I received this book for free through the Amazon Vine program.
This is the worst book I have read in a long time, in several senses of the word "worst." In fact, the only thing that kept me reading to the end was that I wanted to be able to write a complete review detailing everything that is wrong with it. Starting with the actual writing itself, there were two problems right off the bat. First, as other reviewers have noted, the ridiculously stilted language, which would be one problem on its own, but the fact that Haag misuses words, sometimes to the point of outright malapropisms, is another yet. Also it is clear before you are even half way through the first chapter that Haag is not certain about what kind of book she is writing. Hard nonfiction, with the research to back up her assertions? If that was the goal, the book fails miserably, as the research presented is thin indeed. Creative nonfiction, a kind of meditation on the current state of marriage? As such this book also fails, as the writing is too superficial and glib to be called "creative." She muddies the water further by dragging in her own marriage and her poor husband John, who is thanked in foreward and acknowledgements alike, but apparently is also a fine example of a disappointing, dull, passionless husband. This was a bad idea as it spoiled Haag herself as a sympathetic narrator; I spent the rest of the book feeling vaguely mortified for her husband and child, who also gets dragged in as evidence of kids-as-marriage-killers.
If you share Haag's perspective on what life ought to be, you might find this book more appealling. To give you an idea of her bias, she defines being grounded (as in rooted in a stable place) as a negative early in the book. She uses the cliche "(noun) in a grey flannel suit" at least three times in various contexts to describe the horrors of having an average, steady life. She sneers at the idea of "life partners" and marital egalitarianism, but also sneers at "Christian marriages" and their traditionalism. Haag uses the word "stability" as a negative descriptor. She repeatedly uses the term "low conflict low stress" with regard to marriage as though it were a bad thing. In general she seems to believe, not unlike the typical adolescent, that life ought to be one adventure after another, passionate and ever-changing. She believes spouses ought to entertain each other, and that others in your life are essentially dead weight unless they make you "feel alive." If you're thinking "whatever THAT means" then you and I are more alike than you and Haag. If you want to read this book anyhow, you will have to push past her air of snotty incredulity at the miserable lives we mediocre dullards tolerate.
As is typical with these "I did research! I read my journal and talked to some friends!" Eastern seaboard, upper middle class elite "lifestyle trend" books, generalizations are made over and over again that have little to no relevance to actual, average Americans. She wants to know if people tend to marry within their same ethnicity, class, etc, and instead of citing actual sociological work that has been done on this question, she spends some time surveying the wedding announcements in the New York Times. Surprisingly, she discovers that wealthy white elites tend to marry other wealthy white elites! It didn't occur to her that perhaps mums and dads wouldn't spend the fee to announce a marriage between Muffy and the local plumber, and that her sample was hilariously limited and biased. Haag assumes that parenting is always done as it is by the most neurotic of the Park Slope set, using words such as "competitive" and "narcissistic prison." She bemoans the isolation of the suburbs and its apparent toll on marriages by giving the example of some friends who have an actual English-style pub built into the basement of their McMansion. Oh yeah, she's got her fingers on the pulse of the average American household, which pulls in around $45,000 per year.
Her attitude towards children is bizarre and depressing. One is tempted to take her aside and ask if there's something she needs to talk about, she is so hopelessly down about marriages with children. She intones "have kids will divorce" again and again as though it were a given in her social circle (and thus the world). She claims that the world has become so child-centric it's strangling out marriages, all because some parents she knows don't take date nights and other friend felt like a "eunuch Barbie" while newly postpartum. She is certain that children wreck marriages, but at the same time she seems to have taken on both marriage and parenthood in an attempt to right childhood wrongs of her own, and she assumes that's why everyone else these days does it too. She quotes some Swedish person as saying that traditional family life is "a fossil" in Sweden, something they study as an artifact. What she doesn't mention is that in Sweden, traditional marriage and family is very much alive among the African immigrant community...and that their population is growing while the native population stagnates, making those progressive Swedes into *literal* fossils while the traditional Somalis flourish!
Haag's claim that children and child-centrism are taking over the world also begs the question, if so why are so many kids--yes, even in America, yes in your city--going hungry? Going to substandard schools? At risk for violence? Dying of disease and injury? Well those things don't happen in Haag's elite social circle so for the purposes of her book, they just don't happen at all!
Meanwhile, we get to hear endless, painful anecdotes of how all the good old bros don't REALLY want to be fathers, and how women can essentially only "find themselves" by divorcing and going after a "bad boy." The misery that is rampant in Haag's sample is not caused by their marriages (though in some cases the marriage may make matters worse) but she fails to notice this. Mostly, the discontent is caused by competitiveness and the belief that everything should be novel and entertaining. It is by this means that divorce becomes socially contageous, too, as man after man in a group decides his wife is an oppressive ***** and woman after woman decides she needs to "find herself" by taking off somewhere and the social glue among friends increasingly consists of griping about how terrible your spouses are.
Haag's solution to all this is...well it's not clear. She proposes polyamory, or at least turning the other cheek while your spouse cheats on you. She seems to suggest that wives have a duty to provide sexual entertainment of an ever-revolving sort, or else...the details are fuzzy, here. She considers the topic of swinging, and how it differs from polyamory. She ends with the suggestion that one "live marriage as if you're always on vacation" and to "imagine your first child is actually your second." Well alright then! Are you worried about the effects that 10% unemployment, stagnant wages, chronic overwork, diminishing retirement savings and insurance coverage, and a toxic media culture might have on marriages and families? Too bad. Let them eat cake!
This book is a terrible read, not even entertaining as a trainwreck, and the ideas it promotes are unclearly argued, not supported by evidence, and frankly a little bit dangerous. But then again, I think "stability" is a good word when we're talking about family life.
