12/3/12
In the season of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the word tradition or traditional is thrown around. It's a useful phrase during any holiday, but because of Turkey day's obnoxious focus on the concept of family, our term tradition is used in context of family setups. This creates a somewhat unique situation for those of us who don't live behind a white picket fence with two cats in the yard and two biological parents in the house. I'm convinced it would take Sherlock Holmes himself to find such a family in Mill Valley. As far as I know, the archetypical American family tried it's hardest on the West coast, but to no avail, it choked on the sandy grains of the 90's that still blow up and down our beaches.
I'm no expert in research or sociological conclusions, so these claims will be made based on my take of Marin County's divorce boom in the 90's, and nothing else.
When Fiona Apple was a keen fruit, ideas of truth and empowerment swept over the coastal county and inspired parents and married couples alike to reexamine their situation. Research indicates that a combination of stress, unhappiness, and lemon drops piled up for women in their 30's until they found the courage to confront their husbands. Turns out the men were just as unfulfilled, for years their manhood had been struggling with the rising intimidation of the now-powerful women in the workplace. It was with a smile on both faces that millions of couples agreed to break it off.
What about the kids? A common question that plagues many parents when crossing the Ts on their separation papers. It turns out that in a recent study done by myself using a succinct patient list including me and my sister, the kids are better off bouncing between happy homes than drowning under one unhappy roof. Who'da thunk?
For children who took their parent's divorce the wrong way, the 90's was there to help. Alanis Morissette gave us quippy lines to parrot in her timeless hit "Ironic." The bald therapist would ask how the child feels to which he or she would respond, "It's like ra-i-aaaaaaiinn on your wedding day." MTV was making it mainstream to pretend you're Kurt Cobain so the disturbed kids didn't feel alienated, ironically enough. And finally every facet of style could be traced back to the dixie cup, so dressing thyself was hard to screw up. If anybody's parents split up in the 80's my heart goes out to you, these poor kids were sure to begin a downward spiral starting with an innocent mullet and ending tragically in a hillbilly fetish.
Nowadays having a non-traditional family is so prevalent, sociologists now refer to it as the Jewel trend, to honor the singer who nursed the emotionally volatile and newly single parents back to stability. On my recent trip to Marin for Thanksgiving I heard people saying their family is "exotic" or "unconventional" when the correct term is now "normal." Kids from broken families used to be unjustifiably embarrassed about their home setup, now it's the ones whose parents are still together that have the anxiety. Children of the divorced persuasion flaunt their double Christmases or Hanukahs, or if the kid was truly blessed, their quadruple Chrismukahs. Plus they get double hugs which only fosters further self esteem.
There is no such thing as a perfect family for the same reasons there is no such thing as a perfect political structure. People that make up a family are dynamic entities that are always changing so the definition of perfect must be just as fluid. The big secret is that there never was a perfect family, it just took society a long time to come to terms with such revolutionary disobedience. Now that the broken marriage's dust has settled, it's time for real sociologists to watch the brand new faction of young adults whose musical taste is limited to sappy female pop singers. Ladies and gentlemen, these children are our future.
