Direction (or, Directionless)

This is cheating a little: I haven't re-read Lewis Carroll in a while. However, this snippet seemed appropriate, given the general questions about life direction that have been percolating through my head:

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.

"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire Cat.

"I don't know," Alice answered.

"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't really matter."

For Diego (and his Mom!)

With the birth of Akash, in his sudden, perfect presence, Ruma felt awe for the first time in her life. He still had the power to stagger her at times -- simply the fact that he was breathing, that all his organs were in their proper places, that blood flowed quietly and effectively through his small, sturdy limbs. He was her flesh and blood, her mother had told her in the hospital the day Akash was born. Only the words her mother used were more literal, enriching the tired phrase with meaning: "He is made from your meat and bone." It had caused Ruma to acknowledge the supernatural in everyday life.

Looking at Marriage

In the middle of a reading bender. I just got back from Brazil, and with the jet lag, I've had many late nights poring over old books and reading new ones. The latest was Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert's "sequel" to Eat, Pray, Love. It's a little haphazard -- skipping from point to point without a very strong narrative -- but it's basically an exploration of the institution of marriage: its origins, its evolution, its pitfalls.

I thought one of more interesting points was her synopsis of a Rutgers University report entitled "Alone Together: How Marriage is Changing in America." Part of the report examines "divorce proneness": how likely a couple is to fail based on certain demographic factors. Unsurprisingly, Gilbert notes that, as per the report: "[t]he age of a couple at the time of their marriage seems to be the most significant consideration. The younger you are when you get married, the more likely you are to divorce later."

In addition, she points out seven additional factors based on her understanding of the report (*this is directly quoted from her):

1. Education. The better-educated you are, statistically speaking, the better off your marriage will be. The better-educated a woman is, in particular, the happier her marriage will be.

2. Children. The statistics show that couples with young children at home report "more disenchantment" within their marriage than couples with grown children, or couples who have no children at all.

3. Cohabitation: It appears that people who live together before marriage have a slightly higher divorce rate than those who wait until marriage to cohabit.

4. Heterogamy: The less similar you and your partner are in terms of race, age, religion, ethnicity, cultural background, and career, the more likely you are to someday divorce. Opposites do attract, but they don't always endure. Sociologists suspect that this trend will diminsh as society's prejudices break down over time, but for now?

5. Social Integration: The more tightly wove a couple is within a community of friends and family, the stronger their marriage will be.

6. Religiousness: The more religious a couple is, the more likely they are to stay married, although faith offers only a slight edge.

7. Gender Fairness: Marriages based on a traditional, restrictive sense about a woman's place in the home tend to be less strong and less happy than marriages where the man and the woman regard each other as equals, and where the husband participates in more traditionally female and thankless household chores.

A few thoughts on this:

• I don't think a lot of it is surprising. For instance, getting married later in life means that you're more in tune with yourself, your needs, your desires. On the other hand, as some of my family members have pointed out: the younger you are, the more adaptable you are, able to grow together.
• Once again, people: correlation does not signify causation. I don't think these factors are set in stone, and who knows the predictive success? (I tried finding the study online and failed, so I also can't examine it more thoroughly. For example, what was the non-response rate?) Also, I'm a little skeptical of the author's ability to parse through the report, but that just comes from my belief that statistics can often be easily manipulated. (Numbers might not lie, but how one interprets the numbers can often be a game.)
• What about the other intangibles, like life goals? If two partners are thoroughly incompatible in terms of what they're seeking in life, what is the predictive success of the marriage?
• I'm a little unclear what this measured: Happiness? Tendency to divorce? What of the couples unhappily married?

So who knows, but there you have it. An interpretation of marital success based on Elizabeth Gilbert's understanding of a Rutgers report.

Child Rearing and Choice

There seems to be a lot of buzz surrounding Amy Chau's new book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom. Why the attention? A snippet was published in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend, outlining Chau's philosophy on child-rearing. Without going into the merits of her philosophy, I think Chau's piece illustrates the point that Iyengar made in The Art of Choosing about cultural norms and choice. For instance, Chau explains:

Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children... Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.

Third, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences... Don't get me wrong: It's not that Chinese parents don't care about their children. Just the opposite. They would give up anything for their children. It's just an entirely different parenting model.

Clearly, Chau's beliefs stem from growing up as the daughter of Asian parents, who (as described in Iyengar's framework) likely subscribed to a collectivist belief system, in which:

The assumption is that your parents, and elders in general, will show you the right way to live your life so that you will be protected from making a costly mistake. There are "right" choices and "wrong" ones, and by following your elders, you will learn to choose correctly, even relinquishing choice when appropriate.

What I'm more curious about, though, is what (twenty years from now) Chau's children will think of their mother's methods. I think it's an interesting area of research: what is the effect on children of immigrant parents (who identify with collectivist cultures) but are raised in an individualist society?

A quick Google search led to a Q&A with Iyengar, in which she tangentially addresses that question:

Q: Can these two narratives about different ways to live one’s life run in parallel? Or is conflict inevitable?

A: No, they run up against each other, and you have to find some form of reconciliation. That’s why the narrative feeling becomes so salient to a bicultural person, because this conflict must be resolved. Some choose one or the other narrative, and some choose different narratives for different domains, and some create a new narrative for themselves. There is no one optimal path here. You have to judge if there’s a fit between the person’s narrative and the choices they ultimately make -- if there’s a fit, it’ll help them accomplish their goals. So the only way you can judge this narrative is through its functionality.

I could keep going on Iyengar (she makes decisions based on a ''committee of experts'' of coworkers, friends, etc.!), but I suspect my admiration is a little embarrassingly girl-crushy as it is.