The Standard American Life.
i don’t know how to feel about this. in perspective of my own life, i philosophically agree: i see people chasing this carrot of a happy marriage and a big house and 2.5 kids and a dog all that comes with it over the place, and for the most part i do find the whole thing a bit nauseating. i am NOT part of that and don’t want to be part of that. however, the thing that makes me not fully say “RIGHT ON!” to this message is that i can’t judge whether those people are happy or not, or whether they want something or someone else. endless books and movies and art have been created based on this topic of the unhappy suburbanite - from American Beauty to Fake Plastic Trees - and in the real world high rates of infidelity and divorce, not to mention the economic disaster propelled by it, prove that the american dream isn’t as easy as we’d all like it to be.
but does that make it a “wrong” way to want to live our life? i don’t think just because that lifestyle isn’t for me means it should be looked down upon as uncreative or a waste of life by default. sure, there are lot of unhappily married people out there who chose the “normal” path, but i do actually know a number of standard american families who seem quite happy, and i admit that my current crop of friends here in the bay area who have recently procreated and/or are going to have babies in the next couple of months have begun to change my feelings on the subject of reproduction, as many of them are “alternative families”. it’s my friends and family back home in the midwest (including those who were here and left to go back and pursue this path) that seem to be much more driven to conform to the kind of scenario represented in this animation. that’s a generalization, i know, but at the very least i think it’s true that here in SF there is much less “pressure”, as it were, to follow that path.
while i agree that there are a number of reasons why this kind of lifestyle can be labeled “wrong” (unsustainable living habits, urban sprawl, population growth issues, etc.), the thing that really irked me about this was the end. especially after looking at this photographic essay on Death yesterday (warning: not graphic, but may be disturbing for some), the assumption that anyone would give up their life so easily, so passively just because it wasn’t superfuckingspecial is really arrogant. in the end i think we all want to live, even if life isn’t what we wanted it to be.
so at first i thought the little video was funny, but then by the end i was like: wow. could it be more judgmental? it’s fucking hard to find happiness in this world. give people a break.
~via
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where, exactly, do you actually see people “chasing this carrot of a happy marriage and a big house and 2.5 kids and a dog all that comes with it over the place” ?
reagan: perhaps your former roommates are an example?
outside of the burning man circle, i have a lot of friends/ familiars in the past 5 years that have gotten engaged to people they’d been dating for like a year, then immediately after the wedding jumped into the home-buying market whether they could afford it or not, and then shortly thereafter announced they were pregnant. this is not an unusual report. friends in SF - yes. friends from elsewhere? around the time i was 25 i had summers where there were 6 weddings i was invited to. and, sadly, many of those are already over, 5 years later. i am not exaggerating.
I swear, I wasn’t trying to be difficult …. I guess I just don’t have a wide enough social net. About 9 years ago I went to several weddings, but they were never close friends of mine. I find the “married with kids” path to be quite rare, indeed.
well, you have been living in urban coastal cities for most of your life…which is a huge factor in how many people you know who choose the standard path. that’s not just an opinion, that’s demographics.
being “atlernative” is no more a *right* lifestyle than being anything else. so long as you’re living in a way that makes sense to you, and isn’t harming other people, then have at it.
there is no default “happiness” lifestyle.
i think it’s the “harming other people” that’s the catch and where my conflicted feelings are about this. a lot of ZPG advocates and others would argue that the lifestyle depicted in this sketch IS harming other people.
I’ve been struggling a bit with this too recently, especially now that I’m pregnant. I’ve always sort of thought that owning a house is kind of your real ticket out of the rat race. I mean really owning it, not “owning” it and having high mortgage payments.
When you think about your expenses, I know that usually at least 50% of mine go towards housing (rent, electric, etc.). If you actually actually owned your house, it would be much easier to “drop out” or the working world…or at least reduce your hours so that you could work on things that mattered more to you…When you live in large cities, you have the convenience of culture, and lots of fun things to do, but I think that the high cost of living has a tendency to chain you to your job.
Recently, we’ve been setting up our financial goals to be able to buy a house in the next few years. I’m OK with that in theory. But it makes me sick to my stomach to think of how much a house in Hawaii costs, and what we’d get for that kind of money. I mean seriously, for what we’d pay on a down payment, I could outright buy a really nice house in my hometown and have enough money to really pimp it out. But purchasing that house in Hawaii, unless we start making a lot more money, it’s like we’re running around in one of those gerbil wheels.
*shrug*
Love,
Shannon
shannon, i appreciate your perspective. it’s because i know (wonderful) people like you who i trust will thoughtfully move forward with your family and financial planning, that i can’t just dismiss everyone who choses to go the ‘normal’ family route as being uncreative asshats.
I didn’t see this cartoon as judgmental, just as a statement about the pitfalls of that path. There is plenty of quiet desperation to go around for suburbanites and people living the alternative hipster lifestyle alike.
The worlds population is too large and getting bigger. The current replacement rate is 2 kids plus a decimal number. Please, everyone, if you can’t handle being childless, adopting, or having only 1 kid please limit yourself to two children so that the the population can slowly come down.
End of sermon.
I did see this video…I stumbled upon it a few weeks ago….And I do realize that I am judgmental at times…over what makes people happy - but it’s because I just don’t understand….and now being newly divorced…I’m just even more fucked up
As one of the carrot chasers I guess at this point I should be greatly annoyed by this thread in general, but I must agree with some things being said.
I agree that it must seem like a generic life from the outside looking in, but believe me there is nothing generic about pro-creation.
I am the mother of not the 2.5 but 5 beautiful children. I am the one you all cringe at, but I would have it no other way.
I do not have a huge mortgage, I do have a little one that will be paid in 3 years.
I have a car that is to big, but just right for us. I hate this, cannot wait to have a small car that will not take my paycheck to go to the grocery store.
I have not traveled the world, or even traveled to much of the U.S.
I have choosen to raise our future. I thrive on the idea that my children will be the educated, and the ones that are not cluttering the world with nothing to do or say, but leading the way to their childrens future.
I could rattle on and on about which way is right, and I sit on the line. I do not know, as none of us really do. We can just hope that our choices in life better the world, and as someone else said does not hurt others.
heather, if i have *ever* been condescending toward you (other readers, heather and i have been friends since high school), i truly apologize. i realize that life is full of difficult choices, and know you’ve had to make many yet have always remained optimistic, which is something i really have always admired.
i have also always loved the saying ‘there are as many paths to god as there are people’, and i believe the same is true for happiness. as i said at the end of this post, i know that happiness is hard to find, and i am trying really hard to let go of some of the judgments i’ve built up around some of the things people do in their search.
It was not condescending, I just wanted to add the point of view of the “other side”.
I love reading this blog, I get to keep up on you, and see how other people live this crazy life.
I often find myself jealous of the travel and experiences you have, but I would not trade my world for yours. And I know you would not trade your world for mine. I feel that one day I will travel and experience things I only dream of now.
It is funny how we were both raised in the same town with similiar parents and how we both traveled different roads, and yet we are both happy with what we have. It is a great feeling “happiness” in whatever form it takes.