Our culture has done a superlative job of convincing women it’s in their best interest to postpone marriage and family as long as possible and to prioritize education and career instead. This plan, they were told, is better than the way their mothers did things — because women will be financially sound and will thus never have to depend on a man.
This approach to life and love has, in fact, made women’s lives less secure.
Women aren’t getting richer, for one thing. And marriage is nowhere in sight. According to a poll by Life Happens, Study Finds reports that “Americans are trading in their dreams of a happy home and instead are focused on personal finances in 2020 and beyond.”
Of course, it isn’t just women who are in this boat — men are, too. But women led the way. It is they who were groomed to shift their priorities away from love and family and onto money, status, and career fulfillment. Men simply followed suit. What choice did they have?
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal sheds light on how this phenomenon affects men. “A potential reason for the delay in fatherhood is what demographers call the ‘lengthening transition to adulthood’ — the point at which men (and women) feel as if they’ve achieved adult status. … ‘You’ve finished your education, you’ve secured a job, you have a stable income and, often, it’s when you’re married and when you’re able to purchase a home,'” notes Karen Benjamin Guzzo, the acting director of the Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University. The article then says, “Having kids is the last step.”
The American male’s “lengthening transition to adulthood” has more than one culprit, but a big one is the choices women have made. It is they who led the way when it comes to relationship formation. Men can’t find wives unless or until women deem themselves “ready.”
But “ready” never comes. The idea was that women would become financially sound and then get married and have children. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Instead, women and men rack up debt for schooling they can’t afford, making the thought of marriage and children all the more daunting.
Building a financially sound life that includes marriage and family requires the exact opposite of the way young people are currently doing it.
A man named Jorge called in to The Dave Ramsey Show recently. He’s $250,000 in debt and about to start his medical residency. His fiance is in the beginning stage of her career as a lawyer. He wanted advice from Ramsey about combining finances with his fiance to pay off his debt despite the fact that the couple wasn’t planning on getting married for 18 months to two years. Essentially, Ramsey told Jorge to get married already and start attacking the debt as a married couple.
Clearly, Jorge and his fiance had never thought to prioritize marriage. They were on what amounts to a 10-year plan to become a doctor and a lawyer, which for most people means accruing significant debt (that in this case will be paid off with high salaries), but the couple was putting the cart before the horse by making money and career the central focus of their life choices. Had he not called Ramsey, Jorge would have attacked his debt while “playing house” with his fiance in the hopes they’d eventually be married. But there’s no security in that, financially or emotionally, which is why Ramsey offered the advice he did.
If Jorge hadn’t called him, life would have become even more complicated. Even if he and his fiance had gotten married two years down the line, she’d be well into her 30s, and their attempt to have a family would be yet another hurdle that, if crossed, would further strain their marriage.
Nothing about this current life plan works. Indeed, there’s a reason more than 50% of people aged 18-34 are single. Enough time has now passed since our shift in priorities (away from love and family and toward material success) first took hold. Newsflash: It’s not working. “Something is making it difficult [for people] to fulfill their own desire to have a family,” notes Guzzo.
Now that we know what that is, what will we do about it?
Suzanne Venker (@SuzanneVenker) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She’s the author of five books and a relationship coach, as well as the host of The Suzanne Venker Show. Her website is www.suzannevenker.com.
