Part 2 of Link: All the Single Ladies
O sent me this very long article and completely ruined my plans to be asleep before 11. Thanks O. I thought you were my friend. (Warning: article rated PG-13)
It starts out with the usual discussion of the fall of men and sociological observation that if a woman wants to marry a man who is both taller and more successful than herself, she’s in trouble. There’s some blah-de-blah about the plight of women on college campuses (including a rather confusing note suggesting that it’s not nearly as promiscuous out there as everyone claims, this article included) and a dark prophesy that the deterioration of family in the black community presages the future of the white community.
Then it delves into the single female experience. Really, Bolick (the authoress) points out, being single isn’t so bad. We should enjoy it while we can.
“Back when I believed my mother had a happy marriage—and she did for quite a long time, really—she surprised me by confiding that one of the most blissful moments of her life had been when she was 21, driving down the highway in her VW Beetle, with nowhere to go except wherever she wanted to be. “I had my own car, my own job, all the clothes I wanted,” she remembered wistfully. Why couldn’t she have had more of that?”
I don’t completely agree here. I mean yes, being single is nice. In the morning when I cruise to my own job in my own car admiring the beautiful sunrise that is clearly there just for me I enjoy a moment of complete happiness and satisfaction. Life is awesome. Absolutely awesome.
But surely you have moments like that even after your first kid. If you don’t, then why do we all drive ourselves crazy to get married?
Bolick notes that some of our self-pity is induced by society’s view of single women as crazy cat ladies, obsessed shoe-shoppers, and weird loners:
“The single woman is very rarely seen for who she is—whatever that might be—by others, or even by the single woman herself, so thoroughly do most of us internalize the stigmas that surround our status.”
In other words, stop identifying yourself as a Single Orthodox Female. Just be a Person.
She goes on to point out that the modern marriage is inherently selfish, and a couple contributes far less to the community than a single.
“Some even believe that the pair bond, far from strengthening communities (which is both the prevailing view of social science and a central tenet of social conservatism), weakens them, the idea being that a married couple becomes too consumed with its own tiny nation of two to pay much heed to anyone else. In 2006, the sociologists Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian published a paper concluding that unlike singles, married couples spend less time keeping in touch with and visiting their friends and extended family, and are less likely to provide them with emotional and practical support.”
…
“More concretely, there’s what my brother terms our “immigrant bucket brigade”—my peer group’s habit of jumping to the ready to help each other with matters practical and emotional. This isn’t to say that my married friends aren’t as supportive—some of my best friends are married!—it’s just that, with families of their own, they can’t be as available.”
She points out that women can often compensate for lack of men by forming close, inter-familial bonds. African-American single moms do it, and single women who live in the same buildings do it, so why can’t white single moms by choice do it?
“Could we have a modernization of the Mosuo, Ryan mused, with several women and their children living together—perhaps in one of the nation’s many foreclosed and abandoned McMansions—bonding, sharing expenses, having a higher quality of life? “In every society where women have power—whether humans or primates—the key is female bonding,” he added.”
*Cough cough*
Haven’t I been calling for a Spinster C0lony for years now? Okay, year. But let’s face it. Girls rock. We look after each other. We band and bond together. We can do anything together. Chut hameshulash and all that. Yet we make ourselves miserable waiting for a man before starting a family… Okay, I’ll put the soapbox away. And I’ll continue this tomorrow with my final thought.
Bad for Shidduchim 
Link says – Page not found
You drive to work at sunrise?
(That was a rhetorical question, not a serious one)
Nowadays it’s a little before sunrise. The sun can’t seem to keep a regular schedule, unlike us desk jockeys.
I don’t know how you do it. Me and my bed have a love-hate relationship…at night I have no interest in it, but come morning, it takes a bulldozer (or a dedicated wife) to get me out.
It’s not very complicated – you just have to harness your circadian rhythm. First you figure out how many hours of sleep you need. Then you keep in mind that your circadian rhythm shifts later every day. You start by forcing yourself out of bed an hour earlier than you need to be on Monday, and making sure you’re in bed on time that night. After your required hours of sleep it’s not as hard to get up, and you make sure to be in bed on time again. By the end of the week you’ll probably be getting up about an hour later than at the beginning, but you’ll still be on time.
That’s how I do it, anyway.
I woke up today at 615 for the second day in a row (Yesterday for a Bris 🙂 today for a Levaya 😦 ). It happens to be that I am no more tired than usual, but to sustain the early wake ups, I would need to go to sleep by 11:30 every night, and that is never going to happen. I’ll stick with my later wake ups for now, but if I ever start running again, I’ll try your method. Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the extra hour and a half of morning sleep time.