Thursday, October 26, 2017

Why would the Times let someone do that?

What an odd essay. From Prenup Is a Four-Letter Word by Abby Mimms.

The New York Times, NPR and the Washington Post all seem to have a propensity for publishing essays on social issues which I think are intended to spark thought and debate but which come across to normals as enabling psychologically frail people to posture their poor behavior.

In this instance the author is writing about her trauma in regards to signing a prenuptial agreement. Fair enough. Pre-nups have always struck me as both corrosive to a developing relationship and yet also a logical necessity where there are significant differences in what is being brought to the marriage.

But the essayist's description of the circumstances is so horrifyingly embarrassing and self-demeaning that you have to wonder what the editors were thinking. Why would you provide a platform for someone to make such a public spectacle of herself.

She is forty-two years old and has never had a career. She has worked intermittently and primarily as a waitress, living hand-to-mouth. She wants to be writer. OK, not the decisions I would make, but she is an adult free to make her own decisions regardless of the statistically probable outcomes. She has no savings to speak of, no credible credit position, no assets.

She meets a man who has a career, has worked hard and saved and brings assets, a house, income, stability and creditworthiness to the relationship.

They start with a long distance relationship. They have (a planned, contrived, accidental?) child. They consider marriage. He asks for a prenup. This upsets her.

That is pretty much the long and short of the essay. She doesn't try to justify her decisions. She does try to cast him at least a little as at fault, claiming controlling behavior and risk aversion.

She has written a 1,500 word account that makes her look like a gold-digging snow flake with poor personal self-control and demeans her husband in public.

Why would the Times let someone do that?

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