Thoughts on Divorce

Maybe it's a race thing.

Here's what I mean. I'm of mixed heritage. My mother's family is Irish, and my father's family is Jewish. Both families have been in the United States for generations, but neither mixed with other ethnicities until my parents' generation. This was common. Up until the baby boomers, race was traced along finer lines. Italians married Italians, Jews married Jews, Irish married Irish, and so on. Our parents' generation was the first to wed across ethnic lines on a massive scale, and my mom and dad were no exception.

It's worth noting that both families celebrate the 4^th of July. Both families enjoy hotdogs and CBS. Both families attended public school and spoke with an all-American accent. Superficially, the Jewish family seemed just as white-bread as the Irish. Having grown up with both, though, I've come to see differences. The personality of the Jewish side is darker and more overtly intellectual. They're good storytellers and surround themselves with fine things. The Irish side is big and bright and boisterous. They laugh far more readily and with far less irony than my Jewish cousins.

Differences were also apparent in how my mother and father handled an argument. My mother bore hardship with a Catholic grace. She did not raise her voice. Instead, shame and guilt were her weapon. My father didn't notice this. For him, an argument should be like fire. It should burn fierce and fast until it died, and then the ashes should be blown away. In time, they found themselves to be incompatible. In time, they got a divorce. Most of their generation did the same thing.

Both of them were “American.” Both of them drove cars and went to the movies. Both of them worked corporate jobs and spent long evenings on the sofa watching Star Wars. Their public lives conformed to the textbook, but at home, she was Irish and he was Jewish. It's what they knew. They modeled themselves after their parents, just as their own parents had done with their grandparents. It was a heritage of home-life. It was culture. Each had learned a martial dance of compromise and debate, but these dances were as ethnically distinct as tap-dancing and klezmer. When my dad paired up with my mom, each did the dance their parents had modeled, and of course, the steps didn't match. Despite their attraction, they made horrible partners.

This is not to say we should only marry within ethnic bounds. Perhaps that would have been a good idea fifty years ago, but it's too late now. Our generation is already mixed up. Just go to a modern concert and watch the way people dance. We don't dance together; we don't know how. It can't get worse than this, so . . . marry whoever. Just be aware that our generation is facing a challenge. We've got to come up with new dances; we've got the synthesize and compromise and reinvent. It won't be easy. It's also something that must be done, or else we and our own children will be riding the same wave of divorce.

This is what our generation is about. We've got to figure shit out.