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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From how stup works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen. Kristen did some

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Speaker 1: reading this weekend, and did you know that one hundred

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Speaker 1: million Americans, that's over half the population are unmarried according

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Speaker 1: to the Census Bureau. This means that half of the

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Speaker 1: over eighteen population is being overlooked by some very important

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Speaker 1: policies talking about these single people, single adults, the single adults. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we ran across an article last week over at

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Speaker 1: Tara Parker Pope's wellness blog at the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: and she was reporting on how some social scientists and

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Speaker 1: researchers think that because of this huge population and growing

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Speaker 1: popular nation of American adult singles, that a lot of

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Speaker 1: them are being overlooked in terms of benefits, pay taxes

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Speaker 1: and things like that, and too much emphasis is being

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Speaker 1: put on the holy altar of marriage, right and you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: we're fighting for a marriage equality. Yeah, but whether you're

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Speaker 1: gay or straight, if you're single, you're going to be

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Speaker 1: left behind any marriage reform. You know, that's great, but

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Speaker 1: it's still leaving the single people out of that. And

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Speaker 1: Naomi Girstill, a sociologist at University of Massachusetts Amherst Um, says,

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Speaker 1: this push for marriage essentially assumes that if you don't

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Speaker 1: get married, there's something wrong with you. Um, but a

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Speaker 1: huge proportion of the population is unmarried, and the single

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Speaker 1: population is only going to grow. And um, there's this

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Speaker 1: September editorial. So a recent editorial and the Guardian um

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Speaker 1: sort of brings up the subject of should partners have

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Speaker 1: similar of rights to um, too married to to spouses? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I started bringing up the the idea of reviving a

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Speaker 1: common common law kind of marriage. Right. Yeah, it said

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Speaker 1: something like it's been there's been no common law marriage

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Speaker 1: since the eighteenth century, but most of the population still

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Speaker 1: thinks that it exists. And uh, and it's good that

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Speaker 1: you bring up the issue of partners because when we

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Speaker 1: say single a lot of times you'll probably assume that

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Speaker 1: someone who's completely unattached, like not any kind of long

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Speaker 1: term or dating relationship at all. But remember, in this context,

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Speaker 1: single applies to just someone who is not married, right

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Speaker 1: And Um, So the Guardian was talking about the Office

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Speaker 1: for National Statistics which found that the key to a

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Speaker 1: strong marriage is actually to live together first. It's cohabitation,

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Speaker 1: UM and O and S suggests that cohabitation is seen

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Speaker 1: as promoting rather than competing with marriage, and uses UM

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Speaker 1: this argument to suggest that maybe we should have more

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Speaker 1: rights as as domestic partners or just you know, folks

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Speaker 1: living together. Yeah. And we've talked about premarital cohabitation as

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Speaker 1: it is formerly called on the podcast before and talking

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Speaker 1: about whether or not um it predicts divorced because there

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Speaker 1: was a study that came out a while ago saying

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Speaker 1: that people who lived together before they get married are

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Speaker 1: then more likely to get divorced. Are all of these

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Speaker 1: statistics that we saw about how people who lived together

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Speaker 1: who were unmarried, you know, they drink more, and they

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Speaker 1: weigh more, and they have lower incomes and you know,

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Speaker 1: basically at all coming emphasizing this point over and over

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Speaker 1: again that that marriage, you know, especially the heterosexual marriage

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Speaker 1: ideal is uh is where it's at in terms of

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Speaker 1: family stability. UM. But a lot of times to people

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Speaker 1: who are promoting those kind of ideas are uh, you

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Speaker 1: know a little more conservative little agenda based. Yeah, people's

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Speaker 1: ideas of maror edge are often based on things that

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Speaker 1: they grew up with, the norms that they were surrounded by,

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Speaker 1: and these ideals and norms can actually have a big

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Speaker 1: effect on the workplace. And according to a Business Week

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Speaker 1: article from a couple of years ago, UM, unmarried people

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Speaker 1: wind up making an average less than their married colleagues

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Speaker 1: for the same work just because of this marriage centric

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Speaker 1: structure that we have going on. Right, they're just more

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Speaker 1: built in uh benefits for people who are married and

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Speaker 1: have children UM. And there have been a lot of

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Speaker 1: companies since this Business Week article came out that have

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Speaker 1: tried to be more inclusive, specifically for like same sex

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Speaker 1: partners UM kind of taking away the the formal you know,

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Speaker 1: box of of marriage to the to provide rights for

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Speaker 1: UM our benefits for other people. But at the same time,

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Speaker 1: you know, the penalties still exists. And what is that

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Speaker 1: the Family UM Medical Leave Act like a federal law.

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Speaker 1: Bella Depolo is a psychologist and she is one of

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Speaker 1: the number one voices about singleism. She even coined the

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Speaker 1: term singleism UH to as a catch all for the

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of anti single discrimination against single folks. Yes, discrimination, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And she cites the Family and Medical Leave Act as

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Speaker 1: an example of it, because legally, since she's single and

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Speaker 1: doesn't have any children, no one can take time off

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Speaker 1: under the law to care for her if she becomes

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Speaker 1: really sick, and it's not required that she'd be given

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Speaker 1: time off to care for siblings, nephews, close friends. I mean,

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Speaker 1: in my case, I have um a number of I've

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Speaker 1: lost count and have a number of nieces and nephews

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Speaker 1: and UM, and it would be great to have, you know,

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Speaker 1: similar freedom to be able to, you know, pick them

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Speaker 1: up from soccer practice. If my sister was in a

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Speaker 1: bind or right, it's it would be nice to know

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Speaker 1: that you wouldn't lose your job because you had to

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Speaker 1: take care of one of those nieces or nephews, you know,

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Speaker 1: if they were sick or or a sibling. It would

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Speaker 1: be nice to know you had a job to come

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Speaker 1: back to, or even a good friend or a podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm in good health, though, I assure you. And the

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Speaker 1: thing is, single people could use some more assistance because

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Speaker 1: statistically we're the ones putting in UM, you know, the

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Speaker 1: volunteer hours UM kind of keeping things running into your society,

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Speaker 1: right and our communities and parents. Before you turn off

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Speaker 1: the podcast to say, you don't understand. I don't have

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Speaker 1: you know, I don't have time to do this. I'm

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Speaker 1: caring for children. It's not parenthood that's the issue. According

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Speaker 1: to Naomi Girsl that's sociologists from Amherst that Caroline mentioned earlier.

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Speaker 1: She told The New York Times, it's not having children

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Speaker 1: that isolates people, it's actually the marriage break it down. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: once people get married, they tend to turn their energies inward.

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Speaker 1: They've played the game, they they got their partner and

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Speaker 1: I'm not at that sounds really cynical and I'm not

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Speaker 1: really that cynical, but um, yeah, No. Studies have shown

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Speaker 1: that once people get married, they turn their focus away

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Speaker 1: from friendships, extended family and the community and turn it

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Speaker 1: inward on their own family that they're building. Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 1: just for an example. This is from the Council and

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Speaker 1: contemporary Families. UM, looking at who is taking care of

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Speaker 1: aging parents with the booming or the the aging boomer

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Speaker 1: population of unmarried women take care of parents compared to

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Speaker 1: six percent of married women. For men, it's only sixty

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Speaker 1: seven percent of unmarried men compared to just thirty eight

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Speaker 1: percent of married guys and then also, unmarried people are

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Speaker 1: more connected with family, community and have higher volunteerism rates UM.

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Speaker 1: One in five take part in volunteer works such as teaching, coaching,

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Speaker 1: raising money for charities, and things like that. Right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I have all sorts of time to go volunteer with

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Speaker 1: projects around Atlanta, being that I'm a single person who

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Speaker 1: eats lots of chocolates. I you know what I do too,

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be honest with you right now, I don't.

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Speaker 1: I don't volunteer enough. Well, I volunteer time at my

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Speaker 1: my keyboard. Good, you keep that economy role at my laptop.

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Speaker 1: But I hope you get out some Kristen, that you're

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Speaker 1: not just sitting your keyboard, because if you didn't get

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Speaker 1: out and have friends, you would be the odd ball.

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Speaker 1: Because the statistics says that even more than I are

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Speaker 1: even more UM at all educational levels, unmarried individuals not

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Speaker 1: only have more friends than they're married counterparts, but they

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Speaker 1: give these friends more care, both practical and emotional. So

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Speaker 1: I'm here for you, thank you, And for married people,

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Speaker 1: I'm here for you too, although I won't understand your problems.

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Speaker 1: But here's the thing though, the point of the podcast

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Speaker 1: was to talk about this, the answer the question of

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Speaker 1: whether or not it's single people are stigmatized. And here's

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Speaker 1: the thing. Not to make us sound like, uh, you

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Speaker 1: know some major stereotypes right now, Caroline, but you and

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Speaker 1: I fit into the demographic where we're about to get

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Speaker 1: really really stigmatized unless we put a ring on it soon.

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Speaker 1: Yeah ring myself. Yeah. Being married by age and I'm

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Speaker 1: about to hit is consistent with the normative pattern and

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Speaker 1: snaff ideology snaff standing for the standard North American family,

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Speaker 1: the ideal of like, you get married, you have two

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Speaker 1: point five kids, you get a white pick events. So

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Speaker 1: is the age for women where that's like within the

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Speaker 1: normal range, and so I have gone past that. But

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Speaker 1: although the average um statistically, I think according to census data,

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Speaker 1: the average age for women getting married is like twenty

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Speaker 1: six point seven years old. So you're, I mean, like,

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Speaker 1: you're closer, You're closer than you think. You're just not

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Speaker 1: right at that at that snaff saying, because so I

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Speaker 1: feel so much better. Um, I, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: I am about I'm I'm rapidly approaching twenty seven and

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Speaker 1: so I got I'm onna like husband countdown. I don't

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Speaker 1: have anyone else that two months that I can beat

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Speaker 1: the odds. Um. Yeah, we're talking about single stigma and

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Speaker 1: the fact that we are rapidly approaching the end of

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Speaker 1: our I don't know whatever acceptable stereotypical marriage period. UM

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine study by researchers at the University of

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Speaker 1: Missouri and Texas Tech called and I love this. I'm

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Speaker 1: not a loser. I'm not married. Let's all just look

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Speaker 1: at me. UM talked with ten women who were in

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Speaker 1: their thirties. Right in their thirties, UM talked to them

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Speaker 1: about what it was like being single, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of these women definitely said they felt stigmatized, despite the

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Speaker 1: fact that they were successful in their careers, had good

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Speaker 1: lives otherwise. Part of this is that they were made

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Speaker 1: to be away air of the changing realities as they

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Speaker 1: got older. There were certain triggers that they faced, like

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Speaker 1: going to weddings, going to showers, you know, but a

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Speaker 1: lot of it. A big trigger is people around them

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Speaker 1: like coworkers, family members, et cetera, who are all going

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Speaker 1: so when are you goin and get married? And that

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Speaker 1: just makes them more aware of the fact that they're

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Speaker 1: not married. Right. Well, I thought it was interesting too

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Speaker 1: that all of the women had been told by other

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Speaker 1: people they were just being too picky. And it reminds

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Speaker 1: me a lot of and Carolin, I don't know if

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Speaker 1: you heard about this book. It came out maybe last year. Um,

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Speaker 1: it got a lot of pressed. It was Laurie gott

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Speaker 1: Lie wrote it and it was called Marry Him, The

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Speaker 1: Case for Settling for Mr. Goodenough. Yeah, it upset a

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Speaker 1: lot of people. Yeah, because she was basically like, hey,

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Speaker 1: you know what, ladies, we're getting older. We need a

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Speaker 1: little bit of stability. Just take the nice guy who

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Speaker 1: you know might not might not set your heart of flame,

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Speaker 1: but he will make you a cast role sometimes. And

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Speaker 1: I'm really I mean that's really a you know, quite

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Speaker 1: a nutshell to put it in, but it's it's the

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Speaker 1: same kind of thing of like, hey, you know what,

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Speaker 1: stop being so picky. Um, the media has just fed

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Speaker 1: us lives about these independent women myths. Well yeah, and

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Speaker 1: also this notion that you know, you can have it

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Speaker 1: all in fun you know some an amazing partner. Uh so,

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Speaker 1: but just give up. Well that's like in the study

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Speaker 1: that we were just talking about, Um, somebody talked about

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Speaker 1: their grandmother who said, well, just just go ahead and

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Speaker 1: get married and have the baby. You can always divorce

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Speaker 1: him later. And I feel like that's part of this

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Speaker 1: really archaic might be too strong a word, but this

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Speaker 1: just this notion of like you have to do things

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Speaker 1: in a certain order. You go to school, you get married,

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Speaker 1: you have a baby, and then everything else is just second.

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Speaker 1: And then the baby goes to school, right, and then

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Speaker 1: you you torment the baby about when you're going to

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Speaker 1: meet somebody. Baby, but baby, baby. But speaking of unwet

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Speaker 1: or speaking of children, though, now be a good time

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Speaker 1: to bring up the fact that non marital births um

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Speaker 1: are becoming the norm as is. I mean, if we've

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Speaker 1: got a hundred million single folks, you know, a number

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Speaker 1: of whom are probably reproducing, you can imagine that the

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Speaker 1: rate of unwed motherhood has gone up. And it's not

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Speaker 1: just single mothers too, it's like people who are living together,

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Speaker 1: adopting children, or having children together. Um. And just to

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Speaker 1: give you an idea from the c d c UH,

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Speaker 1: sixty percent of non marital births in two thousand seven

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Speaker 1: or two women in their twenties, significantly higher than the

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Speaker 1: forty two percent level in nineteen seventy. Because back in

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Speaker 1: the seventies and before teen, pregnancy made up the large

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Speaker 1: proportion of non marital births. But now, you know, folks,

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Speaker 1: our rage, you're having kids and it's totally fine. And

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Speaker 1: that's kind of following in the footsteps of uh Iceland,

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Speaker 1: Sweden Norway were well over one half of recent births

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Speaker 1: are two women who aren't married. We're becoming so European. Um.

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Speaker 1: The Business Week article mentions along the same lines that

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Speaker 1: children will live with their mom and her boyfriend before

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Speaker 1: they turn sixteen, and it goes on to say that,

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Speaker 1: you know, it would be better for kids to have

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Speaker 1: a more stable environment to grow up in, but it

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Speaker 1: seems like this is going to be so much more

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Speaker 1: common than it already is. Well, I mean if studies

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Speaker 1: that they've done. It reminds me of um uh, some

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Speaker 1: research that came out last year looking at the child

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Speaker 1: outcomes from um, you know, same sex parents households, basically

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Speaker 1: wondering whether or not, you know, if kids are raised

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Speaker 1: by two men as opposed to a man and a woman,

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Speaker 1: will they be fine? And the answer is yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: if you have a stable, dual head household, then that's

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Speaker 1: the best chance for for positive outcomes. It does not

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Speaker 1: mean that you have to be married. So not all

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Speaker 1: numbers are super encouraging when we're talking about being single

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Speaker 1: and whatnot. Did you know according to the census breakdown

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Speaker 1: in that there are eighty eight unmarried men eighteen are

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Speaker 1: over for every one hundred single women eighteen and over,

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Speaker 1: there's a gapp It's like, yeah, it's unmarried US residents

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Speaker 1: over the age of eighteen were women. But yeah, then

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Speaker 1: it's like surprise when you break it down further, you know,

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Speaker 1: but don't confine yourself just to the American borders. Oh well,

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Speaker 1: you're right, you're right, and I have not you can

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Speaker 1: go elsewhere. But speaking of men, um, I have to

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Speaker 1: cross the junction. God, it's okay. You would have an

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Speaker 1: international site. I guess I can get to Canada. I

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Speaker 1: don't know those accents, but hey, a lot of connection.

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Speaker 1: Hey it was a joke. It was a joke. I have.

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Speaker 1: I have relative in Minnesota. Um. But speaking of men, though,

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Speaker 1: one thing that stood out to me from all this

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Speaker 1: single stigma information is that a lot of times it

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Speaker 1: seems like and maybe it's just the way the research

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Speaker 1: has been conducted, perhaps they said simply have not sat

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Speaker 1: men down and asked him, Hey, how do you feel

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Speaker 1: being the single guy at the table? Um? But it

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Speaker 1: seems like this social stigma is mostly directed at women

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Speaker 1: in their late twenties and thirties, and then you know,

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Speaker 1: beyond that, then we're just called crazy cat ladies and

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Speaker 1: forgotten about all star in our own Kathy Cartion. So

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Speaker 1: I'm wondering, I'm asking men out there, you know, is

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Speaker 1: there do you feel any kind of single stigma? Do

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Speaker 1: you feel pressure if you're in a relationship, Do you

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Speaker 1: feel the pressure to get married or somehow removing do

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Speaker 1: something to take it to the next step, to somehow

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Speaker 1: legitimize it in society's viewpoint, right, I mean, there definitely

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Speaker 1: are stigmas out there still, Um, despite the fact that

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Speaker 1: there's just this growing number of single people, people who

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Speaker 1: were living together or people who are just in long

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Speaker 1: term relationships and not getting married. It's growing, you know,

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Speaker 1: the numbers are getting bigger, but there's still a stigma. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think we kind of hit this point to where,

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Speaker 1: first of all, we live so long, so you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, you're gonna be with someone for

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Speaker 1: a really long time, if it really is until death

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Speaker 1: to you part, and the divorce rate is so high,

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Speaker 1: and there is, at least with our generation, Caroline, not

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Speaker 1: this rush to find your career and find your spouse

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Speaker 1: and settled down. We're delaying marriage. We're hopping around trying

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Speaker 1: out different kinds of jobs and things like that. So

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Speaker 1: I'll be really interested to see, I don't know how

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Speaker 1: all of this shakes out and if we will at

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Speaker 1: some point kind of as a society mature out of

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Speaker 1: the heteronormaty of marriage structure. Yeah, it's it's I think

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Speaker 1: it's gonna be hard to move past that, the stereotypes,

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Speaker 1: the scripts and schema. Um. But I mean it's just

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Speaker 1: becoming so common, so obviously there's a disconnect there, right,

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Speaker 1: somewhat a cultural lag if you will. Yeah, so the

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Speaker 1: romantic sexual partner, it's just it's not the only way

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Speaker 1: to be satisfied in life people. Yeah, and maybe it's

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Speaker 1: time for us to reclaim the term single because that

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Speaker 1: also came up a lot, Like a lot of single

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Speaker 1: people do not like to label themselves as single because

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Speaker 1: it has that kind of cultural baggage of so what

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Speaker 1: do they call? And well, I don't know, maybe maybe

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Speaker 1: we should just make a single cool, you know, singles

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Speaker 1: the new Uh. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I'm already failing it is and I can't suggestions. Well

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Speaker 1: help us out. Let us know your thoughts, UM, and

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Speaker 1: married people too. What what's your perspective on this growing

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Speaker 1: sea of singles around you or do you even notice

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Speaker 1: it at all? Send us an email mom Stuff at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And I've got a little

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Speaker 1: email here to read right quick. Um, a little email. H.

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Speaker 1: This is in regard to our episode on women in

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Speaker 1: um journalism and broadcasting and uh, Patricia is offering us

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Speaker 1: insight into women and broadcasting in Germany. Uh. She said,

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Speaker 1: I just listened to the women in Broadcasting podcasts and

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Speaker 1: thought you might like to know that growing up in

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Speaker 1: Germany during the seventies, women were almost always anchored national

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Speaker 1: international news. We watched A R D and zd F.

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming those are to you the two main networks.

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Speaker 1: The women were always professional and conservatively dressed. They were

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Speaker 1: well groomed and very articulate, and they sat in front

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Speaker 1: of simple desks with very spartan backgrounds. There was no

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Speaker 1: fluff or flash. Um, and I'm gonna have to watch it.

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Speaker 1: She sent a link to some old school German news broadcasts,

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Speaker 1: so I'm gonna check it out. If you have any

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Speaker 1: links to send our way again, our email addresses mom

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Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com. You can also

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Speaker 1: find us over on Facebook and follow us on Twitter

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Speaker 1: the blog during the week It's stuff Mom Never told

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