"'men are expected to produce' more than they consume. "
A reader sent me an interesting New York Times article on single men becoming disenchanted with homeownership. I can understand that, homes are a pain and seem to be a never ending source of expense. As I read the article, this comment by psychologist Roy Baumeister 
got me pondering on what kind of deal men are getting these days:
Maybe like giving up on home ownership, it's time for men to give up on being the producers in society and let others fend for themselves. It seems that's what many of the younger guys in the next generation are doing. What do you think, should men continue to produce for a society that devalues them and their work? Or, should they produce for themselves and let others pick up the slack?
got me pondering on what kind of deal men are getting these days:Men have no monopoly on domestic discontent. There are also women who wish they had signed their mortgage with disappearing ink. But for men, rejecting homeownership may involve broader questions of manhood, said Dr. Roy Baumeister, a psychology professor at Florida State University.
“There are a lot of extra stresses that men have,” he said, a claim he advances in a book to be published in the summer, “Is There Anything Good About Men?” (Short answer: probably.)
In almost every culture, Dr. Baumeister said, “men are expected to produce” more than they consume. In a similar fashion, men naturally compete for status. Buying a home, he said, is often tied up with those pressures.
Maybe like giving up on home ownership, it's time for men to give up on being the producers in society and let others fend for themselves. It seems that's what many of the younger guys in the next generation are doing. What do you think, should men continue to produce for a society that devalues them and their work? Or, should they produce for themselves and let others pick up the slack?
posted by Helen at 2:26 PM
126 Comments:
My experience has been that this is an issue (and the broader one that men DO have different stresses on them than women) that *some* women will steadfastly refuse to see or acknowledge or realize.
In many cases (and it's also the fault of the individual man), he has to "buy" his intimacy. I'm not talking about direct prostitution, I'm talking about the probably natural biological or evolutionary fact that women are attracted to certain things and they differ from the things men are attracted to in general.
And some of the same women who refuse to see that - or will even get mad that anyone mentions it - are among the most materialistic, money-grubbing people I have met (with men as their means, of course, not their own hard work). And lots of men feel great about getting used in that way. Bizarre.
I understand from real estate agents that wives are usually the one driving the purchase of a bigger house.
That also reflects my experience with friends and family.
Let the parasites and tax eaters fend for themselves.
I'm a single man and I've to put up with a lot of queries from people about why I live in an apartment. I've enough income to buy a home, but the problem is that suburbia is a horrible place to live when you're single and housing prices in the city are insane.
I know far too many men who've bought houses by themselves and are now being bled socially and monetarily. Chances to meet other people decline and there are always the unforeseen, expensive costs for houses. The only upside to the 'burbs is that it's easier to grow pot.
Even without the loose monetary policy of the Fed over the past few decades, single men are looking at houses whose price tags have gone north because of the growth in two income families. Even worse: The single male homeowners I know are stuck with their decisions. They can't sell and do the things that they want to do (pursue another degree, travel) because of the house.
Single men really should be disenchanted with home ownership and should focus instead on long term saving. It's better to cash out early and retire to a male-friendly country where the women are warmer and the unpleasantness of modern life is absent.
For American men to "Go Galt" en masse, sustaining their own lives with nothing left over for anyone else to loot, would bring down the United States as surely as a saturation nuclear attack.
That's not to say it isn't morally defensible. It could even be the right thing to do. But we must be clear-eyed about the costs. We're talking about knocking the greatest society on Earth back to a subsistence level. Destroying virtually every industry that relies upon human productivity. Eliminating the productive base that makes our armed forces possible.
I'm not keen on the idea of living in the sort of nation we'd have after that...if we had a nation at all.
"Mr. Greenburg has belatedly come to the same conclusion. “I was perfectly content to be in a rental, but I thought it didn’t make financial sense,” he said."
In grad school, I was admonished by my classmates who were gung-ho about acquiring property - "you don't build any equity." I shot back two points:
(a) The concept of a house as a usable item that also gains value over time is totally unlike any other modern consumable and probably an illusion. (The housing crash showed my instinct to be correct.)
(b) The freedom of movement enabled by renting is worth at least as much as "equity" for that period of my life in which I want to enjoy it.
The argument that was (almost) unique to me is that I didn't want to live in the smug, high-cost-of-living region I went to grad school in (northern California).
I kind of bobbled around in my '20s, going to grad school and then law school and also traveling some.
So at age 30 (a coupe of decades ago), I was just starting out. I still remember I had a double date, and the woman was almost mocking me because I didn't have a house at that time.
It's almost like she couldn't wait a couple of years to get her hands on the money that a man produces. LOL
I know the politically correct thing is to say that a few women are like that, but my experience is that a LOT are like that, they just hide it very well. After I finally got some money, it's like they all come out of the woodwork.
I must append that the silliest aspect of real estate social pressure is an argument offered in favor of renting: "as a homeowner you have to pay the property taxes."
Someone said this to me and revealed himself an absolute moron. Like the half of Social Security the employer "pays," the landlord will simply pass on property taxes to the tenants.
"... the landlord will simply pass on property taxes to the tenants."
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I don't think it's that cut-and-dried, Topher. Rents are not just solely set based on an accumulation of costs that the landlord has. Competition, regulations and a number of other factors also enter into the picture.
As an extreme example, do you think property taxes are fully "passed on" to a rent controlled apartment in New York?
I think real life is different than economics textbooks.
Another example: Homeowner Bill pays his mortgage and property taxes. Renter Jim pays rent.
Suddenly, the city builds an airport close to Bill and Jim. Jim moves out.
Rick moves into the apartment and pays LESS rent (probably). Homeowner Bill pays the same amount of money every month.
I've never read an economics textbook, but if "Competition, regulations and a number of other factors also enter into the picture," then with competition, regulations et al being equal among landlords in the same neighborhood/city, why wouldn't they all raise rents in accordance with property taxes?
People can't sell a product at below-cost for long before they go out of business.
"As an extreme example, do you think property taxes are fully "passed on" to a rent controlled apartment in New York?"
"People can't sell a product at below-cost for long before they go out of business."
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Well, they may have had an excessive profit to start out with.
My only point here is that I DON'T think that rents always go exactly in sync with property taxes, or that property taxes are invariably passed along in a direct 1:1 sense.
I tried to give a few examples, but I'll decline a pissing contest.
Blogger Francis W. Porretto said...
For American men to "Go Galt" en masse, sustaining their own lives with nothing left over for anyone else to loot, would bring down the United States as surely as a saturation nuclear attack.
That's not to say it isn't morally defensible. It could even be the right thing to do. But we must be clear-eyed about the costs. We're talking about knocking the greatest society on Earth back to a subsistence level. Destroying virtually every industry that relies upon human productivity. Eliminating the productive base that makes our armed forces possible.
I'm not keen on the idea of living in the sort of nation we'd have after that...if we had a nation at all.
So I should knock myself out producing and acquiring wealth and paying taxes because it's for the "greater good" while there are others happy to sponge off of my efforts? I don't think so. I'm not interested in supporting those who could support themselves, but choose to take from me instead. Home ownership as an investment is a myth sold to the middle class, and is not a reasonable investment tool.
The problem isn't the men who choose not to produce, but the many who choose to be leeches.
I'm with Milwaukee on this in many ways. I could hardly care less about social status. I'm oriented towards activities, being able to do what I want to do as conveniently as possible. This is one reason I live in a rural area.
Living in a small town can give you some perspective, too. It's funny and sad to watch people trying their damnedest to be a big fish in a small pond.
I strive to produce for myself and my children. I hope to leave them something when I die. To meet these goals, I'm sure I produce more than I consume (much more probably) but that's not my intent. It's just an unintended (on my part) result of my job.
Men who think they are being "Real Men" by supporting some expoitive, lazy leech of a woman are severely misguided.
Ultimately, it's their business, I guess, if they want to keel over from a heart attack after supporting some ungrateful pig for decades. But I guess I can still comment on it - and maybe a bit of doubt will start to creep into the minds of these "chivalrous" men.
You don't have to take her crap. You don't have to be a slave to your sex drive. You don't have to view her as anything other than a human being (hint: she's not a goddess up on a pedestal in a white flowing dress).
That's an opinion that I have come to slowly, over decades, and after watching how men and women behave. But the world keeps turning and it all repeats itself.
as a former home-owner living in a rented home with my former home-owning girlfriend, i can safely say that we have substantially reduced our monthly household costs by renting.
what cost us in the region of $2200 per month now costs us $1650 for a substantially nicer home in a better neigbourhood (these costs were based on her mortgage and tax bill as i relinquished my ownership 3 years ago in court.)
the savings enable us to keep her daughter in school for another year and allow us a trip to scotland in the spring and put some money aside for marketing for my business.
Lots of people in the article are totally unable to fix things - the intrinsic male "handyman" is gone. I think this is an inevitable consequence of a white-collar economy.
Our domestic technology is also too big and complicated for amateurs; people can't even work on their cars anymore without disrupting the sensitive sensors and computer systems on board (and having the EPA come after you, or voiding the warranty.)
I don't think the article made its headline case very well - a precipitous fall in single-male home ownership is not apparent.
What the article did hit well was the vocalized dislike and depression regarding what we were told and taught was a fundamental part of mainstream American life.
In that vein, over the past few years I have seen voice given to anxiety about the following:
(a) Home ownership
(b) Marriage
(c) Having children
(d) Workaholic job habits and the commensurate salaries
(e) (to some degree) High-priced college degrees
Some of these run together - if you eliminate (c) for example, the pressure to have (a), (b) and (d) is considerably lower. Likewise (a) and (d) can follow from (b) if you have or get divorced and have to pay a salary to your ex.
These worries have always been around, but there's less stigma to saying them. People now feel much safer saying things like "I love my kids, but I'm not sure I should have had children (or had as many children)." Only Anne Sexton got away with that back in the day.
Likewise with this article - people are really bummed out by housework and mortgages. People have hated taking care of houses forever, but it's more and more acceptable "this is not the life for me." They sometimes find the freedom they were sold is really materialist slavery (not to mention the possibility of eminent domain).
I won't go into the arguments against modern marriage which have been discussed here many times.
Unless you have expensive tastes, the treadmill working life is really not required if you aren't supporting a non-working spouse, kids and a home that eats money. (Expensive tastes are another thing marketed by the 'American dream' people.)
This all sounds very Fight Club, but I am actually heartened to see more people voicing these concerns.
"... if you aren't supporting a non-working spouse"
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I can see a "non-working spouse" if she's got little kids at home.
But if you are talking about a lifetime, and especially when no kids are involved, or they are in school, why in the hell would a man support a "non-working spouse"?
If you're that stupid, then maybe you deserve a life of wage-slavery with an early death due to stress.
Unbelievable that people like that exist.
One other thing: Helen is sharp to focus her blog on the psychologist's quote that men are expected to be producers, with surplus left over. The expectation is still there that a man must "feather his nest" to induce a woman's desire to be with him, which led to the psychoanalytic and unsubstantiated claim in the article that angst over home ownership was threatening the collective male ego.
Curiously, the article didn't focus on one of the archetypal memes of disenchanted men - the man in a house bigger than he wants, working a job he hates to pay for a wife who demands the best things so she can keep up (and beat) the Joneses...but being the NYT, that would have been a little too radical.
Men have been listening to the lessons feminists taught their daughters, and turned them for their own good:
1. The mantra of "find yourself" (which from what I can tell was a thin veil over a call to a lifestyle of self-centered licentiousness) has begun to be heard by men, as many do away with climbing the corporate ladder and blowing a wad of earning power on a marriage that can bankrupt them. If a woman doesn't need a man, why does a man need a woman?
2. Women were told to be sexually "free," but took it waaaay too far with disgusting displays of raunch. This further induced men to not take them seriously (men don't want to marry women who disrespect themselves). Also, this trend have enabled men to get more (and acceptable) sex without marriage and the material trappings therein.
Well, there are two issues here: "men" and home ownership. That first part has been under attach for 50 years. Androgyny and girlie-man behavior is enforced and applauded, so finding a man under age 40 with no military background is a non-trivial problem. (Sports may also help in this regard, as well as exceptional parenting.) My definition: tough, independent, courageous, self-sufficient, steadfast. Sounds sort of dated, or old-fashioned, doesn't it? There are reasons for that.
As for home ownership, all I'd say is that it should never be an automatic decision, and never for investment purposes. Set up an investment program *first*, then consider buying a home if it makes sense given other factors. And have an answer to the question, "What if the housing market collapses?" Because it will. It always does, eventually. Plan on it. Murphy never sleeps.
"... so finding a man under age 40 with no military background is a non-trivial problem."
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Yes, because not having a military background is the same as being a girlie-man.
Sounds like we've got an Internet Tough Guy here.
LOL
Galt, baby, Galt. Let the Wesley Mouches of the world figure out thievery is not a good plan.
"... the landlord will simply pass on property taxes to the tenants."
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I don't think it's that cut-and-dried, Topher. Rents are not just solely set based on an accumulation of costs that the landlord has. Competition, regulations and a number of other factors also enter into the picture.
As an extreme example, do you think property taxes are fully "passed on" to a rent controlled apartment in New York?
Here in California, we have rent control for homeowners...two identical homes next to each other could be paying wildly differing taxes. We sold our house last year and now pay less in rent that we used to pay in property taxes. The home we are renting is a little more modest, but this rental pays a fraction of it's fair market value property tax. This is another manly "John Galt" item to factor in.
I went through the whole divorce thing here in New York City and, being a man, lost at every step of the way, including the appeal. Losing not only my case in court but also contact with my child, I soon realized that I was being treated as a nonentity by the state. This lead me to question why I should I contribute taxes to a state which does not recognize me as a human being. I found a way to get myself onto welfare. And not only have I not contributed a penny in taxes to the state which denies me my rights as a father, I have now lived more than ten years at the expense of the state (which, by the way, is quite generous to people on welfare). The bottom line: if the state does not recognize my rights, I will not contribute to the welfare of the state, and I will do whatever I can to make the state's mistake a costly one to the state.
There is already a group dedicated to this called Men Going There Own Way. MGTOW.
MGTOW.
I'm becoming a convert.
But here's something for younger men, do an experiment:
If a cute woman flirts with you or expects you to behave a certain way ... just don't behave in that way. See what reaction you get.
Don't worry, you will get another chance to have sex in your life.
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As for the rest, I wholeheartedly concur with the foolishness of paying for a stay-at-home pig. She will twist it around that YOU are the bad guy, because all you have to do is go to work, while she does the important job of ... whatever it is that she does.
Save her from that with all your chivalristic might: Don't put a woman in that position. Don't live with her or marry her. You'll even have a better sex life if you live apart.
Buying ot not buying a home should be a rational economic decision. If you can't put up with the static from your wife, like I did, while you wait for prices to become reasonable then you probably shouldn't get married. The flip side of being expected to produce more than you consume is taking control of the extra assets. If you let society, or society through your spouse, take control then you're a hapless wimp. Man up!
Save her, save her. You are an evil man who just makes her sit at home watching Oprah.
Save her from that. Otherwise you are a bad man.
IR1 sez:
"Man up!"
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Yes, IR1, men should beat up the agents of society, like the entire police force and army.
When I hear "man up", I think it's either coming from some woman who wants something from me, and manipulation is her tool, or it's coming from a young guy who has not sorted out his own masculinity.
In any case, I'll be sure to "man up", dude.
Married men don't "buy" houses; they make monthly payments for the ones their wives pick out. No one can blame McMansion sprawl on American men. They're too big to mow, too small to plow, and you can't wear your boots inside. No man would ever sell himself into bondage for a property where you can't shoot pistols from the back porch.
A tiny percentage of boomer "homeowners" actually hold the quitclaim (or ever plan to), and know how much the real estate tax is (rather than having it deducted from escrow). It'll put you right off your feed, I promise you that.
You're not supposed to buy her a house, silly fellows. You're supposed to build it. The bed, too -- it's right there in the Iliad.
"Married men don't "buy" houses; they make monthly payments for the ones their wives pick out."
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Yup.
Should men bail at producing more than the consume? Hell no! Somebody has to advance our civilization, to create wealth, and knowledge.
I know many women do this as well, but if that is what it means to be a man, to be a producer and not a taker, than I'm proud to be a man.
BTW, a man's struggle is to retain that which he struggled to produce. That struggle is fully evolved at this time in our country. I'm trying to stop those who are try to confiscate my wealth.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nooyawka,
I'll do you one better.
(And apologize is this seems to jack the thread.)
Let's say you're a guy who was dumb, and got a girl who is also dumb pregnant.
If she wants to keep the child, and you don't, you lose.
If she wants to kill the child, and you don't, you lose.
If she wants to keep the child and you do, too, you win.
If she wants to kill the child, and you do, too, you win.
So the only way you win is if your wants align with hers.
Basically, when it comes to child rearing, you have no power at the most fundamental stage.
Is there any wonder, then, that so many young men "Go Galt" on their responsibilities as fathers? The only way for some men to gain back a little power is to run as far away as possible, and tell themselves and the world, "Hey, I didn't want the baby. Why should I feed and raise it? You breed it, you feed it."
I hope I'm not coming off as though I accept it - though the logic is there, nonetheless, but then I'm not flippant about what's being done in the name of "choice."
Also, I admire those who have the temerity to Go Galt. Good for you. I dream of it myself in a lot of ways.
We postulate that civilization would fall apart if men gave up their burdens. But isn't that the same thing we see in Russia today, now that the vast majority of pregnancies end up in abortion? You see a depressed, gangster culture (that's with an er, not an a), rotten with corruption, that is literally dying - losing 1 million people a year - where the brightest futures are in crime, oppressing your neighbor through politics, or fleeing like rats off a sinking ship. Come to think of it, that sounds like HopeNChange.
From 1966 to 1989 I was a student or military member and lived in rentals or government quarters. I never felt the less for it. I first bought a house at a 10% mortgage because of the woman in my life. I now own two houses for the same reason. Women crave property. I have always produced more than I consumed and I am glad I can.
JG said something about 'maybe they were making too much profit in the first place'
Well, hell, Komrade JG, who died & put you in charge of determining how much profit was "too much"? Kinda tired of hearing idiots like you knock the free enterprise sustem. Just keep voting for socialism and all the rest of us will just retire early and let YOU pay for everyone!
"When I hear "man up", I think it's either coming from some woman who wants something from me, and manipulation is her tool, or it's coming from a young guy who has not sorted out his own masculinity."
I'm sure you know that there is a movement among divorcee' women today appealing to divorced men to "be a man" and not take alimony from a better-endowed ex-wife.
Hypocrisy at its best.
"The only way for some men to gain back a little power is to run as far away as possible ..."
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In the United States, they already figured that out. Your passport can be revoked (or just not issued), you will be tracked from state to state with garnishments and you will be put in jail on a cross-state basis.
You are going to do what Princess decides.
Thank God I never got a woman pregnant and never married.
I know I sound heartless against the backdrop of "it's for the child", but a cursory look at family court proceedings will convince you that it's not "for the child", it's for mommy. Otherwise they wouldn't have presumptions of giving the kid to mommy when it would be clearly better to be with dad.
Americans are simply hypnotized with all of the schmaltzy crap in the media.
"Should men bail at producing more than the consume? Hell no! Somebody has to advance our civilization, to create wealth, and knowledge...I'm trying to stop those who are try to confiscate my wealth."
This is a very interesting point. In a related exercise, engineers struggle with the fact that a very tiny subset of exceptional people invent, design and implement the technological advances that benefit all of society - especially today's leisure items like smartphones, MP3 players and the Internet.
And then that same society denigrates sci/tech people as nerds, dorks, beta-males and other such insults to their dignity.
Just to throw my anecdotes in the ring. I was raised believing that home ownership meant a great deal. In the early 90s I achieved my dream. And hated it. The sunk costs are huge; way beyond what most homeowners realize or admit. Beyond that, the inability for me to move to respond quickly to economic changes was very stressful.
That said, in a perfect market, a monthly renting would be slightly higher than a monthly mortgage payment (though the renter would be free of the down payment.)
However, we don't live in a perfect world. In many markets, including my own, rents are below market value for buyers. When house rentals are below market, that pushes townhouses down even more. Right now I live in a townhouse at an absurd low rent. Were I to buy a nice house up the street (which was sold just last year) my mortgage would be three times what I'm paying in rent and that's BEFORE taxes, higher gas and electric bills (due to it being a bigger house) and city fees and utilities (which are about $80 a month.)
So why are rents so skewed? A big reason is that any payment while waiting for a sale or for the market to recover is better than no payment. Get enough desperate owners and the resulting price war drives rents way down.
This is all amplified by self-deluded owners who still believe that the last 15 years in real estate are remotely typical. If owners really understood how deluded they were, they would walk away and the entire housing market would completely collapse in most regions of the country. So hurray for the self-deluded.
(For the record, I'm one of those weirdos who actually ran the numbers and who actually banks the money I'm saving by renting. In 30 years, I will be over $150,000 ahead than if I bought NOW. And that's assuming I don't move to a cheaper place, which I will in theory once my kids leave home. In reality, I'll probably move to a more expensive city that isn't kid friendly in exchange for a higher salary.)
Conservadad:
I'm not in charge of determining who makes what profit.
My point - if you take a look at the exchange above - was that maybe there was excessive profit, meaning that there was enough room to cut prices and still be above a loss situation. That was a specific response to Topher.
And from all that, you gather that I'm somewhere left of Karl Marx and that I "vote for socialism".
Unreal, dude. Go back to watching the Bowling Channel on TV.
Don't get married. Just find a woman who hates you and buy her a house!
Back on topic. I know two single men who bought homes. Both overbought, though one was back when our local market was slightly down and is probably okay. The other bought a 3500 square foot house last year. Why is a mystery to myself and my coworkers. He claims it's an "investment" (yet concedes that homes aren't investments.) My suspicion is that he thinks it will help land him an attractive upper-middle class wife.
"My suspicion is that he thinks it will help land him an attractive upper-middle class wife."
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And that's when his problems are going to REALLY start.
I wouldn't touch an "attractive upper middle class wife" today with a 20-foot barge pole.
That sounds like an ultra-high-maintenance using bitch to me today. No interest at all. I'd rather have someone who is fun and nice to be around.
"My suspicion is that he thinks it will help land him an attractive upper-middle class wife."
I find this development strange - I always thought that in the pre-60's era, two people got married young and got a house together - one didn't use a house as a material shibboleth to peacock himself to a mate. Am I wrong on this, or have things changed?
Or intelligent.
An "attractive upper middle class wife's" idea of intelligence is to make her husband pay for hundreds of leather-bound books from the "Masters of Literature" that she can decorate in the large shelves on a back wall. She has zero interest in anything that is contained in books, they are decorations that are a backdrop for her pompous displays of arrogance.
LOL
How is it we can see how 'feminism' has made women less happy, and now we are embracing similar philosophies for men in retaliation to what women have done?
Life sucks. So what. I can be a man and produce more than I make, provide for a female that won't bear me children, get a grad degree that won't get me a job. It all sucks. But not providing for someone is miserable too. Having a house that is mine and working to improve it (be it ever so humble) is satisfying.
So women want us to be as miserable as they are, and to 'go galt' so they can claim with some modicum of truth that they are the bearers of civilization.
(explitive) that. To be a man is to fight the good fight, win or lose, but die trying and not give up.
"And not to yield." Strongly expressed, Reuben, and a man's a man for all that. Yet I imagine this is what Eddie Willers was muttering under his breath, as he trudged away from the Comet.
@Amos,
Yes, you are correct that a father's choices are subordinate to the mother's choices. During the first 21 years of the child's life (or children's lives, if plural) the State now has a set of rules which makes fathers captives, including restrictions on passports. 'Going Galt' is very difficult during the period that the court has jurisdiction.
But don't give up. It can be done. There are lots of ways of being minimally cooperative while still satisfying the court's voracious demands.
And then, once the court loses jurisdiction ( = child is over 21) there is plenty of time for the father to make the court and the State pay for its previous depradations. Play the game right and you come out ahead.
As I have writen elsewhere, there are two major societal changes as a result of feminism since the 1960s:
1) women have become much more sexually available to men
2) the burden of costs of childrearing have been shifted from men to women.
Don't forget that until about 50 years ago a father not only paid for mother and child to stay at home until the child went to college but a father assumed he would pay for mother never to work for the rest of her days after child or children left home.
Now not only do we not have to pay all childrearing costs, mother has to work from the moment the child enters nursery school.
Some parts of the bargain are a bee-atch, but some parts of the bargain are sweet.
As a single man, I bought a house in 1997. Fortunately, I chose a multi-tenant house that enabled me to be a landlord and resident. The rentals covered the mortgage and taxes while I lived rent-free. I sold in 2008 for a *substantial* gain that is now my childrens' college fund.
I'm pretty sure my wife didn't marry me for the house, but it did enable me to build a substantial nest egg.
A house/mortgage certainly limits your mobility, but it can also provide stability and other intangibles...
Wait...is the issue that women are gold-diggers who pressure men into bad decisions to ensure their own financial security, or is it that men tend to pursue (and try to impress) the type of woman who would be a gold-digger? Is the issue that guys, in today's society especially, are conditioned to lust after the attractive, brainless arm candy rather than somebody less "hawt" who might be their intellectual and bread-winning equal? And where are your cajones, boys? You made the decision to buy a house. Don't go blaming it on the ladies. Just sayin'...
Agree with Reuben... Life sucks, but it's the only life we've got and I'd rather not be dead just yet.
As soon as I completed college & law school I began providing for a female (radical, feminist, lawyer, narcissist, harpy) who screwed up our 3 kids (despite their academic and athletic achievements), made my life a living hell, and who literally got the farm and 3 times the state-mandated child support (I agreed to it).
So I was single for awhile, had more money, more time, much sex, and a void.
Now I'm married again with a new baby 50 years younger than I am, in a house twice as big as the last one, making twice as much $$, and working on tomorrow's cases at 10 pm. But my wife is working with me, across the table...
I tried not overproducing and consuming all I produced, but it just didn't work for me.
Why not?
I'm a man.
I'm 40, college-educated. Have a genius-level IQ, but am currently unemployed. Single, no kids. Have given up on the dream of a wife, kids, and steady job. My primary concern these days is affording the prescriptions I need to survive. Do the math.
Men should go their own way. It's time for women to do the heavy lifting.
1+0=0
Got it!
Condolences...
Lindsay sez: "And where are your cajones, boys? You made the decision to buy a house. Don't go blaming it on the ladies."
----
*Yawn*
1996 called and wants your comment back.
You are parroting the crap from your women's studies class. That doesn't show intelligence, but instead the opposite. Men are human beings and can make mistakes and be manipulated.
Repeat: Men are human beings and can make mistakes and be manipulated.
Have some sympathy, dumpling. Just like you would have for a woman.
Lindsay/MB,
I'm not sure who you think is claiming "the womenfolk forced me to buy a house!"
No one in the NYT article said he bought a house to get girls - that was inferred by the reporter's handpicked psychologist expert witness.
The only suggestion I've seen in the comments to this effect is that wives manipulate husbands into buying bigger houses, or somebody's dumb friend thinks buying a house will impress some woman.
What about children?
For children to survive, adults must produce more than they consume. Men or women or both.
Re: Property taxes and renting.
Do landlords just pass along prop. tax costs to renters, per the discussion in 1st half of comments?
I have many years of being a landlord and am one now. I can tell you that the property taxes have nothing to do with the amount of the rent I charge. Nor in fact does the total amount of my monthly PITI.
The market moving average rental payment is deity. If the rent covers a landlord's expenses, he is happy. But he can't charge a "cover" rent if the market won't bear it. He either lets the property go empty or he takes a loss and bleeds the money. It's just that simple. Or he can try to sell the property, of course (good luck with that these days.)
Right now the rental market is good because people can't buy, but they still have to live somewhere. This increases rental demand and that drives rental amounts up. This is ameliorated somewhat by landlords such as I who would like to sell but can't or won't with the sales market so depressed, leading in turn to a large supply of rental property. But so far the demand is still larger than the supply. When my last tenant's lease expired, they moved out. I rented the house again in less than two weeks.
Once (if) the housing market recovers and homes start selling, rents will fall. Landlords who make their living landlording will have leaner times. Landlords such as me who want to sell will enjoy higher selling prices then than now.
@Lindsay,
You write "And where are your cajones, boys?"
I guess you don't realize when you write words like that no one reads the next sentence. A woman who writes words like that is betraying to the world that she has bought into a philosophy that has deluded the sisters, turned women into worker bees, made women willing sexual toys, and filled women with rage and resentment. I suspect it will take you a while, but eventually you will see that feminism has not served you well.
For many years during the 20th century many people thought socialism was the answer. So they dedicated their lives to socialism and all its intellectual blinders. What those adherents of that philosophy failed to notice was that socialism failed everywhere it was tried and it brought misery to many lives.
Do you think feminism will have a fate different from socialism? Does feminism survive today because it has made so many people happy? Or is it another state-run fraud that promises but doesn't deliver?
Realizing it's an article about single men and home ownership, I wonder at what I've read here and how it seems to depend, response-wise, on whether you are single-never-married or single-divorced.
I don't think people used to view home ownership as anything but a place to live. Of course, coming from a rural/farm background, that would be a bit more the norm. It seems people now look at houses as "investments" or something other (tool to get a woman) than a place to live.
Which is odd.
A house is a place to live, at it's barest definition.
Quoth Robert Heinlein:
"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as 'bad luck.'"
I'm reminded of the Misandry Bubble article over at The Futurist. The more I think about it, the more I believe that the Misandry Bubble is a real thing.
Granted "The Futurist" leaves a bunch of stuff out of his piece on the topic, and comes across like an arrogant prick, and these are not the biggest flaws in his essay. But overall I think he has a point, and wouldn't be surprised if the timeline he identifies in his essay turns out more or less as predicted.
I really think men are entirely too put-upon, and that, while businessmen will never entirely "shrug" in the Atlas Shrugs sense of the word (because they're busy keeping themselves fed if for no other reason), men as a gender have begun to "shrug" with respect to their obligations to others in general and women in particular, and will increasingly tend to do so.
This behavior does not force Atlas to undergo a radical reduction in lifestyle, as the improbable businessmen-working-as-menial-laborers scenario in Rand's book did. It instead allows them to pick exactly the behaviors that will give them the lifestyle they prefer, without regard to the needs of others.
Because after a while, men get tired of being dumped on and presumed upon and being made the butt of jokes. Who wants to produce for, let alone fight and die for, a society like that?
The only suggestion I've seen in the comments to this effect is that wives manipulate husbands into buying bigger houses....
Uh, that's because that's how it works. When selling homes, the man doesn't matter. You aim the sale at the woman. When remodeling for a sale, you also aim the changes at what women will want. You may not like this. You make think it's sexist and it probably is. But it's also reality.
I'm perhaps one of the "lucky" ones here. I have a wife I adore, and who adores me; that counts for a lot. I have house I like, that I can do anything I want in - and since I bought it 25 years ago, I don't have to worry about its "value". (California housing prices have always been crazy, and even the recent price drops haven't brought anything near "sanity" to the market.)
The comments about California property taxes are quite pertinent; if I were to sell my house and buy the one across the street for the same price, my property taxes would TRIPLE. Good thing I don't plan to move!
"Uh, that's because that's how it works."
Joe, the point I was making is that Lindsay suggested that single guys were buying houses to try to attract women, and shouldn't blame women for their own financial decisions; I responded by saying her impression was inaccurate and that the disdain was for wives who prod and manipulate their husbands into unsound financial commitments.
@Lindsay, Were I to mention that you can't even spell "cojones," I reckon I'd hear something about Da Patriarchy. The word you did use, "cajones," appears to derive from "cajole," which is what all too many women have been taught to do for their living.
That ain't how it 'sposed to be, and for some of us, it's not that way. But when you parade your grievances with the sick-sick-sick "American lifestyle," expect to hear who's into 'style' around these here parts. Want a hint?
We've been in a modest home for 16 years (paid off in 6), so weren't affected by the bubble. Better yet, our area never got too crazy in the first place, and, per a realtor friend, our house is in th e uppe end of the market segment that stil has some movement.
For a single guy (who is not intending to remain a bachelor) to buy a house seems ultimately foolish -- if you have a nicer house you risk attractingsome women for the wrong reasons (which aren't the basis for a solid marriage long term) OR, a more modest home is a waste of time, because when you do find the one you want to marry, it is very likely she will want a bigger place 'for the kids'.
Buying together is the only reasonable way to go.
On a semi-related note, a letter to Slate's advice columnist "Dear Prudence" complained that the writer's boyfriend was about to move into her house, and she was upset that he never made the bed when he slept over.
Putting aside the issue of whether it's anal retentive to flip out over the condition of a bed in a private room, the incident highlighted to me another problem with "shacking up." If one person moves into another person's dwelling, it's indistinct who the place will effectively belong to...how much does the second party get to "make it their own"?
No doubt the owner is going to exert some kind of "squatter's rights" to the condition and tidyness, and could resent the other's meddlings.
I'd imagine the stress would go double for a married couple - because now both sides _do_ own the house, but one got attached to it and put the cash down for it before the other was in the picture.
Much better just to buy together and make it a shared space.
> For American men to "Go Galt" en masse, sustaining their own lives with nothing left over for anyone else to loot, would bring down the United States as surely as a saturation nuclear attack.
Why can't women take up the slack?
> That's not to say it isn't morally defensible. It could even be the right thing to do. But we must be clear-eyed about the costs. We're talking about knocking the greatest society on Earth back to a subsistence level.
There are two possibilities.
(1) Women could take up the slack.
(2) Women can't take up the slack.
Either way, it's unclear why Porretto doesn't address women.
Andy Freeman:
The third possibility is:
(3) Women could take up the slack, but won't
Too many women today are Princesses. They don't do real work. They work part-time at Nordstroms until their Prince rides in on his white steed so that they can sit on their fat, lazy ass for everymore.
Lindsay,
I always find it a bit hypocritical and irritating when a woman assumes gender roles in men that she herself will never have to fulfill and then mocks them with "where are your cojones" or "be a real man" etc.
It's insulting, like telling you to shut up and get back in the kitchen.
But if everything is equal now, I can tell you this: I've got a lot more cojones than you have or will ever have.
@ Topher:
"(a) The concept of a house as a usable item that also gains value over time is totally unlike any other modern consumable and probably an illusion. (The housing crash showed my instinct to be correct.)"
Would you use a 100 year storm to persuade yourself to not go to the tropics? The housing crash proves nothing but that exceptional events sometime happen. I find your statement "a" to be fatuous, additionally, what homes traditionally are are inflation proof stores of value, and a 30 year moving average will show that they almost always are.
"(b) The freedom of movement enabled by renting is worth at least as much as "equity" for that period of my life in which I want to enjoy it."
That is almost certainly true.
My cojones (sorry, man) comment was about taking personal responsibility for your decisions rather than blaming them on others. I'm a happy non-homeowner. I would rather live in an apartment, and until I feel like it would be a good decision to do otherwise, I won't let anyone else -- mate or not -- make that decision for me to buy. I fail to see how that is a "socialist" or "feminist" comment.
The hate here stuns me, though. I'm not at fault for whoever tinkled in your Cheerios this morning, or whoever took you to the cleaners in divorce court (the gut-wrenching emotions are one reason I ran far, far away from the practice of family law). All I'm saying is that if all of us looked at marriage the way it should be -- two people who love each other and form a partnership to get through life together -- then maybe, just maybe there wouldn't be a reason for the bitterness. Neither partner should feel like the other isn't pulling their weight, unless that's what they want.
But hell, I'm an idealist. This probably why I'm still single!
"I find your statement "a" to be fatuous, additionally, what homes traditionally are are inflation proof stores of value, and a 30 year moving average will show that they almost always are."
You've called my argument fatuous without addressing its point. Here's the timeline:
1. Buy a house
2. Live in it, use it up, the walls get older, the siding gets older, the pipes get older, etc.
3. Sell it for a considerably higher price
It doesn't make any sense! No other commodity (i.e. rule out classic cars, numismatic items) material possession goes _up_ in value as it is used up. It's essentially a pyramid scheme, relying on a growing population and a "American dream" fantasy to keep demand (and price) up.
I grew up in a home where my folks were somewhat unhappy with the status quo of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, but that was what they had and they made the best of it. Father wasn't ever 'rich' but we were comfortable and had what we needed.
When I got out on my own, I ended up nearly getting married to a total leech. All of her problems were someone else's fault, and she went from guy to guy making sure they knew about it. Unfortunately, 'White Knight' syndrome kicked in, and I tried to make things better for her - which was pretty much a complete failure.
Nothing I ever did was good enough for her, nothing I could ever do would be satisfactory, and after a year it was a profound relief when she left me. (That I lost my car was, in retrospect, a very small price to pay for my sanity and life.)
Her 'help' with my finances caused me to go Chapter 13 about 5 months later, after losing my job and having difficulty finding another. Eventually I got a good restart, and got back on my feet (wasn't ever homeless per se, but came pretty darn close to it) - and started dating again. I was pretty phobic however - and it took a while to find a woman who was willing to be patient while I worked things out.
Lindsay - you said "Is the issue that guys, in today's society especially, are conditioned to lust after the attractive, brainless arm candy rather than somebody less "hawt" who might be their intellectual and bread-winning equal?"
There's a real part to that. I got burned BADLY by malicious 'arm candy', and it took some deep introspection to figure out that what I was continually looking for wasn't what I was really needing, or even really wanted.
I met an intelligent woman who I enjoyed talking to, who I actually LIKED and seemed to respect me for who I was, not what I could bring to the table. I was up front with her about my past, laying out my perceived flaws, that I had financial problems, and gave her a broad general diagram of the psychic minefield the leech had diligently planted. With her gentle and loving help, we defused the mines - and we married about a year and a half after we first met.
She was making about twice what I was at that point - and I told her my job likely wouldn't ever be one that'd make me rich. But it's a funny thing - when you get two people together who love each other, who are dedicated to each other, you end up with a synergy effect that gets you more than you'd have separately. I'm making about 2/3rds of what she is now - but I'm making 3 times what I was when I met her, so we're doing pretty well. By any but the most extravagant standards we're pretty well off.
We celebrated our 16th anniversary last year. We have a son who's 11, in private school. (Spend a couple of years doing computer maintenance in public school, seeing a lot of different classrooms, and there's no way you'll put your kid in a public school if you can afford it.)
We are equals. We are partners. I used to joke the smartest thing I ever did was to marry her - and the dumbest thing she ever did was to marry me. And one night, she told me that she thinks marrying me was the smartest thing she ever did... so I cut the last part of the joke off.
I'm a very lucky man - and having lived with the alternative I realize just HOW lucky. Marriage has to be based on mutual respect, no matter what your assumed roles are - and the decisions need to be mutual, not just one 'partner' forcing them on another.
Going through my history - I would have had every reason in the world to be bitter and angry... and never get married. But I figured there were some decent women out there SOMEWHERE - I just had to figure out where, and adjust what I was looking for.
Society DOES build up false expectations - our media is rife with them, and basing what you're going for on the distortions you see on TV is a sure way to fail.
"All I'm saying is that if all of us looked at marriage the way it should be -- two people who love each other and form a partnership to get through life together -- then maybe, just maybe there wouldn't be a reason for the bitterness."
I think you miss the point of marriage. You don't have to get married to "love each other and form a partnership." Advice columns and finance advisors are apologetic when they tell engaged people to have "the talk" about finances. They miss the point that marriage IS finance. Historically, marriage binds male productive capacity to female childbearing capacity. (It has been cynically argued that all morality is designed to keep alpha-males from sexually monopolizing all the females, which hurts genetic diversity, hurts the raising of children and dis-incentivizes the non-alphas from producing to their capacity.)
As far as "the hate" goes, more and more men are waking up to the fact that they are encouraged and expected to be providers for princesses who have no plans to actually contribute to society, only to consume and lounge for the rest of their lives. Not all women are like this by any means, but there are enough that men need to be on permanent watch to weed them out. And the family law system has been arranged to enable their behavior, which (duh) produces more of it.
I used to view marriage in very romantic terms, but I've come to realize that a marriage is a corporation - in fact, that's its entire POINT. (It's a weird corporation, where the majority producer is the minority stockholder.)
Your talk about personal responsibility is all well and good, but it's blind to the manner in which people can manipulate others (in this case, women manipulating men) and doesn't acknowledge how many marriages are basically a standing asset transfer to the wife. Two can play your "cojones" game - specifically, men are _conditioned in society_ that it's a "manly" thing to "provide" for a woman. If he doesn't get his wife the "dream house" she's always wanted (that she doesn't plan on paying for) she'll impugn his manhood all around the coffee klatch and talk about how he's ruined her life.
Hell, today in France she could argue that it was psychologically abusive to buy a small house and get her husband locked up!
This sounds like an American Beauty fantasy, but it happens all the time - look it up.
According to the NYT article:
Next, according to research from the National Association of Realtors, are single women, who in the last 12 months represented 21 percent of home buyers; single men were just 10 percent.
Single women are buying homes at a greater than 2:1 margin than single men. I'm not sure single women are too concerned about whether they are 'producing more for society' or not. I really don't care what motivates one gender to do something or not, but the end result will be that more single women will become property owners, which means more single women will be invested in their community and have a piece of real estate as an asset.
Heather Mills is one of them. I saw she just bought (another) house and she is single.
She's a strong, independent woman who did it all on her own.
I think at all boil down to what one think of the future. Paying a home is a great indication of your confident in the future not just of yourself but of society.
I have been having a lot of talk with my realtor friends, and I can't find a way to tell them that I am no buying house even thought I can because I don't feel that society as it is going is not worth investing in, and don't feel like tying myself to a community full of people I care less life or dy.
I am curious as to why some state does not make itself an exception to the alimony / excessive child support enforcement racket the way Nevada used to finance itself by a monopoly on legal gambling and prostitution.
If, for example, Wyoming were to not enforce these legal judgments from other states, there would be a lot of economic incentive to locate businesses, or at least branch offices in the state and benefit from the increased tax revenue. Men who worked there would probably be paid less but they would be able to keep a lot more of their earnings. Men who fled there would not be able to leave the state as a practical matter but an entire state is a lot more spacious than the area where people who don't make their payments are confined.
I stopped working. I got old. I now and for many years make sure I consume a lot more than I produced.I do this with social security too.
"If, for example, Wyoming were to not enforce these legal judgments from other states, ..."
---
Mark,
States HAVE TO enforce the judgments of other states. It's in the US Constitution ("Full Faith and Credit", Article IV, Section 1).
I can't wait for Baumeister's book to be released. I am a huge fan of his work on self management (which is, in its field, legendary).
It doesn't make any sense! No other commodity (i.e. rule out classic cars, numismatic items) material possession goes _up_ in value as it is used up.
It's the land that's going up in value. The home value increases on in as much as replacement costs (labor and materials) increases. Also don't forget that in the 30 years you own the home, you sink a massive amount of money into it and when it comes time to sell, odds are you'll have to dump a lot of money into repairs and upgrades. I'm continually astonished at how many home owners I know who don't acknowledge just how much money they are putting into their homes (partly because many justify the expense in other ways like "I'm just doing this for the kids." Yeah, but it's still an expense.)
I'm not sure why all the men are complaining that the wives want huge, expensive houses. I'm much more thrifty than my husband, and was always looking for less expensive houses than my husband. And as far as the complaints about the type of women they marry, I can only say, choose a different type! Don't choose a woman that views life thro materialism only.
Yvonne writes: "I'm not sure why all the men are complaining that the wives want huge, expensive houses. I'm much more thrifty than my husband, and was always looking for less expensive houses than my husband."
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Yvonne, I take it that you weren't a statistics major in college. You have to realize that if YOU personally are not like those "other women" that doesn't really affect the statement statistically. There are something like 150 million women in the US.
That's like the statement of a women in the early 1970's (I don't remember the name): Nixon couldn't have gotten elected, none of my friends voted for him!
I think, frankly, what that statement involves is kind of an egotistical thing, a la "I'm a good person and want to make that clear". In other words, it's all about you. You don't like any negative comments about women at all, and you have to make it clear that you are perfect. Or something like that.
-----------
Yvonne further opines: "And as far as the complaints about the type of women they marry, I can only say, choose a different type!"
------
That's true to some extent, but it kind of assumes an omniscience in young men that you would probably not demand from young women. In that sense, you are like Lindsay above.
Kind of like rape victims shouldn't wear short skirts, so it's their fault. That statement wouldn't be quite as accepted today as the exactly parallel statement about men that women like you spout. At every opportunity. Lindsay (once again) put it a different way, that men have to get more cojones.
Lots of women today - and even a few women commenting here - don't have a clue as to what men's lives are like and they have no empathy or even any curiosity. Men are there to pay for them, basta. Any man who doesn't measure up gets shamed.
_____________________
I'll tell you: Women should be ecstatic that nature or God or evolution or whatever set things up this way.
Men compete with each other for the most material things (represented today with money). They win over the woman with that.
She, on the other hand, has a window of opportunity while she is young to overpower the man's senses and get him to marry her. If he saw a video of the bitchy, fat-assed cunt she would become in 20 or 30 years, it would be like a pail of cold water in the face.
But there is no future video, and women have a great mechanism to get their life paid for while someone else works for them. Even beyond the end of a marriage ("alimony").
Absolutely sickening in my book. And I don't really see a problem with raising consciousness of this among young men who are vulnerable.
I get the feminist way of looking at the world:
Men are fully possessed of all their senses and are nearly omniscient. If they make a mistake, they FUCKED UP. They are responsible. They are moral agents.
Women, on the other hand, are just kind of passive robots that things happen to. If something goes wrong in her life, it couldn't have anything to do with HER, as the passive robot, it involves an evil MAN who caused things to go wrong for her.
Even if it can't be pinned on a specific man, the Patriarchy is responsible (i.e. men in aggregate).
That's actually what they are teaching women in college who are stupid enough to take women's studies (well kind of anyway, LOL).
I think it depends completely on whether these men have a moral belief or not. Without a moral belief, they may easily and happily join the majority black community and simply become users. If they have an ounce of self respect and belief that there is a difference between good and bad, then they will continue to produce as a byproduct of their nature.
It is not just getting ahead, becoming kings or princes by their own hand, it is doing God's will, that is to go forth, prosper, and propagate. Doing less is simply giving up on God and choosing to be animal. Psychology is nice, but it misses huge areas because these areas are not definable within it's science. And, it's science has become quite sketchy as it chooses to rule out God by choosing everything, it seems, that is against God (as a means of self proof?, proving good and evil are equal?, proving there is not objective good or evil?).
Anyway, if men choose to be users, criminality, lawlessness, and other such are the way of things to come. Look at Mexico if you want to see that style of living fully blown. It goes well with socialism, or really, it is socialism. Which is cause and which is affect I am never quite sure.
As it pertains to home ownership Joe identifies the salient fact: land may appreciate in value, the house will almost invariably depreciate. The Home Building lobby pulled the greatest con ever in the last decade promoting the illusion that home ownership is the path to wealth. Yes, for a few years flipping a house was highly profitably but just as it was with dotcom stocks, this was a temporary mania doomed to fail.
Long term home ownership used to be a road to riches if only because at some point and due to inflation the carrying costs of the house became an insignificant part of one's budget. The value of the house appreciated while the payment on the fixed mortgage became an ever smaller percentage of one's growing income. At which point the middle class couple could buy a boat, a second car and go to Disneyland.
But with constant refis and cash out home equity loans any "paper" wealth is rapidly spent. People who view their house as a piggy bank soon learn that not only can the cash spigot run dry but whatever was borrowed must be paid back. Couples who find themselves in this bind are looking at a bleak future. One couple I know of is divorcing and leaving the house to the bank, several hundred thousands in imaginary equity spent and never to be found.
The point being that couples who build their relationship on the illusion of prosperity may discover that they never had real wealth or a real relationship.
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"States HAVE TO enforce the judgments of other states. It's in the US Constitution ("Full Faith and Credit", Article IV, Section 1)."
No, not so fast...
"If the legal pronouncements of one state conflict with the public policy of another state, federal courts in the past have been reluctant to force a state to enforce the pronouncements of another state in contravention of its own public policy. In cases of out-of-state judgments, the Court has stated that there may be exceptions to the enforcement and jurisdiction of out-of-state judgments, but maintains that there is no public policy exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause for judgments"
There's exceptions and such. If a state decided, as a matter of public policy, not to enforce certain judgements of other states, they could do it. One way or another.
I bought a house four years ago, single guy. I shoot my pistols from the back deck.
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This thread has been a blast to read. There is only one reason to buy a house. And it has to do with land. And to purchase the house, it has to have enough land on which to build my woodworking shop.
Other men have other hobbies, but the same thing applies.
I read just a few days ago, from a link from this wonderful blog that women are the first to want a relationship to become exclusive, and the first to want out down the road. It has been my experience.
Once.
Oh. And that was enough.
What Comatus said...
If you actually read the NYT article on this, you have a bunch of young people saying, "I bought this house but I never realized things might break, I would have to mow the lawn or the to-do list would be so exetensive." Maybe we should worry less about home-ownership and much more about how this new generation's brain works. I'm mesmerized.
I'm with Cham - I think the article's thesis was poorly-supported, and while I agree with the premise that men are unfairly pressured to conspicuously consume and/or to provide for other people, that point was also unsupported in the article.
What WAS supported was a bunch of young people who were sold the dream of homeownership beyond reason, and have come back to earth.
What wasn't addressed but is interesting to think about is that American middle-class homes are no McMansion suburbs and not organic cities, so buying a house is a one-way ticket to an isolated, strip-mall life far away from the walking, city dwelling life of one's early adulthood.
I did feel bad, however, for the perfectionist who didn't want to go home because there was so much work to do on the house. Maybe he has some OCD or some other perspective problem? Too bad he can't enjoy what he has because he's focused on what's not right.
br549,
"I read just a few days ago, from a link from this wonderful blog that women are the first to want a relationship to become exclusive, and the first to want out down the road. It has been my experience."
1. I'd definitely believe this is true, and here's why: the cultural myth that men are "afraid of commitment" is really a projection of a woman's desire to commit earlier than her man does (calling it a "fear" dismisses it as irrational angst instead of a man's honest lack of interest in going long with the woman in question. If a man doesn't want a woman, it couldn't be _anything_ wrong with _her_ - he must have a Fear!)
2. I read somewhere that men are supposedly quicker to decide if they want to date a woman or not. I don't think this means they commit faster, but they decide very quickly if a woman is date material, casual sex material or neither. If you want to believe the Madonna-Whore Complex, dating or sex candidates are mutually exclusive. For example, go to any bar in an urban city and you'll find a load of slutted-up young women trying to get guys' attention. The vast majority of men will eliminate these women from their dating pool instantaneously (although they might still want to sleep with them.)
Re: Men's "fear of commitment".
If you think about it, at least with regard to marriage, women don't really commit anything.
If they want out, they get out.
It is NOT the same for men. You may be making monthly payments to Cupcake for a long while. You may have to transfer assets that you, in reality, earned.
Men really do commit. Women don't.
“…so buying a house is a one-way ticket to an isolated, strip-mall life far away from the walking, city dwelling life of one's early adulthood.”
Rein in your projection please. I grew up in a town of 30k, went to the big city for my degree, and then moved to a town of 3500 (where I bought a house). Isolated? How about safely removed from a multitude of people I would never want to associate with.
I hear people talk about how awesomely awesome it is to live in a large overcrowded city, and how stupid/dull/isolated/homogenized it is to live in a small suburb or exurb. Sorry, I just don’t accept the premise.
In a twenty minute walk with my kids we experience more interesting things in the natural world than I ever have in the city. Brooks teaming with ducks and geese, deer munching away not 50 yards from us; a coyote or fox slinking through the bushes. The occasional muskrat or beaver.
And yes, they have a strip mall in my small town as well, although I’ve never been obligated to go there. Now I know I can’t get really great Cantonese food at 10:00 at night, but you know what? I’d wake up nauseated if I was eating at 10:00 at night.
In a twenty minute walk with my kids we experience more interesting things in the natural world than I ever have in the city. Brooks teaming with ducks and geese, deer munching away not 50 yards from us; a coyote or fox slinking through the bushes. The occasional muskrat or beaver.
Amen.
I live on a country road. During my semi-regular walks I more often than not see deer. Beavers live in the creek behind my house where I also see herons, ducks and such. Lot's of rabbits and squirrels around. Much preferable to anything I'll see in the city.
Every day on my walks on Broadway on the way to the gym I see Zabar's, which has smoked salmon, bagels, cream cheese, lemon, capers and coffee. They also have some of those ducks and a few other animals. Delicious, if you ask me. And if I want to see trees I can go to the library and see them in books.
The American dream is pretty simple to me. To live as has been mentioned above. And if someone doesn't like what you're doing, they would have to be trespassing to even know.
I think the real idiots live in the cities.
Me and my wife Francine and my cousin Jethro don't much like city folk either. Or revenuers.
We got plenty a critters and varmints to eat up here on my hill in Tennessee.
Ain't nothing in the city I want.
“Every day on my walks on Broadway on the way to the gym I see Zabar's, which has smoked salmon, bagels, cream cheese, lemon, capers and coffee. They also have some of those ducks and a few other animals. Delicious, if you ask me.”
Typical. And exactly why I added the Cantonese comment. All I ever here as the apology for cities is “But they have great food! Really really great food!”
My response: learn to shop and cook, and then you can make your own really really great food. Cooking just isn’t that hard.
Next argument against small towns will involve “diversity” and/or “culture”.
I don't quite get the point of the hostility with the city / country issue - towards people who live in cities right now, but maybe the other way around as well.
Some people want to live in a city. It's a LOT better in many European cities than dangerous ghettos like Detroit. If you live in a good city, there are lots of things to do.
I can also see the peace and quiet of living in the country, particularly when you are older or if you are into nature.
But why are people shooting back and forth on that issue? Who cares? Just live wherever you want.
Excuse me, but I am a pretty darn good cook. Go to my blog slowbread.blogspot.com for some great bread and cake recipes. We prepare about 99.3% of the food we eat -- from basic ingredients, if we can. We can get the ingredients (sometimes at truly ridiculously low prices) from all over the world just a few blocks from us.
By the way, it is not for me to say whether city life or country life is 'better' in G-d's eye. All I know is that I would be bored out of my gourd in the country for long stretches. If you're happy there, more power to you.
“But why are people shooting back and forth on that issue?”
Um, sorry MB but you were the one who shot out the Jethro-retard comment. And I think the “critters and varmints” part was hilarious. There’s nothing cliché about insinuating that those who live in small towns are uneducated window lickers.
I just challenge comments that small towns suck as some sort of conventional wisdom that everybody knows. You want to live in a city; whatever. It certainly doesn’t make someone better, or less isolated.
Is the marriage angst worse in blue states than in red? It would seem so as the costs of raising a family are so much higher. Not only is housing far more expensive (and adding a wife and kids does require more housing) but the good things of life tend to come with a higher price. Think of the choice between riding the bus, driving a car and having a limo, or the pressing question of public vs private education.
Another aspect to all this is professionals who work in a city for all practical purposes live on an island. As such they are fully aware of the choices their peers are making and the pressure to live likes the Joneses is just as high if not higher than in the burbs. Add to this the reality that in the city the concentration of singles, both male and female, and you have a volatile mix. Both spouses can easily adopt the attitude that they sacrificed a lot to get married and they may not be getting what they bargained. Yet if the choice is to nullify the whole affair the law does seem to come down harder on the man than the woman.
That all said people who spend their lives counting costs are probably doomed to a miserable life. Likewise for people who spend their lives worried about what the experts say about relationships. Choose for yourself and when you do choose wisely.
I had a wonderful day today here in the big bad city. I spent it deep in the hood. I walked to the boot store and bought a new fashionable pair for $20. Then I went to library and did some research. Then I walked home. I walked by the gas station and noticed that the price has risen 10 cents from yesterday. I met yet another person from Florida who has just moved here. I hope my new Florida friends can eventually sell their Florida houses, that market is not good.
I suppose the poster boy of one who produces more than he consumes would be the farmer. Today's farmer is part CPA, mechanical, fluid power, and electrical engineer, mechanic, chemist, carpenter, plumber, welder, vet, and a host of other things. Not to mention the amount of real work they must perform on a daily basis.
Amazing people, really.
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Lots of people work hard, br549.
The person who consumes the most, and who works the least or provides society with the least in return, is the type of housewife who also keeps her eye on what the potential husband earns or has in terms of money.
And they are almost revered as royalty by women. Lots of women. I saw that back in the 1980s with the parasite Ivanna Trump. She actually wrote a book about "standing on her own two feet" (just after she got 25 or 30 million out of "The Donald").
For the life of me, I don't understand why parasites are so revered by so large a chunk of womanhood. Maybe they feel like they also have a shot at living a life of luxury without having to do anything for it. Maybe they are envious of men who have money and want to knock them down a peg. Maybe they just blindly cheer for "women" in a tribal kind of way.
In any case, parasites and leeches should be called out on their game. Why does ANYONE give them ANY respect at all (let alone worship them)?
I know about the full faith and credit clause. I also know that my Concealed Handgun License does not get any more faith and credit in Massachusetts than one of their same sex marriage licenses gets in Texas. I was living in New York when Mario Cuomo was governor and routinely refused to extradite murderers to states with the death penalty.
It seems that there is some flexibility in the full faith and credit clause. I chose the example of Wyoming because when they were threatened with the loss of highway funds for not enforcing the 55 mile an hour speed limit, their response was that if funds were cut they would no longer plow snow off I-80 and I-90.
Still, I'm not a lawyer and I don't know if divorce settlements are some special case that is enforced more vigorously than laws against murder.
"I can see a "non-working spouse" if she's got little kids at home.
But if you are talking about a lifetime, and especially when no kids are involved, or they are in school, why in the hell would a man support a "non-working spouse"?
If you're that stupid, then maybe you deserve a life of wage-slavery with an early death due to stress.
Unbelievable that people like that exist."
I am that non working spouse. I worked for the early years of our marriage and we both hated it. Prepackaged food, no time to do laundry or get ironing done properly. Never actually getting to see each other. Which means no sex either.
I do have small kids, about to have a seventh one, and I can tell you that generally they are not that expensive. Stupidity is expensive no matter if you have kids or not and if you are the type to buy a 300$ vase instead of the 8$ one I have from Sam's club then you are going to be the idiot who pays 150$ for a pair of kids jeans when you can get a nice un-wornout pair from Wal-mart or target for anywhere from 10-20$. (Can someone please tell me why jeans that look like someone has already worn the butt out are a solid 70$ more than my kiddos fresh new jeans?)
So yeah stupidity is expensive..
And men support a nonworking spouse because he has different priorities than a man who demands his wife work and pay's half of everything. He wants to come home and see his family, we are a homeschooling family BTW, so we are not waiting for them to get off a bus or waking up early to put them on one(very natural schedule and we like that). We like cooking from scratch and he has special dietary needs now. I unclog the drains when they are jammed up. I cook, I clean, I sew, I repair stuff, I teach our profoundly dyslexic kids everything they need to know. I make sure the kids are with someone who actually loves them on a daily basis. If you want to understand what that is like then go- http://www.dys-add.com/index.html -here and watch the videos. Takes a lot of research that Uncle Sam just wont do to get them reading. We don't want them stuck in a room full of ADHD kids all day or drugged up. So we make the sacrifices necessary to handle it ourselves.
Hell you wanna get right down to it I am also the one who patches the roof and mowed the lawn until this summer.. I know many woman with 2 kids who are in school who stay home and do nothing. And some do worse than nothing, like shop.. There are some who have ebay stores and some who have fun hobbies.
Point being that just because a man works and a woman stays home doesn't mean she is doing nothing. But whatever they are doing it is their business. AS I put it to one very rude woman commenting on m family size, "Start paying the electric bill in my house and then you will have a say"..
Lastly my husband is far from stupid. He created his own job by presenting the need for it at the company he works for. They hired him to do it and he learned all the programming launguages and such he needed to do it. He just knows what he wants. He has his priorities, and I have mine too, and we decided how we work as a family. BTW we are teen-hood sweethearts. WE married right out of high school. We own home which was cheaper for us and less of a hassle than putting up with a landlord or begging for stuff to get fixed. We are happy. Do I hope there is better stuff for us in the future? Sure. But we have time to get there.
""Married men don't "buy" houses; they make monthly payments for the ones their wives pick out."
----
Yup."
I never even got to see the house hubby bought until we had already started signing papers. We talked about what we wanted an he went out and found it.
Perhaps your woman were just poorly chosen? By you. I have a great idea. My hubby can match you up. I guarantee you wont suffer the same mistake twice.
I could almost write these scripts.
Jose is now a bit offended about a remark about HOUSEWIVES IN GENERAL, so her defense about HOUSEWIVES IN GENERAL is that SHE is not PERSONALLY a lazy cow.
In other news, my defense that Americans are getting fatter is that I am not fat. So that proves that Americans are not fatter than 50 years ago.
Bejeezus.
If you're Super-Duper housewife and your husband wants that, then I guess do that Jose. LOL
I personally don't understand why men want some sit-at-home, and I honestly think that they have no idea of their legal consequences if CupCake decides to make waves.
But I'm not in charge of that.
Jose,
Thanks for the extensive comments. No one on this board is talking negatively about women (or men) who are married to a breadwinner and undertake constructive activities in the home, church or neighborhood.
What does concern us is spouses who literally want to live off their partner, to be "taken care of" - if they have any kids at all, they have a minimalist approach to stay-at-home mothering and instead simply enjoy the fact they've suckered a man into paying for their share. The British call them "toxic wives."
Unfortunately, American men are socialized into this over-chivalristic mindset that it is good, moral and "manly" to "provide" for an able-bodied woman, and that he's just supposed to obediently give in to her material demands - so much so that she can kick him out of the martial bed and tell him to sleep on the couch, in a house that HE bought!
This is all-out stupidity, but it's hard to break the mindset that has been pounded into men since childhood. And women are socialized into this idea that they are "the boss" in marriage, and can order their husband around. ("She who will be obeyed" indeed.)
We know these people (some of us on DRH were married to them) and the sense of entitlement is disgusting, as is the lack of appreciation for a man who busts his ass at a job he hates for the rest of the family.
You, clearly, are not one of them. You provide constructive effort in counterpoint to your beau's contribution. Thumbs up for also ditching the public school system and directing your kids' education yourself.
Party on!
I'll leave with a quip I read on another blog that gets to the kind of woman we are talking about:
"I laugh when I hear men say 'No wife of MINE is going to work!'"
"I got news for you, buddy - your EX-wife isn't going to work either!"
I see two different categories of housewifes:
The first category is a woman who worked before kids came along - and worked at a responsible job, not necessarily a "fun" job - and then agreed with the husband (agreed and didn't browbeat him) to temporarily stay home with the children while they are small.
She remains in the real world, though, and helps her husband with decisions and all the rest. She also goes back to work when it is feasible, and in a responsible job that earns real wages, not a "fun" job.
The second category either becomes a little girl again or never was an adult at any point in her life. She simply dumps anything and everything involving the real world into the lap of her husband, including work and any worries about having enough money.
She fills up her boring days bragging to other housewives (and anyone who will listen) how much stuff they have. How much "her" house is worth. What kind of car she drives. She lives life vicariously through her husband and she may well think that she has also accomplished his achievements. They can also be nasty to the bone.
If a divorce ensues, look out. She WILL get the biggest transfer of money she can out of the husband, and the biggest monthly support payments, regardless of the legal basis for them.
-------
I often wonder why men would want anything to do with the second type, let alone marry one. The puffed-up pretensions of these men that they are heroes of chivalry evaporate immediately once they get a whiff of divorce court.
Tether.
No I am not offended on the part of all housewives. Hell I only know so many of them.. And I mean know as in our kids go to the movies together and we have dinner at each others houses. If we ain't doing that much I just really don't know anything about you.
I am just shocked at the attitude I see toward people who have decided to have a parent stay home. And no I don't care if it is the mom or the Dad as long as someone is home raising the littles to be good peoples.
Maybe I don't attract the kind of friend who would do these things to her husband. Maybe I just am not wealthy enough to know these people. I know Literally no-one who has a nanny or a housekeeper. I know of a total of 3 woman who have Gramma watch the kids while she works.
I will say this though. One day my daughters best friend was just gone. Her older brother and her mother were gone too. We saw them about 4 months later, after my 10 year old cried and begged me to make sure she wasn't kidnapped or something. Their mother was bringing them over for their every 2 week visit.
My oldest son saw the dad hugging the 2 as the were about to leave and the dad burst into tears. I had to explain what had happened to my kids. The older 2 understood this was a divorce but the younger ones could not comprehend that these children could not see their daddy every day anymore just every 2 weeks.. You would not be able to stand the looks on their faces.
I would die before I did that to my kids. If a divorce is initiated in my house it wont be by me
I have no idea whether or not the woman worked I only knew her daughter was my daughters best friend. We never talked or got along..
I would also like to say that I read Advice Goddess blog as well and over on Amy's blog the attitude about men who run off or what have you is that you had to know. These guys just don't all the sudden turn into jerks and bail on their kids.. It is a sentiment I agree with and would also apply to men who marry woman who "just up and leave and take everything". There must have been signs. These men chose poorly same as the woman who bred with deadbeats.
Topher,
As I said to tether I for some reason don't know these woman. I probably wouldn't fit in their society.
Yes my husband works, because we both decided it was best this way, but we serve each other. And kicked out of the bed.. Yeah I have heard of men being in the dog house. The philosophy in my house is that dog houses are for dogs and neither men or woman are dogs. Now I have slept on the couch or in a recliner with a sick and crying baby but it had nothing to do with him being mad at me, or not getting to buy something. It was just that I had to keep an eye on a sick or needy baby and he had to go to work in the morning.. Seems reasonable to me.
I am lucky in that my hubby loves his job. HE is a code monkey to the core. I still appreciate the work he does and the effort he has made to learn everything new that comes out and know he works hard but he does like his job.
AS for the public school system. I don't like anything government. I grew up on welfare with my mother and then in foster care here in Tn. I became a bit of an extreme libertarian, borderline anarchist, with regard to how much you should let the government have a say in anything. My philosophy on this is reach your hand into uncle Sam's pocket and you will wind up with a handfull of grisly old man balls and he will wind up with a shit eating grin on his face. Molestation has occurred the moment you go for the government favor.
I personally would like to see the income tax repealed and the IRS abolished. I would be perfectly content if the taxes for different things ran on a volunteer basis. You want a road, make the case for it and get those who will be using it to donate their skills or money to build it. NO welfare at all. If people divorce automatically joint custody and no child support. Unless abuse has been proven. That, I am guessing, would cut down divorce a lot.
I would really like it if I didn't have to work under an umbrella school. It is really hard to get one that accepts non-textbook books as curriculum. I follow a very Maria Montessori learning plan and the state has their own brilliant ideas about what they should know, when and what books they should learn from.
The last bit made me laugh. Though I hope to be an old fart with my hubby. Hopefully we save right and we will be nonworking old farts who spend all day fishing with our many grandchildren..
JG,
I don't even exist in your world. Or you think I am little girl. Can't figure out which..
Jose,
In the final analysis, if I don't have to pay for you, I don't really care if you leech off someone else.
A couple of things are mildly irritating about the situation (permanent housewife), though:
If a permanent housewife gets a divorce (and I know that YOU never will, but get out of your me-me-me mode for a second), the man should not be paying for her after the divorce. No alimony.
The man better have life insurance, because otherwise taxpayers (i.e. me) will be paying for a woman with no skills or experience or most likely any desire to work.
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comatus,
"No man would ever sell himself into bondage for a property where you can't shoot pistols from the back porch."
While that vision is very appealing (except why exclude rifles?), it's been quite a few millenia since we all lived in a complete rural setting, and there weren't any pistols to shoot back then.
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