In love with the most wonderful person: Me!

In love with the most wonderful person: Me!

Fresh off its look at big families as a weird new lifestyle, the Boston Globe Magazine now extols the virtues of remaining single—even single parenthood! For the Narcissus Generation, this is just what the doctor ordered. After all, why should it matter that having a mom and a dad is best for children, if I want to accessorize with kids without having to mess up my life with a spouse?

This is more of the phenomenon of people not wanting to grow up. Let’s make one distinction: There are some people who would love to get married, but find it difficult to find someone who shares their values. There are others who remain single as a way of devoting their lives first to God. But then there are others, whose prime motivation is apparently that easily discarded relationships are fine, but lifetime commitments are out of the question. It’s limiting, oppressive, requires me to put someone else first, and so on.

Miss Kelly examines the article and comes away with two conclusions: First, being single is not nearly as fun for most people as it makes it sound and is in fact very lonely; and two, it diminishes the value of marriage.

As a woman who was single for most of my adult life (I married late), proclaiming the singles “couldn’t be happier” is a crock and we all know it. They certainly could be happier, and I bet that each and every one of those allegedly deliriously happy single people would rather NOT be single.  But due to a number of societal trends, there are fewer people interested in marrying, which is a shame for these individual people, and it’s unfortunate for the society at large (and for the children they adopt).

... It’s well documented that married people are happier, they do live longer, their finances are better, they’re more altruistic, and their kids are happier, more secure, and also financially better off.  Society is better off having stable families taking care of children. There’s a good reason your parents and friends are still trying to set you up, they love you and want you to be loved and cared for.  Most human beings are happier with someone to share the joys and burdens of life with, including such mundane things as grocery shopping, snuggling on the couch, shovelling the driveway, paying bills, and walking the dog.  For me (and my husband), the coupled life beats the single life by a million miles.

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