I appreciate the unflinching look at how simpler solutions, like decoupling husband/father, don't seem aware of or take as their goal the design of the human child to be raised in one intact family.
My parents divorced when I was 8. I lived with my mom full-time and visited my dad regularly. The tension between them never healed. When I was planning my wedding and dealing with that tension, both communicated to me that they didn't realize they would still be "paying" for the divorce. It was eye-opening for me as I prepared for my own marriage.
On the other hand, my dad went out of his way to stay faithful to his commitment to me. He called me every night. This is before cell phones. He traveled frequently for work. So every night, we would arrange when he would call the next day. I would have to be at my mom's home to pick up the call (which probably kept me safe more than I knew during my angsty teen years). He would have to find a landline at whatever hotel, conference center, etc. he was at and duck out of business dinners to call his daughter. His fidelity to those phone calls has stayed with me my whole life. Physical presence doesn't necessarily mean actual presence and vice versa.
I love the anchor analogy, especially if it’s used to characterize the central virtues that make good fatherhood practicable. Rather than calling them “fidelity” or “patience,” however, I prefer thinking of them as gentleness, or restraint.
For me, the challenge with “fidelity” or “patience” is their temporal characteristic. They have to persist to be achieved. E.g. I lack fidelity if I screw up tomorrow, or next year, or next decade. No one thinks of a father as having fidelity in the five years before he left his family. Likewise, I lack patience if I lose it halfway through the afternoon with my children.
But with gentleness or restraint, or “praus” if you prefer the Gospel Greek, I can aim for that virtue in one individual reaction at a time. I can choose in this moment to be restrained – to keep my mouth shut, to hold my temper, to take a deep breath and manage my feelings. With restraint, I can break down good fatherhood into one individual moment at a time. But these are admittedly subjective readings of the words, so YMMV.
I don’t know how much gentleness or restraint I possessed the day my first son was born, but I know one of the things that’s helped me cultivate more of them by revising my self-image. I grew up nerdy and took a fair share of beatings from bullies, so it took me a long time to shake the mental image of myself as unimposing. But to my family, especially my small children, I am *enormous* - 6+ feet and 200 pounds of parent. That shift in self-image has helped me resist self-pity, which I think is the most unfatherly of all emotions. Because self-pity leads me to thinking about what I deserve from my children, as opposed to what they deserve from me. And for me, no gentleness comes from thinking of myself.
Jun 20, 2023·edited Jun 20, 2023Liked by Leah Libresco Sargeant
> "How do you meet people in grief about a past wrong or broken promise without dismissing the weight of what they lost?"
You LISTEN.
Remember Card's "Speaker for the Dead" ideal? ...that the story of someone's life would be re-told (paraphrasing here) including all that is good and all that is bad? It's such an appealing ideal!!
My thought is this: People KNOW there's stuff wrong in there, in the stories of their life, (The idea "with full candor, hiding no faults and pretending no virtues" is the wording from the description of the "Speaker for the Dead"!) and the decisions they've made, and the costs they've made others pay. And a really good listener can help them to stumble upon those arduous truths... by letting them hang in there and keep talking. Truth appears to extract a perilous cost--but we are also drawn to it.
Also, Anna Karenina!! There are episodes in there (especially surrounding the series of carriage rides where her mind tumbles through dissociation near the end!) where, really, Anna was casting about looking for a good listener to help her begin to unravel her hopelessly-knotty moral engimas. She couldn't really think well all alone.
My husband has learned over the years that when I'm working something out, he just needs to listen, maybe ask question, but I will probably manage on my own just hearing myself say the words.
This is a topic of great interest to me AND I am a huge musical fan! (And yet somehow, I have never seen Merrily We Roll along & am not familiar w it -- aside from what I've now learned about it from your post).
I really appreciate your thoughtful post. I agree w your assumption that Reeves' thoughts re decoupling marriage & fatherhood are primarily aimed at what's happened already & what is now, vs. something to aspire to in the future. I also personally agree that marriage and fatherhood, ideally, go together, and I think that's worth aspiring to, worth teaching our boys. And then there's messy reality. I meant to raise our children in marriage, w mom and dad & kids in the same home, but 17 yrs & 4 kids in, that's not how it played out. Statistically, that means our kids fall into the category of American children who grew up without living with both mom and dad. But that's not the reality of what happened. Our four boys grew up with regular and consistent access to both mom and dad, who happened to live in separate houses. What so often gets lost and glossed over in these discussions is that physical presence is not magical; involvement and connection are. Parents' marital status or living situation does not necessarily equate to relationship quality, involvement or connection. There are very many "intact" families-- mom and dad living in same house a kids -- that are unhealthy & even abusive. There are very many "broken" families -- mom and dad living apart, divorced or perhaps never married -- that are healthy, emotionally supportive, and loving.
I'm also separated from my kiddo's dad, and they have a fantastic relationship (and we have a top notch co-parenting one).
To build off what you wrote, Jennifer, I see Reeve's piece as being backward looking - let's deal with the world as it is. But he then goes further and says let's make data driven choices about how we communicate to current fathers, out there in the world & unmarried, so that they have clear societal support in being great dads. If our priority is the kids' well being (as it should be!) shaming their fathers and shaming their family structure doesn't help anyone. That doesn't mean you can't lift up the two parent family (that's still our societal norm!) but that together we should all agree parenthood's responsibilities fall on both men & women and support great parenting regardless of family structure.
I think you have a really good point that “physical presence” and “involvement and connection” are two different things and that the latter is the essential part. Being precise is helpful with these kinds of issues!
To apply this to another kind of relationship, the idea that involvement and connection don’t *necessarily* go with presence gives me hope when thinking about how to help my daughter know her extended family when we live several hours away from them. I really want her to feel close to her grandparents and aunts, but it can be hard to think of ways to make that happen across distance. Thanks for the reminder that it’s totally possible!
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023Liked by Leah Libresco Sargeant
"The art of losing isn't hard to master." I can't decide yet exactly how (or whether, or to what extent) Elizabeth Bishop's poem "One Art" supports or refutes your thesis here, but it shares the atmosphere (particularly of the questions you frame around "Merrily We Roll Along"), so I'll link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art
That central irony though-- the villanelle forcing exponentially-unlike losses into a supposed one-size-fits-all indifference-- comments both on grief itself for things irreparably lost, and on our human unwillingness to admit actual devastation when we experience it.
(Would it pass on to our children a description of reality-- Reeves??-- or a cautionary tale in service of clear-sightedness and fidelity-- Sargeant and Sargeant?? What's survivable when lost; what's worth planning to keep; what happens in the in-between?)
There's a tone of inevitability in Reeve's work (This is just how it is) that misses the important work of establishing a vision for some of the most crucial aspects of our lives such as marriage and parenthood.
I understand that the relationship between spouses are different from a father to child, and while these are distinct, I hardly think they are separate.
Much of Reeve's work is about how the father can show up to a child, but what does the child think? As someone who's had parents separate as an adult, the infidelity of my father deeply broke my trust in him as a human person. No matter how hard he tries, he has to take steps to repair his relationship with his wife (even if they never get back together) in order for me to see him as a good father. To expect someone to switch hats and then have other people respond in a completely different way feels non-human. We don't work like that.
I'm a community affiliate research coordinator and currently working to evaluate some programs across the country to evaluate the interventions community leaders have developed to help boys/men in education, labor, and parenthood. I'd love to chat and pick you brain.
So here's the thing. My parents were separated for a while before my dad actually moved out. I have no illusions about the fact that they are better as friends than as a couple. And yet, nothing really makes up for having your family be the people you wake up to everyday as a kid/teen and laugh/cry/scream at/bicker with everyday. My dad is someone I could and can always call to for help at any time. But those boring, dead, average moments each day are gone. Yes, intentional time with my kids is important and I try to be present, but I know from having had that experience growing up that being together in the same house is itself a gift, as opposed to this "now I go to dad's house, I better make it count" or "I better bring my best self because this is our limited time together". I know it sounds stupid, but families should be under the same roof. And yes, I recognize that abuse and other things make it difficult to absolutize.
You are so right about this. We have forgotten how to try and fix the things we have broken. We have forgotten how to suggest to someone who has broken things that they should try and mend them. And that leads to a very bad place of simply shrugging one's shoulders and saying, "It's what it is." But it becomes what you make of it! And we have lost that. To really, deeply mourn our mistakes is the first step towards correcting them, and there are too many who elect not to mourn.
This discussion seems very one-sided if we don't talk about women as well. Men don't become fathers on their own. Where are the women? Yes, this was Father's Day, and so I get why the emphasis is on dads.
It isn't just about the men and whom they choose to sleep with and the circumstances of the choosing. Do they want to be fathers? Are they choosing women who want to be wives and mothers?
What type of men are the women choosing? Are they choosing men who want to be husbands and fathers? Do they even want to be wives and mothers?
The book Promises I Can Keep opened my eyes to something.
Marriage is more and more becoming a middle and upper-middle class thing.
For many people not in those groups, children come first, then marriage, if at all. Marriage comes after the couple proves they can be together for the long term and raise a family. If things don't work out, breaking up is seen as less traumatic than divorce.
The women in particular are hesitant, because they often see men not as contributors to households as providers and fathers, but as deadbeats.
But fewer of the men and women have the skills to negotiate marriage. Higher divorce rates mean fewer people see functioning marriages. But they want companionship, and they want families, it's just difficult for them to get to that stability.
I second so much of this, and the cultural over emphasis on one's personal happiness is not helpful either - for anybody. It sets up unrealistic expectations in relationships and makes "unhappiness" as an acceptable "out" during hard times. Faithfulness requires a sense of duty and responsibility, which are sentiments hardly valued today, and therefore almost impossible for those who have had no example of them to even imagine, much less strive for.
We do marriage prep for engaged couples. We always talk to them about how hard times will come, and it doesn't mean they made the biggest mistake of their lives. It means they have to work on getting out of the hard time, and that is always possible.
I'm SO glad you tell couples that! Joseph Ratzinger said that couples need ongoing ministry in their first 10 years of married life. I agree that is wise as there's a lot of foundation going on in those first 10 years. However, I've also noticed that older couples need the reminder of what newlyweds are told. If you don't come into your REALLY HARD times until you're at year 15, 18, or 20+... when the youngest child has been born and the reality of your actual children and your actual life sets in, maybe with serious unforeseen health issues in spouse or child, or perhaps layered with communication missteps that have dogged your subsequent years of relationship, but without that buoyant hope of the unwritten possibilities of what your life COULD be anymore... that's when you need to hear this even more. And it has to clear because the world is clear in its messaging: "The cross is heavy, put it down and dance and make merry with us and be happy!"
I've also just come to the conclusion that most of us are simply bad at suffering. Very few of us know how to accept suffering and inconvenience well in our daily lives. Myself included. Managing expectations is always a useful skill.
Oh goodness, when I saw "redshirting the boys," I thought it had Star Trek connotations (i.e., the people in red shirts were always the ones who got killed off). I had to look it up to reassure myself. 😂
Lock-Keeper has long been my favourite song, full stop. Here's a few more specifically about marital fidelity from Stan Rogers. Many of his songs about Canadian history, shipwrecks, and the maritime experience speak to more general virtues of doing the right thing for home and family, through either constancy or noble sacrifice.
Reeves IMHO is really just being pragmatic and realistic. Patriarchy (fatherhood writ large) is collapsing, for better or worse. And in any case, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
The song I've passed on to my children (they are young adults now - I will ask them if they remember it) is from one of my favorite children's books, Guess How Much I Love You? "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as you're with me, my baby you'll be."
Some stories of promise-keeping or loyal relationships that have stuck with me:
- The friendships in the Harry Potter series, especially the scene in Prisoner of Azkaban where Ron tells their opponent (who’s implied he’s willing to let Ron and Hermione go) that if he wants to kill Harry he’ll have to kill the other two first.
- The end of Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, where Hornblower has a chance to escape a prisoner-of-war jail, and wants more than anything to be free again, but reluctantly returns to jail simply because he gave his word not to escape. (Seems also relevant to this discussion to note that for whatever reason, Hornblower is far better at keeping his word as a soldier than at keeping vows to any of the women in his life — go figure.)
- Most especially, the friendships between the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings. Merry says it best, perhaps (“We’re your friends…You can trust us to help you, and to keep any secret of yours better than you keep it yourself, but you cannot trust us to let you go into danger alone” [paraphrasing bc I don’t have the book in front of me]), but Samwise certainly lives it best. Their loyalty has actually shaped how I think about and imagine firm friendship.
None of those books are ones I would give to my kids immediately, but Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hatches the Egg is definitely in the baby-book lineup, specifically because of its refrain “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, and an elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.”
I appreciate the unflinching look at how simpler solutions, like decoupling husband/father, don't seem aware of or take as their goal the design of the human child to be raised in one intact family.
My parents divorced when I was 8. I lived with my mom full-time and visited my dad regularly. The tension between them never healed. When I was planning my wedding and dealing with that tension, both communicated to me that they didn't realize they would still be "paying" for the divorce. It was eye-opening for me as I prepared for my own marriage.
On the other hand, my dad went out of his way to stay faithful to his commitment to me. He called me every night. This is before cell phones. He traveled frequently for work. So every night, we would arrange when he would call the next day. I would have to be at my mom's home to pick up the call (which probably kept me safe more than I knew during my angsty teen years). He would have to find a landline at whatever hotel, conference center, etc. he was at and duck out of business dinners to call his daughter. His fidelity to those phone calls has stayed with me my whole life. Physical presence doesn't necessarily mean actual presence and vice versa.
I love the anchor analogy, especially if it’s used to characterize the central virtues that make good fatherhood practicable. Rather than calling them “fidelity” or “patience,” however, I prefer thinking of them as gentleness, or restraint.
For me, the challenge with “fidelity” or “patience” is their temporal characteristic. They have to persist to be achieved. E.g. I lack fidelity if I screw up tomorrow, or next year, or next decade. No one thinks of a father as having fidelity in the five years before he left his family. Likewise, I lack patience if I lose it halfway through the afternoon with my children.
But with gentleness or restraint, or “praus” if you prefer the Gospel Greek, I can aim for that virtue in one individual reaction at a time. I can choose in this moment to be restrained – to keep my mouth shut, to hold my temper, to take a deep breath and manage my feelings. With restraint, I can break down good fatherhood into one individual moment at a time. But these are admittedly subjective readings of the words, so YMMV.
I don’t know how much gentleness or restraint I possessed the day my first son was born, but I know one of the things that’s helped me cultivate more of them by revising my self-image. I grew up nerdy and took a fair share of beatings from bullies, so it took me a long time to shake the mental image of myself as unimposing. But to my family, especially my small children, I am *enormous* - 6+ feet and 200 pounds of parent. That shift in self-image has helped me resist self-pity, which I think is the most unfatherly of all emotions. Because self-pity leads me to thinking about what I deserve from my children, as opposed to what they deserve from me. And for me, no gentleness comes from thinking of myself.
> "How do you meet people in grief about a past wrong or broken promise without dismissing the weight of what they lost?"
You LISTEN.
Remember Card's "Speaker for the Dead" ideal? ...that the story of someone's life would be re-told (paraphrasing here) including all that is good and all that is bad? It's such an appealing ideal!!
My thought is this: People KNOW there's stuff wrong in there, in the stories of their life, (The idea "with full candor, hiding no faults and pretending no virtues" is the wording from the description of the "Speaker for the Dead"!) and the decisions they've made, and the costs they've made others pay. And a really good listener can help them to stumble upon those arduous truths... by letting them hang in there and keep talking. Truth appears to extract a perilous cost--but we are also drawn to it.
Also, Anna Karenina!! There are episodes in there (especially surrounding the series of carriage rides where her mind tumbles through dissociation near the end!) where, really, Anna was casting about looking for a good listener to help her begin to unravel her hopelessly-knotty moral engimas. She couldn't really think well all alone.
"Speaker" is my all-time favorite book.
My husband has learned over the years that when I'm working something out, he just needs to listen, maybe ask question, but I will probably manage on my own just hearing myself say the words.
This is a topic of great interest to me AND I am a huge musical fan! (And yet somehow, I have never seen Merrily We Roll along & am not familiar w it -- aside from what I've now learned about it from your post).
I really appreciate your thoughtful post. I agree w your assumption that Reeves' thoughts re decoupling marriage & fatherhood are primarily aimed at what's happened already & what is now, vs. something to aspire to in the future. I also personally agree that marriage and fatherhood, ideally, go together, and I think that's worth aspiring to, worth teaching our boys. And then there's messy reality. I meant to raise our children in marriage, w mom and dad & kids in the same home, but 17 yrs & 4 kids in, that's not how it played out. Statistically, that means our kids fall into the category of American children who grew up without living with both mom and dad. But that's not the reality of what happened. Our four boys grew up with regular and consistent access to both mom and dad, who happened to live in separate houses. What so often gets lost and glossed over in these discussions is that physical presence is not magical; involvement and connection are. Parents' marital status or living situation does not necessarily equate to relationship quality, involvement or connection. There are very many "intact" families-- mom and dad living in same house a kids -- that are unhealthy & even abusive. There are very many "broken" families -- mom and dad living apart, divorced or perhaps never married -- that are healthy, emotionally supportive, and loving.
I'm also separated from my kiddo's dad, and they have a fantastic relationship (and we have a top notch co-parenting one).
To build off what you wrote, Jennifer, I see Reeve's piece as being backward looking - let's deal with the world as it is. But he then goes further and says let's make data driven choices about how we communicate to current fathers, out there in the world & unmarried, so that they have clear societal support in being great dads. If our priority is the kids' well being (as it should be!) shaming their fathers and shaming their family structure doesn't help anyone. That doesn't mean you can't lift up the two parent family (that's still our societal norm!) but that together we should all agree parenthood's responsibilities fall on both men & women and support great parenting regardless of family structure.
I think you have a really good point that “physical presence” and “involvement and connection” are two different things and that the latter is the essential part. Being precise is helpful with these kinds of issues!
To apply this to another kind of relationship, the idea that involvement and connection don’t *necessarily* go with presence gives me hope when thinking about how to help my daughter know her extended family when we live several hours away from them. I really want her to feel close to her grandparents and aunts, but it can be hard to think of ways to make that happen across distance. Thanks for the reminder that it’s totally possible!
"The art of losing isn't hard to master." I can't decide yet exactly how (or whether, or to what extent) Elizabeth Bishop's poem "One Art" supports or refutes your thesis here, but it shares the atmosphere (particularly of the questions you frame around "Merrily We Roll Along"), so I'll link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art
That central irony though-- the villanelle forcing exponentially-unlike losses into a supposed one-size-fits-all indifference-- comments both on grief itself for things irreparably lost, and on our human unwillingness to admit actual devastation when we experience it.
(Would it pass on to our children a description of reality-- Reeves??-- or a cautionary tale in service of clear-sightedness and fidelity-- Sargeant and Sargeant?? What's survivable when lost; what's worth planning to keep; what happens in the in-between?)
There's a tone of inevitability in Reeve's work (This is just how it is) that misses the important work of establishing a vision for some of the most crucial aspects of our lives such as marriage and parenthood.
I understand that the relationship between spouses are different from a father to child, and while these are distinct, I hardly think they are separate.
Much of Reeve's work is about how the father can show up to a child, but what does the child think? As someone who's had parents separate as an adult, the infidelity of my father deeply broke my trust in him as a human person. No matter how hard he tries, he has to take steps to repair his relationship with his wife (even if they never get back together) in order for me to see him as a good father. To expect someone to switch hats and then have other people respond in a completely different way feels non-human. We don't work like that.
I'm a community affiliate research coordinator and currently working to evaluate some programs across the country to evaluate the interventions community leaders have developed to help boys/men in education, labor, and parenthood. I'd love to chat and pick you brain.
So here's the thing. My parents were separated for a while before my dad actually moved out. I have no illusions about the fact that they are better as friends than as a couple. And yet, nothing really makes up for having your family be the people you wake up to everyday as a kid/teen and laugh/cry/scream at/bicker with everyday. My dad is someone I could and can always call to for help at any time. But those boring, dead, average moments each day are gone. Yes, intentional time with my kids is important and I try to be present, but I know from having had that experience growing up that being together in the same house is itself a gift, as opposed to this "now I go to dad's house, I better make it count" or "I better bring my best self because this is our limited time together". I know it sounds stupid, but families should be under the same roof. And yes, I recognize that abuse and other things make it difficult to absolutize.
You are so right about this. We have forgotten how to try and fix the things we have broken. We have forgotten how to suggest to someone who has broken things that they should try and mend them. And that leads to a very bad place of simply shrugging one's shoulders and saying, "It's what it is." But it becomes what you make of it! And we have lost that. To really, deeply mourn our mistakes is the first step towards correcting them, and there are too many who elect not to mourn.
Where do I begin with this?
This discussion seems very one-sided if we don't talk about women as well. Men don't become fathers on their own. Where are the women? Yes, this was Father's Day, and so I get why the emphasis is on dads.
It isn't just about the men and whom they choose to sleep with and the circumstances of the choosing. Do they want to be fathers? Are they choosing women who want to be wives and mothers?
What type of men are the women choosing? Are they choosing men who want to be husbands and fathers? Do they even want to be wives and mothers?
The book Promises I Can Keep opened my eyes to something.
Marriage is more and more becoming a middle and upper-middle class thing.
For many people not in those groups, children come first, then marriage, if at all. Marriage comes after the couple proves they can be together for the long term and raise a family. If things don't work out, breaking up is seen as less traumatic than divorce.
The women in particular are hesitant, because they often see men not as contributors to households as providers and fathers, but as deadbeats.
But fewer of the men and women have the skills to negotiate marriage. Higher divorce rates mean fewer people see functioning marriages. But they want companionship, and they want families, it's just difficult for them to get to that stability.
Promises I Can Keep is excellent
Isn't it!
One key point the authors addressed was that parenting was an accidental thing that happened for so many people in their study.
They didn't date and plan for marriage and a family.
They just started seeing each other and had a child, or she was open to having kids, so she didn't think about birth control, and so she got pregnant.
Pregnancy just "happened," is how many of them described it.
But the transition from hanging out to having a child to becoming partners and parents fell through more often than not.
I second so much of this, and the cultural over emphasis on one's personal happiness is not helpful either - for anybody. It sets up unrealistic expectations in relationships and makes "unhappiness" as an acceptable "out" during hard times. Faithfulness requires a sense of duty and responsibility, which are sentiments hardly valued today, and therefore almost impossible for those who have had no example of them to even imagine, much less strive for.
We do marriage prep for engaged couples. We always talk to them about how hard times will come, and it doesn't mean they made the biggest mistake of their lives. It means they have to work on getting out of the hard time, and that is always possible.
I'm SO glad you tell couples that! Joseph Ratzinger said that couples need ongoing ministry in their first 10 years of married life. I agree that is wise as there's a lot of foundation going on in those first 10 years. However, I've also noticed that older couples need the reminder of what newlyweds are told. If you don't come into your REALLY HARD times until you're at year 15, 18, or 20+... when the youngest child has been born and the reality of your actual children and your actual life sets in, maybe with serious unforeseen health issues in spouse or child, or perhaps layered with communication missteps that have dogged your subsequent years of relationship, but without that buoyant hope of the unwritten possibilities of what your life COULD be anymore... that's when you need to hear this even more. And it has to clear because the world is clear in its messaging: "The cross is heavy, put it down and dance and make merry with us and be happy!"
I've also just come to the conclusion that most of us are simply bad at suffering. Very few of us know how to accept suffering and inconvenience well in our daily lives. Myself included. Managing expectations is always a useful skill.
Oh goodness, when I saw "redshirting the boys," I thought it had Star Trek connotations (i.e., the people in red shirts were always the ones who got killed off). I had to look it up to reassure myself. 😂
You're not the first to experience that confusion!
https://www.litterboxcomics.com/redshirting/
Ha!
Glad I'm not the only one! :-D
Lock-Keeper has long been my favourite song, full stop. Here's a few more specifically about marital fidelity from Stan Rogers. Many of his songs about Canadian history, shipwrecks, and the maritime experience speak to more general virtues of doing the right thing for home and family, through either constancy or noble sacrifice.
*Lies* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D79XOc1vKzQ (a wife struggles with ageing)
"Is this the face that won for her the man
Whose amazed and clumsy fingers put that ring upon her hand?
No need to search that mirror for the years
The menace in their message shouts across the blur of tears
[... She] thinks ahead to Friday, ’cause Friday will be fine
She’ll look up in that weathered face that loves her’s, line for line
To see that maiden shining in his eyes
And laugh at how her mirror tells her lies."
*You Can't Stay Here* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTaR-WaTPGw (in conversation with a groupie on the road)
"You can’t stay here.
Maybe you can’t see why,
But I’m an old-fashioned guy
And I’d rather be lonely.
But to me, you’re a stranger, to touch you is danger, I know it’s true.
‘Cause what I’ve got at home is too dear, to risk for an hour with you.
You can’t stay here.
I’ll be alright alone.
And when I’m safe in her arms at home…
I’ll thank you for leaving."
*Forty-Five Years* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zg2sniQ0Ss (self-explanatory)
"I just want to hold you closer than I’ve ever held anyone before
You say you’ve been twice a wife and you’re through with life
Ah, but Honey, what the hell’s it for?
After twenty-three years you’d think I could find
A way to let you know somehow
That I want to see your smiling face forty-five years from now"
I hadn't heard "You Can't Stay Here" before. It reminds me of the anti-adultery bop "Honey, I'm Good" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go7gn6dugu0
I am sensing a "reverse double standard" here. Am I picking up this vibe correctly?
Reeves IMHO is really just being pragmatic and realistic. Patriarchy (fatherhood writ large) is collapsing, for better or worse. And in any case, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
The song I've passed on to my children (they are young adults now - I will ask them if they remember it) is from one of my favorite children's books, Guess How Much I Love You? "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as you're with me, my baby you'll be."
Some stories of promise-keeping or loyal relationships that have stuck with me:
- The friendships in the Harry Potter series, especially the scene in Prisoner of Azkaban where Ron tells their opponent (who’s implied he’s willing to let Ron and Hermione go) that if he wants to kill Harry he’ll have to kill the other two first.
- The end of Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, where Hornblower has a chance to escape a prisoner-of-war jail, and wants more than anything to be free again, but reluctantly returns to jail simply because he gave his word not to escape. (Seems also relevant to this discussion to note that for whatever reason, Hornblower is far better at keeping his word as a soldier than at keeping vows to any of the women in his life — go figure.)
- Most especially, the friendships between the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings. Merry says it best, perhaps (“We’re your friends…You can trust us to help you, and to keep any secret of yours better than you keep it yourself, but you cannot trust us to let you go into danger alone” [paraphrasing bc I don’t have the book in front of me]), but Samwise certainly lives it best. Their loyalty has actually shaped how I think about and imagine firm friendship.
None of those books are ones I would give to my kids immediately, but Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hatches the Egg is definitely in the baby-book lineup, specifically because of its refrain “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, and an elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.”
Songs - Golden Jubilee, a traditional Irish song about an old couple celebrating 50 years of marriage https://youtu.be/HxA8Yxunf4k
Oh my Michael by Red Molly https://youtu.be/ZePRz6c_YXM
Last Goodbye by The Wailing Jennys
https://youtu.be/STKX0ABK-NQ
Grow Old With Me, the Sunny Sweeney version - https://youtu.be/JTgN6d5lMUk