extended periods of time when there wasn’t one ounce of energy to give to the relationship. There certainly wasn’t the 1920’s equivalent of $500 for six sessions of pre and post baby counseling. There was, however, something more than divorce just not being common. There was commitment, a long-term view and an attitude that stressed the marriage rather than self. There was faith in God, belief in family, and gratitude for what one had rather than yearning for what was missing. There was a maturity that understood that some days, months and even years were going to be hard and that asking oneself constantly, “Am I happy?” was a foolish thing to do. Paradoxically, over the course of a long marriage where the basics of commitment and responsibility were sacrosanct no matter what one’s feelings, the joyous times far outweighed the tough ones.

I’m a big believer in actively working on one’s marriage (see my husband and my audio CD, Madam, I’m Adam) and while it would be best to work on it consistently from day one, if a life-changing event spurs effort, that’s great.  Could it be though, that too many marriages fail not because they are fatally flawed, but because constantly taking the temperature of one’s happiness is an exercise that encourages dissatisfaction and short-term thinking? 

I wasn’t surprised when the article noted that, while the decline in marital satisfaction in the five years after a baby’s arrival was lower in those who had pre-baby couples counseling, the divorce rate among those who underwent counseling and those who didn’t was the same.  Counseling that is geared to facilitating a healthy relationship is wonderful, but if it reinforces the unrealistic expectation that you can eliminate the tough periods and  that constant smooth sailing is possible it just might make more problems than it solves.

 

 

 

Beatrice Fairfax to the Rescue

Leaving aside human needs like oxygen and water, there are a host of other human wants as well. We crave affection and achievement; yearn for stability and companionship. I’ve noticed one more ubiquitous desire – a longing, particularly from women, for advice in our personal lives. While the boomer generation grew up reading Dear Abby and most modern women’s magazines have advice columns, this is not a recent phenomenon.

Just after the Exodus, the Israelites swamped Moses, turning to him for guidance. It is fair to assume that females triggered a fair number of those requests. Now, if Moses was available to answer questions today I’d also get in line, but leaping ahead a few millennia, the traditional newspaper women’s advice column goes back to 1898. The concept is credited to the New York Evening Journal editor, William Brisbane. The popularity of the column written by his protégée, Marie Manning under the name of Beatrice Fairfax, must have exceeded any expectations. Thousands of women wrote in with questions ranging from the heart-breaking to the mundane, mostly revolving around love, marriage and family. The column became so iconic that it was referenced in books, plays and songs. In 1943 in the movie Girl Crazy, Judy Garland sang the following lyrics written by Ira Gershwin in a song composed in 1930 by his brother, George:

Beatrice Fairfax - don't you dare
Ever tell me he will care;

Beatrice certainly had staying power and name recognition!

What is the appeal of asking a stranger for potentially life-changing advice through a medium designed to be impersonal and limited? Perhaps that is precisely the attraction. In some ways, writing to an advice column is similar to buying a lottery ticket. There’s a very small chance of being noticed but the action itself fills one with hope – maybe all my problems will be easily solved! And while ‘Miss Fairfax’ and her spiritual descendants down to today’s Dr. Phil could be firm and no-nonsense in their answers, writing the letter in itself can be quite cathartic.  Certainly, utilizing the advice column venue saves the embarrassment of sharing one’s woes with someone with whom you come face to face. And sadly, not everyone has wise counsel in her life to whom she can turn.

The other day, I read a question in a Jewish women’s magazine which was answered by three columnists whom I know and respect. Each individual’s piece of advice was thoughtful, reasonable and wise yet the three responses were contradictory. How can that be?

Honestly, how can it not be? Faced with an anonymous questioner presenting a major life dilemma in a few hundred words with no opportunity for clarification, none of the respondents gave an unequivocal answer. Rather, each supplied food for thought.

Why do so many of us read these columns? Because whether the questions resonate in their specifics, all of us face confusing options in life.  The broad spectrum of answers one gleans from these columns are sometimes validating and other times challenging.

The columnists’ responses (and I include my husband and my responses in our own ‘Ask the Rabbi’ column) are not meant to tell someone what to do, with the occasional exception of directing the writer to seek professional, in-person advice. At best, they give perspective, add some useful insights and suggest avenues to explore.  They also provide a form of virtual support, reminding us that others wish us well and share similar predicaments. 

It is tantalizing to think that clear-cut solutions exist to all problems. With the possible exception of Moses, who was in a category of his own with a direct pipeline to The Advice Counselor, Beatrice Fairfax and those who follow her may be helpful, but the duty of choosing a course of action remains an individual responsibility.

 

 

He, Me and We?

Last week my husband asked me to pick up some yogurt for him. While this news will leave most of you unmoved, I expect that our children and close friends are gasping in astonishment. To put it mildly, my husband is not a yogurt person. Not only does he not eat it; he recoils at the idea of eating it. Until last week, that is.

His newly acquired food tastes are part of a scary phenomenon that has been taking place in our home lately. We have been partners in many ventures since our marriage, but we each had our distinct areas of expertise. While we shared educational philosophies regarding our children, the bulk of day to day homeschooling fell in my domain. While we shared the mission of providing access to Torah knowledge, my husband assumed the majority of the teaching. Sharing a longing for Shabbat tables filled with guests, I planned and executed the cooking while he accepted responsibility for planning and guiding the table conversation. This distribution of tasks worked well for us over a prolonged period.

When we started our publishing enterprise a few years ago, we became full-fledged business partners as well. Our skills complemented one another’s. My spouse had grand ideas and vision; I was detail and reality oriented. He barreled through obstacles; I preferred to bypass them. He viewed deadlines as suggestions; I saw them as cast in stone. As our venture grew we both came to see that each of our ways was needed at different times. Accompanying that understanding was a flexibility and recognition of the value of the other’s proclivities. At this point, we sometimes find ourselves arguing for each other’s position rather for than our own instinctive one.

This collaboration of minds is leading to some weird experiences.  Once, during a family boating adventure, we found ourselves in a small, coastal village. As a special treat that evening, we attended the local movie theater’s showing of the movie Freaky Friday. In it, a mother and daughter switch bodies while retaining their individual personalities, completely befuddling those around them (as well as terrifying themselves). At the time, the premise of the movie seemed fanciful.  After the yogurt episode I expect our children will be wondering if, rather than being a fictional plot, that old movie was instead a peek into the future. 

 

 

Blackberry Bamboozlement

When my husband and I were first married, he was the rabbi of a dynamic synagogue. Most of the congregants were young, single and new at developing a relationship with God. They walked out of my husband’s Torah classes with heads full of exciting and thought-provoking ideas. In the years leading up to our marriage, a few of his students had gotten in the habit, which my husband encouraged, of calling him at any time of the day or night when they found themselves grappling with questions sparked by the class or by their fledgling foray into the faith of their fathers.

These calls came in at all hours. During the early months of our marriage (which took place when phones were still attached to walls) my husband used to leap to answer the phone lest one of our congregants might have to wait for his attention. This included mealtime and after we had turned off for the night. As a young bride, my attitude differed from my husband’s. After some calm discussion, which admittedly may have been punctuated with a few tears, my bridegroom came to understand that he was no longer immediately available to his students at all times.

Years later, when we retired from the synagogue rabbinate and moved to the Northwest, the pattern of not leaping to answer the phone with Pavlovian dispatch was well established. Until that is, mobile phones began to accompany my husband wherever he went. Ditto for Blackberries and other electronic devices that seemed to be grafted to his body.  Now the concern was less with congregants and more with one of our children who was away from home. Any suggestion that only seldom did a child far from home need urgent attention placed me in the position of being a heartless mother. Children who were present at our table found themselves ignored as vital concerns from their far-away siblings such as, “I’m writing a thank-you note. What’s the state abbreviation for Missouri?” took precedence. My darling husband caught up with the distant child while those of us at the table remained silent. Discussions take place regularly in our home as to whether modern electronics are devices that serve us or whether we are servants at their beck and call. With a fair number of married years under our belt, there are fewer tears on my part but the exchanges are nonetheless quite passionate.

All of which leads up to a gift my husband recently presented to me. To his intense annoyance, I dislike carrying a cell phone and rarely check messages. His conclusion was that I had an aversion to my specific phone model and so he gave me a Blackberry, confident that I would fall in love. It can do so much! Not only is it a phone, but it can access my email, take videos and I can even leave myself voice messages with it. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it can bake an apple pie if properly programmed. Accompanying this wondrous machine is a 449 page user’s guide. 449 pages!!!!! Now my husband, like many men, never reads instruction manuals. I do, which is probably why he thought I would appreciate this encyclopedic tome. Quite frankly, if I had time to read 449 pages I would rather re-read Gone With the Wind.

I have always taught my children to express gratitude for gifts whether or not they appreciate the individual item. They were to focus on the thought behind the gift and the relationship with the giver. In keeping with that idea, I am grateful for my new Blackberry while equally convinced that I seek loving relationships with individuals, not machines.

One Husband is Enough

Language matters. That is why politicians persist in saying ‘investment’ rather than ‘tax’, and disguise their votes as opposing ‘budget cuts’ rather than promoting ‘a smaller than desired budget increase’. It’s why people talk of pro-choice rather than pro-abortion. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet but call it a ‘putrid bloom’ and no one will buy and smell it in the first place.

New words and phrases that enter our personal, family or community vocabulary often lead to ramifications unimagined at the time they are first used. As Valentine’s Day approached, I was completely taken aback reading an article entitled Does Your Work Wife Get a Valentine?  in the Wall Street Journal. Work wife? Work husband? Office spouse? Have I been in such isolation that I missed an entire trend?

Not exactly.  The story and its accompanying pictures featured male and female co-workers who are good buddies as well as office mates and whose real spouse or romantic interests accept this fact with equanimity. Sure, there is a warning about office friendships which cross the line and marriages ruined by office affairs, but in general the tone of the article is “How cool and sophisticated are we?” The article quoted a study claiming that, “nearly two-thirds of workers have or have had a work spouse…”

The entire article sounded so weird that I looked up the study mentioned. Are you shocked to hear that the findings weren’t quite as depicted? It’s not clear to me if the researchers made up the term “work spouse” but they define it as “someone…whom they communicate with and confide in at the workplace.” 55% of those surveyed said their work spouse was of the same gender as they. Are you shocked to hear that a high percentage of married women said they have had a same-sex work spouse while only half as many married men say the same? That makes it sound suspiciously like what women used to call a friend, specifically that type of friend which women previously called a girlfriend. There is nothing new and cutting-edge about women making friends with the women they see at the office every day.

Marriage is under constant assault these days. Couples who don’t recognize that the ease with which genders mix in the business world poses a serious threat to marital stability are out of touch. When marriages fall apart the individuals involved, the children, extended families, communities and our nation are impacted, overwhelmingly in a negative way. We would all benefit from clear-eyed discussions about handling the challenges of mixed-gender offices rather than applying the language of marriage in a casual and misleading way. Unless a married couple is in business together, spouses have no place in the office. 

It's the Genes, Stupid

                                   

I wrote this in Feb. 2007, but I do think that it deserves a reprise this time of year.

February. An often bleak, cold and dark month. This may be the reason why, aside from the obvious commercial implications, cheerful, bright, pink and red valentines endlessly bombard us as soon as February approaches. For women’s magazines the theme of the month’s issue is pre-ordained – romance. Generally this means that even more clap trap than usual will be disseminated. Hollywood couples who have made it past the five week mark will be lauded as proof that enduring love still exists and “experts” will step forward to explain the new, advanced methods for attracting and holding on to a mate.

Right on track, in a statement so absurd that one knows without checking that the author is an academician,  comes a quote from Melvin Konner, MD, professor of anthropology and behavioral biology at Emory University. Commenting on a study of rodents which suggested that injecting male meadow voles with the chemical vasopressin increased their likelihood of linking up with female meadow voles, the doctor states,

“There’s something at work with a couple that stays together for 50 years, bad years included. It’s hard to imagine that it’s just a question of compatible personalities or strict beliefs.”

 Imagine. If we only had universal health insurance we could have a nation of young couples streaming to the nearest chapel and we could assure them that divorce is no longer a threat. A regimen of injections would turn us into a nation of long term, happily married couples.

 I don’t mean to pick on Dr. Konner, who after all sounds like he was simply wondering out loud rather than recommending a policy. Later on, in the same magazine that featured his quote, is an article highlighting committed couples, including one who has passed the fifty year mark. It is clear that indeed they were initially attracted by compatibility but weathered and continue to weather difficult times through shared beliefs and views.

But in today’s cynical and bruising world thousands of young people are reaching marriageable age as products of broken homes; probably just as many as products of unfulfilled ones. It is easy for them to believe various academics who proclaim that marriages were never meant to last for fifty years. It seems sensible to them that as the expected life span increases it is only normal for couples to divorce and pair up with new spouses, or that marriage itself is obsolete and meaningless.

Studies such as the one that made the cover of news weeklies a number of years ago suggesting that there is an “adultery gene” or ones that suggest that commitment is biologically driven advance the argument that people are helpless beings who can only act as we are programmed. As such we are not responsible for or capable of controlling our behavior.

What a dismal message to send. And how different it is from the message that God gave to Adam and Eve in Eden (when life spans were even longer than they are today). As my husband and I have been preparing the newest volume in our Genesis Journeys series, (Madam, I’m Adam: Decoding the Marriage Secrets of Eden) focusing precisely on what that message is, I can’t help recalling a February event that I was privileged to attend two years ago. Hosted by then Governor and Mrs. Huckabee of Arkansas, the focus was on promoting commitment in marriage and it had nothing to do with a magic pill or monthly injection.

The highlight of the evening (aside from my husband’s speech) was a moving video of the president of a respected Bible college announcing his resignation in order to stay at his wife’s side while she dealt with the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. Like the thousands of other women in the room, my eyes were overflowing as he explained how his wife had supported him in all his endeavors and now she was in need of his company. Although she didn’t seem to recognize him, his presence calmed her down and gave her peace, and so he was choosing to free himself of other obligations to be with her. Not because he thought it was “only fair” or as a “payback” but because it filled him with joy to ease her distress.

I imagine that this man and his wife probably felt they were compatible when they embarked on their marriage many years earlier. But I doubt if it was hormones that led them to stay together. My guess is that there was a constant recognition that communication, hard work and common goals were needed to keep them compatible and, indeed, that strict belief laid the foundation for and built the protective fence around their relationship.

I don’t think there was anyone in the Altel Arena in Arkansas, male or female, who didn’t say a silent prayer asking for a marriage as blessed as that one. And I also don’t think there was anyone there who thought that achieving that kind of marriage was a function of winning a genetic lottery or having access to new drugs rather than of making a constant and sustained effort, through good times and bad, to attain it.