repeating sync

Odd. Looks like half the mommy-bloggers I read and friends with very young children are going through divorces now. At the same time. I wonder what gives and if it has something to do with the pressures of this economy - perhaps a lot of couples just need one less concern or feeling of responsibility while they are trying to hold their lives together. Maybe they need to lift some of their burdens. Perhaps fathers are running away now from the tether of it all too as this economy makes everyone feel trapped. I just find it curious.

It reminds me of an old family story my grandmother told me years ago. When my mother's family was going through the hardest part of their lives economically, my grandfather split. What they told the family was that he had gone out of state to look for work but in reality, he was fleeing the burden of a wife and children and had taken a mistress in another town. My grandmother saved herself and her children by absolutely refusing to grant him a divorce. Her family, who were very proper and had a lot of public servants and ministers in it, let it be known that they did not divorce. Period. Eventually, my grandfather returned and they stayed together the rest of their lives. I do not think that tactic would ever work today and I do not think most women would think they had to live in an unhappy marriage to survive today.



One thought leads to another.

The marriages of both sets of grandparents I had were based much more on survival than on affection by the time I came along. None of my grandparents slept in the same bed and they had their own rooms. They got along and were polite to each other but there had not been a relationship between them in long time. That makes me also wonder if we expect too much from our relationships or if our grandparents expected too little.

It's still a man's world, financially, but things are much better than they were for our grandmothers and mothers. Married men still far out-live single men but single men seem to embrace chaos. More women seem to require order. Nature or nurture? That said, I do know a few very together single-parenting fathers and it is interesting to note that there are few men in this world more attractive to women than the responsible, nurturing, single fathers. I wonder if they know what rock-stars they are in the eyes of a lot of the women I know because they seem rare and extraordinary. Single mothers are never viewed the same way by men. Women usually have to protect their children from the men in their lives. Men see the mothers as potential financial burdens and steer clear of them. Being a single parent seems like the ultimate independence and the greatest measure of how responsible you are or not. It also makes the extended family of grandparents, aunts, and uncles much more important. Most of the people in my family - in multiple generations - would never have survived without the help of sisters, parents, and grandparents.