Committed relationships, marriage, family and jobs

This post was published in the Wilson Times June 1, 2019

David Brooks’ New York Times columns always give me something to think about. His May 13 column titled “The Rise of the Haphazard Self: How working-class men detach from work, family and church” was no exception.

Brooks says our economic system that depends on competition, dynamism and individual self-interest should not be copied into our culture. Our culture should have different goals, such as “cooperation, stability and committed relationships.” He cites a study reported in The Journal of Economic Perspectives. The study interviewed 107 working-class men about their lives, work and family. Many of the men said the economic system was not working for them. Unlike their fathers, they have been unable to find a job that allows them to support a family, so they take on multiple part-time jobs, work off the clock and endure long stretches of unemployment.

This should come as no surprise. You can read it in election returns. We’ve all seen the statistics, dating back to before the Great Recession, when, a decade ago, men lost jobs at a disproportionate rate. Working-class wages have not kept pace with the rate of inflation, and blue-collar workers earn far less than white-collar peers. All sorts of efforts — job training, education grants, higher minimum wages, designated low-cost housing — have sought to address these issues, but the fundamental problems persist.

The best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy” gives one man’s perspective of what it’s like to live on the outside of the U.S. economy. Bad decisions, bad habits, drugs, inter-generational poverty and geography combine to trap people in hopeless situations.

The problem Brooks is getting at in his column and the Economic Perspectives study addresses is more than economic. Many of the men in the study were not married. They had children but might not have custody of them. They might not even know they had conceived a child until years later. “Committed relationships” were problems for many men. Although the men yearned for a close relationship with their children, they had no such commitment to their children’s mothers.

More than a decade ago, I lamented in a newspaper column the trend toward more out-of-wedlock births in Wilson and nationwide. I received some calls from angry boyfriends who told me their relationships were none of my business, and their relationship was as good as any marriage license, despite consistent evidence that marriage is the best insurance for what children need most: family stability. It’s not just a daddy problem. The women giving birth outside marriage are willing to accept that arrangement, despite all its disadvantages.

It is a cultural issue, and it creates a culture in which children are denied the assurance of family stability, which affects self-esteem, self-confidence, ambition and behavior. Fathers who are not bound by a marriage license are less likely to stick around and may be less likely to support their children and their mother. This attitude is contrary to one of my favorite quotes: “The best thing any man can do for his children is to love their mother.”

The men in the study considered themselves religious or “spiritual” but were not attached to a church. “I treat church just like I treat my girlfriends,” one man told researchers. “I’ll stick around for a while and then I’ll go on to the next one.” Another said he didn’t want a God “telling us how to live.”

Perhaps as a result of this aversion to church, some of these men seem to lack the “Protestant Work Ethic,” which is credited with making possible industrial advances since the Protestant Reformation of the 1600s. I’d be interested in seeing whether these men have problems with all authority figures, from parents to bosses to God.

I would advise these disillusioned men to find a church that focuses on love and grace, not sin and damnation. When my older brother told me he was contributing to a campaign to erect a statue on the National Mall of Moses holding the Ten Commandments, I asked, why the Ten Commandments? Why not John 3:16 or “Love your neighbor as yourself”?

 

The heart of Christianity is not “thou shalt not …”; it is love, and life should be more than a haphazard journey.