Just Used Enough to be a Keeper

Marcus told me today that his friend Mick has a theory, which is more of a generalization really, that women who are our age and single either want to be single, or should be single.  

 

Marcus and I  are thirty-something.  I imagine Mick is also, though I don’t know him.  We are divorced and therefore single, and we seem to have a little more time on our hands than we once did.  We all seem to be insanely busy in our twenties.  Somehow, in our thirties, we just aren’t. 

 

Perhaps it is divorce that does it.  This is certainly true for me.  All through my twenties I was married, building a career, taking care of babies and a seemingly perpetually pregnant woman.  I also somehow managed to complete graduate school.  That’s exactly the kind of crazy plan I wouldn’t even consider trying now.

 

When I was married I used to be jealous of single parents.  This was my secret guilt.  My sister was a single parent, and we were all supposed to feel really bad for her.  Everyone thought it was terrible the way she had to do everything on her own.  She apparently had to be both a mother and a father.  I used to think that she was the worst pair of parents I ever saw.  Also, she was able to leave her kid with my parents, or other people any time she needed to go out with friends. She had help doing lots of things.  Everyone was supposed to help her because they felt bad, because it is so difficult being a single parent. 

 

And I was at home every night with the wife and kids as I thought about this.  I never got to go out with my friends.  I had too many things I needed to do every night.  My wife and I were often both overwhelmed.  And we never found ourselves with a break of any kind.  It was supposed to be easier for us, because there were two of us. 

 

And I secretly envied every single parent I knew, because they  all got a break sometime. 

 

And now I am a single parent.  And my sister is not. 

 

While my kids are usually home with me, they do spend some time with their mother.  I get breaks.  I have time for hobbies.  

 

I don’t call it a victory. 

 

So Marcus and I were busy in our twenties, doing different things in different places.  His story is different than mine, but similar in many ways. Sparing the unnecessary details, we both gave our hearts and lives to unkind women who subsequently treated us badly. 

 

Because we are both heterosexual and because we are both single, we spend time talking about women.  We talk about women we know, and we talk about women we don’t know.  We talk about the type of women we would like to meet, and the types we hope to never meet again.  We talk about the perfect woman, and we don’t believe that she exists. 

 

And this isn’t just a stereotype.  You will be forced to believe me when I tell you that Marcus and I are not stereotypical guys. 

 

We both realize that our perspectives may be skewed.   But we wonder where all the good women have gone. 

 

We spent some time thinking that we must have just been blind when we were younger, when good women seemed to be everywhere.  Perhaps we were just too naïve to see back then all the things we see now.  I mean, we both chose badly the first time around.  This makes sense to us.  Add to this that the major difference for all of us, between out twenties and our thirties, is a creeping unwillingness to compromise.  In our twenties, we do crazy things for love.  We will move to new places, give up friends, give up family, change our interests, listen to new music, try fruity new drinks, watch foreign films, listen to country music, go vegetarian for a while, quit smoking, start smoking, call our mothers every once in a while, put up with in-laws in any way, work the night shift, get a dog, get rid of a dog, eat Ethiopian food, drive a mini-van, and any number of other insane things to try and please the people we love.  It all seems so romantic and worthwhile to gamble everything on “the one.” 

 

In our thirties we won’t do any of that shit for any reason.  And this makes us all a little less compatible.  This unwillingness to compromise alone significantly decreases the probability that we will ever again find anyone with whom we are even remotely compatible. 

 

And yet we know that it sometimes happens to people our age. 

 

There must be good women out there.  But this is what I think. At our age good women are busy staying married, taking care of their families, and not cheating.   These are the good women, who in their twenties, married good guys. 

 

Many women our age who are single are women like our ex wives, damaged, dangerous, and not interesting anymore.  At least they aren’t interesting to us anymore.  We have had our fill of interesting, quirky, and damaged women. They are too much trouble. It didn’t work out the first time.  These women seem to be well- liked by guys who are still single in their thirties.  They probably deserve each other.  They can have each other. 

 

There are other women our age who are single and have never been married and well, there is usually a good reason for this, not always, but usually. 

 

It also stands to reason , that women like us exist.  I don’t mean a pair of women who look like a gay odd-couple everywhere they go.  That would be too much like us. 

 

But there must be good women who chose unwisely the first time around. There must be women who gave their hearts to unkind men, and are now divorced as a result.  Women whose heart’s have been broken like ours.  There are women who want to be true, who want to be kind, who want to be devoted, and they have suffered for these wants.  But they have become strong  and wise for the experience. These are the women we are looking for.  We even have a term for them.  Marcus once referred to such a woman as being “just used enough to be a keeper.” 

 

These women are precious and rare.  Most people who know Marcus and I consider us to be a little rare.  I just don’t think we really meet people like us every day.  And we don’t meet people like each other every day.  We are very different from each other and each of us is pretty unique.  So women like us must be rare indeed.

 

And if they can be found has too much damage been done?  Can two people who have seen what once appeared to be love disintegrate into a thousand hateful pieces ever trust anything they feel again?

 

These days, I consider myself unavailable. I am busy raising my kids and doing some other shit.  But even I have to admit that there is an instinctual draw toward coupling.  Whether a result of nature or nurture it is there. I liked being married. That lifestyle works for me.  

 

When I was a kid I figured that people like me now should just forget about it and leave love to the young. 

 

Marcus thinks women don’t like him much. He is wrong. They don’t know him. The women who do get to know him remain fans for life.  He notices this but maybe doesn’t always consider it in context.  Looking in a mirror is easy.  Seeing something in a mirror can be extraordinarily difficult.

 

But still we both keep our eyes open, disregarding probability, hoping to catch a glimpse at that rare woman, who is just used enough to be a keeper. 

Only Stupid People are Breeding

I found myself recently involved in a conversation on Facebook surrounding a status message posted by one of my friends about the Duggars.  I mentioned there that I don’t really know much about the Duggars except that they have a lot of kids and people seem to really hate them.  This led to a broader conversation in which I wrote something that probably seemed like a joke.  It occurs to me that many serious things I say probably seem like jokes.  Conversely many jokes I tell are mistaken as serious statements or opinions.  Apparently I don’t even know if I am serious or not.  So, because I love to waste time and procrastinate, I thought I would expand on my thoughts.  No one reads this stuff anyway. 

When I was a boy, I dropped out of high school and I went to community college. I am proud of this.  See, that seems like a joke right? But I am fairly serious.  During my first two years of college, before I went to real college, I majored in behavioral science.  No I really did.  I have an Associate’s degree to prove it.  I took a bunch of classes in psychology, sociology, and anthropology.  I came away from those studies with three concrete beliefs that changed me forever.  First, I realized that there was no such thing as a pure language.  The purpose of language, oral or written, is simply to communicate, and therefore rules of grammar and usage are arbitrary and subject to constant revision. This is evidenced in everything I have ever written.  Second, I learned that there is no such thing as a pure race, because deep down inside we are all black Africans.  I am blacker than most, but that is an aside.  The third thing I knew for sure, is that when human beings are born we only know two things.  We know how to suck, and we know how to grasp.  Everything else is learned. 

I was what psychology types might call a behaviorist.  I was sure that aside from the two things mentioned above, all other skills, actions, tendencies, thoughts, feelings and characteristics that define a human being are learned after birth, and are therefore completely a product of the environment in which a new person lives and grows.  I was sure that every little thing to which a new person is exposed has the potential to shape his or her thoughts and personality.  This was a radical departure from the things I learned as a child.  The religion in which I was raised taught that people are already complete and complex intellectual entities before conception, and that children in fact play a role in choosing their own parents.  Naturally I argued the points of my new position with my parents.  They laughed at me and just told me to wait.  They do that a lot. 

But let’s get back to breeding for a moment.* There exists a cliché in our culture, which is the title of this essay.  It suggests that most of the children born into this world, are born with stupid parents.  Sadly, I believe this to be true.  I also think it is a problem.  In case you didn’t read it into my previous comment about the “out of Africa” theory, I will just tell you that I am a Darwinist.  Because of this I tend to consider humanity, and my place in it, on the largest scale imaginable.  I believe that what happens now affects the future of our species.  I am moved both spiritually and emotionally by the notion that some very brave ancestors of ours came down from the trees, mastered a tight upright pimp roll, got busy with civilization, and ultimately made it possible for me to have an iPad.  

Historically, upright, bipedal hominids have had as many children as they possibly could.  They have done so for a couple of significant reasons.  First, they really like to fuck.  Second, they know it is important for the survival of the species.  This second part is why we nurture our children, particularly for so long, as opposed to just turning them loose or leaving them somewhere.  Even before culture and religion, people cared for and raised their children.  Of course until very recently half or more of the human children ever born died during their first five years of life despite the best efforts of their parents.  I imagine this problem really contributed to the collective wisdom of the time, that having as many children as you can is a good idea. 

But these days everything is different.  There are so many people on the planet that we worry about its ability to sustain us all.  Many people are concerned about pollution and waste and the impact mankind is making on this billions-of-years-old rock of ours.  Many people, particularly smart, educated people, are choosing not to have children, or are severely limiting the number of children they do have, often waiting until later in life to have any children at all. This is regarded as a lifestyle choice.  It is widely regarded as a very responsible thing to do. 

I think it might just be a little selfish and short-sighted. 

Now I am not saying this just because I have a pile of kids and I am trying to justify my own actions.  I understand better than anyone there is no justification for most of my actions.  And the reasons why I have so many kids, if there are any, will remain undisclosed. 

As it turns out, I have learned a lot from my kids so far.  Mostly, I have learned how much I don’t know, regardless of what I thought I knew.  I learned that there is no way to predict what they might do next.  They always surprise me.  And I learned that, despite my best efforts as a parent** they will always, always do something stupid.

And now I know that kids do come pre-programmed, to a certain degree.  My  experience as a parent, as a student of culture, and as an observer of humanity has led me to new conclusions about children, and about parenting, that are the dead opposite of what I believed when I was in college, and what I believed when my oldest kids were babies.  These are somewhat random and I think best expressed in the form of a list, in no particular order. 

• There is no “right” way to parent, and as long as you care about your child and have his or her best interests in mind, there is probably also no “wrong” way to raise children. 

• There are just too many factors to consider to ever be sure that you are doing a good job as a parent.

• Kids are tougher and smarter than we think.

• Parents are dumber and weaker than we ever thought we would be. 

• Children are born with a unique personality, including a gender identity, and sexual orientation, and outside of real, blatant abuse, there is little that any parent can do to change those things. 

• The way that children react to their environment has as much to do with the unique characteristics of the child as it has to do with the efforts and intentions of that child’s parents.  You may take your kid to the circus because you want to encourage cheerfulness and wonder, but they only end up scared of clowns. 

I am not saying that what my parents taught me was right.  It wasn’t.  Kids don’t get to choose their parents in heaven before they are born.  I know because my kids are way too smart to have had any part in choosing their crappy parents.  But I wasn’t right either.  Everything isn’t learned.  And I will change my mind again later, as I learn more from my kids, and as my apparent failure as a parent becomes more obvious.

You need to love your kids.  You need to give them attention.  You need to teach them important things. But the degree to which they need individual attention from each parent as opposed to attention from siblings, or others, or as opposed to freedom to just wander and learn on their own, as opposed to solitude, just can’t be known.    And it will differ from child to child, and from moment to moment for each child.  I have seen parents I really considered to be “great” and caring parents produce some real assholes.  And I have seen parents who, by all standards and measurements just suck at parenting, produce caring and productive human beings.  Ultimately I guess I believe that kids with clothes and shelter, who are fed and cared for by someone, and who have opportunity to learn something useful, will probably be okay.  Or maybe they won’t.  But the specific way in which they are raised probably won’t have anything to do with it. 

I am sure there is a probability to it.  Children raised by caring and loving parents are more likely to become caring and loving people themselves.  Consequently, children raised by assholes are more likely to be assholes.  But even shitty parents probably love their shitty kids. 

And some things are genetic.  I think intelligence is one of those things.  I do believe that when intelligent people have sex with each other they are more likely to produce intelligent children than stupid children.  I am not talking about education, or opportunity, or anything learned.  I am talking about raw processing power.  I am talking about potential.  I am talking about the kind of intelligence that we are born with, and with which we may or may not do anything useful.  I am talking about the kind of intelligence that can be used for good or evil, depending on one’s tastes.  I think this kind of intelligence is critical for the survival and continued “success” of our species.  I care about these kinds of things. 

I also think that these days, that kind of raw intelligence, while it occurs everywhere, is probably most concentrated among that population of people who have decided, for the good of the planet, to severely limit the number of children they may have, to the detriment of the species.  I think they probably haven’t thought about it this way.  Or maybe they just don’t care what happens after they are dead.  I don’t know.  I am not one of these people. I am one of the assholes. 

I think this is a problem.  I think stupid people everywhere are breeding like crazy. Smart people are not breeding so much.  This will not create a favorable situation for our descendents. Intelligent people really need to just suck it up and get it on.*** But they shouldn’t literally suck it up when they get it on, if you know what I mean, because that’s not how you get pregnant, and that also might be part of the problem.  If smart people can’t outnumber the idiots, they at least have a responsibility to produce children who can be their overlords.  Someone will need to manipulate and exploit the stupid masses of the future.  That is a fact.  It can’t be argued with. If your children or grandchildren don’t do it, because they were never born, because you wanted to drive a hybrid and save the planet, who will?

I am serious. 

*This is my second-favorite sentence in the whole essay. Also, that’s what she said.

**The author may or may not, in fact, have made many, or any, efforts as a parent, and should in no way be confused with a good parent, ever. 

***THIS is my favorite sentence in this essay.