blargblog

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

In Do as I Say, Caitlin Flanagan offers a liberal's apologia for right wing radio rantrix Dr. Laura. For all of her inflexible moralism, hypocrisy and homophobia, Dr. Laura, Flanagan argues, is consistent on one theme: parents should make sacrifices for their children.

In a nutshell, Dr. Laura believes that many of the aspects of adult life that I had always considered complicated and messy and finely nuanced are in fact simple and clear-cut; that life ought to be neatly fitted around duty and responsibility rather than around the pursuit of that elusive old dog, happiness. This is what makes her the most compelling advocate for children I have thus far encountered, because the well-being of children often depends upon the commitment and obligation of the adults who created them.

I stopped listening to Dr. Laura years ago when I found her harsh barrating of single mothers to be deplorable. It was 1995, around the time when the Gingrich ascendancy and Dan Quayle's laughable denunciation of "Murphy Brown" launched a culture war that, like Reagan's "welfare mama" a decade earlier, made the single mom a social pariah. Being the son of a single mom myself, I took such criticism personally. I mean, really, what is she saying—guys like me are fucked up?

Okay, you don't have to answer that. The one thing that bothered me, however, was a slight nagging feeling that, while she may not be right insofar as discouraging divorce (making exceptions for adultery, abuse and addiction), she and other critics of divorce have a point. Divorce is hard on kids. I know this from direct experience: not only were my parents divorced, but half the kids I went to school with in the 70s and 80s experienced the same thing. We all wound up in therapy at some point. We all had emotional problems of some kind or other. Drugs, sneaking out at night, roller coaster grades in school, getting into all sorts of trouble—we children of divorce did many of these things.

Funny thing is there were a few children of intact marriages along for the ride. In fact, a few of that sort were the prime instigators of "trouble." Over time, their parents divorced, too, once the last child was sent off to college. Their kids, too, required therapy, succumbed to drug addiction and alcoholism, unhealthy sexual promiscuity, et cetera, et cetera. Yet divorce was not the source of their troubles; it was the refusal to divorce, keeping the family together in a cauldron of repression and misery.

Dr. Laura's mistake, among many, is to completely dismiss the importance of the mother's—or father's—happiness as a necessary factor in healthy parenting. Yet, by the same token, apologists for divorce too quickly assume that a parent pursuing his or her own happiness will make for a happy child. More than once have I seen a parent—divorced or married—use this line of reasoning to justify a selfish course of action that makes the kid miserable. I have known a few parents who could use some of the verbal ass-kicking Dr. Laura famously dishes out on a daily basis. But even there there is a certain risk. Whether staying together or splitting apart, parents face a common pitfall that tends to go unspoken, the human capacity for self-delusion through simple, easy answers.

So obviously I won't offer any. I lucked out. My wife and I have been happy together for years. We only recently decided to have a child. We have decent jobs, a nice house and a fairly stable situation. Our experiences as children of single mothers (and mostly absent fathers) have certainly informed the cautiousness that we have used in approaching most of these decisions, especially in having a kid. Dr. Laura might applaud us, but I'd prefer she not take comfort in our rare example of nuclear family harmony. For one thing, I don't wanna jinx it. For another, there are plenty of great parents out there who are single, who are gay, who are divorced, who are transgendered, who don't have the kind of luck or the priveleges that our arbitrary society has given to my wife and me. They love their kids and do their best and sometimes they fuck up just as I know I will probably fuck up. No $1.5 billion government program to promote marriage will prevent that. No conservo-radio tough talk will either. The only advice I offer is: keep a cool head.

But then I always say that.

Posted by kevinmoore at January 28, 2004 11:14 AM | TrackBack