Win The Future: Have Babies

David Brooks has a column that sensibly counters the thrust of most recent commencement addresses. He wrote

College grads are often sent out into the world amid rapturous talk of limitless possibilities. But this talk is of no help to the central business of adulthood, finding serious things to tie yourself down to.

What most people will make a good life out of are the central commitments they make to other people. Commitments are limits on the self. If you try to live your life having experiences for yourself, without ever committing to build this specific something with others, you will be a tourist all your life.

For the vast majority of people, the biggest commitment we make is who we marry and then have children with. The downside of spending your twenties and even thirties as an experience-seeking tourist is that you delay marriage so much, you may well end up without time for children, children you now really want to have and build something for.

So if anyone everyone wants me to give a commencement address, here is my counter-cultural topic:

Win the Future: Have Babies.

Recentering the Party Balance in the Officer Corps

A centrist trend to note on Memorial Day.

In the '70s, about half of U.S. military officers were Republican. Through the '80s and '90s they became increasingly Republican, reaching about two-thirds by the end of the decade.

During the George W. Bush administration, however, the trend started to reverse. Today, among newly commissioned officers, there is about an even split between the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Anti-Liberal Alliance Has a 50-point Gap on Accepting Homosexuality

The Pew Research Center documents increasing acceptance of homosexuality in a new study. The people who most oppose homosexuality, not surprisingly, are "staunch conservatives." In answer to the question "Should homosexuality be accepted or discouraged by society?" staunch conservatives say

Accepted 22% and Discouraged 68%.

What I find most interesting in this study is that "libertarians," who in most political issues are allied with the conservatives, differ dramatically on this issue. They answer

Accepted 71% and Discouraged 19%.

The anti-liberal voting bloc, which had such success in the last election, is an alliance of opposites. This is nowhere more clearly shown than on the issue of the social meaning of homosexuality.

Using Prenups to Fight No-Fault

Heather Mahar, a researcher at Harvard Law School, has been studying pre-nuptial agreements. She found, not surprisingly, that most people do not want to use them for fear of signaling (or causing) ambivalence about the marriage. Mahar thinks prenuptial agreements do comply with what economists think is rational, but not with the emotional commitments that most people value more highly.

Mahar does, though, think that premarital counseling should include a prenuptial checklist, so a couple can work through their common values about marriage, including what they think about divorce.

The most interesting part of Mahar's research to me was that some couples use prenups to establish higher standards for divorce than the low "no-fault" standards that most states use. Couples can specify the only grounds that they will allow for divorce, such as adultery, desertion, violence, or crime, and the distribution of assets that the guilty party must suffer as a result. Since many courts are unwilling to enforce the marriage contract itself, but instead allow unilateral divorce, strengthening the marriage contract through a personal pre-nuptial agreement might be worth doing.

Richer, Educated Women Have Fewer Abortions

The abortion rate overall has dropped 8% over from 2000 to 2008, according to a Guttmacher Institute study. However, the abortion rate for poor women rose 18%. This means that richer, better educated women are having fewer abortions.

Poor women now make up 42% of those who have abortions. If the present trend continues, within a decade I expect that poor women will have most of the one million plus annual abortions in this country.

Educated women are already marrying more and divorcing less than they did a decade ago. If they are also having fewer abortions, this bodes well for developing truly planned and sustained family life in the college class.

A Quarter of Moms with Two Kids Had Them by Different Men

Twenty-eight percent of mothers with two or more children had them by two or more different men.

Among black women, 59% had them by two or more men.

Christian Schools Produce Decent Citizens

Ray Pennings, in the Cardus Religion Survey, presents these interesting conclusions from a comprehensive study of Protestant Christian school graduates:

Compared to their public school, Catholic school, and non-religious private school peers, Protestant Christian school graduates have been found to be uniquely compliant, generous, outwardly focused individuals who stabilize their communities by their uncommon commitment to their families, their churches, and larger society.

He goes on to say that they marry more, divorce less, and have more kids. Christian school graduates are changing the world - from the bottom up, by living decent lives. They are not primarily aimed at changing large social structures.

Indeed, I think the Christian Right has been so vocal about turning family values and biblical values into business-oriented national political positions precisely because macro politics is so at odds with the lives and concerns of the core evangelical Protestant world.

Centre Commencement

Today was Centre College Commencement. It was lovely. And exhausting.

Sabbatical begins tomorrow. I will seek The Happy Society in earnest.

Ain't no Rapture like the VelociRapture

This my favorite of today's rapture jokes.

(Thanks to Jay Garmon)

Proportion of Marriages Making it to the Tenth Anniversary Is Rising

Traditionally there has been a spike in divorces from the "seven-year itch." If couples make it to their tenth anniversary, their odds of going all the way step up significantly.

The proportion of married couples making it to their tenth anniversary is rising.

75% of couples married in the early '90s made it to their tenth anniversary.

This is 3% higher than the success rate of couples married in the early '80s.

Costs of Married Parents?

I asked my "Introduction to Family Life" class to consider the costs and benefits of the most common type of family - a married couple and their children - and the several major variants that we studied. They did a good job considering the costs and benefits of the variants. On the most common type, though, several of them came to this considered judgment (I am quoting from one exam):

There are not real costs to marriage and a two parent household, there are only benefits.

I was taken aback by this. Not really because I disagree, but because I am used to thinking that all arrangements have costs as well as benefits.

I would be interested in your thoughts on this question and answer.

Presbyterian Church Votes to Tolerate Gay Ordination

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has just changed ordination standards to, in effect, allow practicing homosexuals to be ordained.   The exact language of the church's constitution that was dropped and replaced is written below.

Some have read this as a move by the church toward liberalism.  I do not think that is quite right.  Rather, I believe the loyalist middle of the church changed what it thinks can be tolerated.  It did not change its traditional view that the Bible calls homosexual practice a sin.  Instead, the loyalist center changed its traditional view that the sin of homosexual practice cannot be tolerated.

In other words, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) used to say that homosexual practice was a sin like child sacrifice - absolutely forbidden.  Now the church says homosexual practice is a sin like divorce - bad, but tolerable.

STRIKING: “Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.

AND INSERTING: Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life (G-1.0000). The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation (G.14.0240; G-14.0450) shall examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office. The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003). Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.”

Still No Rush to Gay Marriage, Even Among the Tolerant Dutch

In the ten years since the Netherlands legalized homosexual marriage, only 15,000 couples have actually married.  The Dutch national statistics agency estimates that that is only 20% of homosexual couples in the Netherlands, compared to a marriage rate of about 80% for heterosexual couples.

This confirms what I had estimated based on Eskridge and Spedale's pioneering study of gay marriage rates in Denmark, the first country to legalize homosexual marriage.

There is not a large demand for marriage among homosexuals.  There is a large demand for the right of homosexuals to marry among liberals.

As a practical matter, passing gay marriage laws does not change much in how very many people live. This says to me that those who are worried that gay marriage laws will lead to big changes in American life can rest easier.

A Fifth of American Women Never Have Kids

Almost a fifth of American women in their early 40s have not had a child.  Barring something very unusual, they will never have any.

The rule of thumb for all societies is that 90% of people marry, and 90% of them have children.  This yields an average of 87% of the people in most populations have children.

Immigrants to the U.S. reproduce at exactly that rate: 87%.  But the native population is down to 80%.  Were it not for immigration our population would be declining.

Religion-Income Link is Not Just From Education

A new Pew study of religion and class shows an almost direct line between education and income.  The denominations with the highest average income - Reform Jews, Hindus, and Conservative Jews - also have the highest level of education.  Two-thirds of Reform Jewish households make more than $75,000 per year.  The median income of a household of four is $50,000.

David Leonhardt, in the New York Times article on this study,  rightly notes the education/income link.  He wonders why the secularists and Unitarians, who have high levels of education, do not have household incomes to match. 

I have a hypothesis: secularists and Unitarians have a high unmarried rate.  Secularists tend to be younger than other religious groups, and less likely to have married yet.  Unitarians have a high fraction who changed religions, often after a divorce.  Both of these conditions reduce household income compared to other religious groups, which are more married.

"Intra-Conservative Marriage Fight" Post Also Deleted

Don't know why, either. This is all that remains:

Gruntled Center: Intra-Conservative Marriage Fight

May 12, 2011 ... Intra-Conservative Marriage Fight. Keith Ablow, the libertarian psychiatrist who comments on medical matters for Fox News, ...

Maggie Gallagher took Keith Ablow to task for saying that marriage is oppressive to most marriaed people and produces high rates of depression. Social conservative Gallagher is right, and libertarian Ablow is wrong. Showing again that social conservatives and libertarians are opposites on family issues, as they are on most issues.

"Pregnot" Post Deleted - I Don't Know Why

On May 11 I posted an entry that, for unknown reasons, was lost (deleted?) by Blogger. All that remains is this much of a web-memory:

Gruntled Center: "Pregnot" Experiment Doesn't Justify the Deception

May 11, 2011 ... "Pregnot" Experiment Doesn't Justify the Deception. Gaby Rodriguez, a student at Toppenish High School in Washington state, pretended to be ...

The gist of the post was that a high school student who pretended to be pregnant as an "experiment" is in the wrong, and would not have gotten by a college-level Institutional Review Board. The deception hurt others, and was not necessary - she could have worked with a real pregnant student to see how others reacted to her. This was not so much an experiment as a stunt, which gives sociology, her intended college interest, a bad name.

"Obama or Palin?" as a Mate Selection Standard

Church attendance and political ideology top the list of similarities in a study of 500o married couples conducted by Rice University political scientist John Alford and colleagues.

The news report in Science Daily humorously suggests a new pickup line: "Obama or Palin?"

This sounds to me like an excellent experiment. I hope a speed-dating venue suggests that as an opening question. For all but the least politically aware, this would be a very efficient sorting test.

Intra-Conservative Marriage Fight

Keith Ablow, the libertarian psychiatrist who comments on medical matters for Fox News, says that marriage is a major cause of depression and a source of suffering for "the vast majority" of married people. He wants to abolish marriage, leaving couples to simply choose each other every day.

Maggie Gallagher, the social conservative founder of The National Organization for Marriage takes Ablow to task for having his facts all wrong.

In this fight, Gallagher is right.

The larger issue, I think, is that libertarians and social conservatives are opposites. Nowhere is this more clear than on family issues.

"Pregnot" Experiment Doesn't Justify the Deception

Gaby Rodriguez, a student at Toppenish High School in Washington state, pretended to be pregnant all during her senior year as an experiment to gauge reaction. At a school assembly last week she revealed the deception, and read comments made to and about her.

I think the deception is not justified by the experiment. This is the kind of thing that gives sociology, her future planned major, a bad name. I don't think this experiment would have gotten by a college Institutional Review Board. There are plenty of actual pregnant girls like her in her high school and others like it that she could have enlisted for this experiment.

What is more remarkable is that almost no "results" of this experiment have been reported, though the incident has received wide publicity in marriage-studying circles.

The news reports suggest that her intention was to show that even smart girls get pregnant without marriage, and that other people should help them act as if this were no big deal. I think it is a big deal - proof of which is that she says she has no intention of actually getting pregnant until she is out of college. She did not mention anything about marriage.