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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

No regrets
I was an unashamed mistress.
By Anna Sorelli
[11/17/99]

The other woman
She is a narcissistic sex worker with no knowledge of true love.
By Jonathon Keats
[11/17/99]

That Was Then
Keep it clean

[11/17/99]

This Is Now
Ask the madame: Two days of foreplay does the trick

[11/17/99]

"Drop 'em, babe!"
I have two words for married twosomes: Oral sex.
By Carol Ormandy
[11/16/99]

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Whither marriage? For a week, Mothers Who Think examines the battered but unbowed institution Gertrude and Alice When Alice B. Toklas met Gertrude Stein, she heard bells ring. They went on to have one of the happiest marriages of the 20th century. Wisdom ancient and new That was Then: Pay the imposts of love This is Now: No plants on the potty - - - - - - - The winners of "Is this marriage doomed?" First place Second place Third place

But the fact that my parents divorced well -- and they really did -- doesn't grant them immunity from their actions. The fact that my uncles and aunts and grandparents and family friends felt they had absolutely no choice other than to divorce doesn't change the outcome. They still got divorced, all of them. They still showed my generation, by example and by forcing us to go along with their example, that marriage was something easily and amicably exited from.

Marriage, they said, was not that big of a deal. Premarital sex is fine. (Or at least that's what they implied when they presented their boyfriends and girlfriends at the breakfast table -- before we were even out of high school.) Families, they said, do not need to stay together if things become too boring.

I would have more sympathy for divorced people if their lives had improved by getting out of terrible marriages that (apparently) couldn't be survived for another moment. But the ones I'm familiar with continue to associate with flawed human beings.

These second and third marriages still seem to require work, and still have shortcomings. My mother and father, for example, still struggle with the same issues that plagued their marriage to each other. The only difference is, older and wiser, they both seem more willing to compromise, to sacrifice and to accept.

I am not whining about or regretting the events of the last three decades. When my parents divorced in the late '70s, we children went along with it like troupers. When they started bringing home boyfriends and girlfriends in the '80s, we ultimately accepted these new people into our family. Sometimes, the new people went away. And we dealt with the divorces and separations all over again. And accepted the new people all over again. Fine. Exhausting, but fine.

It's a wonder we 18- to 35-year-olds even have the energy to date. (And maybe some of us don't.) But for myself, the scattered, patchwork concept of family I grew up with has only increased my quest for commitment. I've seen firsthand the pain and futility of divorce culture and I don't intend to relive it, or to drag my children through the nightmare of watching their parents flirt with strangers.

My decision not to marry does not indicate a desire for a life of debauchery and half-formed commitments. Quite the opposite: With our new baby, our nightly sit-down dinners and our impending mortgage, my boyfriend and I are hardly bucking the system. But we also have no fantasies about coasting through the next 50 years on the coattails of a weakened and disparaged contract that, thanks to boomer innovation, now includes options like pre-nup clauses.

Considering everything we've seen, bearing the weight of our relationship on our own backs seems a hell of a lot wiser than leaning on the white-laced and satin-cummerbunded follies of our parents. Thanks, but we're looking for more than just a party, a round of toasts and a validity stamp from Uncle Sam to get us to that golden anniversary.

Our parents, on the other hand, seem to believe in marriage more than they do in monogamy. Like I said, that's fine. Every generation has its torch to carry. But when this particular generation, which grooved to its own beat and stomped on every tradition that seemed too square, too inhibiting or just plain boring, turns around with nostalgia in its eyes and questions my choices, I have to protest.

My generation would just as soon steer clear of the fatuous, feel-good mess of getting divorced and remarried. The tradition that was passed down to us -- in which divorce is a logical and expected conclusion to a marriage -- is one we would just as soon pass by.

Boomers have as much of a right to get down on us for this decision as we would to criticize our offspring for not working hard enough or saving for retirement. What does everyone expect? For better or worse, you contribute to the culture you live in.

Of course marriage is on the decline. But don't blame us.

The boomers started it.
salon.com | Nov. 18, 1999

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