Tag Archives: Normal & Normative

Illegitimacy: The New Normal

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The New York Times has noted that normal has changed. According to a report from Child Trends, more than half of children born to women under age 30 are born outside of marriage. The article begins: “It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal.”

Not just “normal”, but new norms

What has changed is not simply the prevalence of children born apart from marriage, but the norms on which the institution of marriage was grounded. The reason that illegitimacy is no longer used is that it belongs to a time when marriage was not only normal, it was normative for procreation.

If you read the Times  article as an anthropologist, you will be struck by the way that norms have changed over the period of time that has experienced such an explosion of children born apart from marriage. Yes, of course, marriage as a social norm has decayed. But to focus on that is to miss the forest for the trees. What is taken as normative by the journalists – and many if not most of their readers – is that individual and social behavior ought to be explained by efficient causes: changes in the social milieu (e.g. “Liberal analysts argue that shrinking paychecks have thinned the ranks of marriageable men”) and public policy (e.g. “conservatives often say that the sexual revolution reduced the incentive to wed and that safety net programs discourage marriage”). It is now both normal and normative in public discourse to address – and attempt to resolve – social issues exclusively in terms of efficient causes.

The Compounding Effect
My generation is a unique one because we can remember a time when public discourse was not merely in terms of cause and effect, but of right and wrong. Dr. King’s letter from a Birmingham Jail argued powerfully for obedience to just laws and loving disobedience to unjust ones not because such actions were likely to produce desirable outcomes (Dr. King was writing from jail), but because the justice or injustice of a law was measured by its harmony with the moral law, or the law of God. Our children’s generation is in a profoundly different position because their experience of the use of language NOW establishes what they experience as normal and normative. If they listen to us, they stand in danger of seeing marriage merely as a social convention among some subcultures that is merely the product of social, political, and historical (efficient) causes and without any sort of relationship to a moral law or law of God.

Manipulation or Moral Courage
Being born out of marriage is the new normal (at least for children born to women under 30). That’s true whether we like it or not. The question now is how we will respond. Will we try to manipulate the levers of society (public policy, social factors, etc.)? Will we argue about what carrots and what sticks to use to manipulate others into behaviors we desire? Will we blame one another and accidents of history for the state of society?

Or will we have the moral courage to transgress the new norms of language? Rather than blaming others, or impersonal causes, or “social conditions,” will we have courage to take responsibility and confess our own culpability? Will we have the love and patience to come alongside shattered children, mothers and fathers? On what grounds will we call them to something better? Will we recognize that we and they are responsible moral agents who act within the web of real and powerful social settings which do not sufficiently explain our actions? Will we act against social, political, and historical forces for something that is more good, true and beautiful?

Our children are watching and listening.

The Rediscovery of Character and The Heretical Imperative

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In a New York Times op-ed yesterday, David Brooks highlighted the legacy of James Q. Wilson. Brooks argues that Wilson should be remembered not just for his “broken windows” theory on how to reduce crime, but for his emphasis on the importance of character for social well-being.

“At root,” Wilson wrote in 1985 in The Public Interest, “in almost every area of important concern, we are seeking to induce persons to act virtuously, whether as schoolchildren, applicants for public assistance, would-be lawbreakers or voters and public officials.

Character is formed, necessarily, in community; and therefore the beliefs, values, and habits of the community are of utmost importance. That truth makes our current situation all the more disturbing. Peter Berger, a sociologist, has described our time as being constrained by “the heretical imperative.” We are commanded to choose our own values, beliefs, and religion. The normative structures that were passed down from generation to generation through tradition (meaning ‘to hand down’ or ‘to hand over’) are now challenged. The new norm is to choose your own.

The rediscovery of character as important is important. However, it is only the first step. Wilson was raised in a nation and generation that had a rich an stable tradition handed down to it. Our children desperately need a rich, robust tradition that tells them virtue is a norm to which they must conform – not one which they may define as they so please. Our children will be bear the fruit of our character, as they are apprenticed to us in discerning and cultivating virtue.

French Parenting and Apprenticeship

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NPR recently interviewed Pamela Druckerman, the author of Bringing up Bebe, on her observations of the uniqueness of French styles of parenting, and particularly what contributes to content, well-adjusted kids.

“We [Americans] assume … a little more that kids have inherent likes and dislikes, whereas the French view on food is the parent must educate their child and that appreciation for different food is something you cultivate over time,” Druckerman says.

One key to this cultivation of tastes appears to be exposure. Druckerman points out that in France, “there is no category of food called kids’ food. Kids and adults, from the start, eat the same thing.”

French parenting, like tiger parenting, helicopter parenting, and free-range parenting, is a mode of apprenticeship. It is initiating children into a way of seeing and experiencing the world. Children learn from their parents continually and implicitly what is normal and what is normative. In France, for example, it is normal for children to eat the same food as their parents, and to entertain themselves without parental supervision and interaction. French parents may or may not give thought to this. Regardless of the level of reflection, their children are apprenticed to them.

That’s why parenting matters, and why there are important lessons to learn from those who assume that their kids will develop a refined palate from trying all kinds of food from the start.

How to get washboard abs – or a gut

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Has it ever occurred to you that you get washboard abs the same way you get a gut?

Both are attained by practice. What you do repeatedly affects the shape of your body – whether arduous ab workouts, or consuming more calories than your body needs.

What does this have to do with parenting?

It is commonly assumed that practice is the pathway to excellence. It is. But it is also the path to mediocrity and failure. What you practice, and how you practice determine which path you’re on.

Many young children are on the path to having a gut before they even lose their baby teeth. They’re practicing a pattern of nutrition and exercise that will result in obesity in all but a few children. Parents (or those who act in their stead) are the chief influences of early childhood nutrition and exercise. We are the ones who establish patterns of practice – patterns which can lead to health or disease.