Moving on up, moving on down

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Amy Chua-fest was about regression to the mean, aka the fact that sometimes kids with all the privilege in the world still don't get into the Ivies. We-as-a-society are accustomed to discussions of how unfair it is that smart and hard-working kids without all the privilege in the world are held back, but we're not sure what to make of the reverse phenomenon.

This is a problem, of course, primarily for the kids in question and their parents, parents who believe in social mobility through education, who are themselves its beneficiaries, but who now have to contend with the fact that their children, however wonderful, are not certified wonderful by the relevant authorities.

Chua's contribution, "Chua" defined as an amalgam of the phenomenon as understood by those who did and did not read the whole thing, was to say a) that it's OK to want certified-wonderful offspring, and b) that amorphous, milieu-propelled, 'privilege' alone is not enough to get them there. Oh, and c) that, absent the kind of obstacles that the kids we generally think of as less privileged (more specifically, children of immigrant families) experience, young people have no drive to succeed, so if you want your privileged kids to stay that way, you have to create an artificial atmosphere of absence-of-privilege. Not just stuff like, no designer handbags in 8th grade, but more like, if you get a B, you will starve to death in the gutter. Basically, Chua's innovation was rethinking the concept of privilege, both in terms of declaring it acceptable to perpetuate hard-won high-status, and in terms of pointing out that we-as-a-society overestimate the extent to which simply having educated and well-off parents guarantees class maintenance across generations. To put it another way, aka to repeat myself, we're used to thinking of social mobility in terms of its inadequacy as a way of propelling people upward; she's reminding us that it functions decently well in propelling some downward.

The rest, as I see it, is secondary. The 'Asian vs. Western' bit; the question of whether one can, in fact, get a good education at a school that isn't Harvard (was this ever in doubt? was 'a good education' ever the issue?); whether 'success' means Harvard or Stanford and Berkeley too; how to foster a child's creativity or individuality or whatever... none of this is what made Chua's... phenomenon any different. Which is why Caitlin Flanagan has, I think, missed its significance. The "good mothers" she postulates hover in this on-the-one-hand, on-the-other sphere of wanting their children to Find Themselves, yet to end up at Ivies all the same. There is this paradox, fine, but the paradox that matters is the broader one: they want the Ivies to be meritocracies, but they want to make sure their own offspring get ahead.

Meanwhile, Flavia's suggestion, that parents encourage their kids along the way, but not in any definitive direction, "then see who your child is, and what she can do, and recalibrate," strikes me as altogether reasonable, but fails to address the anxieties that drove the wave of Chua-fixation. (Not that Flavia claims to be addressing Chua-fixation.) Chuaism is about making sure your children remain in the same class, about pushing them beyond what's needed to be in that class, just to be extra sure, and in order to make sure they do the same with their kids. It's not about producing children who are, god forbid, well-suited to the work they end up doing.

I, for one, think Flaviaism is more reasonable - why focus on class maintenance, when having wealthy offspring is no guarantee they'll be amazing let alone nearby when you're old? Unless you believe in an afterlife during which you'll be able to bask in the glory of your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren's i-banking careers, when it ends, it ends. But if you're losing sleep over the possibility that future beings with your DNA will worry about where the next meal is coming from, you're better off advocating for more socialism - or better yet, moving to a country where that's a done deal - than banking on your descendants being smarter, luckier, and more hard-working than most. Sort of like, as I've also said before, if your number one concern in life is that your offspring marry fellow Jews, you're better off moving to Israel than exerting pressure on them as individuals, when it could well be that they'll obey, but their kids won't.

But Chuaism isn't about reasonable. It isn't about looking at what it's supposed to matter if in 2150, people with your last name are lawyers or janitors. It's about taking whatever twinge of paternal angst compels parents to find it mildly tragic when their children, however happy, fail to be certified as wonderful, and rather than suppressing it, as is reasonable, making that the focal point of parenting.

On getting through the day

Today's off to a fine start - I got all kinds of paperwork in order, but somehow neglected to notice that the visa office only accepts said paperwork between 9 and 10 am, at which point my main concern was that the oatmeal not stick to the pot. A demain, alors.

As for this... I'm confused. (I get confused easily.) Conor asks whether newspapers should portray the world as it is or as it should be. But the Weddings and Celebrations section - like any of the various Style sections - is always "sugar-coated." I mean, are most marriages in the country, or even in the NY area, between high-achieving, photogenic young professionals who've spent their formative years in euphemistic Boston? The Vows are designed to provoke envy among not-quite-so-highly-achieving, not-quite-so-photogenic, not-quite-so-coupled-off. This week's column strayed from the norm, because it went the regular Style-section route - seemingly celebrating but between-the-lines (by allowing comments, say) mocking the frivolous rich. I guess the paper was trying to shake things up, to see if readers prefer self-hatred or smugness on their Sunday mornings. Either way, though, I can't imagine any part of that section telling it like it is.

Think of the children. For real. UPDATED

I always find it icky when wedding announcements mention the couples' previous loves - anything from 'The bridegroom's previous marriage ended in divorce' to a cutesy anecdote about how when the couple met, they were both involved with other people. It's not that I think there's anything remotely icky about having been involved with others prior to meeting your spouse. It's that I think it's wrong to involve these other parties in the story, as though their role in the world, their only reason in all likelihood for ever getting written up in a newspaper, is to be the nameless loser who failed to impress.

(Also icky: announcements that mention the 50 times the couple broke up and got back together again. Not confidence-inspiring. Also: announcements that mention how one or both parties were 'not attracted to' the other for the first 15 years - or 15 minutes - they knew each other. Perhaps this is meant to show that theirs is a deeper love, but it always comes across as insulting. Count me in the Dan Savage camp of thinking it's if anything a good sign for its longevity if a relationship begins based on mutual physical attraction.)

These tales are particularly upsetting when young children from the previous relationship are involved. Even Dan Savage thinks couples should at least try to stay together for the sake of the children. Remember, social conservatives, rah-rah support of parents who 'follow their hearts' is not part of any reasonable socially liberal stance, either. In the 1980s, perhaps, but not for a generation who knows how this plays out.

This week's Vows, however, takes it to a new level.

Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla met in 2006 in a pre-kindergarten classroom. They both had children attending the same Upper West Side school. They also both had spouses. [...]

But it was hard to ignore their easy rapport. They got each other’s jokes and finished each other’s sentences. They shared a similar rhythm in the way they talked and moved. The very things one hopes to find in another person, but not when you’re married to someone else. [...] 

In May 2008, Mr. Partilla invited her for a drink at O’Connell’s, a neighborhood bar. She said she knew something was up, because they had never met on their own before.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” he recalled saying to her. She jumped up, knocking a glass of beer into his lap, and rushed out of the bar. Five minutes later, he said, she returned and told him, “I feel exactly the same way.” Then she left again.

As Mr. Partilla saw it, their options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly. [...]

The pain he had predicted pervaded both of their lives as they faced distraught children and devastated spouses, while the grapevine buzzed and neighbors ostracized them.

The couple left roadkill of their families, but just had to put their wedding in the Times, for others to celebrate. Celebrate, or judge - whereas if they'd simply gone and done this, others would only judge if they knew the couple personally, now it's universal fair game. The paper made the unusual move to allow comments on the announcement. Many of which say, in essence, that the couple are selfish narcissists. This was not a case of divorce as a result of abuse, verbal or physical. It was a straight-up case of grass-is-greener - a fine reason to end a relationship at 17, but a truly upsetting one in a case like this. Blech.

UPDATE

And there are Jezebel commenters, seemingly planted by Withywindle, to prove once and for all that society's going to hell in a handbasket, and perhaps that they don't make things like they used to. Even leaving aside the commenters who can't tell the difference between having broken up with one guy to date another and leaving a spouse and children, or who think it's so so wrong to judge, even though hello, they put it in the newspaper, there's a whole lot of impressiveness. The couple's relationship is "authentic," according to either two commenters or one especially prolific one, I don't remember. But my favorite of all, from a commenter who makes clear she definitely does not want anyone thinking of the children: "I understood making fun of the cluelessness of the article and the yuppiedom of the couple, but y'all...they did not personally cheat on you." Yes, "the yuppiedom of the couple." Because that's the issue here.