The guy who's actually living that life you'd imagined for yourself before you got married, had a couple of kids, and strapped in to that desk job.
The text is clever and sometimes funny, but what I want to talk about is the basic premise: that having children is a failure. If men were true to them(our)selves, we would "play in a band, live in California, wake up at ten, and surf before noon."
So here is the basic question: a generation ago -- and perhaps for most of human history -- having children was not only included in dreams of masculine success, it was essential to it. In the past, one could not be a man without progeny. Today, it's tough to call yourself a real man if you have kids.What happened?
First of all, I want to insist that I am as much a victim of this delusion as was the author of the piece in GQ, and many (most?) educated men in my generation. These last two years with Helena have been wonderful, powerful... and often deeply depressing, not so much because of her as because of the challenge that she implies to my self definition. So my interest in this problem isn't just academic, because it may give some insight into the dark night of the soul that I have inhabited more than I would have liked since she was born.
The easy Marxist answer is that capitalism is to blame: the basic structural power of consumer capitalism is to tell people "You suck. You're ugly, unpopular, and unhappy. But, if you buy Duff Beer, then things will be great!" The grass is greener on the other side of the fence... or on the other side of the reproduction divide. By making men unhappy with "conventional" lives, capitalism promotes the purchase of red convertibles, expensive alcohol, and (in my case, at least) kite-surfing gear.Maybe that's a part of it... but there's also the population issue. Ever since Malthus wrote her famous essay almost 300 years ago, some people have lived in fear of overwhelming the carrying capacity of the planet. There are too many of us, we all know (in spite of the fact that the evidence has proven Malthus completely wrong, everyone still believes him), so we shouldn't reproduce. For ethical absolutists like me, having a kid requires rethinking this story.
I think something else happens in high school, or the general discourse of fear around teen pregnancy. In our formative years, having children is a disaster. It's what happens to people who don't take care (in the more charitable interpretation) or who are losers at live (in the subconscious way that the elites think). It's hard to get over this idea.Even so, I don't think I understand this change, where children, once the condition of the possibility of happiness (to use Lacan's phrase) have become the conditions of its impossibility. I'd love ideas, if any readers have them!
It has all become so much more real in the last 20 months, i.e., since our child was born. And I feel the existential question most keenly on Sunday nights because I dedicate Mondays to being Pop. Am I accomplishing what I want? Do I command the respect and exert the influence I expected? How will I pass the day tomorrow with Phoebe?
ReplyDeleteTuesday mornings for me are like everyone else's Mondays. I end up reading Facebook and friends' blogs until (all of a sudden?) it's lunchtime.
Whatever may have happened in my mind in high school - I do recall finding it odd that my mother's main purpose in life seemed to be raising us children - got completely upended in my 30s. Having children certainly became a "condition of the possibility of happiness". So I don't think for me any issue with child-rearing lingers from that formative time.
I see a tension between difficulty and selectivity. Mallory sought to climb Everest because it was there, but he selected the highest, not the most difficult mountain. Parenting is hard. At the very least we could observe it's no easier for fathers than mothers, but I'm sympathetic to arguments that it's actually harder. I was proud of Phoebe yesterday, and I know I'm going to be proud of her frequently over the coming years. Some of her impressiveness will be due specifically to my efforts at fathering. The question is whether my accomplishments as a father will weigh favorably in my mind against other accomplishments I could have made if I had done my regular work on Mondays, or even not had children at all. I could have been a better runner or a better skier - that's obvious. But could I have commanded more respect from my peers? Or exerted more influence in the world?
Yes, I realize I just kicked the ball farther down the field. I'm going to go make lunch.