The Renaissance philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola once famously wrote that man was unique in God's creation precisely because there was no gift that was peculiarly his, and thus no natural place for him to occupy. He could descend to the squalor of a beast, or he could ascend, by the power of contemplation, beyond even the angels. Man was radically detached from the rest of the created world, and in this detachment consisted his dignity.
Pico was part genius (mastering Chaldean and Persian and Arabic, not to mention other languages ancient and modern, sometime before his mid-twenties) and part happy enthusiast, and much needs to be forgiven him for his youth and winning naivete. It is said he was on the point of marrying a chambermaid or some other woman of low status until his friend and patron, Lorenzo de' Medici, put a stop to that. What he would have written had he lived into the prime of life is hard to say, but in his last year he did come under the spell of the fiery reforming Dominican, Savonarola -- who did not talk much about the endless capabilities of man.
Pico, in other words, had the excuse of youth. What's our excuse? It seems that our entire educational system is designed to scorn the idea of the ordinary -- the idea that, in fact, we are all meant to occupy a modest place, in a family, a community, or a church, a place that is seldom of our own making. But what is wrong with the ordinary? God likes ordinary people; that is why he created so many of us. What is duller than a panoply of primadonnas of the tenth magnitude? The insight of Christianity rather is that there is something wondrous about this rock, that tree, that carpenter over there turning a post on a lathe, or that mother rolling out the dough for something as wildly fantastic as gingerbread.
It all has to do with place, and cheerfully or humbly occupying it. The Greeks understood that: their word cosmos does not, in the first instance, refer to the universe, but to a world wherein each thing is in its proper place, a fitting or becoming place -- for they did not distinguish sharply between what was good and what was lovely. (The idea survives, barely, in our word cosmetic.)
Now here is a question: how many ills of our day stem simply from an abandonment of one's place, or from a refusal to acknowledge that one must occupy any place at all -- unless it is a place entirely of one's own choosing, with everyone casting himself as Supreme Architect? How many English teachers will not condescend simply to teach English? How many scientists will not stick to science? How many husbands abandon their posts as husbands? How many wives in America these days will even concede that there is such a thing as a place for a wife, let alone that they should not abandon it? How many of the laity hold their ministers in bondage? How many priests find preaching the word too onerous? How many of us scorn the ordinary, and with it -- though we don't want to admit it -- the Ordainer who made us for its duties and its rewards?
Wonderful, Tony! A good reminder for this English teacher as the final harried days of the term, filled with their endless papers and exams, loom before me and tempt me to discontent. I intend to link to this post at inscapes for the benefit of my students as well, many of whom believe it but are afraid to say so aloud, and some of whom need it almost as badly as do I.
The subject always reminds me of the parable of the talents. Most of us are one-talented, and it's what we do with that one talent wherever we are that matters, not that we don't have ten.
Posted by: Beth | April 26, 2006 at 06:02 AM
Fiddling is a form of self-actualization for me. If Rome is burning, I will keep on playing until (presumably) it burns my fiddle.
"When you're extraordinary, you gotta do extraordinary things." - Pippin
Posted by: Nero | April 26, 2006 at 06:09 AM
"The Lord must love average-looking people, 'cause he made so darn many of them."
- Mark Twain
Posted by: Tom Austin | April 26, 2006 at 06:24 AM
I believe TV is a major culprit in all this. The soap operas for years had everyone as a lawyer, doctor or businessman who had all the time in the world to have affairs, mind other folks business, etc. As silly as some of the old shows use to be, at least in the 70s there was The Waltons and in 80s The Bill Cosby Show, which were relatively ordinary families with relatively ordinary problems; now it is sexy or gritty or luxurious or extreme or all four. Fill your mind with the idea that others have a more exciting life that you and before long you are dissatisfied with your ordinary life and seeking ways "to discover the real you" and "expand your horizons." Far too often, this means abandoning the place (or post) to which he or she had already made a commitment.
Posted by: GL | April 26, 2006 at 07:52 AM
I just heard a wonderful story. One of my colleagues attended a retirement ceremony last night for a good friend -- a man who spent 26 years teaching middle school band without complaint or reaching for something "better." My colleague reports that a large number of former students, including those from 20+ years ago, attended the ceremony to honor this man. Now that is humility and acceptance of place; we wonder what the average survival rate is for middle school band teachers and suspect that it is something less than 26 years. More of us need to embrace his sense of calling.
Posted by: Beth | April 26, 2006 at 08:31 AM
I recall, with a combination of embarassment and humor, the "delusions of grandeur" of my youth and young adult life. Indeed, I would not be bound by the "ordinary"! Oh, how ordinary I have become, and what a joy it is indeed.
With our obsession with youth and remaining so in appearance, at least we are being consistent as a culture when we refuse to "grow up". God grant us the grace to be unique, just like everyone else!
Posted by: Pr. Dave Poedel | April 26, 2006 at 09:45 AM
It seemed to me as a young person that making irrevocable choices was limiting to my freedom. However, as I have lived over the years, I realize there is nothing sadder than someone who has reached middle years and has not found his or her place in the world, even though I am really stuck in the one I have. This to me is the essence of growing up.
As a physician, I see older people who have no family, no church and no one to come sit with them in the sunset of their life, and this is so sad. It is ordinary life that builds your old age, and beyond in heaven.
Posted by: JEAN | April 26, 2006 at 09:55 AM
I wonder if this insanity of molding the "super-self" from grade school and on up, from the talk-show evangelists, and MTV-fantasy land, isn't at least implicitly responsible for a host of suicides, divorces, and abortions.
If people thought that embracing the ordinary might lead to something horrible like, say, communism, at least they'd have a somewhat laudable reason -- but it's more insidious: we're afraid that our special place in this world won't be noticed at all. Living coram homo (Latin grammar okay?) is a tyranny. At root aren't we all looking to be worshipped? I fear that's what the celebrity culture we embrace inspires us to want.
St. Worm
Posted by: St. Worm | April 26, 2006 at 10:14 AM
Dr. E.,
As a soon-to-be graduate and current job-seeker, I certainly appreciated your post. We hear career advice all the time like: “you can do anything you want,” and “you can do anything you put your mind to”--phrases that are meant to be encouraging and inspiring (and possibly comforting) but ones that offer very little practical wisdom. Can we really do anything we want? Of course not. A better option may be—as a wise English professor once told me—“you must do what you were put on Earth to do.” There is something liberating in that—the burden of infinite possibility being lifted—and something comforting, too—the idea that your neighbor’s successes and failures need not factor into your own pursuits, your own “place” in life. Thank you for the reminder.
Posted by: p. j. | April 26, 2006 at 11:28 AM
St. Worm,
In the early 1990s, I had the unpleasant task of handling divorce cases as a young attorney. (I said unpleasant, not unfortunate; I learned a great deal about life during that time.) I am convinced that the popular media contributes greatly to divorce. Its 24/7 telling you that others have it better than you and that if you just got rid of that ordinary toothpaste, oridnary car, ordininary house, and ordinary spouse and got the new, latest sexy model of toothpaste, car, house and spouse your life would be perfect. Popular media is a poison even without the sex and violence.
(The other thing I noticed was that divorcing couples are not giving couples. I had their financial records for several years prior to their separation and in only one case out of about 1000 did I see a tither getting a divorce -- and in that case the wife, who had run off with a young man 10 years her junior, was seeking the divorce while the husband was the one who continued to be the tither. It wasn't the lack of tithing, I think, that made the difference, but the unwillingness to give of one's self that it reflected. In those approx. 1000 divorces, not giving was a lifestyle; they had not been givers for years before the separation and this was true no matter the income. And if my recollection serves me, the wife who ran off with the man 10 years her junior was an avid watcher of the soaps.)
Posted by: GL | April 26, 2006 at 11:42 AM
What a wonderful post. It brings to mind my mother, who was an English teacher through and through. She landed a spot in a prestigious private high school, was immensely successful and loved her job. But because she was so good, the administration insisted that she become head of the English department. She refused because she had no wish to do anything but teach, and she was forced to leave the school. I'm happy to say that she became a private tutor for children with learning difficulties of various kinds, and was so successful that she was given an office at another prestigious private school, with a stream of referrals.
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 26, 2006 at 12:05 PM
Continuting on this theme, I point you to an article in the Winter 1994 issue of Touchstone entitled "A Stick Becomes the Staff of God: Reflections on Faithfulness in the Ordinary & the Routine" by Denis D. Haack.
Link: http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=07-01-021-f
Posted by: Geoff | April 26, 2006 at 01:26 PM
GL,
I think you are correct. I was talking to my barber today who said his mom and dad divorced after 40 years. His brother got divorced after two years. He said, "It's expected nowadays. Monogamous relationships don't really exist anymore."
I had to think long and hard about my new wife and our baby on the way... what makes *ME* different in all of this? God help me to take to heart my marital vows, and to ignore the crap that comes off the airwaves.
St. Worm
Posted by: St. Worm | April 26, 2006 at 01:45 PM
Most of the problem originates with Narcissism. Perhaps it will pass as the Baby Boomers die off. (Maybe I'm saying this only because I'm reading Christopher Lasch's book on Narcissism.)
Posted by: Gintas | April 26, 2006 at 01:50 PM
What a wonderful observation GL makes about the discipline of giving!
And further, isn't the disgust for, refusal to be, ordinary, really one more iteration of the modern inclination toward Gnosticism [discussed elsewhere at more length], in both its personal elitism and its downgrading of atoms and flesh present in the mixed-bag world?
In fact, when young I found myself momentarily and haplessly sojourning in a world of charity soirees and International Conferences Featuring The Famous. Just long enough to realize that in reality the experience of out-of-the-ordinary is actually inferior in joy and interest to Jean's ordinary church and family life that sits by the beside of the dying beloved.
But the imaginary realm, the world the advertisements (and romantic novels / soap operas) point to, has a glamour that real life doesn't, because of where it lights up the brain, and because it is subject neither to being tested nor to the real-world complications of the laws of non-contradiction and unintended consequences.
I have noticed for myself that catechism and sacrament inform and strengthen the will in making that initially difficult choice of realms.
Posted by: dilys | April 26, 2006 at 01:51 PM
Also, *IN* churches we have this industry of slickly-packaged conferences designed to make the average Christian a super-Christian. From the Prayer of Jabez to the Purpose Driven Life conferences (and even to Promise Keepers), it's all so terribly pop-American. I don't mean there aren't any positive things communicated in those conferences, but the whole thing seems to be wrapped up in the same sort of psychology that the world is used to anyway.
St. Worm
http://www.orations.net
Posted by: St. Worm | April 26, 2006 at 02:18 PM
GL, I think the problem started even before TV. Somebody, it might have been Florence King, wrote about the impact that Hollywood had, as movies became commonplace and widely seen. All of a sudden people had close-up views of entirely different and more glamorous lives. The standard of women's beauty wasn't the pretty girl down the street any more, it was, say, Theda Bara in the silent era, and then the whole parade of stars through the decades. Ditto for handsome men. It was a perfect mechanism for creating dissatisfaction.
But at least for many years Hollywood reflected the values of most Americans, and some -- like It's a Wonderful Life -- promoted the value of the ordinary. Now movies and TV are almost entirely destructive forces.
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 26, 2006 at 02:37 PM
"The soap operas for years had everyone as a lawyer, doctor or businessman who had all the time in the world to have affairs, mind other folks business, etc"
Mark Stricherz' article Who Killed Archie Bunker? is a sharp exploration of this phenomenon.
The one Public Service Announcement poster I really remember from my school days was in my middle school's locker room. With a basketball court in the background, it read: "Only 1 in 500,000 people make it into the NBA. Better have a backup." Some books were on a bench in the foreground.
It effectively conveyed the difficulty of the athletic world, but non-athletic courses would benefit from similarly-themed posters.
Isn't it odd that the US Army itself relies on this kind of blank-slate aspiration for recruitment? "Be all that you can be."
Posted by: Kevin Jones | April 26, 2006 at 02:40 PM
I find it also instructive that, for example, many young black people (that *I* have encountered) are aspiring to be hip-hop or rap artists. Perhaps it's only found in certain urban contexts, so this may be an illegitimate observation, but few of them seem to aspire to learn other, less-glitzy, professions or trades. They have hopes and dreams pinned up on getting discovered for their "art". The deliverance from substandard living is wrapped up in entertainment -- bigger-than-life media representation. The white man has made it clear that to be somebody in this world you need to be famous or get famous. The economically oppressed urbanites who see poverty and substandard living as an impetus for crime and the family breakdown, will gravitate toward the illusion that freedom and greatness are tied up in media. I'll bet there are important thinkers within the black community who see pop-culture entertainment as a hinderance to helping resolve inner city problems like violence and poverty: the problem is, the inner city is as saturated with the doctrine of Celebrity Importance as suburban and rural white America.
St. Worm
http://www.orations.net
Posted by: St. Worm | April 26, 2006 at 03:15 PM
The last time I check, the recruiting pitch for individualistic American teens was: "An Army of One". Every time I see those ads I laugh. One man armies are only successful in the movies. (Oh, and in Revelation, but Jesus has that two-edged-sword-out-of-the-mouth thing going for him.)
Posted by: Gene Godbold | April 26, 2006 at 03:15 PM
When I was growing up, I had an neighbor (we were friendly with each other, but I would not call us friends) whose brother played in the NFL. My neighbor and I had a class together in high school. To say the least, my neighbor did not devote himself to his studies to the degree he should have -- concentrating on football and, as we all did, girls. I'll never forget the day that the teacher (possibly realizing that my neighbor's abilities were not as high as his brother's) admonished him that not everyone made it to the NFL. He apparently eventually got the message -- though not at that time (probably in college, when it became more apparent even to him that he was not a budding professional athlete) and today he has a nice ordinary job and family.
Posted by: GL | April 26, 2006 at 03:36 PM
I find it also instructive that, for example, many young black people (that *I* have encountered) are aspiring to be hip-hop or rap artists. Perhaps it's only found in certain urban contexts, so this may be an illegitimate observation, but few of them seem to aspire to learn other, less-glitzy, professions or trades. They have hopes and dreams pinned up on getting discovered for their "art". The deliverance from substandard living is wrapped up in entertainment -- bigger-than-life media representation.
I don't think the phenomenon is limited to young urban blacks, unfortunately. Take a survey at any state university, and find out how many young people are majoring in "communications" and "journalism" with the hopes of making it big in broadcast media. Or, listen to the career aspirations of Miss America contestants.
I wonder if another component of this refusal to accept "the discipline of place" has to do with the prevailing view of men and women as producers/consumers? I've heard this called "economic man". The overriding concern becomes breaking into the most lucrative career, no matter where it might lead geographically, and no matter who one might leave behind (siblings, aging and ailing parents, etc.)
By the way, there's a wonderful article on this topic by Caleb Stegall of The New Pantagruel. Here's the link:
http://www.newpantagruel.com/issues/1.4/practicing_the_discipline_of_p.php
Posted by: Jenna | April 26, 2006 at 03:37 PM
Jenna,
I totally agree that it is not limited to black urban communities; I just was really commenting on how much the media-inspired utopia penetrates even the most economically oppressed regions of our culture.
But to re-inforce your point, this is why I wrote before "[T]he problem is, the inner city is as saturated with the doctrine of Celebrity Importance as suburban and rural white America."
http://www.orations.net
Posted by: St. Worm | April 26, 2006 at 03:55 PM
It's always been easy for me to slip into delusions of grandeur, conveniently forgetting my many faults and limitations. I was an aspiring actor, writer, etc.-jobs that are glamorous, and fun, and promise fame. What always grounded me, (and still does) is the example of my father, an uncomplaining, tireless man who immigrated to America when he was 25 and has worked two (very unglamorous)jobs steadily ever since. He hoped modestly, in that much-maligned idea of the old American dream: a house of one's own, a yard, a tightly knit family, and God has seen fit to grant him these things. This is all to say that a large factor in the "ME" culture is the changing of the American dream from middle class, to rich and crass.
Posted by: windmilltilter | April 26, 2006 at 04:37 PM
Windmilltilter,
What I would give to have for my children the world I grew up in? I lived in a rural farming community where most of the families had been there for generations and new comers were welcomed as if they had been. I had scores of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins (first and extended) within just a few miles of my home. When someone in the family had a birth, wedding, anniversary or funeral, hundred of people just from the family were there to celebrate or share the grief, not to mention neighbors known for decades. Like most of the rest of my generation, I gave that up to pursue a career -- not that my not doing so would have mattered, as so many others did likewise, my native community has lost its character and, if I moved back, I would not know many of the folks who live there and they would not know anything about the families that lived there 20 years ago except as names of their deeds. Twenty years ago, on the otherhand, most folks living there knew not only their contemporaries, but their parents and grandparents, who had been their fellow church members, Sunday School teachers, school teachers, or some other significant person in their young life.
That is a high price to pay for not "knowing one's place."
Posted by: GL | April 26, 2006 at 05:07 PM
Many thanks for the gracious comments, everybody -- and a hearty welcome to St. Worm, and a pat on the back for my old buddies PJ and Windmilltilter. You may be interested to consider, Tilter, translator Samuel Putnam's comment on Don Quixote, that the book marked the first time in the history of prose fiction that an author makes central to his narrative the things that happen not TO an ordinary man, but WITHIN him.... Only Shakespeare had done that before, sort of (the two are almost exact contemporaries).
I wonder if we can connect having-no-place with loving-no-place, or the loss of the sense of the street or village or town where we belong. Whenever I snoop around old postcards -- something I like to do -- it strikes me that a couple of generations ago, every little town in the country had its postcards. You'd have a postcard of the handsome First National Bank of Podunk, or a postcard of a foundry in East Chattahoochee, or a postcard of a nice little brook in Wahoo City. Reminds me of the outings that people in Jane Austen's novels are always taking, to Derbyshire or to the Cotswolds, to see fine hills or old mansions, or tree-lined parks, or trout streams. These were beautiful things to behold. I wonder if God ever shakes his head and says, "I plunked him down right in the middle of the Till Plains of Iowa, and all he does is look at pictures of Yucatan. Go figure."
Posted by: Tony Esolen | April 26, 2006 at 10:17 PM
I'm somewhat surprised at the unanimity of opinion in these posts. I'm afraid I'm going to have to break it and make a qualified disagreement!
First, agreement. I do feel that our consumer driven society is heavily weighted towards making people feel dissatisfied with their lives. Advertising in its essence doesn't tell people "You should get this", or even, "You need this", rather, "You deserve this". As such, I agree there is a broad rejection of the idea of being ordinary. Hence the never-ending desire for a better car, better house, 'better' spouse, etc, which certainly has a devastating effect on society.
That being said in no way do I think people should reject their abilities. I believe we are given gifts from God and we should strive to use them. We in the Western world have been richly blessed with so many opportunities as compared to the vast majority of the world. To just shrug that off and say, "Ah well, I’m not going to try, I’m just going to be ordinary." strikes me as complacency. Certainly we should be content with what God gives us, and where He places us in life, and wherever we end up we should have humility knowing that God is our ultimate provider. But wouldn't we be poorer if Einstein had decided to just keep his ordinary job at the patent office and not bother with theoretical physics? Or, closer to home, wouldn't we be poorer if Dr. Esolen decided not to study English literature, but rather took a job stocking shelves at the local Wal-Mart? There's an interesting conversation in Good Will Hunting where Will says,
I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that.
And he's right, however to not use one's gifts I believe is to disrespect God's blessings.
One final point; one can't deny that strictly from an economic perspective the rejection of 'ordinary' is beneficial. A glance at the state of the economies across the Atlantic ocean gives some idea of what happens when what most people strive for is a slack job with lots of vacation and a good pension.
Posted by: David R | April 26, 2006 at 11:09 PM
David R., who said that anyone should reject his abilities? Of course we are to use the gifts God has given us -- in the way and the place that He provides and with contentment, without striving to be something He never intended us to be. The parable of the talents comes to mind -- an occasional person has many (not too many Shakespeares around) and some have few, but all are expected to use them fully. Obviously, most of us are one- and two-talent folks (ordinary people), and the problem that Tony's pointing out is that we think we ought to be 10-talent folks -- and recognized as such, besides!
Posted by: Beth | April 27, 2006 at 06:25 AM
Thank you, Beth.
It's not available on line, but I've written about this in an article for Touchstone last year, called A Manna For All Seasons. One of the benefits of subscribing, as my boss is happy to say --
Posted by: Tony Esolen | April 27, 2006 at 10:22 AM
David R, I thought the story about my mother illustrated the point. She followed her calling, teaching, and by doing so helped countless people and had a very satisfying life. But others thought she should "move up" in the world by taking a higher position. They were so insistent on this that they would not allow her to remain doing what she did best, because someone had determined a "career path" that she had to follow.
Many people would be very happy as carpenters or plumbers, but are convinced that they must be photojournalists or MBAs. Even worse, many women would be fulfilled as wives and mothers, but are convinced they must achieve out in the world; they must be attorneys or business executives. They can't be nurses, though that is satisfying to many; they must be doctors. They can't be schoolteachers; they must be professors. I think this is what is meant rather than that we should not use our talents.
Posted by: Judy Warner | April 27, 2006 at 03:31 PM
Judy, I somewhat agree with you, but am still holding to my qualified disagreement. I believe C.S. Lewis said it best, "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." OK, I know I'm cheating a bit, I realize that isn't what Dr. Esolen was referring to. But I don't like the use of the word ordinary, God doesn't see any of us as ordinary! We all have talents, and as you rightly pointed out we should use them. I've seen far to many people waste their abilities because they don't feel like working hard. I agree that we are all gifted differently and that "most of us are one- and two-talent folks", but I completely disagree that that makes us "ordinary people". Now, very key to what I'm saying is that we should strive to use our talents with the utmost of humility and we must be content with what we have been given. I agree with what has been said about primadonnas and the like. I guess I've had more experience with the opposite end of the spectrum, where people dig a hole and hide their talent safely away.
Posted by: David R | April 27, 2006 at 04:25 PM
Thank you for this post. This is an issue that has plagued me ever since a watershed moment, many years ago, when I chose to raise my own children and watched my fellow law school grads go on to lucrative and successful careers. Sometimes I read about one or another of them in magazine articles (before my 3-year-old grabs it to cut pictures out of). The poison of "you're not using your gifts" is deep in our culture, and still causes pain.
Two sources that have helped: one, the ever-reliable Chesterton, who observed that mothers must be well-educated, but as a "jack of all trades," as they are the first teachers of their children. Goes triple for us homeschoolers, I guess. I realize how many of us GenX moms there are, "wasting" our advanced degrees, but able to raise our children with the blessings of broad liberal arts educations. The other, a book called (if I recall the title correctly) Having It All (But Not All At the Same Time), which pointed out that early anti-housewife feminism was originally aimed, reasonably enough, at a cultural requirement that middle-class women without children stay home, bored and increasingly depressed. Quickly this turned into a requirement that even married women with small children have a job, then that they have a career, then that they be stellar successes at that career. Suddenly success and fulfillment as a woman meant being partner in your firm while a well-paid nanny raised your children; a goal that few of us can, or (in our less poisoned moments) want to, achieve.
Posted by: sharon d. | May 01, 2006 at 09:19 AM
Sharon D.,
Thank you for that beautiful post. Its not just women who have been lured away from their proper roles as spouses and parents; so have men. I too have a law degree. After several years of working 6 and 7 days a week and long days at that, I decided that this was not what God had called me to. Indeed, I knew in my heart before ever attended law school that my calling was to be an educator, but pursued a law degree and the practice of law as a means to wealth and what I thought would be an prestiges place in the community rather than the middle class existence of an educator.
Eight years into the practice, I called it quits, much to the shock of the other members of the law firm at which I went, some of whom tried to persuade me how foolish I was to give up the opportunity to make a lot of money to become, what they looked down on, an educator. Twelve years later, I am an associate dean and an associate professor of law. I couldn't be happier. I certainly make a lot less money than I could have made practicing law and do not have the prestige I might have otherwise had. But while I still work hard, I now also have time to devote to my higher callings: Bondservant of the Lord, husband, father, son, brother.
Posted by: GL | May 01, 2006 at 09:46 AM
GL,
Thanks for that. I'm endlessly grateful that I married a man who, having grown up in a traditional family, was happy to raise his own the same way, and happy in a teaching job that pays less than I would have been earning but leaves him plenty of time to spend with his family.
Two thoughts that jumped out at me while reading your posts. First, memories of my tax law class, where a young man commented (in the context of examining the "marriage penalty") that he would never stay married to a woman who quit her career when she had a child; several other young men agreed.
Second, the reflection that longterm career abandonment in an age of common and unilateral divorce is seen by women as risky, and we have plenty of object lessons to learn from as we see other mothers, abandoned by their husbands, struggling to re-enter the job market with years of nothing on their CVs.
Posted by: sharon d. | May 01, 2006 at 11:28 AM
Hey GL and Sharon,
A colleague of mine had a male acquaintance. This man's wife had an MD (from Stanford) and worked while the guy attended grad school. She had a child and then, two, while he was in school and she expressed a desire to stay at home to care for the wee ones. His reply: "I married a doctor, not a stay-at-home mom." They're now divorced.
It seems appropriate to me to describe such men in terms of their genitive organ, but I've been known to be harsh and judgemental.
A happier story: My brother's wife is a pediatrician. She had several children and, contrary to her pre-child expectations, conceived an intense desire to stay home with them. Despite a several-months-long period of unemployment which drained their savings, my brother found a wonderful job that enables him to provide for them all (four kids now) and pay off his wife's medical school debt. Sometimes the Lord's ways aren't mysterious.
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