Ha ha, how's that for a creepy title? It's not even that relevant, but it was too good to pass up.
I've been researching the brilliant and talented 20th century writer Macolm Lowry for the past few weeks, and I watched a really stunning 1976 documentary on him yesterday morning (You can view it free here; warning: some highly disturbing imagery). One of the things I didn't know about him was that he lived one messed up childhood. He came from a wealthy British family, which sounds okay, but his mother and various nannies were constantly alternating between psychological and physical abuse towards the poor kid. As a teenager he went to boarding school, and I can just imagine what 1910s British boarding school did to a an already messed up, sensitive and bright young soul.
Why do I digress into this random biographic detail about someone few have ever heard of and even fewer care about? Well, it's because of what happened to him when he was an adult. He married twice. The first time was to an American writer named Jan Gabriel, but their marriage was basically a huge disaster. Malcolm was a bit of a drinker (and by that I mean one of the world's most enthusiastic drinkers ever), and he suffered from bouts of impotence and various other psychological calamities. Gabriel's stated reason for finally leaving him, though, was that he needed a mother rather than a wife. He needed someone to take care of him, and the talented Jan Gabriel had aspirations in other directions.
Malcolm's second marriage was to a woman named Marjorie Bonner, and while she liked a spot of liquor too (and by a spot, I mean a lot), she was more accommodating towards Lowry's needs for care. She helped him cope both with the soul-wrenching writing of Under the Volcano and with the massive success he had afterwards. She helped him when their seaside shack burned to the ground. She took care of him when he was a liquored-up mess and was always understanding of the fact that, while he was a literary genius, he was deeply emotionally scarred from his childhood. She was, I think, what you'd call a saint.
I've been researching the brilliant and talented 20th century writer Macolm Lowry for the past few weeks, and I watched a really stunning 1976 documentary on him yesterday morning (You can view it free here; warning: some highly disturbing imagery). One of the things I didn't know about him was that he lived one messed up childhood. He came from a wealthy British family, which sounds okay, but his mother and various nannies were constantly alternating between psychological and physical abuse towards the poor kid. As a teenager he went to boarding school, and I can just imagine what 1910s British boarding school did to a an already messed up, sensitive and bright young soul.
Why do I digress into this random biographic detail about someone few have ever heard of and even fewer care about? Well, it's because of what happened to him when he was an adult. He married twice. The first time was to an American writer named Jan Gabriel, but their marriage was basically a huge disaster. Malcolm was a bit of a drinker (and by that I mean one of the world's most enthusiastic drinkers ever), and he suffered from bouts of impotence and various other psychological calamities. Gabriel's stated reason for finally leaving him, though, was that he needed a mother rather than a wife. He needed someone to take care of him, and the talented Jan Gabriel had aspirations in other directions.
Malcolm's second marriage was to a woman named Marjorie Bonner, and while she liked a spot of liquor too (and by a spot, I mean a lot), she was more accommodating towards Lowry's needs for care. She helped him cope both with the soul-wrenching writing of Under the Volcano and with the massive success he had afterwards. She helped him when their seaside shack burned to the ground. She took care of him when he was a liquored-up mess and was always understanding of the fact that, while he was a literary genius, he was deeply emotionally scarred from his childhood. She was, I think, what you'd call a saint.
Which finally brings me to today's topic: men children! There has been a ton of media attention towards the phenomenon of men children in the past ten or so years, partly I'm sure due to the aftermath of the post-feminist, sensitive male types that came into adulthood in the nineties. For awhile there, say 1992 to around 2000, there was a movement for men to become more emotionally responsible to their families. Gone were the days of the distant, beslippered, pipe-smoking patriarch. The moment of the new feminist (or at least not blatantly chauvinist) man had arrived.
Then it went away.
I noticed that, starting in the early 2000s, there were more and more representations of adult men again as infantilized idiots who couldn't take care of themselves and didn't really want to. These weren't even an honest throwback to the days of patriarchy. These new men-children were raised by mothers who did everything for them, and they essentially expected their adult partners to step directly into the role as soon as it was vacated by mom. They partied like rock stars. They spent and consumed with childish abandon. Their kids were expected to know more than them when it came to technology and life (Think about that book series: Everything I Needed to Know, I learned in Kindergarten). This is still going on, and it seems to be getting progressively worse.
Anyway, the big difference between men children nowadays, and that sensitive old soul Malcolm Lowry is that he wrote one of the best novels of the twentieth century. I'm sure it was exhausting for Marjorie, but she did also get something back from the deal. She got the knowledge that one of the greatest novels ever would have died in a ditch along with its writer if it wasn't for her. It seems like a lot of women who are married to men-children now only get extra work and divorces when their little dudes go through mid-life crises. If I found myself married to a guy like that, I believe I'd go the way of Jan Gabriel.
Then it went away.
I noticed that, starting in the early 2000s, there were more and more representations of adult men again as infantilized idiots who couldn't take care of themselves and didn't really want to. These weren't even an honest throwback to the days of patriarchy. These new men-children were raised by mothers who did everything for them, and they essentially expected their adult partners to step directly into the role as soon as it was vacated by mom. They partied like rock stars. They spent and consumed with childish abandon. Their kids were expected to know more than them when it came to technology and life (Think about that book series: Everything I Needed to Know, I learned in Kindergarten). This is still going on, and it seems to be getting progressively worse.
Anyway, the big difference between men children nowadays, and that sensitive old soul Malcolm Lowry is that he wrote one of the best novels of the twentieth century. I'm sure it was exhausting for Marjorie, but she did also get something back from the deal. She got the knowledge that one of the greatest novels ever would have died in a ditch along with its writer if it wasn't for her. It seems like a lot of women who are married to men-children now only get extra work and divorces when their little dudes go through mid-life crises. If I found myself married to a guy like that, I believe I'd go the way of Jan Gabriel.
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