Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Still Go-Going After All These Years Remember the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and '70s — that era of long hair, short skirts and love beads? Baby Boomers remember it well since it is probably the most massive social change laid at our generation's collective feet, but younger Americans may be only dimly aware that there was once a time when women had little or no control over the timing of parenthood and thus over the course of our lives. I was reminded of all this in 2010 when the pill celebrated its 50th anniversary, and late last month the venerable Wall Street Journal weighed in by asking the question "Has the sexual revolution been good for women?" Addressing this question in the WSJ are two American writers, Mary Eberstadt, a research fellow in the fi eld of American society, culture and philosophy at Stanford University's conservative think tank, the Hoover Institution, and Anne Patchett, one of my favorite novelists and a thoughtful social critic. "Here's the thing about revolutions," Patchett begins, "There is no taking them back. You may review history and wish that it had gone the other way; perhaps you always longed to be a British colonist and regret the outcome. Or maybe you liked the idea of a man behind a horse and plow and feel that the Industrial Revolution was all a big misstep. "But personal laments are only that: personal. They cannot change what has been done." I read it, especially in light of the so-called "war on women" many see raging across our country these days and which those same folks see as an attempt to undo widespread availability and use of contraception and other social changes wrought by the Sexual Revolution. I agree with Anne on this one. The genie is long since out of the bottle here and there is no turning back on this one, like it or not. That being said, the WSJ's question still stands — has the Sexual Revolution been good for women? My answer is "Yes! Absolutely!" —but not entirely. I cannot think of much in human history — maybe fi re, our opposable thumbs, motorized transport — that changed the course of daily life the way the pill did. For the fi rst time ever, human beings had the ability and the option to decide when to become parents. The implications were and the results have been staggering. Women have been able to choose and engage I have been pondering that thought since in careers and contribute to the broader society in productive ways. Families have been able to limit their sizes, spreading the families' efforts and resources among the number of children they choose to have. People who have no interest in parenthood can now take that route. The pill literally changed life as it had been known before 1960. It has not all been positive, though. With the Sexual Revolution, and all the new freedoms that accompanied it, came some less desirable, in my view, social changes. Somehow, as women and, by extension, their men came to terms with controlling their parenting futures, it became okay to be a parent alone, almost always a mother on her own. Whether this was an "accident," as Bristol Palin and countless other young women say, or a "choice" as older career women often put it, the result has been millions of children growing up with only one parent, usually a mother. The recent news that more than 50 percent of American children are now born to unmarried mothers under 30 years old was not good news to me. The pill celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2010. Its availability gave people the ability to choose when to start a family. It has affected our world in both good and bad ways. means to be a productive adult if they have no one to show them? But back to the WSJ. I, for one, am not interested in being a British colonist or washing my family's laundry on a washboard in a river, nor am I interested in returning to the days when family life was thrust upon us, not chosen by mutual consent and entered into responsibly and with enthusiasm. What I am interested in is addressing the mixed blessings of the Sexual Revolution. I want children to grow up in loving two-parent families, to have access to excellent education so they can compete with the rest of the world in the workplace and to have access to quality healthcare from birth to the end. grow up beautifully and thrive in a single-parent home. I know many such families and expect you do as well. Overall, though, life is much harder in single-parent families, a parent with one income and all the responsibility. This situation is often complicated by lower levels of education and accompanying lower earning capacity. In addition, I believe that children want and need two parents in their lives, and that not having two involved parents is not only sad, it can and does bring problems. How are children to know what it If we look at individual families, some children I am fairly certain that sex and the pill are here to stay, so let's get to work on the rest of this. MARGARET DICKSON, Columnist, Up & Coming Weekly. COMMENTS? 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