THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE LIBERAL

Hey, guys, being grown-up is O.K.! (Henning Sussebach, International Herald Tribune, May 21st, 2005)

One in three German men who reach 40 does not have a child. In a recent survey by the Allensbach Institute, Germans were asked what children meant to them. Only 38 percent said "a full life." Ninety-two percent checked "responsibility" (they have not seen a 4-year-old pretending to play an electric guitar). Asked why they would not have children, only 14 percent said it would be too hard to provide for them. Twenty-seven percent answered, "I don't want to tie myself down."

Another study by the Federal Institute for Population Research shows that 26 percent of men aged 20 to 39 (but only 15 percent of women the same age) say they want no children at all.

Men who marry early or have children are regarded as exotic creatures. The same goes for anyone who might, say, work with young people at a fishing club, or still find some thrill in the migration of frogs. That's so bourgeois, "so yesterday" - at least according to those who set the tone in our cities, where the overarching goal is to be hip and cool.

A friend of mine recently built a house in the suburbs, complete with garden and terrace. For the family, for the children. He would gladly show off his handiwork, but he doesn't dare invite his city friends. He's afraid of their scorn.

Of course, having children has little to do with political or social involvement - except that the lack of both testifies to just not wanting to grow up. [...]

It's true that growing up has gotten harder - which is basically good news. There's no more church or dictatorial state trying to recruit us for their goals. And no one in a globalized world where "flexibility" and "mobility" are the buzzwords dares predict at 30 where and who he might be at 60. But does that justify the mass migration to the spectator seats?

We're not talking here about those who have been denied a path into modern society or dumped by big business. We're talking about men who prefer to exist in some kind of limbo and people who are integrated, who earn well, who are married - but only to their job. Men who think they've made it.

But made what? And for whom? Perhaps we have a crisis not just of the lower classes, who have been orphaned, but of the middle classes, who have been infantilized. It adds up to the same thing: opting out. One man's TV is another's travel, gym and office.

The contemporary plea for getting a late start on life is often linked to an argument that is superficially logical: first you have to "fulfill yourself." This is based on the erroneous view that personal development somehow slows down when you commit yourself - like when you start a family. You go bourgeois, you freeze.

Like many common sense modernists, Herr Sussebach zeros in thoughtfully on a serious problem, and then promptly ties himself up in knots. He knows something is very wrong and that his countrymen need a swift kick, but he is so reluctant to embrace the full implications of his insights that he ends up half-celebrating infantilism as a necessary step on the road to wisdom. Like many sunny progressives, he believes that most men freed from the dictates of duty, tradition, custom and faith will still happily devote their lives to the sacrifices of marriage and family. When faced with evidence that growing numbers prefer to live for themselves and play with their toys, he trusts he can convince them to do a one-eighty with a rousing pep talk.