No one’s leaving it to Beaver
Earlier this week, I spoke to you about the new 2006 census numbers for the family. The numbers indicate that the institution of marriage, not just the middle class itself, is under siege. I believe that there is a relationship to these phenomena — that they are not separate.
For years, the indices are that more and more money is flowing into fewer and fewer hands. The attenuation of the middle class and the cost of education, health care, homes, and cars have greatly increased; as a percentage of income, these items of life are simply unrecognizable from the family budgets and economics of the past. Moreover, a condition characterized as “imposed affluence” exacerbates the effect of wealth diminishment – people have to go out and buy computers, cell phones, blackberries, electronic games, etc. as a result of cultural/business expectations.
Other items, such as electronic gear, keep getting updated — and we buy them. One father, with whom I have spoken, purchased a composite hockey stick for his son that cost $300.
What is occurring is an entrenchment of conditions and an increasing of economic effects that reinforce a status quo of middle-class and nuclear family deterioration. I wonder if some of our personal choices are a reaction to all of this. Are the demands of daily living, and the expectations of daily living — the drip, drip, drip, of the costs of daily living — simply applying too many strains on couple hood?
If so, these personal choices have a collective wallop – more common law relationships, fewer marriages, more single parents, and increased child poverty — it all means, in the end, just plain, fewer people. Fewer people ultimately means a smaller tax base, this, at a time of looming greater public demands as all those hippies age. The offspring of the free-love hippies have deified consumerism, treated marriage as a commodity, while fraternizing on Facebook.
Quebec has the lowest birth rate in the country, and it also has the highest acceptance and adoption of common-law marriages, coincidence? The general statistics say that common-law couples don’t stay together as long as married couples. That means a bigger household income for a longer period with married couples. Married men (before divorce, I might add) also earn, on average, 18 per cent more than single men. Moreover, more women are choosing to raise kids by themselves if the marriage becomes difficult (women’s own lives are plagued by child-rearing, career and cleaning – more work, on average, than the man). And women’s lives, and men’s roles, are more difficult these days.
Very few young women from affluent families, statistically, choose to have families out of wedlock. More and more young women from poorer families are passing up on marriage. This, according to me, is a hardening of the socio-economic arteries.
Rich people rarely work against their own best interests. Poor people usually do. And they each reinforce their own respective class origins and self-perception.
September 15th, 2007 at 7:20 am
Well said, I have watched as my family income increases but yet the standard of our lives continues to decrease. My wife and I are now defying the odds, we are married with two kids. It is not easy though as it has become so much more difficult to balance our financial books. Our income is well above the national middle baseline but yet we have a hard time paying the bills, I honestly do not know how someone in the supposed middle class actually gets by. I have to wonder how much more affordable my life would be without the cell phones, computer, cable etc.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Hi Andrew. I believe the nuclear family is being grossly undervalued. Whether mom, dad or both parents work, people have to realize that only one can yield the “best option to maximize best results” which studies show is stability and hands-on guidance which comes from a parent’s love, not a paycheque. Why do people need a license to drive or own a gun but not to parent. The parents or guardians of any child who have broken the law twice should have to attend a course on parenting techniques learn options for enforcement and punishment. They could receive help phone numbers and support, and would get the opportunity to meet the parents of the co-charged kids. Delinquent kids value their friends the most, so restrict their association after two offenses. When kids go out in a group to assault someone its called a raise. It’s a new trend. If you are involved in an assault, and the assailants outnumber the victim there should be a separate law. Raise the assault sentence.
Society progressed over the years with parents respecting the rights of children however there is always a bounce back effect with change, and things can go too far the other way. There is a generation gap here where adults need to become skilled at providing adequate boundaries and responsibilities and accountability to kids without losing the power because the adults in general have none. We are so concerned with tolerance and perhaps contributing to the continued delinquency of minors that there are no consequence left. We now offer 13 or 14 second chances. Some kids have 15-20 charges and there still on the street. Someone who has been breaking the law for years has not benefited from name protection obviously, so do the opposite after the second offense. Use it as a mechanism to rehabilitate him/her and threaten to publish the names. The legal system should be embarrassed at themselves and people should sue for allowing repeat offenders back out. A great start would be the teacher MacCavoy (I think) that was killed last year. I WOULD TRY TO SUE JUST FOR THE PUBLICITY.
Great show Andrew.