The Tragedy of Marriage and the Next Generation
Sister #3 is petite (4'10"), a green-eyed blonde (in a family of blue eyes), has an education degree and named her children in alphabetic sequence (ABCDEF), the first 5 boys. Oddly enough, she never got a teaching job; she married near the end of college, and they started their family shortly afterward. (After raising her kids, she returned to a career as a librarian.) My recently passed friend Bruce volunteered as a Scoutmaster and had unknowingly met my sister as a mother of his Boy Scouts. She looks quite a bit different from me and has a sweet personality.Let's call my first nephew Alvin. He was a beautiful baby boy. In fact, I give him credit for the fact my middle brother has kids. "Joyce" didn't want to have kids, hearing horror stories about the pain of delivery, etc. At any rate, I don't know what motivated me, but I playfully bounced a balloon off Baby Alvin's head, and he responded by giggling hysterically. I did it a few more times with the same result. The others, including Joyce, took turns doing the same. Joyce just loved happy Alvin's disposition, and I heard her tell my brother that she had to have one of those of her own. (She first gave birth to a girl, then to her beloved son.)
I still remember taking Alvin as a little dude (maybe 3) to McDonald's with the idea of buying him french fries. It turned out they were still selling breakfast late morning and refused to sell fries; they suggested hash browns; no thanks! (I wasn't teaching the boy how to play hockey.) I then took him with me to buy doughnuts. (I still remember as a little dude my Dad taking me to breakfast once at a counter, ordering me a powdered doughnut and a glass of milk.) In the recent past, I wrote to Alvin, mentioning I still owed him an order of fries; he thought it was hysterical.
All of my nephews have graduated from college, 3 from Texas A&M (UT's most notorious intrastate rival), the youngest wrapping up his Master's in meteorology. Three, including Alvin, have been married, but my sister became a grandmother only recently (now with 3).
Alvin a few years back married "Karen"; I know very little about Karen (I've not been to any of my 21 nephew/niece's weddings (a significant number are never married yet) other than she really loves hot dogs: if I'm not mistaken, hot dogs were an option at their reception. I recently found out he had left Accenture (a major IT consulting company) for a boutique consultancy.
But it wasn't until a Thanksgiving family reunion photo centered around younger brother "Doug"'s baby son "James"' baptism that I realized Alvin was in the photo without Karen. I didn't immediately conclude the worst; maybe her work schedule made it impossible to attend. I texted my sister, and she revealed that Alvin and Karen had separated
I then emailed my nephew, acknowledging it was not any of my business. He was open in discussing certain aspects in response. Apparently they were going through fertility treatments, and somehow it affected their marriage. She decided she didn't want to be married anymore, refused to see a marriage counselor, kicked him out of their house, and filed for divorce (recently finalized). Alvin is devastated. I will simply say Alvin is one of the nicest guys you would ever meet, handsome, bright, heart of gold; I would say that even if I weren't his uncle. Karen has issues, and I hope she gets the help she needs.
In my extended family, nearly everyone in my and my parents' generations (except maybe one uncle)--including my 6 younger siblings--has married for life. It's a different story for the next generation: 3 nephews now have been divorced as well as my middle goddaughter. And a second niece, her sister, is living with their folks; I haven't heard specifics, but I suspect spousal abuse. I think 9 are never married, 7/1 married, 4 divorced. Very sad. I do know divorce happened to a lot of people in the early two generations.
Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal
One of the things I made reference to in my email to Alvin was our Facebook clash over government healthcare. He seemed to be a pro-government healthcare guy and trolling me on the topic. So it was somewhat surprising when he became the first relative to follow me on Twitter.So he explained that he has also voted libertarian but thinks in practice we need a social welfare net (we disagree on that). But he also stepped on a pet peeve of mine, a typical classification by young people described libertarianism as "fiscally conservative, but socially liberal". He is at least the third nephew who has voiced a similar position. He then went on a rant on Republicans who want to impose their religious beliefs (presumably against abortion and "gay" marriage) just as much as Democrats want to impose their will on the economy.
I think that's a garbage criticism. For example, the so-called "gay marriage ban" had nothing to do with outlawing homosexual relationships. What conservatives were opposing was a judicial fiat overturning the traditional definition of marriage in states. A similar argument could be made over abortion regulation. It makes no sense to argue pro-lifers are "imposing" religious beliefs on others. I mean, the Ten Commandments also prohibit murder, theft and lying (in court), not to mention Jesus was not recorded speaking on abortion, not to mention there are atheist pro-life groups.
There is no Statist religious agenda of the type of, say, imposing blue laws nationwide. There is no likelihood of a pro-life amendment coming out of Congress. To paraphrase a commercial from the 80's, where's the beef?
