On herding cats

This article is a study in the absurd and the disturbing.  Was no one else forced to read an anti-utopian novel like 'Brave New World' in high school?  What kind of sense does it make to say that though studies show over and over again that marriage is the best place to raise kids and the best way to keep women and kids out of poverty we had best get rid of it since American society can't figure out how to make it work and replace it with some new, trendy system of planned parenthood and co-parenting?  This is like abandoning the concept of wheels because you have a flat tire!  I begin to wonder if the people that think of things like this have ever been parents or were even children themselves.  Kids are not some commodity to be produced at out leisure, disposed of it not what we desired, and then managed like a prize show dog or a pro-football player to please our fancy.  They are people, independent and often stubborn people.  And if we can't handle marriage, how on earth are we going to subscribe to some intricate system of planned conception and co-parenting with someone with whom we have no other relationship than a shared biological offspring?

Marriage isn't broken, humanity is flawed.  We are naturally selfish and American culture encourages this trait to an unhealthy extreme, but marriage and parenting is about sacrifice and putting others first.  It is the cornerstone of society and the crucible in which we become better people.  It is not for our own happiness, pleasure, and to fill all our dreams and desires, this is the problem: we have a distorted view of what marriage and kids are all about and then are disappointed when our expectations are not fulfilled thus the problem must be marriage itself when it is actually our view of it that is the problem.  Many people have kids or get married to fulfill some desire for companionship, love, or purpose and while these are innate to such relationships, it cannot be the basis upon which the relationship is founded or disaster will result.  Parenting is all about doing what is best for the kids, not in fulfilling your desires through them; marriage is the same, it is about doing what is best for your spouse and the relationship, not in finding a 'soulmate' and living 'happily ever after,' though if done correctly, that is often the result.  It is like pursuing happiness, it is never caught when chased but is rather encountered along the way to something greater.

I can't imagine what the fairy tales will be like in millennia to come if this lady's vision comes true.  No more 'brave prince rescues imperiled damsel and then they ride off into the sunset to a presumed marriage, family, and happily ever after,' but rather a couple of people decide they want a kid and make the necessary arrangements and shuffle the kid between them as necessary to fulfill their own parenting desires.  That doesn't sound much like a story I'd want to read let alone live.  As a child of divorce who was thus shuffled, I can't envy these 'planned' children who will one day find this normal!  Kids need a loving, stable home, not to be passed about like an unwanted fruitcake.  The good news is that throughout human history, the fairy tale ending has been the norm and all these 'Brave New World' scenarios usually die aborning because they make as much sense as that article.  People don't live that way, won't live that way, unless coerced, save a few 'progressive' individuals and that is their choice but please don't foist it unwillingly on the rest of us.  Marriage will long out live any newfangled social reforms, we need only give it time, history has proved this time and again.  But it will only thrive in a culture where people can look beyond their own immediate wants and desires to something greater than themselves.  We don't need to get rid of marriage, we need to grow up as a culture and as individuals.