Mike Seely
Unlike friends and acquaintances who were raised out of wedlock or suffered the pangs of divorce in their adolescence, I was fortunate enough to grow up in a two-parent household. What has resulted from this upbringing of perceived normalcy is not a rose-colored view of giddy puppy love between my folks, but rather a keen appreciation for just how much work it takes for two people to persevere in a life partnership.
It is in this vein that I view the decision of whether or not to get married to be arguably the most serious consideration a person must undertake. And that’s why I consider the Bush administration’s proposal to spend a couple hundred million dollars or so per year to promote marriage among low-income people to be among the most asinine ideas ever seriously floated in sociological politics.
In a Feb. 19 article in the New York Times ("Welfare Chief Is Hoping to Promote Marriage"), welfare administrator Wade F. Horn states that "the empirical literature is quite clear that, on average, kids who grow up in stable, healthy, married, two-parent households do better than kids who grow up in some other kind of arrangement."
He goes on to add: "Ninety percent of Americans either have been married, were married or will be married. It isn’t like some product we have to sell. So how do we help people achieve the goal of a healthy marriage, which most people say they want?"
While that these statements may be irrefutably accurate, what Dr. Horn is not taking into account is: A. Roughly half of all marriages end in divorce. B. The negative impact a divorce has on a child’s psyche is undoubtedly tantamount to or greater than any damage from growing up in a single-parent family.
One could also credibly point to the administration’s unwillingness to promote safe sex (witness the hot water Secretary of State Colin Powell recently got himself in by suggesting that condoms may be a good thing) as a motivating factor behind Horn’s ill-conceived proposal, but that’s somewhat beside the point. I recently tuned into a spirited CBS radio discussion of Pamela Paul’s book, "Starter Marriages," a literary documentary of 60 failed marriages among Gen-Xers under 30. The wordplay creates an intentional parallel to a young homeowner’s "starter home," the type of abode that is fine in the interim, before the desire for bigger and better takes flight.
This "starter marriage" theory has sadly played out among acquaintances of my age (27). While some are able to work through their differences and forge on, the more likely scenario is that these marriages dissipate, with each respective ex-partner scurrying back into single life to rekindle wild streaks of independence and artful recklessness.
There are several factors — biological clocks, peer pressure and a desire to have kids among them — that compel young people to get married, and there is certainly no shortage of amorous, real-life fairy tales to support such motives. However, with world population spiraling out of control, why the rush to squirt out a human litter? And with medical advances ensuring longer life spans for all, why the urgent need to throw in the towel on the joys of single life after a quarter-century or so?
One would think that, based on America’s unseemly marital track record, the Bush administration might better use its clout to compel young couples to give a little more thought to the state of their union before shimmying down the aisle. Furthermore, if you’re really hellbent on spending a couple hundred million clams on improving the welfare state, put your money where your free market, Republican mouths are. Give states some real discretion on an issue that is a gazillion times more complex than "to wed or not to wed."
If Bush &Co. wanted to, they could even divert these social improvement funds into one of their own potentially successful programs, such as the bipartisan Armies of Compassion Initiative (originally dubbed the Faith-Based Initiative, until that moniker was deemed too narrow). Studies show that private organizations — all of which must comply with stringent anti-discrimination standards — who partner with government entities are prone to, at minimum, supplement federal or local grants with an equal commitment of privately-raised dollars, thus squaring a program’s potential for efficacy.
When viewed against the extreme largesse of the federal budget, in all its comprehensive glory, a hundred million dollars or so to promote marriage could be considered a pittance. But ask any savvy social worker and their clients how that money might be better spent to address poverty — and give them the money to do it — and you will do no worse than setting more welfare recipients squarely on the road to self-sufficiency. That beats gambling on historically shaky vows.
Bachelor Mike Seely lives in Seattle.
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