Growing Together

Iwas nearly 30 when my first son was born. And that was 45 years ago last week. But I can still remember the joy of coming to pick him up from his crib when he was a few months old. Babies that age often enter into a spasmodic movement, lifting their knees to their chests repeatedly, as if they are going to burst from happiness, when they see a parent for the first time that day. And that joy is fully reciprocated.

My excitement over Micha’s early morning greetings were often tinged by a touch of sadness as well, as I thought of the women with whom I had been friendly in college, few of whom were yet married and even fewer of whom were mothers. I felt that they had, in many cases, been sold a bill of goods about the necessity of prioritizing career over children, and feared that many of them would one day be filled with regret.

What was only anecdotal then has hardened into data today. According to the Survey Center on American Life, single American women are far more likely than their male counterparts to say they aren’t dating because they have “more important priorities.” Thirty-eight percent of women under 40 think that marriage is outdated versus 29 percent of men, and that disparity is tracked at earlier ages as well, with younger women more likely than younger men to say that they never intend to marry. By 2030, 45 percent of American women between 25 and 44 will be living alone.

In a brilliant article in The Free Press, “It Used to be ‘Get Married.’ Now It’s ‘Stay Single’” Freya India explains, “Fundamental to liberalism is a suspicion of restraint, which inevitably becomes suspicion of human relationships. It promises liberation from every last tie until we are free of everything, including each other.”