Baby and the Bathwater

The May edition of the Walrus had two separate articles that I don't think were meant to be compared to each other but in fact are, at least in my mind, two sides of the same coin.

Lauren McKeon's article Here's Looking at No Kids discusses the growing number of women who are not having children. Some of those women are not able to have children, but there appears to be an increasing number of women who are making a conscious choice not to be mothers. The article discusses amongst other things the incredible pressure that women are placed under to have children and when they decide to not - how society can view that decision. When I first read the article it struck me that we are living in an extraordinary world where it can be recognized that all sorts of people and their very specific issues can be identified as being different and that they need special attention. It is a world where everyone has the right to feel discriminated against and to have those issues addressed. It struck me as I was reading McKeon's work that we, at least in the west, are at some risk of being so fragmented by our special needs that we will have almost nothing in common with each other.

The second article, Lonely Boys by Rachel Giese discusses the fact that young men (and older ones too) are more likely to be socially isolated and at risk of a whole range of mental and physical health ailments because of that isolation. She discusses the various factors that at some point around puberty encourage/force boys to separate from their best pals, that boys they may have been close to throughout their childhood - but no longer seem to be as important. Giese suggests that much of that separation is because society does not encourage or perhaps even allow young men to be close to each other. Giese further suggests that there was a time when men were allowed, by society, to have warm relationships with other men, that in the time of all male clubs, universities, service clubs and the military there was ample opportunity for men to develop strong relationships - relationships that could sustain them throughout their lives. And that as women started to demand access to those all male bastions of power and influence, men lost their places to develop relationships.

As I read those two articles it occurred to me that as we become more aware of individual special needs for growth and development, as we continually reject societies demands for us to conform - there is value in being careful that in making the changes, that we do not destroy the very institutions that have made it possible to survive as a species.

As well while some women are demanding that society cannot and should not expect them to follow the tradition that all women need to have children and that society must support that decision - at the same time men need to be able to demand a society that allows for and facilitates the growth of the male's capacity to develop relationships. And that may include male only institutions.