TODAY’S journalists are so quick to provide every mind-numbingly boring detail about their chaotic personal lives and so upfront about how indifferent they are to their children. This writer, in his description of his recent “courtship” in The New York Times, talks about his two children from two different women as if they are luggage stowed in the backseat, which presumably is what they are. He focuses instead on the extremely banal details of  divorce and remarriage. He writes:

We took an apartment together as our relationship deepened. She grew close to my boy, became pregnant with our child, and we considered our options for the future. Discussions regarding marriage occurred, predicated, of course, on the completion of my divorce. (It was a source of much joking at Harper’s — another thing I’ll truly miss — that my second child came before my first divorce.) But neither of us wanted to rush things. It felt unseemly to dive immediately into a new marriage so soon after the formal dissolution of an earlier one. We’d make our wedding when we wanted, we agreed, not merely when permitted by the state or demanded by a sense of social propriety.

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Paul writes:

Some people wanted to have children, but knew they were perfectionists. They would not have been able to succeed, or so they think, because of the huge responsibility a wife and children meant. They were taught children and spouse came first and were too selfish (in a way) to have children or spouse. (Abortion simply is inconceivable, so this discussion does not address that horror.) They could have had children and have been an irritable parent and husband, someone always with one foot outside the front door itching to get back to their job.

On the other hand, they were responsible enough to realize they could not have it both ways. It was children or career. (A lack of sufficient biological drive possibly played a part, but no one can quantify that. Having children can remain a drive, but it becomes too unfair to the child at some point.)

Most people though are not perfectionists and seem to cope, but not the man you describe. His children are luggage as you say. He wants it both ways, but does not realize his children always come first. Somehow most children cope, and we must assume this father does love his children. He is behaving selfishly though. (Why did he quit his job and abandon his health benefits? Why is he telling the world about his selfishness in his quixotic manner, if he is putting his family at risk?)

At a professional conference I attended recently, everyone was given a psychological test. And the conferees were put into four categories. The perfectionist category was the most numerous.

Did the baby-boomers’ parents overemphasize accomplishment because of the 1930s Depression? That can’t be the reason considering Jewish people historically. Jewish people have had high birthrates (I don’t know about today) but have instilled their children with an almost magical (not in a pejorative sense) drive despite persecution. Heck, look at the Chinese with their intelligence but terrible living conditions historically; yet they are only recently advancing, thanks to American greed in large part.

Intelligence and accomplishment therefore can only be a part of the equation. Culture it seems could be a major factor when you eliminate hardship and malnourishment. “Tomoko” sure does not sound Jewish. Maybe this Jewish man is adrift because he has abandoned his Judeo-Christian culture. 

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