Are family issues only women's issues?

One of the conversations going on in our society is a debate about work-life balance: how to balance one’s work life with the responsibilities of parenting. However, the conversation is happening almost exclusively among women. Men remain largely excluded from the debate.

In the July/August issue of The Atlantic, Stephen Marche’s essay “The Masculine Mystique” comments on this exclusion of fathers from debates about balancing work and parenting. He notes that “decisions in heterosexual relationships are made by women and men together,” and “when men aren’t part of the discussion about balancing work and life, outdated assumptions about fatherhood are allowed to go unchallenged.”

Marche challenges a myth perpetuated by Sheryl Sandberg’s popular book Lean In: that talent and hard work can take you to the top. He calls this “pure balderdash, for women and men.” Denmark now has more social mobility than the United States. 

The central conflict right now, Marche writes, is “family versus money.” The Pew Research Center released a study in March called “Modern Parenthood” that found about half of all working parents say it is difficult to balance career and family responsibilities, with “no significant gap in attitudes between mothers and fathers.”

Marche discusses women’s rise to economic dominance within the middle class. While “it is an outrage that the male-female wage gap persists,” he writes, “over the past 10 years, in almost every country in the developed world, it has shrunk.” And “of the 15 fastest-growing job categories in the United States, 13 are dominated by women.”

However, the “top leadership positions remain overwhelmingly filled by men.” According to the World Economic Forum’s “Global Gender Gap” report, he writes, “women around the world hold a mere 20 percent of powerful political positions. In the United States, the female board-membership rate is 12 percent—a disgrace.”

But Marche calls this a “hollow patriarchy: the edifice is patriarchal, while the majority of its occupants approach egalitarianism.” Nevertheless, men wield power. He notes a paradox: “Masculinity grows less and less powerful while remaining iconic of power. And therefore men are silent. After all, there is nothing less manly than talking about waning manliness.”

A 2008 Pew study asked cohabiting male-female couples, “Who makes the decisions at home?” In 26 percent of households, the man did; in 43 percent, the woman did.

This hollow patriarchy “keeps women from power and confounds male identity,” Marche writes. He notes parenthetically that “the average working-class guy has the strange experience of belonging to a gender that is railed against for having a lock on power, even as he has none of it.”

While enlisting men in the domestic sphere may be a good idea, Marche writes, “the solution is establishing social supports that allow families to function.” Sharing the load of parenting equally doesn’t matter if the load is unbearable. And it will only become bearable when things like paid parental leave and affordable, quality child care become commonplace. In every state, the average annual cost of day care for two children exceeds the average annual rent, he says.

Marche blames men for failing to make themselves heard in this debate. “Where is the chorus of men asking for paternity leave?”

Meanwhile, the society sees parenting as a women’s issue. The U.S. Census Bureau, when it refers to child care, "considers mothers the 'designated parent,' even when both parents are in the home," Sandberg writes. “When mothers care for their children, it’s ‘parenting,’ but when fathers care for their children, the government deems it a ‘child-care arrangement.’ ”

Marche concludes, “As long as family issues are miscast as women’s issues, they will be dismissed as the pleadings of one interest group among many.”

A refreshing change

Toward the end of a summer with its share of blockbuster movies geared toward teenaged boys comes Hope Springs (PG-13), a movie for and about adults. It is a refreshing change in several ways.

First, despite some over-the-top elements, it presents a realistic situation—a couple married for 31 years who has fallen into a dull routine and lost any sparkle in their relationship. We witness no superheroes, no car chases or fist fights, no political conspiracies or bombs, no F-words.

Second, the movie offers frank discussion of sexuality in the context of a long-lasting marriage without depicting domestic violence or infidelity. By frank, I mean frank, though it is used not to titillate but to communicate, often with humor.

Third, rather than take viewers away from their current reality to some other world or fantastic situation, Hope Springs holds up a mirror to couples and nudges them look at their own marriages. In this way, the movie goes beyond entertainment and becomes an opportunity to reflect on one’s life. I should add that it does this without being didactic; it simply tells a story of one couple.

Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) Soames sleep in separate rooms, share little physical contact and go through the same routines at breakfast before going to work and in the evenings at home, where Arnold falls asleep watching golf lessons on cable. But Kay is unhappy and signs them up for a week of intensive marriage counseling with Dr. Bernie Feld (Steve Carell) in a coastal town in Maine called Hope Springs.

Arnold refuses to go, but Kay tells him she’ll go without him, and besides, she has paid for it. He ends up going but is grumpy, complaining about the cost of everything and how worthless this endeavor is. But they meet with Dr. Feld, and in daily sessions he asks them increasingly frank questions about their relationship, including their sexual fantasies.

Though it improves in the second half, the film’s weakness is its screenplay, particularly its depiction of Arnold. His constant negativity and his aversion to touch seem extreme. And Kay’s obsequious behavior toward him at first also seems a bit much. But these two great actors overcome such flaws in the script and use their skills to make their characters believable. Carell, too, is good, playing against type as a calm, gentle counselor.

While the movie includes laugh-out-loud moments, it’s a serious drama that shows a couple going through the difficult exercise of reviewing their life together and having to decide if they want to do the hard thing and change or continue to drift apart.

Jeanne and I, who have been married 32 years, watched the movie with some recognition that certain ruts are easy to fall into. I laughed at moments and cringed at others. We came away talking about what changes we want to make in our relationship.

While Hope Springs can be seen as a cautionary tale or lesson, it’s basically a story of one couple’s relationship and can be enjoyed on that level. Even younger folks—and there were some in the audience—will enjoy this honest, heart-filled film. 

The power of yes

I've always leaned toward routine, finding comfort in the rhythm of operating each day much like the previous one. Change is OK, as long as I have some control over it.
Unfortunately, life doesn't usually cooperate with my plans, and change happens.
But when an opportunity comes along that may take me out of my comfort zone and ask me to do something unfamiliar, I usually hesitate, and my first inclination is to say no. Turns out, saying no consistently actually shuts down part of my brain.
Recently I read an article that gave me pause. It's called "Just Say Yes" by Jamie Stringfellow in the July/August issue of Spirituality & Health, a magazine I receive at work that often reports on scientific research about the benefits of spiritual practices.

Stringfellow writes: "When you say no a lot, your brain gets in the habit, literally paving more neural pathways and raising the speed limit on your knee-jerk 'No!' response. Luckily, as brain scientists have realized, we can rewire our brains." 

The brain likes efficiency, so if you say no a lot, it starts assuming you're going to say no and starts responding that way automatically. It reminds me of typing something on Google that I've searched before, and it remembers and goes there right away.

So how do we rewire our brains, and why should we? The no response often comes out of fear--fear of failing, fear of falling, fear of rejection. However, Stringfellow writes, "neuroscientists know that when you expose yourself to new experiences … your brain releases noradrenaline and dopamine, and the exertion brings on endorphins. This makes you feel alert and better able to enjoy that moment and the ones that follow."

I should know better. The times I've said yes have usually turned out well, and I've been glad I did so. In 2009, I traveled to Paraguay in July and to Jordan in September, and both experiences were rewarding, despite some difficulties, such as being stuck in Argentina (during its winter) in an unheated house for two days waiting for a flight. In late June I attended a conference and led a workshop on spiritual practices (based on my book Present Tense). It went better than I'd hoped, largely because of people's wonderful participation. I was glad I said yes to doing that. And recently I've faced another decision that required me to take a risk. And after reading this article and talking with my spiritual director, I decided to say yes and see where it led. I still don't know where it will lead.

Saying yes is also important for building relationships. Stringfellow writes that Dr. John Gottman, a leading marriage researcher, says that the simplest way to make relationships work is "to say yes as often as you can without sacrificing an important part of yourself in the process." He even suggests saying something positive five times for every negative thing you say.

Does this mean you say yes to everything? No, you don't simply comply with someone who intends you harm. And we all need to set limits for our own health. But, says Dawna Markova, "what's important is not so much the yes as the willingness to say it. It's the pause."

Stringfellow writes: "Just being willing to say yes means you've removed the barriers to new people, experiences and feelings." And it gets you out of that knee-jerk no response so that new possibilities arise. 

This may be easy for you, but I've been a pessimist all my life, and saying yes, or even pausing to consider saying yes, means I believe something positive may happen. So this really is a spiritual practice.

Saying yes takes courage. It is also an act of love when you say yes to another. Maybe it's something worth practicing. Yes, it is.

The consequences of separation

When I made my list of the best films of 2011 (see my Jan. 20 blog), I hadn't seen A Separation, which recently won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Now that I have, I would place it in the top three. It is outstanding.

It opens with a married couple arguing in front of the camera. Simin wants to live abroad to provide better opportunities for their only daughter, Termeh, who is 11. Nader, on the other hand, wants to stay in Iran and take care of his father, who suffers from Alzheimers. Simin, however, is determined to get a divorce and leave the country with her daughter.
Termeh chooses to live with her father. Her strategy, we learn later, is that as long as she is with her father, her mother will not leave the country, because she doesn't want to leave her daughter. So while they are living separately, they are not divorced.
 Asghar Farhadi, who wrote and directed the film, introduces us to an array of characters that capture our interest. Nader hires Razieh to clean his apartment and care for his father while he is at work and Termeh is at school. He doesn't know that Razieh is pregnant and working without her husband's permission or that her husband is out of work, in debt and unstable.
Events soon unfold, and a major confrontation takes Nader, Rezieh and her husband before a local magistrate (or whatever the Iranian equivalent is). Nader lies to avoid going to prison, and Termeh confronts him on this.
Mix in devotion to the Quaran and some cultural practices regarding debt, and the various actions of these characters lead to a mess that might have been avoided with truthtelling from the beginning by all concerned. Or, and perhaps this is one of the film's lessons, the mess might have been avoided if there had been no separation between Simin and Nader.
The film wisely refuses to take sides or present simple solutions. In fact, at the end we're left in limbo, uncertain what will happen. Instead it presents the messes we make in our fumbling of relationships. And it shows how our pride and inability to compromise or put ourselves in others' shoes can lead to destructive consequences. 
Another possible lesson from this film concerns the universality of art. When he accepted his Oscar for this film, Farhadi made the point that this film is not about the politics of Iran and the West but about human relationships. This is true and worth paying attention to. Films are one medium for helping us learn about other cultures and recognizing our common humanity in their stories and how they intersect with our own.
A Separation is a film worth seeing and pondering and discussing.