Email is Scary September 28, 2008

Email has been an amazing tool.  It has allowed for communication that is faster and more frequent than we ever had before, and it has allowed us to share more than ever.  I love email.

Except when I hate it.  You know what I’m referring to: it’s forwarded emails.  Perhaps if we could all just get it straight in our heads that these things are almost never right or true, we’d all be okay.  But it’s not like that: most people actually believe what they are reading, which is probably a holdover from a time when things were fact-checked.  Emails, though, are not fact-checked, and sometimes they’re even misleading on purpose, as in the “Obama is a Muslim” nonsense.  (A quick sanity check: if it has appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer, you can pretty much guarantee that it’s not true.)

My soon-to-be mother-in-law (hey!  I think that’s the world record for hyphens!) passed along the following gem, which she was too smart to fall for:

*Subject:* The Leadbetter Economic Recovery Plan

A FREIND JUST SENT TO ME, LOOKS GOOD TO ME   .DICK

This is a fantastic idea – and what could do more for the current economic crisis.  Wow just pass it on to everyone and to your Congressmen/women!!!!! I just did.

Hi Pals,

I’m against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend.

To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+.  Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+  into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let’s assume a tax rate of 30%.  Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes.  That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.

But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.  A husband and wife has $595,000.00.  What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

• Pay off your mortgage -­ housing crisis solved.
• Repay college loans ­- what a great boost to new grads
• Put away money for college -­ it’ll be there
• Save in a bank ­- create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
• Buy a new car -­ create jobs
• Invest in the market ­ capital drives growth
• Pay for your parent’s medical insurance -­ health care improves
• Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean ­- or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+  including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it…instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( “vote buy” ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one   of  our candidates for President.

If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult US Citizen 18+!

As for AIG -­ liquidate it.  Sell off its parts.  Let American General go back to being American General.  Sell off the real estate.  Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here’s my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn’t.

Sure it’s a crazy idea that can “never work.”  But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!  How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC.

And remember, The plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

Kindest personal regards, Ed

Ed Leadbetter…., A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic

PS: Feel free to pass this along to your pals as it’s either good for a laugh or a tear or a *very sobering thought on how to best use $85 Billion!

There are a whole bunch of problems with this, but let’s focus on just one: Ed may, for all I know, be a creative guy and he’s almost certainly a citizen of the republic, but he’s no mathematician.

You see, $85,000,000,000 divided by 200,000,000 is not $425,000, the supposed amount of the We Deserve It Dividend.

It’s $425.

This happens all the time in emails: not only is the author incorrect, he’s incorrect the the factor of a thousand!  Maybe I’m out of touch, but I sort of doubt that $425 per person is going to have the kind of effects that the author is proposing.

Problem is, this is rocketing across the country at (literally) the speed of light, showing up in inboxes everywhere — and most people who read it accept it as true.  Less than a day after Rickie sent this to me, I received it from my mother (who had been forewarned).  It’s getting around.

Everyone… and I mean, everyone, should bookmark www.snopes.com right now.  Use it all the time, to check up on all of the urban legends (such as this one) floating around the net.

By Request: My Facebook Statuses (or is it Stati)? September 5, 2008

Some of you, I know, don’t use Facebook.  It happens that I do, primarily to keep in touch with my older boys.  One of the things you do on Facebook is this: you update your “status.”  It’s just a way to say “this is what I’m doing right now.”

Mostly, this takes the form of “Matt is…”  Often, it’s just informative: “Bob is studying for finals.”  “Jane is boarding a plane for New York.”

As anyone who knows me at all could easily guess, I’ve turned it into a running gag.  My Facebook statuses tend somewhat away from the normal.  I’ve been asked to consolidate at least some of them on this blog.

Herewith, then: Matt’s Historical Facebook Statuses.

• Matt is what Willis was talkin’ bout.
• Matt is an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, nestled in a warm arugula bed of mystery.
• Matt is not the droid you’re looking for.
• Matt is filmed before a live studio audience.
• Matt is strictly prohibited without the express written consent of the National Basketball Association.
• Matt met with a guy today who asked, “Are you getting smart with me?”  I asked how he would know.
• Matt thinks it’s cruel that the word “lisp” has an “s” in it.
• Matt’s boys are natural mimics who act just like him, despite his tireless efforts to teach them good manners.
• Matt is wondering why we don’t just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself.
• Matt wonders why his lemonade has artificial flavors but his dishwashing liquid has real lemon juice.
• Matt is trying to daydream, but his mind keeps wandering.
• Matt told Miles that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous, because not everyone has met me yet.
• Matt is, therefore he thinks.
• Matt is putting the “laughter” back in “manslaughter.”
• Matt received an offer for a free gift, and wonders: aren’t all gifts free?
• Matt never uses a big word when a diminutive will be sufficient.
• Matt is confident.  You know, that good feeling you have right before you actually understand the situation.
• Matt recently endured the three most humiliating words a man can hear: “Hold my purse.”
• Matt ran a stop sign yesterday.  Because I don’t believe everything I read.
• Matt is against picketing, but he doesn’t really know how to show it.

I’m sure there were others, but those were the ones I could find.  Mike Reardon commented on the “exquisite oddness” of my mind.  Above you see it, in all its glory.

Mommy Porn: Making the Job Hard for Working Moms July 4, 2008

I was a participant the other day in a summer ritual: several of the neighborhood moms who work trade off picking up a whole bunch of kids from day camp, so each mom only has to take one afternoon off in a given week.  Two of the kids are Shantele’s, and it was easier for me to handle it than to have her drive back from work in Sunnyvale, so I offered to handle the neighborhood’s kids for the afternoon.

I picked four third-graders up, and we went to Round Table Pizza to get them some lunch.  They grazed pizza and soda while playing video games, the way that third-grade boys will do.  By the time we left the pizza place it was nearly two o’clock.

Two hours is apparently the maximum amount of time that a mother can contain her panic that a father, of all people, (or, really, anyone else) is taking care of her boy.

First in line was Shantele, who had tremendous anxiety about asking me to do it in the first place.  Then came Deb Pacini, who actually called to ask if it was okay if she went to Target.  (I told her that I had committed to watch the boys for the afternoon, so she could go to Target and to the mall and to a spa, if she wanted.)  Apparently not long after that, Arjun’s mom (whose name escapes me) spoke with Deb, wondering if she should go get her son.  Deb recommended that she not call me, as I sounded a little peeved when I was on the phone with her.

Amazingly, none of these women is certifiably insane.

I’m not saying that they worried about my ability to watch kids for an afternoon, by the way: they do this to each other, too.  As the income gap between working men and women closes, at least in cities (a 2007 study at Queens College found that women in their 20s of all education levels earn 117 percent of what men earn; in Dallas it’s 120 percent), the expectation gap is as wide as ever: simply put, women are still supposed to do it all.

The problem isn’t helped by what Boston Globe columnist Penelope Trunk calls “mommy porn”: high-profile mothers who’ve taken to Photoshopping not just hips and thighs, but their entire lives as mothers, showing the world an entirely false view of how they handle career and motherhood.

Angelina Jolie, for example, does not allow any of her nannies (and each of her kids has their own nanny) to be photographed holding one of her children, since that would look bad for Angelina’s image as a mother.  We see this with all of the stars: lovely photos of mom and baby, while the baby’s nanny and the mommy’s stylist and assistant and personal trainer stand just outside the pretty picture.

And what you will never hear in the Ladies’ Home Journal interview is this: “I’ve really been made whole by my little family.  The kids are a joy to me.  But, really, I couldn’t get it done at all without my devoted nanny Jennifer.”

Meanwhile, back in the real world: I live in an area where a majority of mothers really do have to work.  It’s too expensive for most families to make it on one income, and not a few (like Shantele) are single moms anyway, with no choice at all in the question of work or home.  Most don’t have the resources of Jennifer Lopez or Madonna to rent help.

So they struggle and worry and spend major portions of their lives on the verge of tears, wondering how they’ll do it all.  They rush home as quickly as they can, put a dinner together, help with homework, and try to get some time on the couch with the kids.  They risk getting fired, all the time, because of the afternoons they must take off in order to catch school plays.

It’s inelegant.  It looks nothing like the mommy porn from the celebrity magazines.  But it’s more real, and therefore more beautiful.

A few truths to ease a mother’s troubled mind:

1. Nobody is getting it all done.  Nobody.
2. Concern yourself with the essentials: food, shelter, and love.  Everything beyond that… everything…, is gravy.
3. Entire generations of kids have been raised by mostly sending them outside to play without any supervision.  That is still the best way to raise a child.  The answer to the question, “What is there to do?”, is “Go outside and play.”  You are a mother, not a circus performer.  (My own mother locked the door sometimes after sending us out.  Feel free to follow her excellent example.)
4. You feel that you’re missing time with your children.  To an extent, you are, but perhaps not as much as you might think: a recent study suspects that the difference in attentive time between a working mother and a stay-at-home mom during the school year is as little as 25 minutes a day.  And we all know that during the summer moms are mostly trying to get the kids out of their hair so they can get something done.
5. The answer to most requests by a child, is “no.”
6. When you look in the magazines, remember: Angelina Jolie has one nanny per child.

On Coddling July 3, 2008

A few days ago, an eight-year-old boy in Lund, Sweden had all of his birthday invitations confiscated when he invited all but two of his classmates to the party.  The teacher acted decisively and snatched the invitations away, upholding a school policy which says that if you pass out invitations to a party in class, every kid must be invited.

I guess it’s worth noting that the two poor uninvited kids are: (a) a boy who had recently snubbed the birthday boy for his own birthday party; and (b) a boy who, according to the father of the 9-year-old-to-be, has been bullying his son all year.

Just so you don’t think this is Swedes acting up: this exact policy is in place at schools right here in San Mateo.

This is just one of the myriad ways that we coddle children these days.  To wit:

• We don’t keep score in youth sports any more.
• Even up into junior high or middle school, there is a strong movement for equalized playing time on sports teams.
• Grades are often an undecipherable mess, primarily because we don’t want to suggest to our poor little ones that they might be performing sub-optimally.  In one nearby example, a teacher will not indicate that a student has failed her class.  Even if he/she were to produce a zero for the entire semester, she would refer to it as “delayed success.”
• At the elementary school that is right on the other side of my back fence, kids are not allowed to keep score even during recess soccer or baseball games.
• Child Protective Services has become a little gestapo, in an attempt to protect children.  They do much good, but we hear of harm like this: Colleen Leduc, mother of an autistic child in Ontario, was visited recently by CPS to discuss the possible sexual abuse of her child.  The reason for the visit?  An aide at her daughter’s school had visited a psychic, who informed her that a girl with a name starting with “V” (Leduc’s daughter is Victoria) was being abused.
• One local middle school recently had twenty-seven cheerleaders, so no one would be cut.
• At a grade-school production of Snow White, parents lobbied successfully to ensure that every child got the part they wanted.  So… the show went on with twenty-four Snow Whites, and nothing else.  No wicked witch, no dwarves.  Nothing but Snow Whites.
• The mayor of Beechwood, OH cancelled the town’s Little League all-star team to avoid hurting the feelings of those who did not make the team.

Look, I’m not Neanderthal.  I recognize that kids are fragile things; I’m not a “throw them to the wolves” type.  But doesn’t this at some point get ridiculous?  Kids are keeping score.  They know who the smart ones are in their classes.  And they are for dang certain not so delicate that they all need to play Snow White.  They’ll recover (unless, perhaps, they have to play Dopey).

A little competition, which will certainly be a feature of their adult lives, should be a feature (to a lesser extent, but still) of childhood.  It will do them no particular harm, and might do them quite a lot of good.  The evidence in favor of the “everybody wins, all the time” approach is flimsy.

Building safe little cocoons around our children is not the way.  Like the butterfly, if we help them too much they will not develop the strength to survive.

Life Lessons I Wish I’d Known Earlier June 29, 2008

This post will undoubtedly end up being Part One of a series, unless I just stop learning stuff.  But for now, let me just take a minute to jot down a few key things I’ve learned.  Call it My Life’s Lessons: So Far.

• People give away their beliefs in what they do, not in what they say.  When I wake up each morning my alarm clock is tuned to NPR, and at the time I wake the program that is often on is called “This I Believe.”  It is a program in which they simply ask various people, from all walks of life, what it is they believe.  A while ago, I lay there listening to Sister Helen Prejean, a nun whose work in inner city New Orleans and with death row inmates formed the basis of the book “Dead Man Walking.”  She said, over and over that morning, something that has stuck with me ever since.  She said, “I watch what I do, to teach myself what it is I really believe.” Truer words have rarely been spoken.
• Perfect is the enemy of Good.  Seeking perfection is the world’s fastest road to complete inaction.  It was LeGrand Richards who said: “For every problem under the sun / There is a solution, or there is none. / Where there is one, then hurry and find it, / And where there is none, then never mind it.”  You just do the best you can in this life, I think.  I have often said that my own career amounted to this: I walked into my office every day and did the best work I could until someone finally noticed.  It was just pure, hard work — the same kind of work I did on farms or in a lumber mill growing up.  I never expected perfection, or really even excellence (except of intent and effort).  That attitude has served me very well.
• Wandering is not the same thing as being lost.  I was into my 30s before I really struck on anything you could call a career path, and I’m now a very long way from the one on which I originally started  (teaching and coaching).  I used to worry about that; now it seems to me that I was never really lost, and it seems that almost every experience gained from all that fooling around has helped me more than my masters’ degree ever did.
• Forgiveness of someone who has wronged you is a gift you offer yourself.  Some people act as though forgiving an erstwhile enemy is a noble, tremendous offering to the one who wronged them.  It isn’t even close to that.  They aren’t off the hook, after all, even when we forgive.  They will pay the price eventually, either through anguish of soul or through karma.  All that we do when we forgive is this: we end the misery that the incident has caused us.
• No one wants to listen to your litany of childhood hurts.  Nothing is less interesting than having to listen to someone use incidents, however difficult, from years ago to explain away bad behavior in the present.  The statute of limitations on almost all tragedies is a short few years (at most); then we pack up and move on and try to become better people in the bargain.
• Years from now, you’ll wonder why you were afraid.  Despite all of the time I’ve spent on dreaming up worst-case scenarios, I don’t think one has ever happened.  More interesting (to me) than that: sometimes I thought one was happening, but in retrospect it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be.  Pretty much everything can be recovered from.
• You’ll also laugh at once being awestruck.  Awe is a misplaced emotion: one day you’re dazzled to be on an elevator with the Vice President of Marketing; a few (really short) years later, you’re the Senior Vice President of Marketing, and you’re puzzled at why the young guy on the elevator seems so nervous to be around you.
• Unfortunately, the person in charge of any relationship is the one who cares the least about it.  It’s just like a negotiation, where the person who really can walk away from the deal is the almost certain winner.  I guess this isn’t advice that says, “Don’t care,” so much as it’s an observation to guard in your relationships against unevenness.
• Always conform behavior to belief, and not vice-versa.  The most common, and tragic, thing in the world is to watch people we love as they begin to adjust their entire belief system to accomodate their poor choices.  And they’re not even concerned about their own thought processes.  Be skeptical of any system of belief that does not ask you to improve yourself from where you are, and be especially suspicious if you find that your views have changed at roughly the same time your behavior changed.
• If the map doesn’t agree with the ground, the map is wrong.  We create, or we have created for us, a picture of how life should be.  When we reach a point where our mental map just doesn’t resemble anything we see going on around us, we need a new mental map.  Living successfully will almost always require us to adjust, to be nimble.  If we remember what we learned above and are cautious about adjustments based on our own behavior, then we learn that a certain amount of flexibility will lead us to some of our most treasured outcomes.
• When faced with a choice, take the one that opens up more options.  The primary reason that additional education is almost always a good choice (up to a point, of course) is that it tends to open up options for you.  And options are one of life’s most valuable commodities.

What are your best lessons?

Ten Books You Might Not Have Read Yet… But Should June 25, 2008

I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m an omnivorous reader.  I’ll read about history, physics, math, religion, science, business or technology, and I read gobs of novels.  I was reviewing some of the books I’ve really enjoyed, and thought I’d share ten that you may not have read:

1. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, by David Fromkin.  I could not put this down, as it described the arrogance and folly that seeded the current middle eastern crises.  It’s a story that’s been told before, but never with the eloquence, erudition, and the telling eye for detail of David Fromkin.
2. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card.  This, along with perhaps Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, is Science Fiction 101.  Even if you don’t like sci-fi: I defy you not to be mesmerized by this amazing story.
3. When the Game Stands Tall: The Story of the De La Salle Spartans and Football’s Longest Winning Streak, by Neil Hayes.  A truly remarkable true story of a football coach, Bob Ladoceur, who genuinely cares more about teaching young men than he does about wins and losses.  He never… I mean, never… talks about winning or losing.  All that happens as he focuses solely on “doing things right” is: his team does not lose a single football game for over 12 years, despite playing one of the toughest schedules in the nation.
4. Fermat’s Enigma, by Simon Singh.  Singh is an awesome writer about all things science and math, having also written The Code Book (about cryptography) and The Big Bang (about, well, the big bang).  This is the story of a quest stretching over hundreds of years to produce a proof for the last theorem of 17th-century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat.  It is a better story than you could imagine, full of hard work, sleuthing, and luck.  I know you don’t believe me, but this is a great book.
5. Misquoting Jesus: The Story of Who Changed the Bible, and Why, by Bart Ehrman.  Ehrman is the chairman of the department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, and he has written an amazing, accessible book that will teach you a great deal about how our current Bible came to be.
6. The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafron.  What a novel.  A young boy’s bibliophile father introduces him to the single work of an obscure author, Julian Carax.  The boy loves the novel so much that he begins to seek out both the author and any other work of his, only to discover that someone is systematically ridding the world of every trace of Carax’s work.  But why?  A really interesting whodunit ensues.
7. The Brothers K, by David James Duncan.  Duncan, the author of another great book in The River Why, spins the tale of the Chance family, led by disappointed former minor league baseball player Papa Toe Chance.  It is a crazy-quilt of religion, family tension, politics and baseball, and it is wonderful on every page.  I read this on a vacation that I hardly remember, as I was so engrossed in the book.
8. Moneyball, by Michael Lewis.  Well, you might have read this one; a lot of people did.  What those people did not know, though, is that they were reading the single best business book I’ve ever read.  They thought it was a baseball story.  Lewis attempts to answer a single question about the Oakland A’s baseball team: with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, why are they always so good?  The answer applies to all businesses.
9. The Lost Painting, by Jonathan Harr.  Can a true story about a couple of art historians figuring out the whereabouts of a lost Caravaggio masterpiece actually be incredibly interesting and fun to read?  The answer, surpisingly, is yes.
10. Pistol: the Life of Pete Maravich, by Mark Kriegel.  The all-time leading scorer in college basketball history was beset by demons, not least of which was a coach/father who lived through his son’s exploits.  Like The Great Santini, only true.

Got any of your own?

Men: Let’s Get a Few Things Straight June 24, 2008

I work in tech.  As a practical matter, this means that I work in an extremely multicultural environment.  Tech people come from the U.S., India, Japan, China, Korea, Scandinavia, Eastern Bloc countries, the U.K., and more.  A typical office at lunchtime will fill with smells ranging from curry to kimchi.

But most of us share three things: We like tech, we like science fiction, and we cannot dress ourselves properly.

I find that this last one applies across a number of industries, to be honest, and maybe I’m an offender.  But there are a few things I have come to know about getting dressed in the morning, and I thought I’d share them for those who may be even more clueless than I.

1. Repeat after me: Your belt matches your shoes.  Breaking this rule automatically brands you as a goober.
2. Perhaps even more important: your socks match the color of your pants.  You may wear white socks with the combination of jeans and athletic shoes.  But frankly, if you’re an adult, why are you wearing jeans and athletic shoes when you know that you’d look better with brown shoes (or, even better, suede shoes)?
3. If you wear socks with sandals you are an embarassment to all who know you.  The look on your wife’s face is horror.
4. You may wear black jeans if your name is Ric Ocasek.
5. You may wear torn jeans if you are either: (a) under 23; (b) an actual hobo; or (c) George Michael.
6. You may wear jeans with paint splatters if you are actually in the process of painting a home.  Or, see 5(c) above.
7. You may wear white jeans if you enjoy the scorn and derision of all you encounter.
8. You may wear skinny jeans if… no, wait.  No one can wear skinny jeans.
9. A tuxedo is black.  Period.  A faux “tux” of any other color is also referred to as a “What Was I Thinking?” suit.  Maybe…maybe… we can make exceptions for extremely dark versions of other colors, so long as they look black in the right light.  And then only if your date insists.
10. The single difference between a nice-looking suit and a suit that makes you look like a fourth-grader playing dress-up is a tailor.  For $50-$75, you can make just about any suit look good on you.
11. Note to urban hipsters: vintage clothing is primarily for Halloween.  You are not Cosmo Kramer.
12. Special note for prom and weddings: Special occasions do not allow you to forgo #9 above.  Your date may well be wearing a yellow dress.  Okay.  This does not mean that, if you wear a yellow suit or “tux,” you look any less like Big Bird.  Wear the black, and put on a yellow tie.
13. A navy blue suit cries out for the brown shoes and belt, not the black.
14. Please, please, I beg you: if you are wearing a white shirt or a thin shirt of any kind: the t-shirt is your best friend.
15. If one of your ties is an American flag, you are not patriotic.  You are an eyesore.
16. A fur tie in winter, however: well, that’s just funny enough that it works.
17. To the often-asked question of “which buttons do I button on a suit?”, the answer is: (a) none, or (b) on a two- or three-button suit, any combination that excludes the bottom button.  You may button all the buttons on a suitcoat or sportcoat if you are Pee Wee Herman.
18. Wardrobe staples include: khaki pants, a blue blazer, black dress shoes, brown dress shoes, jeans that you love, a pea coat, a couple of good watches, and a suit that fits you.
19. Pleats mostly look bad on men.  Wear flat-front pants.
20. A pox on you if you would even consider wearing leather pants.  Some information about you is simply not to be readily known.
21. European men sometimes wear pants that are salmon, green, yellow, orange or even Madras (patchwork).  You sometimes see them on preppies in New England, as well.  This is an important part of why we make fun of those people.
22. Your girlfriend will tell you that you look good in pink.  This is because she secretly hates you.
23. Your jeans may have exotic embroidering on the back pocket if you intend to undergo gender-reassignment surgery this week.
24. If you are ironing or (heaven forbid) creasing your jeans, you have vastly too much time on your hands.  Step away from the board, Sparky, before you hurt someone.
25. Do your wardrobe and your back a favor and get a front-pocket slim wallet.

Anyone else want to contribute?

Suggesting Great Band Names June 18, 2008

Okay, everyone: On TV last night I watched one of my favorite rockabilly performers, The Reverend Horton Heat.  He’s pretty darn good, and let’s admit that it’s a great name.  In his honor, join me in suggesting awesome band names.  (And by “awesome,” I mean “bizarre.”)  Here’s my list:

1. The Benign Polyps
2. Giant Sucking Sound (hats off to Ross Perot for that one)
3. The Dipthongs
4. Free Radicals
5. Chief Bender and the Monks of Peckham    (Chief Bender was a pitcher for the Philadelphia A’s; John Peckham was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1200’s)
6. Judge Learned Hand    (Actual name of perhaps the most influential jurist never to serve on the Supreme Court)
7. Cubicle Tension
8. Parker Bowles and the Adenoids
9. Fluid Moves   (A little double entendre)
10. Kareem O. Wheat and the Huguenots

Anyone looking for a band name: never say I didn’t do anything for ya.

Your ideas?

On Early-20s Marriage June 14, 2008

My current job in the Mormon Church has me attending the Bay Ward (ward = congregation) in San Francisco a lot.  It’s an interesting congregation, sort of a cross between a regular ward and a married students’ ward.  About 1/4 of the members are regulars who’ve been attending there for a long time,  and nearly 3/4 are married couples who just graduated from college and have either started work or are in grad school (typically dental school) in San Francisco.  As I look at those couples, I’m developing some observations:

1.  There’s really no magic age for getting married.  Some people are really ready to be married at 23 (as I think my son Reid was when he married Britta), and some aren’t.

2.  It’s not about maturity, either.  There are very, very mature 28-year-olds who are not ready to be married.  They’ve handled school admirably, they are model workers, and they are put-together people, but it’s not time yet.

3.  It seems clear to me that some people got married because they are in love with the idea of being married, and they’re in love with their spouse, and that’s pretty much it.  It’s not enough, by far.  I won’t name names, but one couple in the ward is headed for trouble, if you ask me, because they weren’t close to readiness for marriage.

So what is it?  What makes some of these kids ready, and others not?  Here’s what I think:

1.  The marriage of two completed people.  Sometimes, when it’s completely obvious, we talk about this correctly without even knowing it: “(S)he has some growing up to do.”  What that means is this: He or she is going to change too much in the next few years for this to be a stable marriage.  It might survive, to be sure, but the ride will be bumpy.

The process of growing up is not sudden — it happens slowly, by degrees, and it takes whatever time it takes.  It’s different for everyone.  How would a parent know (or a kid know) if this requirement is met?

A couple of ways:  (a) We cannot see major fundamental changes coming.  They don’t need help with kindness, or confidence (or with toning down overconfidence), or commitment, or dependability, or any of the other central elements of adulthood.  I think a perfect example of this is my daughter-in-law Britta — I am completely certain of what she will be like at 40, in fundamental ways.  She may look different by then, and she’ll surely have different challenges and opportunities.  But she will be almost exactly as she is right now.

(b) They are absolutely independent people.  I think most people would interpret this as a financial statement.  I don’t mean it that way.  What I mean is: they depend on nobody for their becoming.  If a young woman is needing to develop confidence in order to become the strong woman she is going to be, it will be a great detriment to her if she leans on her husband for the development of that confidence.   It will be stronger and more settled if she developed that on her own.

2.  Similar positions on central questions.  The couple should not be way off on any of the central questions of a long life together:  How many children will we have?  What is our position on religion, particularly with respect to raising children?  How do we feel about work (hours, type, etc.)?  What is the role of money in our lives?  Are we of a similar mind with respect to material things (i.e., is one spouse a shopper and the other incredibly frugal)?  These and other questions loom large, and are often not adequately addressed.

There is a couple in the Bay Ward where I have asked each spouse how many children they thought they’d have.  One answered, “eight,” and the other answered, “three.”  Would have been a good conversation to have ahead of time.  On a positive note, another couple is religiously mixed: one is a Mormon, the other is not affiliated with any religion (but doesn’t see herself joining her husband).  But they are committed to raising their kids Mormon, and the wife is almost unbelievably supportive of that.

In this congregation, particularly, I see huge disagreements over work issues.  Often one spouse, in trying to get a career started, commits a lot of time to work.  And very often, the other spouse is hugely resentful.  I’ve seen it work well, too, though: one young husband told me that his wife always waits up for him, even if he works past midnight, and they stay up for a bit and talk and eat a bowl of late-night cereal.  She is always cheerful, and asks probing questions about his day.  I can only say: wow.

(A side note: I think young spouses often put their partners between a rock and a hard place here.  If they don’t work their butts off, they’re lazy; but if they do, they’re aloof and distant.  Give them a break.  They’re doing their best to please you, mostly.)

3.  Clear eyes about marriage.  I don’t exactly buy into the notion that marriage is hard work; at least I’m certain that it’s not always hard work, or there is real trouble.  But one thing is for certain: It is mostly easier being single.  I was at the 25th wedding anniversary of a friend recently, and he deadpanned the following: “They say that your wife is a person who can guide you and help you through all of the problems you never would have had if you hadn’t gotten married in the first place.”  Kidding, of course, but still.

Marriage is an intentional crimp in a person’s style, and it stays that way.  A couple may golf together now, and that’s part of the fun, but they won’t always.  Kids will come along, and schedules and priorities will no longer be a match.  At least, they won’t be a match for couples golf.  Suddenly, neither spouse is playing much golf.  Hope that wasn’t a big part of the fun.

Early-20s marriage is even more challenging: finances will almost always be incredibly challenging, especially when a couple is in school but even for a while afterwards.  I’m shocked at some of the places these couples live.  Wow.

But it’s more than just money: high-pressure school or early career, dealing with brand-new in-laws, often a separation of paths (you were once both students, now both of you are doing different things), etc.

What’s important is that each person not be in love with the concept of marriage, as though marriage will cure all of their life’s ills.  Marriage, it turns out, is a critically important step in the process of becoming a whole person.  If it isn’t in the cards for a person to marry, then they will need to fill in gaps to complete the process (as many do, very successfully).  What it is not, is a constant picnic.

I think you should love what marriage promises to make you, love the process of becoming that marriage offers.

Life, it turns out, is a mostly solitary process of improvement: your spouse is a helpmeet, and even a critical partner, but you become a better person all of your life alone.

4.  A similar process for dealing with problems.  This is pretty simple: it sure doesn’t help if a yeller is matched up with a quiet “let’s solve this together” type.

Of these, I’m stuck on the “completed people” notion.  I think it would help a lot of these young marriages I’m seeing if they’d waited to finish their growing.  Hard thing to admit to yourself, I guess: that there’s more work to do on yourself first.  I think most of these marriages are going to work out, though, because of a shared commitment.  And maybe that’s ultimately the biggest thing of all: sometimes as a boss at work, I have allowed no “Plan B,” in order to force full commitment.  That could be the best predictor: over against the difficult stuff of marriage, there’s this one thing that beats all — a firm commitment to succeed at it.