Reacting to Tsing Loh's Atlantic piece: Maybe books are a drag.

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Hanna, I read the Sandra Tsing Loh piece not as a condemnation of modern marriage, and not even as a parable about the impossibility of modern motherhood, but as a cautionary tale about building your life around what Tsing Loh describes as a life spent “taking with me ... to my bed, a glass of merlot and a good book.” Because the only villains in this piece are the books—the piles and piles of books that she uses to arrange her life. From what she depicts as her “lazy, undisciplined attachment parenting” to the nearly pornographic, Pottery Barn descriptions of her friend’s kitchen renovation, the story leaps from one fashionable marriage book to the next. She won’t hire a nanny because of Barbara Ehrenreich’s dictum that she’d “never let another woman scrub her toilets.” Her friends’ absurd husbands are either “cheating” with subscriptions to gourmet magazines or bookmarked porn sites. Whole conversations with her girlfriends turn on books about the human sex drive and the impossibility of marriage. These are marriages built on the not-too-solid foundation of using books to build a better life.

There isn’t a sentence in this piece that isn’t profoundly shaped by media expectations of perfect parenting, perfect romantic intimacy, happening in perfect kitchens full of perfect lemon zesters. Any marriage predicated on the idealized images of glossy magazines, the dopey optimism of parenting books, and the dispassionate analysis of whatever Marriage Sucks book is in vogue that week is almost doomed to fail. We have no idea from this piece what Tsing Loh wants for herself or for her life. It’s just a catalog of failures; failures to look like a catalog. Perhaps it’s no accident, then, that Tsing Loh takes comfort that her children aren’t suffering too badly from the divorce because “their most ardent daily fixations continue to be amassing more Pokémon cards and getting a dog named Noodles.”

Nobody is saying modern marriage is easy. But maybe if your “staggering working mother’s to-do list” isn’t built on hitting media-invented benchmarks of perfect intimacy, partnership, and material success, the probability of feeling like a bitter failure diminishes.

Tags: atlantic, divorce

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Dahlia Lithwick Slate contributor, mom, wife, currently drinking coffee

Comments

If that's what you're working

By: acaiberrysite | Wed, 10/14/2009 - 13:01

If that's what you're working for, then you will miss the forest because you're too busy pruning the trees into topiaries that no one recognizes or spends that much time admiring.

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Marriage has certain

By: hommerock | Fri, 10/09/2009 - 12:05

Marriage has certain prerequisites if it is to be a happy arrangement, including commitment, affection, and perceptiveness. I feel sorry for these ladies, who refuse to insist on a happy marriage, then lament that they don't have one.

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By: deLi | Fri, 10/09/2009 - 07:32

We have no idea from this

By: hommerock | Mon, 09/28/2009 - 04:22

We have no idea from this piece what Tsing Loh wants for herself or for her life. It’s just a catalog of failures.

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How did Ms. Tsing Loh, in all

By: hommerock | Wed, 09/23/2009 - 05:56

How did Ms. Tsing Loh, in all her advice-book-reading wisdom, miss this oldest of happy marriage tips? It's not fashionable or groundbreaking advice, but, as far as I can observe, it's still sound.

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I was willing

By: jackiboa | Sat, 09/19/2009 - 00:36

this oldest of happy marriage tips? It's not fashionable or groundbreaking advice, but, as far as I can observe, it's still sound.academic writing | writing help | writing paper

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maybe this is that famous SoCal Narcissism

By: susanjb | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 16:17

They say everything is great about Southern California other than the self-absorbed narcissistic nature of most of the people living there.

Most of my female friends (nearly all in the Southeast US and Texas) married later in life like I did (early-mid 30s). For the most part, we are happy with our marriages. No divorces so far.

I'd never say my marriage is even close to perfect but it's pretty close to perfect *for me.* Luckily I love my husband and enjoy most of that small amount of time we are able to spend alone together. I also work full time and we have small children. There are not enough hours in the day - that's for sure - and we've been together only 10 years, not 20. And I'm 42, not 47. everyone's different . . .

When I met my now husband and we really loved each other almost right away, it seemed like a miracle because I had really begun to doubt I'd ever meet someone to marry. Some of my friends who wanted to still have not - 10 years later.

The things STL seemed most upset about was all her husband's days/weeks on the road. I'm sure it's a terrible drag and I would be very unhappy if my husband were on the road nearly half the time (or even a fraction of that.)

No, divorce isn't for everyone.

Maybe Books Are a Drag