THE REAL AND THE IDEAL: Elizabeth Marquardt replies to Gabriel Rosenberg

Gabriel Rosenberg apparently thinks that being raised by your two biological parents is a privilege; otherwise he could not compare it to being raised by well-off, educated parents. And maybe he's right that at this point in our history it is a privilege to be raised by your own two parents; it's true that I've heard some young adults from intact families acknowledge with embarrassed pride that they were lucky that their parents stayed together.

But we didn't used to think of being raised by your mother and father as a privilege, we thought of it as a birthright, one that all children, no matter their family's wealth or social standing, had a good chance of attaining.

Maggie Gallagher has written persuasively that the decline of a marriage culture is creating a new generation of "have" and "have not" children--those who have married parents and all the security that brings, regardless of social standing, and those who lack married parents and, on almost every social indicator, fall behind.

Maybe you're onto something, Mr. Rosenberg, but are you proud of what you're found?

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Elizabeth writes more about the real/ideal split, in a slightly different context, here.
posted by Eve at 6:05 PM | link

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