Where The Boys Are

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how boys are in trouble–falling behind in school, terrible discipline problems, etc.–and I take it all quite seriously; I’m concerned that boys receive the guidance and education they need to flourish in a changing world. I have to admit, though, that my concern is not entirely motivated by a purely charitable concern for future generations and the happiness of fellow children of our Heavenly Father. Rather, a major portion of my interest arises from the fact that I am worried about my daughters. I mean, who am I going to line them up to marry if all the boys out there tank?

BWWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! you all laugh. Russell thinks he’s going to arrange marriages for his daughters?! How deluded can a guy be? Everyone knows that in today’s world, young people must Go Out Into the World to Discover Themselves and Struggle on Their Own to Find the One Who is Right For Them. And you’re all right of course; there’s no way I, a modern father, would dare imagine that I can plan out a social future for my children, much less presume to guide their romantic feelings, much much less attempt arrange a courtship for them! So I won’t.

At least, not in so many words.

But in the more general sense of things….well, yes, I do think I ought to keep my eyes open, perhaps cultivate a few possibilities where I can. Am I serious about this? It’s hard to say. The long-standing pre-occupation of many church leaders with getting the youth of the church to only date other members really has nothing to do, I think, with being insular; rather, it has everything to do with making sure young Mormon men and women fall in love with and marry each other, rather than someone outside the faith. And it’s well known that one of the primary reasons the church pored so many resources into BYU for so many years–and one of the reasons they also emphasize attendance at various university institutes today–is that they want to make sure there are critical masses of young Mormon women and men out there, so as to maximize opportunities for these people to find each other and marry. (It worked for me.) Abraham sending his servant back to his own country to fetch a wife for Isaac; Isaac commanding Jacob to return to his mother’s father’s house to find a bride, rather than wedding a Canaanite woman–relationships between men and women and parents and children have changed radically since the time of the patriarchs (and for the better, I hasten to add)….but basic fatherly hopes and fears have not. You hear anecdotes and read articles and personally observe that, already, good men are somewhat hard to find; what if it becomes even harder? What if, in a world which often seems to coddle and punish boys in equal measure, encouraging both irresponsible braggadocio and self-pitying withdrawal, where the active church population is already heavily skewed along gender lines, the number of faithful, responsible, well-raised, respectful, hard-working, church-attending men of the covenant declines even further? My father, who I have learned to be right more often than wrong, once after returning from some miserable series of interviews with the young adults of his ward back when he was a bishop, looked up at me and joked–but only kind of–that towards the end the faithful members of the church might want to give up on modern dating entirely (the parties, the pairing off, the whole nine yards), and return to arranged marriages. I have no opinion on whether or not we’ve reached that point. But hey, in the meantime it can’t hurt to, well, make sure you know where the (good) boys are. So I keep track of those I know of….just in case:

Let’s see, first of all, there are the sons of old friends–Christian Van Muijen (age 14, a good kid, might be too old for Megan, reportedly already a bit of a Romeo); Ashton Bailey (age 13, wonderful imagination, once locked Megan in a closet but I’m sure he’s outgrown that); Jonathan Bigelow (age 12, I have incriminated photos of him from back when we babysat him, might be able to turn those to our advantage); Andrew Bertelson (age 6, a bit sulky, but Caitlyn’s practically already decided he’s the man for her); Tanner Jones (age 5, perfectly content to let women boss him around, willingly played “Charlie” when all the rest of the girls in preschool were the “Angels”), and so forth. To all my friends that I keep in contact via e-mail (Jonathan Green, Matt Fairholm, etc.)….I admit it, part of this is purely mercenary: I’m keeping tabs on your boys. And, since I’m being honest here, let’s talk about the “local” crowd. Kristine has a couple of fine sons coming along (they’ll no doubt turn out to be feminists with a weakness for poetry; both good things), and Julie has as likely a bunch of lads as I’ve ever heard of (presumably all being raised as proper Southern gentleman…plus, speaking Latin!). And I’m not even reaching very far into my notebook here, folks.

Again….am I actually serious? In the end, isn’t it really just all about raising girls that will respect themselves and thus demand respect from others, that will know how to pray and how to listen carefully, that will have both some smarts and a feeling for the Spirit? Of course it is; and if they’ve got all that, then I’ll know that whomever they choose to marry, or if they choose not to marry, it’ll be a result that I’ll be able to trust as a wise one. Indeed, I’ll have to; after a certain point, the costs of interfering in their lives will probably greatly outweigh the benefits. I know this. But I also read the newspapers; I also know about peer pressure and media expectations; I know the social life which awaits far too many young women who are searching for a companion is far too often a degrading, depressing, even dangerous one. And so, if staying on good terms with fellow concerned parents out there might mean, at some point in the future, maybe being able to drop a few names on occasion, perhaps setting up a few meetings, making a few suggestions….well, I can withstand the mockery. Us dads are supposed to be tough, after all.

41 comments for “Where The Boys Are

  1. 1) Smother your little girls in hugs and kisses. You don’t want them to go out in the world hungering for affection.

    2) Treat your wife with the respect that the most wonderful person in the world deserves so that your girls will grow up with the expectation that good men are respectful.

    3) Hang a shotgun over your door.

  2. When I went to ask my (now) father-in-law for his blessing to marry my (now) wife, he greeted me at the door with a shotgun. We even a have a picture of the two of us (F-I-L and me), sitting on the sofa, with him holding the gun.

    My (now) wife was out at BYU, so she was unable to witness this spectacle. He repeated this when her younger sister married later that year. When the youngest sister marries (she’s now 22) I have a feeling that gun might actually be loaded.

  3. So, Russell, what are you going to do when your sweet 16 y.o. daughter cames home from school one day riding on the back of a Harley-Davidson being driven by a man who just got out of the Merchant Marine and who answers to the name of “Hound Dog”? Get thee to a nunnery comes to mind.

    Parenthood isn’t for the faint of heart. My concern is the reverse of yours, I’m hoping that somewhere in this big old world there are some parents who are raising daughters who will be good to my sons.

  4. You cannot arrange marriages in the U.S. in the Korean style Russell (unfortunately). You probably can’t do it in Korea any more either. But you certainly can help out. We kept putting a particular woman whom we liked very much in front of our first son (at the time dating someone we didn’t think made a good match) until he got the point and married her.

    But, of course, you also have to be savvy. At some point “helping out” is just plain old bad form.

  5. I would say that your best approach would be to ensure as best you can that your daughters have good enough self esteem to not put up with men who would treat them poorly. I was incredibly fortunate that I had enough self esteem to cut off my relationship with a man who claimed to love me, but treated me like garbage.

    Re Roasted Tomatoes, I believe the missing word from your stat is ‘successful.’ 86% of all successful adolescent suicides are boys. Girls consistently attempt suicide more often than boys, but boys choose more effective methods and succeed more than girls.

    Also for some reason I’m remembering an episode of Kids in the Hall where Dave Foley is playing a girl who is bringing home her black boyfriend (Scott Thompson) to meet her parents. She keeps talking about how her parents are so racist and she’ll choose him over them, and he shouldn’t listen to anything they have to say. Either way the whole time her parents are thrilled by her boyfriend, and have him sit in the father’s favorite chair and offer him candy. Don’t know exactly why that came to mind, but I’m glad it did cause it’s funny.

  6. Brother and Sister Chon, who now live in Maryland, once told me how their marriage had been arranged. The Korean Mission president Spencer Palmer knew both of them. (Brother Chon had been one of his missionaries.) Palmer brought their non-member fathers together to discuss a union, which they were agreeable with. Sister Chon’s only input into the matter was to ask Brother Chon if he would always pay his tithing, which he said he would. This satisfied her. It was sweet to hear her tell this.

  7. “We kept putting a particular woman whom we liked very much in front of our first son (at the time dating someone we didn’t think made a good match) until he got the point and married her.”

    See, success stories like that are all I’m asking for Jim; all I want is sufficient savvy and subtlety to be able to “help out” on occasion.

  8. When my husband — then just a friend — was on his mission (also in Korea, by the way — Pusan, 1990-1992) I often ran into his parents when I was on dates with other boys. He infallibly made some crack about his plans for me to marry his son. I think it worked to scare all the other boys away from me. He would probably tell you he arranged our marriage in this way.

    But I wanted to marry his son, anyway.

    I have two wonderful boys who are learning the gospel beautifully and excelling academically. Ages 4 and 6. Plus, they’re gorgeous. I will state that by all current indications, they will need very energetic and patient wives. Are you people getting your girls ready for that? And for the fulfillment of my earnest wishes that someday my children will have boys *exactly like them?*

  9. Great piece. I love it. Oddly enough, I’ve already spent quite a bit of time worrying about who Emma Caroline will marry, though she’s young. I worried a lot about Betsey when she was alive. And I worry about my sisters.

    You say “In the end, isn’t it really just all about raising girls that will respect themselves and thus demand respect from others, that will know how to pray and how to listen carefully, that will have both some smarts and a feeling for the Spirit?” Unfortunately, it isn’t, and this is why I worry. My sisters and my daughters and your daughters won’t choose wrong. But will they have a choice?

    There have always been more Mormon young women who are actively religious than there have been young men (the disproportion may be increasing, but I’m not sure) but in the past the odds were probably at least a little higher that your inactive Mormon young men or your irreligious young men in general were decent. Too many boys these days grow up to be filth. In the fallout for good and ill of feminism, easy divorce, the sexual revolution, and so on, the biggest disaster has been the effect on the moral character of young men.

    My sisters are attractive and funny, bright but not intimidatingly so. But there’s two girls to every boy in their ward at BYU. The odds are against them.

  10. Russell–

    I have young daughters, so I feel your pain. But I’ve decided that if I really love them, then I need to be intellectually comfortable with the idea of their marrying idiots. I’m not saying that I would stand by and do nothing if they did marry an idiot–and this word should be taken to mean “someone daddy disproves of”–but I don’t want to spoil their childhoods by seeing them as always already idiot-magnets.

    I suppose I also take comfort in the existance of starter marriages. My wife married an idiot while I was still on my mission. Fortunately, that didn’t last and didn’t produce offspring, so she was free when we met a few years later. I think that knowing momma dropped the hammer on an idiot will help my girls make the same decision if they had to.

  11. Though I understand and agree with RAF’s concern completely, I find comment #7 chilling rather than sweet. I remember once in rural North Carolina I received something like a proposal at first sight, which sounded much as would an opening offer for a particularly nice looking horse. A friend in Israel had her mother offered some number of camels for her once, and only partly in jest. The reason no more information need be sought or given, in such cases, is certainly that if she gave any trouble, he would whip her into line. After all, a man who can’t control his various cattle is not much of a man, in such cultures. No, thanks, on arranged marriages.

    I agree that the best way for fathers to help their daughters marry well is to cherish them, show them affection, listen to what they think and feel, and what they have to say about life, the universe, and everything, be willing to spend time with them, and be interested in who they are as people.

  12. I find comment #7 chilling rather than sweet.

    “Sweet” was an observation, not an opinion. “Chilling” would be a wholly incorrect appraisal of Sister Chon recalling more than twenty years after the fact her happiness at being able to marry a Mormon boy.

  13. My father and my father-in-law both attended Duke Law School during overlapping periods in th 1970s, and our parents formed a friendship then. Twenty years later (and with the gentle nudging of literally dozens of other family and geographical connections), John and I met at BYU, and four years after that we married. Because of this, there are a number of families I keep on our Christmas card list not least because I want to make similar channels available for my daughters (and Aaron, if you’re reading this, I mean you! I have my eye on Davey…).

    I’m not so concerned about my daughters’ judgment—although I probably will be when the time arrives—as I am about their prospects, particularly if they turn out to look and think and speak somewhat outside of the typical marriageable Mormon mold for women. Why don’t I have the same fears for my son? I’m not sure.

    From what I hear, though, there’s a glut of boy babies in Utah wards these days—whole nurseries in Sandy populated only with boys, I’m told (and, it was added, believed to be the future armies of Armageddon)—and if this is true, maybe I can relax a bit for my daughters.

  14. I apologize, John! No commentary on Brother and Sister Chon or their marriage was intended, of course! I’m very sorry that I didn’t make that clear. How do I say that the practice of arranged marriages horrifies me in a way that doesn’t insult the many couples who have managed to make them work?

  15. “believed to be the future armies of Armageddon” Hahahaha!! That’s beautiful!

    I hesitate to post this link because I disagree with many of the beliefs of the author, but http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/index.php?id=57&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=229&tx_ttnews%5BbackPID%5D=7 is an interesting article. (Would someone tell me how to link in text instead of copying the URL?)

    I’m with Jack and Andermom. Give your girls as much affection as you can, so that they aren’t looking to fill their need to be touched and loved with the first guy who shows interest. Help them develop good self-esteem so they don’t need a guy to feel validated as a person. Strong women don’t date controlling or scummy men, generally speaking.

  16. “. . . if they’ve got all that, then I’ll know that whomever they choose to marry, or if they choose not to marry, it’ll be a result that I’ll be able to trust as a wise one. Indeed, I’ll have to; after a certain point, the costs of interfering in their lives will probably greatly outweigh the benefits. I know this.”

    This the most important point you make, Russell. My own parents have been outpoken and controlling in this particular area and their efforts have met with disastrous results. My happily married siblings are those who’ve gone against my parents’ wishes and followed their own hearts even at the cost of various levels of estrangement from the folks.

  17. Thank God none of you and none of your parents are my parents. Maybe I am just middling and madcap, but I still like the whole free agency idea.

  18. OK,

    I solved the availability problem.

    I have 4 blond boys descended from Pioneer Stock and related to current and past Heirarchy Types (some big names from my wife’s side of the family) in my house right now. Some are more potty trained than others. One can even read a bit.

    Ages 6, 3 and 23 month old twins. Also available after consultation with my brothers are 4 additional boys ages 6, 4, 8 months and 6 months. In the future there will probably be even more boys available.

    I am taking deposits for their upcoming auto insurance policies and college educations. These deposits will allow your girls the opportunity to get to know these boys

    Let me know and lets see an age progressed picture for comparisons sakes.

  19. My own marriage is the curious side product of a long-standing arranged date.

    My dad, then a non-member, dated an LDS girl in high school. She was a big factor in his eventual decision to join the church. She was the oldest of a number of siblings.

    As I grew up, I heard tales about her younger siblings. Why, she had a sister my age! Wouldn’t that be cool? Yeah, whatever. They were in Arizona, and I wasn’t.

    Then I moved to Arizona in the middle of high school, at my dad’s old high school, no less, and that youngest sister was in my high school class. Yep, that’s a recipe for trouble. We were cordial enough, but everyone was convinced that it would be _so cute_ if we started dating. I would complain about lack of dates and my parents would drop hints — “you know who you ought to ask out sometime . . .”

    Eventually I took her to the prom. Everyone in the family was of course chattering about how cool it was that I was taking my dad’s prom date’s youngest sister to the prom. All eyes on us — would we fall in love, be married, live happily ever after? How cool would that be.

    Perhaps it was the family pressure and spotlight. Perhaps it was just a personality mismatch. In any case, the date was pretty ho-hum — not disastrously bad or anything, but there was really no chemistry — and we never went out again.

    However, I’m awfully glad that I went on that date. We were going to prom as part of a double-date, and so for part of that day we spent time at my friend’s house. (He and his date were the other half of the double date). He had a younger sister who pestered us while we were there, wanting to be included in the events. We mostly ignored her, of course. But it was my first real introduction to that younger sister.

    Five years later, I married her.

  20. RE Brother and Sister Chon: It is important to remember that Sister Chon was looking to marry a Mormon and that she could have said “no.” There are all kinds of arranged marriages in the world, and Korean arranged marriages have not for a very long time been like those that horrify people. True, they are not marriages that make romantic love the motivating force for marriage, but the possibility of romantic love is something most expect and it generally figures in the decisions of the prospective brides and grooms. It is a factor (at least in terms of its potential) rather than the factor. Given our history and culture, such arranged marriages wouldn’t work for those in the Americas and Europeans, but there are many places where they work well (as well as places where they are part of the subjugation of women).

  21. How do I say that the practice of arranged marriages horrifies me in a way that doesn’t insult the many couples who have managed to make them work? –Tatiana

    It can be a little awkward, can’t it? I met an Iranian couple in the fall. One time talking with the husband, I made some small compliment of his wife. He gazed across the room at her with the look of someone who feels very fortunate, and told me they are cousins who have always known each other. I had mixed feelings hearing him tenderly describe a marriage situation that is foreign and unappealing to me.

  22. I met my mother-in-law some months before I met my wife. I became a cub scout leader, and my future mother-in-law was running den leader training. She told her daughter, in a pointed way, that it was impressive that a young man would spend his time as a scout leader. This was a pretty small factor in my wife and me coming together, but it is good to have had my mother-in-law on my side from the start.

  23. Some additional thoughts:

    1. For all pratical purposes, it would be impossible to “arrange a marriage” for my daughters or for anyone in the U.S. or most of the Western world today in the manner which horrifies Tatiana and others. The law doesn’t allow for it. Those marriages were literally “arrangements” in the sense that contracts stipulated the outcome, an outcome which didn’t involve the man or woman being married, because they had no independent rights. Parental control over children (particular female children) has been radically circumscribed over the past century and a half, making such contracts impossible to enforce. Of course, one could always enforce them through violence or intimidation, but given the topic of the post, I would assume nothing like that would come into the equation in the first place.

    2. Our culture’s romantic vision of “falling in love” is, in my experience, not only a mostly inaccurate description of the actual experiences and feelings which obtain between loving couples, but is also, on its own terms, utterly overrated.

    3. Paul, I wasn’t aware that “free agency” meant the same as “not only can no one tell me what I can do, but no ought to ever even suggest what I should do.” But perhaps I’m reading too much into your comment.

    4. Rosalynde, I hope you’re right about all the boy babies back in the Mormon Heimat; amongst my friends (both Mormon and otherwise), it’s been nothing but girls for a while.

    5. Incidentally Rosalynde (and Kaimi and Melissa), thanks for sharing your story. What can I say? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

  24. Adam,

    I worry about my daughter finding a good man, too. But despite such worries, I wouldn’t go so far as to characterize people as filth, and I think it’s awfully problematic to make such characterizations. A man (or woman) of weak moral character, or someone who has bad habits, or whatever else, is still a child of God. Perhaps a fallen child of God, perhaps one who has squandered gifts, but still a child of God, and not (in my mind) rightly equated to filth.

  25. It’s funny, my in-laws are nice people who never tried to force my husband to date any particular girl, but the girl they really liked and kind of hoped he would marry was the biggest personality mismatch he could have found. Likewise, they didn’t take to me right away (I like to think I’ve grown on them over the years; we have a very good relationship now). I always wonder what kind of disaster it would be to be married to someone your parents picked if your parents don’t quite understand you.

    I really hope when my kids are of marriageable age, I can remember that they know what will make them happy better than I likely do. Right now, it’s hard for me to imagine any boy meeting the standards I have for my daughters, but I’m glad to know there are parents raising LDS boys who are doing a good job.

  26. RAF, I am fine with suggestion just as long as what is being suggested comes with no obligation or incentive. If it does (come with cords attached), then it is manipulation. I am against manipulation of people’s fundamental (read: eternal) choices. Marriage is a choice with eternal consequences. Perhaps the most important one we make here. I know our devilish tendencies make us want to step in and “help” others, especially our kids, make that choice. And I do relate because I have three kids of my own. But it is, in my view, contra the plan.

  27. Russell,

    Unless you’re already using pseudonyms for the children identified in your original post, you might consider such an edit.

  28. Roasted Tomatoes,
    I have understood that the suicide rate is higher for boys, but it is partially because boys choose methods of suicide that are more successful. Girl tend to choose methods that fail, and therefore, there are many attempts. I don’t know who has the highest suicide attempts.

    Russell,
    I also support the advice to treat your daughters with respect and affection, treat your wife with respect and affection, and then your chances of your daughters picking someone to have a happy marriage with go up.
    I also feel that daughters should be educated about potential relationship problems as they get older. Domestic abuse should be discussed as unacceptable, and reasons for it, and solutions for it.
    Also, dating problems should be discussed. Some boys might care less about her, and more about what they can get.
    But I also think it is important that they grow up with the faith that someone worthy of their love, will love them back. That not all men need to be shown a shotgun in order to treat them with respect. That some boys will actually ask her out because they like her, and will care about what she wants, and will take her home on time simply because she says it is time to go home.
    So when my daughter cries because no one asked her to dance, or because no one asked her to the junior prom, or because he didn’t call when he said he would, or because he dumped her for someone who has different standards, you won’t hear me telling her “boys are all jerks.” I’ll tell her that they a lot of boys probably feel short and awkward around her, and that a lot of boys feel too nervous around girls to talk to them and find out who they get along with, or maybe I’d even say that some boys are immature and make stupid mistakes because they didn’t think things through, but that somewhere out there is a guy who is perfect for her and will think she is wonderful and beautiful and perfect for him.

  29. Remember Apu Nahasapeemapetilon’s objection: “But mother, don’t you know that 1 in 25 arranged marriages ends in divorce?”

  30. As much as I don’t like the idea of “arranged marriages,” I appreciate kind, non-intrusive introductions to eligible young men from adults I trust. I wish that at least the LDS half of my parental entourage would be a little more interested in the subject — they meet a lot more interesting young men (as one goes to law school and the other is a technology consultant) than I do, and smart LDS guys are in short supply in the midwest. Though all of my mom’s fellow students who are male and LDS, are already married.

    Speaking of which, is there anywhere a good list of university areas with unusually strong/large YSA populations? Without actually visiting an area, it’s surprisingly hard to tell (we’re using singles’ branches and wards near the relevant ZIP code as a proxy.)

  31. Sarah, if you go to http://www.ldsces.org, under the Institute locator, you can see the number of students enrolled at each institute. Not a perfect measure, since some are married, but a pretty good relative measure.

  32. Since the schools have given up on teaching ethical ways for all children to live by, I have been living the “I am responsible” for everything ethic and trying to get that to take ahold in his head while he is in his teens. Even if it becomes overingrained (doubt it though), he will still be able to reflect back on this. I am not so very sure on the statement that just boys are falling behind, they do however lack in some of the graces (dish cleansing, bedroom cleaning, etc) , falling behind, in exactly what/

  33. this has been a great thread! and funny, too. i hope others could enjoy it, too.

    i also have some of the same thoughts. i just remember that lots of those wonderful girls are thrilled to marry idiots, and lots of times, it’s the best thing they could do. if my wife hadn’t married me, who would have??

    my wife and her friends have already matched their children up a few times. in fact, some people i know have matched up their children to at least 15 others–and they’re not yet in kindergarten. some have even discussed it in front of the children, and asked them. of course, some aren’t members, so even though it’s been said, it’s not really meant in the same way.

    some things are much more important in a marriage than romantic “love”; or, as my dad used to say, sexual “love”–after making out each time from the 1st to the final date, the couple gets married because they “love” each other, only to find out after being married a while that life and marriage is much more than romance and love. arranged marriage, in a certain way–or suggestions, dates, etc.–would probably be a boost for many.

    he also tried to keep tabs for most of us, but alas…(it really might have helped some of us, frankly).

    i’m keeping tabs, too. :) now if only i could convince my preschool daughter…

  34. wow–what a coincidence–we’re seriously about to go out to…”arrange” with my wife’s college friend (among other things, of course).

  35. Enough B.S. with this Pioneer stock garbage. “All men will punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.” If you want a worthy LDS boy for your daughters find someone with the last name Verkler in the church. That family under that name has had nothing but boys for at least 5 generations. I am not married. I haven’t even ever been on an “official date”. I am 23. I have found the definition of true love to be falling in love with someone who is not your “ideal” mate according to your daydreams or some other crazy idea. There should be some physical attraction. But, worthiness and practicality should be the goal. No more jokes about being bossed around by women, or subjugated by men. If there is failure within a couple to love/respect each other equally, and on a daily basis, then what is the point. The best love is love conditional only upon fidelity, worthiness, and it being given freely/willingly by your intended/spouse.

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