David Brooks Talks To America's Kids About Marriage

Part of Mr. Brooks' ongoing "Talks To America's Kids" series.

David Brooks Talks To America's Kids About Sexytime.

Dear Black Kids.

David Brooks Talks To America's Teens About Mawwiage.

David Brooks Talks To Today's Youth About Writing.

David Brooks Talks to America's Kids About Peer Group Pressure.

David Brooks Talks To American Youth About Morality.

David Brooks Talks To America's Kids About Journalism.

Because I know when I was a troubled youth, the people I turned to for trusted advice about puberty and fucking and morality were The New York Times' Conservative op-ed columnists.

Anyhoo...

Thursday's column is headlined

To Be Happy, Marriage Matters More Than Career

And begins thus.

When I’m around young adults, 

Especially his second wife.

I like to ask them how they are thinking about the big commitments in their lives

Like marrying the much older, op-ed hack for whom you provided research services.

what career to go into,

Marrying the much older, op-ed hack for whom you provided research services.

where to live, 

In the mansion of the aforementioned much older, op-ed hack who paid for said mansion by relentlessly pimping the various catastrophes of the Cheney administration and then switching over to non-stop Both Siderism when the Cheney administration went tits up.

whom to marry.

Asked and answered.

Most of them have thought a lot about their career plans. But my impression is that many have not thought a lot about how marriage will fit into their lives.. 

There follows a buncha peripherally related polling data.

It’s not that I meet many people who are against marriage. Today, as in the past, a vast majority of Americans would like to tie the knot someday. It’s just that it’s not exactly top of mind.

Maybe the economic and cultural knock-on effects of the various catastrophic policies Brooks championed might have something to do with young people postponing marriage until they can afford, y'know, a roof over their heads and groceries.

Fewer people believe that marriage is vitally important. 

More peripherally related polling data.

Many people have shifted in the way they conceive of marriage. 

Then a quote from a guy,

Partly as a result of these attitudes, there is less marriage in America today. The marriage rate is close to the lowest level in American history. For example, in 1980...

In 1980...when college wouldn't bury you under an impossible mountain of debt?  When you could plausibly support a family on one income?

As I confront young adults who think this way, I am seized by an unfortunate urge to sermonize. 

Confront?  That's an odd word.  

Also, when has David Brooks not been "an seized by an unfortunate urge to sermonize"?  That's his permanent state  Literally all he does.  And he gets paid such a ridiculous amount for it that he can afford a second wife and an estate in Bethesda.

I want to put a hand on their shoulder and say: Look, there are many reasons you may not find marital happiness in your life. 

Like getting bored with the mother of your children?

Maybe you won’t be able to find a financially stable partner, or one who wants to commit. Maybe you’ll marry a great person but find yourselves drifting apart. 

But don’t let it be because you didn’t prioritize marriage. Don’t let it be because you didn’t think hard about marriage when you were young.

I am sure that both the wife Brooks dumped and the young replacement wife he acquired *love* hearing this.

My strong advice is to obsess less about your career and to think a lot more about marriage. Please respect the truism that if you have a great career and a crappy marriage you will be unhappy, but if you have a great marriage and a crappy career you will be happy. 

What if you find yourself dead-ass broke, with a wife and two kids, working a burger flipping job because you have no other viable alternatives?  

In a nation where financial problems are a main contributing factor in up to 40% of all divorces, the reek of cloistered, moneyed privilege coming off Brooks on this one is unbearable.

Please use your youthful years as a chance to have romantic relationships so you’ll have some practice when it comes time to wed. 

Even if you’re years away, please read books on how to decide whom to marry. Read George Eliot and Jane Austen. 

Tell me you've never read George Eliot without telling me you've never read George Eliot.

Start with the masters.

Like Oedipus Rex?  Macbeth?  All My Sons?  Anna Karenina?]

This is not just softhearted sentimentality I’m offering. 

Then a study from a guy that says happy marriages are great.  Quote from a different guy saying happy marriages are nice. Quote from a different, different guy who has a "vitally important forthcoming book" about happy marriages being a good thing.  Who can disagree?  

But they all miss the point because then, at the very end comes the Very Big Disclaimer.

We could do a lot to raise the marriage rate by increasing wages; financial precarity inhibits marriage. 

That's it.  Just one, brief, drive-by hand-wave in the general direction of the grim economic reality of that portion of American humanity which does not exist anywhere near David Brooks' level of taken-for-granted wealth and privilege.  

At Brooks' level, the loss of his gig at The Atlantic would not run his marriage up on the rocks because he'd still have his gig at The New York Times to fall back on.  

And the job on PBS. 

And NPR. 

And all those lucrative book deals, and the wall-to-wall marketing that his agents get him for those deals.  And his various shots on various network news shows.  

And his hefty speaking fees.  

And the Aspen Institute. 

 And on and on and on.  Sure there'd have to be some belt-tightening at the Brooks household, but not enough to spell ruination for his family.

But as a culture, we could improve our national happiness levels by making sure people focus most on what is primary — marriage and intimate relationships — and not on what is important but secondary — their careers.

Mr. Brooks got to be wealthy and influential by writing cultural fairy tales for the wealthy and the influential.  For captains of industry.  Important politicians.  Presidents of universities.  Directors of powerful institutions.  People who, broadly speaking, don't want to open up their Times and read uncomfortable, finger-wagging Bernie Sanders/Katie Porter lectures on labor policy, fair wages, affordable housing and college debt forgiveness.  Y'know, the kinds of real-world barriers that captains of industry, important pols, presidents of universities, directors of powerful institutions and so forth could meaningfully and tangibly affect.

Instead, Mr. Brooks' patrons want to believe that there is a Magic Culture Lever out there somewhere, and if "we" all just got together "as a culture" and yanked really hard on that magic lever, then we could activate the Magic Marriage Wayback Machine and sent all of us and the institution of marriage back...back...back...to 1954.  

Y'know, before the dirty hippies ruined everything.

For you hardier souls, I will pause to mention that I wrote an entire suite of posts -- The Sad Bastard Divorce Chronicles of David Brooks -- which pairs nicely with last week's David Brooks nuptial scolding.  This was back when Mr. Brooks was dumping his first wife and Very Loudly not telling anyone about it and his colleagues were Very Conspicuously not taking notice of it.  

For example:

The Sad Bastard Divorce Chronicles of David Brooks

Chapter 37: I Did It All For You, Sarah!

If some strident Liberal blogger from the wrong side of the Acela corridor tracks were to cruelly snip and paste and very lightly decontextualize excepts from Mr. David Brooks' column in the New York Times today, I would wager that the average bright American human would have no fucking idea what the holy hell Mr. Brooks was writing about.

In fact, one could make an excellent case that Mr. Brooks was taking time off from using his column to beg for his job in order to use his column to tell his ex-wife that while Mr, Brooks may be a cold fish, he only got that way because he was working so fucking hard to make you happy, Sarah, and give you everything you ever wanted!

Or maybe not.

You be the judge...

It also came to pass during those times that I was apparently the only person in entire world who noticed that Brooks had stopped wearing his wedding ring and had started writing mournful columns about staring hungry, hungry Humbert-style at young girls practicing at a local second floor dance studio and fetishistically cataloging the price tags of various boutique hotels and their selections of sofas (cerulean) and photos (Steichen) like some discarded minor character from an early draft of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho.

Until, at last, in fulfillment of Mad Men's 1950s prophecy, Brooks married his secretary -- 

-- and began boring everyone else with tales of the glories married life.

 Except, of course (From Daily Kos)...

David Brooks would like to lecture us on marriage, but it's not the 1950s anymore.

Why Does David Brooks Still Have A Fucking Job?