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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf only I'd snagged a Princeton man
This is a great read by Donna Brazile and her response to the ding-bat from Princeton on "finding a husband. Much more at the link..
(CNN) -- Susan Patton kicked up a firestorm with her letter last week to the editor of The Daily Princetonian urging female students to find a man to marry before they graduate because "the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you."
If only the Princeton alum's advice had come out 30 years earlier when I was in college, perhaps I could have avoided the costly mistake of focusing on what makes me come alive and then pursuing it for a living. Perhaps if I'd focused instead on nailing down a man by the time I was 22, I could be going to cocktail parties and co-opting my husband and children's successes, bragging about them as if they were my own, rather than being forced to talk about the current state of politics or what we can do as a society to engage the next generation in the struggles of today.
Perhaps, if I'd had Ms. Patton's wisdom and foresight about what really matters in college, I wouldn't have taken so many pesky classes, and instead concentrated on designing my hair, makeup, attire and personality to create the perfect man-catching machine.
Donna Brazile
Donna Brazile
Perhaps it would have all worked out exactly as Ms. Patton implies -- the perfect house, kids, husband and future. And yet I'm skeptical. I made a lot of stupid decisions in college; I'm really glad the choice of life partner wasn't one of them. How many people, do you think, could choose a tattoo at 22 years old and still be happy with it by the time they are 50? Let's be generous here: maybe a quarter of all people? And tattoos don't even talk.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/02/opinion/brazile-princeton-alum/index.html?hpt=hp_c3
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)IF you are a young woman who eventually plans to have a husband & family, you will NEVER again be in a more "effective" place to choose a mate.
CHOOSING to marry and CHOOSING to wait a while to procreate is something young women have these days, so why NOT take the "pick of the litter"?
Once a young person is "out in the world" post-college, they are in the midst of a bigger "pool" of choices, but those choices often come with ex-wives/step-kids/current wives/years' worth of debts/etc.
Often, the one we choose to love comes right o=ut of left field when we least expect it, but look around..
There a a LOT of women these days who focused on their careers first, and after decades of dating, they find themselves with slim pickings, and lost opportunities.
The really great guy they passed on in college, even if they re-meet, has probably got years of "complications" he brings to the table now.
It is entirely POSSIBLE to marry someone who is your intellectual equal, ...... both nurture each other along the way... and end up creating a family and career and marriage.
It's NOT for everyone, but I think the point of her message was that it;s always easier to choose BEFORE things get too complicated.
A shoe sale is a good metaphor.. If you wear an 8B, you will often find that when the clearance sale happens, your choices may be size 5N or 10W.
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)the old man looking for his wallet on a street corner.
"Excuse me sir, did you drop something around here?"
"Actually, I dropped it in the alley across the street, but the light's much better over here."
Sure, there's the opportunity to marry SOMEONE, but is it the right person? Without knowing what you really want out of life, you can't know that.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)they either got divorced within ten years or they're still in that first marriage but unhappy. If I'd chosen my husband in college, it wouldn't be the man I'm married to now, and that would be my loss: he's a great friend to me, and a kind, loving, and highly intelligent man, even if he didn't go to a school "as good as" the one I attended.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Kber
(5,043 posts)I met my husband in college and married at 22. We will celebrate our 20th this year and I'm very happy. I am also very lucky. We have both changed so much over the past two decades and its luck as much as anything that we've changed and grown for the better. It could have so easily gone the other way.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)out of college that is happy. I think part of the problem is that TV & movies try to sell us on "romance", when companionship is far more important to the success of a long-term relationship. Not to diss romance, but you need something more than that to see you through tough times, or even through those 3am-and-the-baby-just-puked-for-the-third-time nights.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)For people who are more interested in career and self-realization, and who are NOT interested in being married, there are many paths to follow.
People start dating quite early these days.
By the time someone is a college graduate, they have probably dated MANY boys/men.
The women I have known in my almost 64 years, rarely have gone far from the "mold".. They tend to like the same "kind" of man, and withing a few minutes of meeting one, they can pretty much tell if it's a go or no-go.
Movies/pop-culture have muddied the waters, and have mostly confused the hell out of many people.
It's ALL a choice...
Marry young..hope for the best..have kids while you are young & healthy
Marry later..after dating a gazillion guys (usually the same guy in many ways).. find yourself "successful" (or not) 38 and spending a fortune on fertility treatments for a baby who will grow up in daycare..and who will still hate you when he/she is 16..only then you will be knee-deep in menopause
It;s all a tradeoff.. We are all on a one way trip..there are many roads to the end destination..
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)the next step of "move wherever his job prospects are the best" and "your career isn't as important as popping out some babies."
Note that this advice is not being given to men.
People start having sex much younger these days. Dating with an eye to finding a life partner usually happens later.
If people know at 22 what they want out of life and what they want out of a life partner, great. That's usually not the case though.
The majority of people don't marry at 38 or at 22. My wife and I married in our early 30's.
Final point: most 20-22 year old guys are immature assholes. We take a few more years of seasoning.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)I know many senior citizen assholes
Job prospects are iffy for men OR women these days..
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)If you know, go ahead and marry.
If you don't know, don't marry.
Seems pretty simple.
People shouldn't marry because it's convenient or a rational strategy--that's settling.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)Like I said.. It's a CHOICE..
Our sons married at 33 & 32 (0ne still unmarried but with a SO)
First wife here...married at 20 to a guy 26.....still a first wife at 64
There is NO ONE WAY...
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)BainsBane
(53,003 posts)I was just a dry run. As you say, someone had to do it.
malaise
(267,823 posts)Where else but college will you find so many men in one spot over a long period?
Both my grandmothers and my mother had husbands and careers. The same is true for all of us.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)I am a patient person
malaise
(267,823 posts)Men find wives in college without a peep from anyone
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)you know, the ones seemingly running down a checklist of get the degree, get a job, find a wife. Far fewer women than men were interested in getting married right away when I was a senior in college.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)and be divorced by 30.
protect our future
(1,156 posts)Let me just add one comment about that really great guy women may have passed on in college. If they re-meet much later, yes, he may have years of "complications" to bring to the table, but maybe he has also acquired much wisdom and maturity as well and is worth getting to know all over again.
treestar
(82,383 posts)They will never again be surrounded by pretty young women, so they'd better jump now.
So ridiculous. Do one's college friends disappear when one gets older?
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)People get jobs in all different places and once they get "attached", they tend to form new bonds.. Perhaps facebook, etc has changed things, but a classroom/campus setting has a mystique all its own..never to again be repeated, and once lost, not to be repeated.
College is a particularly special time..Aged adult, but still somewhat dependent and cared for. Never again will that be the case. College "kids" usually make plenty of time available for socializing, and figuring out who they will (may) become. Once they are fully in the fray, they may never have that opportunity again, and most are in the same unencumbered situation.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)BainsBane
(53,003 posts)educated and rich. Plus he really knows how to treat a gal.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)is that women do not have to marry. If we pick an inappropriate husband, we can divorce him. We have opportunities to make our own living, unlike women of fifty years ago.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)the model of the 50's trapped women..these days there is NO reason to have kids until you are sure the marriage is working and you are ready
Cleita
(75,480 posts)generation was expected to stay home with the children. The sixties changed all that.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)From personal experience, I can tell you that every friend of mine except one, who married someone right after graduation that they met in college, was divorced between five and ten years later. Of those of us who waited until our late twenties and early thirties, we did stay married for the most part until death did us part with a couple of exceptions.
I thought the video with Stephanie Miller was pretty good. She just ripped that 1950's scab there right off. Looking for Ward Cleaver? Oh, Steph.
alp227
(31,962 posts)And from your anecdote about your divorced friends and other responses, it seems they were sold a rotten bag of goods from the romantic novel/ film industry. Marketers want to take advantage of people's insecurities and doubts.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)You have to scroll down a bit. It's on the left.
The women back then weren't sold anything. Back in the fifties, it was expected that you would find a husband in college. Your parents were almost counting on it and keeping their fingers crossed. We were very much discouraged from pursuing careers that were considered men's jobs like medicine and engineering. I was the only girl in my advanced Algebra class back in 1958. One of the boys even asked me why I was there because I would never be accepted into any engineering school, he said. Yup. That's the way it was.
alp227
(31,962 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)I married straight out of high school and have been married for 18 years. Not saying it's for everyone, but neither is waiting. Everyone has to decide when the right time is for them.
babylonsister
(170,963 posts)I made a lot of stupid decisions in college; I'm really glad the choice of life partner wasn't one of them. How many people, do you think, could choose a tattoo at 22 years old and still be happy with it by the time they are 50? Let's be generous here: maybe a quarter of all people? And tattoos don't even talk.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)"I applaud Ms. Patton for her bravery. There aren't a lot of well-educated women who would be courageous enough to completely sell out the feminist movement responsible for securing women's equal social, political and economic rights (to the degree that we have them) in favor of the 1950s' mentality that a woman's worth is determined by her marital status. Also, to come out with it while her youngest son remains unmarried? Brave. Though the "universe of women he can marry is limitless," the universe of women who would be willing to be her daughter-in-law is finite.
In all this advice to "the daughters (she) never had," there is one point on which I cannot disagree with Ms. Patton: "It's amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman's lack of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty." Perhaps Princeton should forgo academic requirements for its female students and instead teach "How to Be Exceptionally Pretty."
Some have questioned my admiration for Donna Brazile, but this confirms for me that I've been right all around.
protect our future
(1,156 posts)female students "How to be Exceptionally Pretty"? Aw, c'mon. Sure, men are attracted to beautiful women at first, and women are attracted to great-looking men. But if you make it obvious that you enjoy life, be happy with who you are, show that you genuinely care about others, can be silly, laugh and have fun when appropriate, and can be serious, authentic and gently opinionated when appropriate, good things will come your way whether you're exceptionally pretty or exceptionally plain.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)Brazile's comments are critiquing Susan Patton. Patton is the one who says women need to snag a husband in college while they are still pretty enough.
protect our future
(1,156 posts)a comment regarding the post immediately above mine.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)Brazile was mocking that view.
protect our future
(1,156 posts)BainsBane
(53,003 posts)You don't want to talk about the article or the controversy surrounding Patton, and now you're ticked off because I point out to you what Brazile is actually arguing?
protect our future
(1,156 posts)criticisms of me (at least in my mind) would you prefer that I answer first? Or may I instead interject an observation of my own that is a bit of a digression from the four or five insinuations you seem to be hurling at me? And if I am incorrect in my assumptions here, I truly do apologize. Profusely, too.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)I don't insinuate. I come out and say what I think, which I have done in this thread. I don't know what your problem is, but I'm past caring.
protect our future
(1,156 posts)what'll happen if I choose to stand up for what I believe (i.e., that men are not as evil as are sometimes portrayed) in threads populated by you and others, and yet I occasionally do it anyway. Gotta go; the man I love just phoned.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)but we could always talk about the lunar calendar if that's what pops in your mind, or how about the latest developments in Smart phones? This breakdown in communication has nothing to do with men. It's your apparent inability to understand the article, and then get mad when I try to point out to you that you have misunderstood Donna Brazile's point. Typically in a discussion, one expects a response to some way deal with the point raised or the article in question. You instead choose to engage in stream of consciousness. No one said men are evil. This is one prominent Democratic strategist critiquing an article by another woman. The whole discussion has gone right over your head. I suspect it's not the first time.
protect our future
(1,156 posts)BainsBane
(53,003 posts)protect our future
(1,156 posts)BainsBane
(53,003 posts)I'm guessing not much in Patton's article or Brazil's critique applies to you anyway.
protect our future
(1,156 posts)Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)None whatsoever. But do carry on, it's amusing.
protect our future
(1,156 posts)my words elicit here. Or perhaps I'm just stupid.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)BainsBane
(53,003 posts)I was derailed by its being completely off topic. Bless her heart indeed. No wonder she's taken such a dislike to me.
protect our future
(1,156 posts)of words on my part while trying to be very careful so I wouldn't be misunderstood. But I got misunderstood anyway.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)There are smart people that are good people. There are smart people that are jerks. There are not so smart people that are good people. There are not so smart people that are jerks. I would rather concentrate on finding a good man whether he was smart or not which is what I did and have bee happily married for 18 years.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)I'm very glad that I didn't marry any of them.
I am sorry that I didn't pursue things with a very nice poly sci grad student from Montreal, though.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)Facebook makes that easier to do these days.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)protect our future
(1,156 posts)him do something both unique and amusing--this is before we met--and I remember thinking, "I should go talk to him. He might be interesting and I'll probably find out if it's yes or no in a ten-minute conversation. Or five. Maybe even two or three and I'll find out he's just some jerk (insert mental sigh of resignation)."
Well, that anticipated two to ten minutes turned into two to three hours and many years later he's still the love of my life.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)Rowdyboy
(22,057 posts)to mine. 38 years later we're still close friends, but to have married her then (as we had every intention of doing)would have been disastrous. Had there been children, it would only have been worse.
I had excellent taste in people in my early 20's-she was smart, opinionated, cutting and very insightful. She won a Fullbright Fellowship. But I was too damned stupid to consciously understand that marrying a woman would destroy us both. Thank God my subconscious spoke up loudly and I scared her off.
In college I made lifelong friends but to expect to find a life-partner is perhaps overly optimistic. I was 35 before I found my guy and 24 years later I'm blissfully happy. Had I made the decision in college it would have been both wrong and devastating.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)People are often too young to know themselves well at that age, which is why so many people who marry young wind up divorced.
BainsBane
(53,003 posts)If the idea is to be married to someone of your same educational level, marrying someone out of college wouldn't accomplish that for many of us. What about women who go on to get Masters, Ph.D.s, or professional degrees?
UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)The mother in law from hell.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)I went to a small Christian college, and the pressure to find the right Christian to marry was intense. It probably made me and my ex-husband's relationship all screwed up. I got married right after I graduated, got him through med school and residency, and it turned out he'd been cheating the whole time and then left me for a nurse.
There are many of us Wife #1s out there. Why would anyone advise anyone to go through that!?
Cleita
(75,480 posts)I actually sat in the student union drinking coffee one day with fellow male classmates and the subject came up of marriage. Most of the guys thought that if they married, the wife should go to work to support them until they got their degree and a job in their field. Then it would be his turn to support her while she completed her degree work. The problem was that it seldom worked out that way. Pregnancy often interfered with those plans and I know women who put their husbands through medical or law school for instance to have them divorce them for a new woman they met in such grad schools.
knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)First wives go through a lot, get the kids, and end up putting our own lives on hold. I'm just now getting to start my master's this spring, 15 years later.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)I'm sorry this happened to you. It's just another way to use and disrespect women as far as I'm concerned.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)The notion that if you wait until you are age X, then neither of you will change and end the marriage, is false.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)I think the point is that we know ourselves a bit better when we're a bit older, and we're more likely to make wise choices. That goes for men as well as women, though this article is focused on women since the advice it's responding to was aimed at women. I know I would not have chosen wisely at 22.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)If you want to be married for a long time, it takes an ability to adapt to change and stamina to endure the hardships life will throw your way. Some people think that ability comes with age, but quite frankly I know lots of older people who can't seem to adapt very well and their marriages end too.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Patton's comments, as well as those who accuse women in this thread of "hating men," seem to hinge on the assumption that without a man, a woman cannot possibly be happy or whole.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)Nikia
(11,411 posts)I don't think that I have met any guys that I would have wanted to marry since then even if I were single, but maybe not looking has something to do with it. I also have only had about 4 close friends that have approached the level of friendship that I had with about ten times that many people in college. I have lived mostly in small conservative towns so maybe that has something to do with it though.
Response to monmouth3 (Original post)
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