The American Male at age 30

"At twenty-five, a person is trying to prove himself to the world. At thirty, he knows who he is to some extent, knows his strengths and limitations, has some kind of a game plan and gets it done."
-- Jo Jacob, artist, musician, Lexington, Kentucky


If there's one thing I admire as a journalist, it's a great idea that's well executed. So I tip my hat -- twice -- to Esquire for coming up with a cool original idea and then improving on it.

In 2006, the magazine introduced readers to a gallery of 51 young men, representing a cross-section of America, that it called "A Portrait of the American Man at 25." It made for fascinating reading, crawling inside the minds of these young adults and gleaning as much information from their photos as from their words.

Sure enough, the summer 2011 issue, touted as the "How To Be A Man" issue, arrived last week with an update: "A Portrait of the American Man at 30." The genius of this feature is that the magazine tracked down about 40 of the very same guys it interviewed earlier and, so, was able to offer an apples-to-apples comparison.
 "Some are now married with kids, living in the suburbs," the lead-in reads. "Others are divorced or in jail. Our boys are growing up."

What makes this group of guys so interesting? It's not that I think they are any more or less endowed with intelligence, looks or possibilities. It's that my oldest son is 31 and very much part of the Millennials cohort who were born from 1977 to 1998.

A 30-year-old guy born in 1981 (or 1980, in Nathan's case) has grown up in a world with Reagan and Obama as presidential bookmarks, where the career and financial aspirations enjoyed by their Boomer fathers has been dialed back in the face of a slumping world economy, where social dynamics have been shaped by the greatest diversity our country has ever seen, including growing acceptance of gays.

Their lives have been facilitated and complicated in every conceivable way by personal technology and the phenomenon of anywhere-anytime communication. Their female peers have been raised believing they are entitled to rights, privileges and opportunities that many of their mothers had to fight for -- and those attitudes have contributed to the Rubik's Cube of dating and commitment.

So what do these 30-year-old men have to say?

At the risk of gross generalization, it seems that five years has made all the difference in the maturation process. No, they all haven't settled down. But many of them, if not most, have left behind the party lifestyle and self-centered mindset and embraced new responsibilities -- marriage, parenthood, well-reasoned notions of work and career. It's good to see so many have a great sense of humor and speak with such candor.

I've rambled on far too much already, so let's cut to the chase. I hope the following sampling of quotes will encourage you to pick up the June/July issue (inexplicably, it's not online) and read the article in its entirety -- or just leave a comment. Do their words ring true? What do you (regardless of your gender) remember thinking, doing, aspiring to when you were 30? 25?

"Twenty five was a turning point in my life that put me in a situation that I was unsure of. At thirty, I have taken some chances that have proven to have lot of potential. It's amazing what a little kick in the ass can do to a person." 
-- Ricky Wayne Brule, entrepreneur, St. Francis, Minnesota

"I always thought I wanted kids. But now I'm really torn between what would make me happy -- being a really effective professor/writer or being a good parent. I don't see being both as a realistic option."
-- Kyle Dargan, Washington, D.C.
 
"Decisions have more consequences now than they did when I was twenty-five, so I find myself to be more calculated in my decision-making."
-- Evan deSieves, manager, wind energy company, Portland, Oregon

"Teens? You can have 'em. Early twenties? Couldn't pay me to take those back. Now? This is the time. This is my time. I've never felt more comfortable being a man."
-- Philip Dawkins, playwright, educator, Chicago, Illinois

The scandal of child marriage

Through the ages and across cultures, marriage endures as a bedrock institution. Yet there are profound variations in the practice; political movements seek to expand or limit who can marry; and several studies here in the United States confirm that people are waiting longer to wed, interracial marriages are becoming more common and divorce rates are rising.

Around the globe, some societies are more tolerant than others in permitting a man to take more than one wife. As well, the age at which people are legally able to marry seems somewhat elastic.

When the latest issue of National Geographic arrived in my mailbox, I flipped through it and was drawn to a jaw-dropping report called "Too Young to Wed -- The Secret World of Child Brides."

The author, Cynthia Gorney, is a veteran magazine writer and member of the faculty at UC Berkeley's highly regarded Graduate School of Journalism. She's also someone I've come to know as a friend. The photographer, Stephanie Sinclair, has been documenting the practice of child marriage for a decade.

Gorney weaves several contemporary cases together with historical context. She presents the proponents' case for child marriage but doesn't shy away from the dark side involving rape and childbirth before the girls are physically ready.

Sinclair's photos are riveting and revolting. Starting with an 11-year-old girl in Yemen made up to look twice her age and ending with a 5-year-old (yes, 5) in northern India, Sinclair presents a collection of portraits that make it oh-so-clear that this is oh-so-wrong.

One photo portrays a 14-year-old girl bathing her scrawny newborn while her 2-year-old daughter plays beside her. Another (above) shows two girls starting forlornly at the camera as they stand beside their husbands. One of them, now 8, was married at age 6 when the groom was 25. And the 5-year-old? She's roused from sleep and carried to her wedding on her uncle's shoulder. Half her face is covered by a yellow garment, so we see only one bleary, brown eye.

I like to think of myself as tolerant in most respects. But the practice of marrying off girls before they even hit double digits strikes me as obscene. I realize the practice goes back centuries and in some cases are seen as business transactions -- as a way to settle a debt or as a wise investment by parents seeking a stable future for their daughters. I realize, too, that the practice persists because girls in many societies have little or no access to education, and virtually no local prospects for employment. Those things would have to change for families to consider deviating from the practice.

Fortunately, there are "positive deviants" like Nujood Ali who give some hope. Nujood generated worldwide headlines in 2008 as "the 10-year-old Yemeni girl who found her way alone to an urban courthouse to request a divorce from the man in his 30s her father had forced her to marry." Her story has been made into a book, translated into 30 languages, "I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced."

The National Geographic report is chilling. My hearts breaks at the sight of these too-young girls forced to assume roles long before they're ready and which they never asked for in the first place.


Photograph by Stephanie Sinclair

Some royal perspective

As we draw ever closer to Friday's royal wedding, the Super Bowl-like buildup is impossible to escape.

Turn on the TV, boot up your home page or pass a magazine rack and you're assaulted every which way about the overblown event -- William and Kate's guest list, their music choices, their honeymoon destination and speculation about a change in the succession rules.

Count me among those who won't be getting up before dawn to watch the spectacle.

Leave it to Leonard Pitts Jr., my favorite newspaper columnist, to bring some badly perspective to it all. In his column, "Abundant blessings for the newlyweds," Pitts cites the conventional wisdom that we are living in a time of lowered expectations and pessimism about the future, and notes that marriage itself is becoming a rarity.

"To get married is to make a bet on always and forever. To stay married is a function of will and work, even more than of love. The capacity and willingness to make that bet, to put in that work, to bear down with that will, are slowly disappearing from American life. Fifty years ago, close to 70 percent of all American adults were married. Now it's about 54. Britain has seen similar trends. We marry less, we marry later, we make marriage a reality show, we see our cynicism validated by Hollywood marriages that pop like soap bubbles.

"A wedding, then, is not just an act of faith, but also one of defiance."

I have nothing against the royal couple. But until reading Pitts, I confess I was blind to the fact that maybe, just, maybe, I'd have one thing in common with young William -- a public declaration to promise myself to one person. An act of faith. An act of defiance.

Photograph: www.bittenandbound.com

The birthday celebration continues

In front of the Hawthorne Bridge

Ok, so it wasn't a weeklong staycation, but I'll take it: An overnight stay at The Nines in downtown Portland that was the last of my month-ago birthday gifts.

Lori made the reservation late last year, so I had been looking forward to it for some time. The experience did not disappoint. We rode the bus downtown, checked in at 6, had a delicious pan-Asian dinner in the 15th floor restaurant (Departure), caught a fine new movie ("The King's Speech,") and then settled in for the night in a luxurious room. Today we slept in, had breakfast at the trendy Urban Farmer inside The Nines, had an hour-long walk along the riverfront and stopped in at the new H&M store in Pioneer Place, where I found a very affordable shirt as a souvenir for the weekend.

Nothing better than strolling arm-in-arm and having the guy who stopped his bike ride to take our picture ask: "Are you two married?"

Key to a happy marriage? Self-expansion

"For centuries, marriage was viewed as an economic and social institution, and the emotional and intellectual needs of the spouses were secondary to the survival of the marriage itself. But in modern relationships, people are looking for a partnership, and they want partners who make their lives more interesting." 

The notion that the best, not necessarily the longest-lasting, marriages are those that bring satisfaction to the individual may seem counterintuitive, Tara Parker-Pope writes in an article in The New York Times ("The Happy Marriage Is the 'Me' Marriage"' Jan. 2).  After all, she asks, isn't marriage supposed to be about putting the relationship first?

It's an interesting question and one that I turned over in my mind this morning as I began the first Monday of the new year with a literally new view. (We moved the furniture around in our condo and now we'll be eating our meals at a table next to a sun-splashed window looking out on the street below us.)

According to Parker-Pope, research shows that the more "self-expansion" people experience from their partner, the more committed and satisfied they are in the relationship. Two professors at Monmouth University in New Jersey have studied how individuals use a relationship to accumulate knowledge and experiences and they call that process "self-expansion." Another researcher in Amsterdam called it the "Michelangelo effect," describing the manner in which partners "sculpt" each other in ways that help each of them attain valued goals.

I think there's a lot of merit to this description of how two individuals enrich each other and evolve in the process. Physical attraction and an appreciation for other appealing qualities -- a sense of humor, a sense of adventure -- help lay a foundation. And over time, shared values (fairness, compassion, modesty) and life-changing experiences (parenthood, homeownership, travel) not only cement the bond, but they help create a shared identity.

There's no question that becoming parents and raising three wonderful children, with a few bumps along the way, has been the most profound of those shared experiences. Becoming homeowners was another important step we took together -- even more so the second time when we purchased our cabin on Orcas Island. It's a special-to-us feeling that we experience together whenever we set foot on the island. Likewise, the magical memories we created on a 20th anniversary trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, will forever occupy part of my brain.

Just as important, the research shows, the personal gains from lasting relationships become evident in subtle ways.

"Having a partner who is funny or creative adds something new to someone who isn’t. A partner who is an active community volunteer creates new social opportunities for a spouse who spends long hours at work," Parker-Pope writes.

Evenually, this process of self-expansion can become so well-established that people's brains become slower to distinguish between their traits and those of their spouses.

"It’s not that these couples lost themselves in the marriage; instead, they grew in it," she writes. "Activities, traits and behaviors that had not been part of their identity before the relationship were now an essential part of how they experienced life."

As I think back on 35 years of marriage, I see there's a lot of truth to that. Our left-of-center values have been a constant throughout our marriage. But as the years have piled up, I hardly pause to question where my "likes" and my attitudes came from in reference to diet and exercise, tastes in movies and books.

If you were to draw two circles at the start of our marriage, we'd have had two circles representing our separate selves with little overlap. By now, those circles would overlap pretty heavily, depicting how much we've each brought to the relationship. I hope in the process I've helped "sculpt" Lori as much as she's sculpted me.

Illustration by Heads of State

All about marriage

How can a stranger tell if two people are married?
"You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids." -- Derrick, 8 


About 15 years ago, The Oregonian debuted a humor column called "The Edge." A daily compendium of wacky, irreverent and often juvenile (i.e., bathroom) humor, it was created and written for the first several years by Tim Harrower -- and quickly became a reader favorite with recurring features like Useless Fact o' the Day and Lame Joke du Jour.

Authorship of the column has changed hands a few times since, and its visibility in the newspaper has been taken down a notch, from the cover of the features section to an inside or back page. To tell the truth, I miss it most days. Today I'm glad I ran across it. After sharing my thoughts recently on the keys to a long marriage, The Edge offers a column's worth of wisdom, courtesy of kids 7 to 10 years old.

Along with the above, check out these nuggets:

How do you decide who to marry?
"You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming." -- Alan, 10

"No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with." -- Kristen, 10

What is the right age to get married?
"Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then." -- Camille, 10

What do you think your mom and dad have in common?
"Both don't want any more kids." -- Lori, 8

What do most people do on a date?
"Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough." -- Lynnette, 8

"On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date." -- Martin, 10

When is it OK to kiss someone?
"When they're rich." -- Pam, 7

"The law says you have to be 18, so I wouldn't want to mess with that." -- Curt, 7

"The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do." -- Howard, 8

Is it better to be single or married?
"It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them." -- Anita, 9

How would the world be different if people didn't get married?
"There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there?" -- Kelvin, 8

How would you make a marriage work?
"Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump truck." -- Ricky, 10


© 2010 OregonLive.com. All rights reserved.


Photograph: 123rf.com

Anniversary No. 35

circa 1975

On Sept. 6, 1975, I stood at the altar of a Catholic Church in San Jose, California, trying to focus on the words and gestures of the priest while tension and nervousness built inside me. Would I stumble over the wedding vows I'd written? Would I drop the wedding ring? Would I make to the end of the ceremony?

I labored through the vows, pausing several times to fight back tears and steady my trembling voice. No, I didn't drop the ring. And, yes, I made it to the end.

Ten years later, we stood in front of friends as we renewed our vows at Silver Falls State Park, near Salem, Oregon, where we were living at the time. Again, I fought through tears to speak the words.

Another quarter-century has passed, and today -- on Sept. 6, 2010 -- Lori and I celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. It's an amazing milestone, one that fills my being with pride and deep appreciation. Yes, I am so proud to be married to my lovely Lori, my partner in life and the mother of our three children. And, yes, I am so appreciative of having the immense good fortune to marry her when we were both 22, just 18 months after we went on our first date as college seniors.

How is it, in this day and age, that a marriage can last so long? It would take a book to answer that question, and of course there is no universal answer or magic formula. From my perspective, a long-lasting marriage is one that takes root in the deep, rich soil of love and mutual respect and evolves over time. It makes room for individual interests and preferences; it bends and adapts to change while remaining bound together by shared values; it is guided by a common vision of what both partners want from life and it is reinforced by a commitment to work toward those things together.

Where family is concerned, it begins by wanting to be parents. We've supported each other physically and emotionally through all the stages, from infancy to adolescence to adulthood, sharing all the ups and downs and surprises that come along with parenthood. And, now, as empty-nesters, we find ourselves striving to make space for each other and for ourselves as a couple, even as the calendar seems to speed up.

As I read these words, I can't help but think they may seem obvious or simplistic, perhaps even trite, to anyone other than Lori and me. At this point, we have a treasure chest of memories built on shared experiences and a shared faith in the future. We don't always know what's coming but we do know we'll face it and embrace it together. And after 35 years, one thing is crystal clear: I am one damned lucky guy.

The new paradigm: Women on top

On Monday afternoon, with a couple hours to kill in the lobby of an auto repair shop, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a lengthy magazine article I've been meaning to get to for some time. Turns out there couldn't have been a more fitting place to read "The End of Men."

Hanna Rosin's piece in the July/August issue of The Atlantic has caused quite a stir with its eye-opening statistics and bold questions about the transformation of American society. Rosin makes a persuasive case that women have made enormous progress in education and in the workforce, so much so that it raises the question of whether they even need men.

Consider the following:

-- Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history.
-- Most managers are now women.
-- Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the U.S., all but two are occupied primarily by women. (Men still dominate as janitors and computer engineers. Women have everything else: nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation --many of them "nurturing" jobs that women used to do in the home for free.)
-- Women dominate today's colleges and professional schools. For every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same.
-- Women now earn 60 percent of bachelor's and master's degrees, about half of all law and medical degrees and 42 percent of all M.B.A.'s
-- Women now hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs (twice as many as in 1980). They account for a third of America's physicians and 45 percent of law firm associates.

Men still earn more pay for equivalent jobs but by just about every other measure in the workplace or classroom, women have caught up or passed men.

None of this has happened overnight nor has it happened only in the U.S. Think China, India, South Korea.

"Up to a point, the reasons behind this shift are obvious," Rosin writes. "As thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as the keys to economic success, those societies that take advantage of the talents of all their adults, not just half of them, have pulled away from the rest."

Clearly, though, the Great Recession has exacerbated things, with male-dominated industries like construction, manufacturing, high finance, losing millions of jobs. The working class, a traditional bastion of masculinity, "is slowly turning into a matriarchy, with men increasingly absent from the home and women making all the decisions," Rosin writes.

Now, if you're the parent of young daughters, this trend toward a level playing field may come as a pleasant surprise. (Or as a worrisome phenomenon if you have boys). But if you're like us -- i.e., a little older -- chances are good you've seen your adult daughter as part of this transformation, surrounded by like-minded overachievers from high school through college. Still, the scope of such change is daunting.

If you want to see where we're headed in the future, you start with the gender gap at U.S. colleges and universities and follow that thread to its logical implication: In the coming decades, the middle class will be dominated by women.

"What would a society in which women are on top look like?" Rosin asks. "We already have an inkling. The is the first time that the cohort of Americans ages 30 to 44 has more college-educated women than college-educated men, and the effects are upsetting the traditional Cleaver-family dynamics."

The typical working wife brings home a much larger proportion of the household income than before, and four in 10 mothers are the primary breadwinners in their families. Women are marrying later and increasingly having to consider "settling" for a less educated, often-unemployed mate (typified by the lovable losers portrayed by actor Seth Rogen, right).

Judging from the length of this post, it's easy to see I found the article fascinating. There's much more to these themes that are fleshed out in personal interviews and anecdotes, as well as conclusions we might draw from pop culture and the arts.

I didn't see a single female among the several mechanics who were working at the auto repair shop yesterday. I suspect that's not likely to change much in the next decade or two. But just about everywhere these seeds of change are bearing fruit in the form of new and expanded opportunities for women. As a feminist, I say "right on."

Image from The Atlantic, by John Ritter.

The beauty of a long-lasting marriage

"Gotta stop everything and read this Modern Romance......"

The e-mail from my co-worker, Mary Kitch, arrived Friday afternoon with a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/fashion/13love.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=print

Like everyone else who received it in the Editorial/Op-Ed Department at The Oregonian, I was pushing hard to finish my work on another weekend edition of commentary and analysis.

But I did stop and, boy, am I glad I did. What follows is one of most insightful takes and beautifully written pieces on the institution of marriage that I've ever read. That it came from our colleague, David Sarasohn, made it even more meaningful.

Before you read it -- and I really hope you will -- a few words about the author, a history professor turned journalist who is one of the most gifted writers at the paper. Best known for his left-leaning political column, David also is a first-rate restaurant reviewer and a baseball nut, with an affection for the New York Mets and a deep knowledge of baseball trivia.

*****

A Joint Account That Underwrites Our Marriage

By DAVID SARASOHN

Published: December 11, 2009

I HAVE been married forever.

Well, not since the Big Bang but since the Nixon administration — 35 years — a stretch long enough to startle new acquaintances or make talk-show audiences applaud. Recently one of my wife’s college students kept pressing us, with baffled curiosity, for our secret, as if there had to be some trick to it, like wearing each other’s clothes on Tuesdays.

Back when we became engaged, our news was also greeted with baffled curiosity. It was the ’70s, after all, when the freedom to be able to hop from one relationship to the next was as essential as anything in the Bill of Rights. Our friends were profoundly perplexed; nobody, they thought, could want a fondue set that badly.

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Illustration: Christopher Silas Neal