Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

I hope this father realizes that men over 40 who father kids are more likely to father a kid with various diseases, see link 1, link 2, link 3.

(Link): Dad places newspaper ad to find wife for son

(Link):  Dad seeks ‘wife’ for 48-year-old son with full-page newspaper ad

(Link):  Wife wanted: Dad places spouse-needed ad in Idaho newspaper

The ad gives a brief description of Brooks, including a photo with the disclaimer, “I look just like my picture, except I now have grey hair.” The “About You” section states applicants “Will be attractive being height and weight proportional.” It also goes on to say that applicants should be prepared to have children with Brooks and also be a stay-at- home mom.

(Link):  MEDDLING BEVERLY HILLS DAD PUTS OUT FULL-PAGE AD TO FIND 48-YEAR-OLD SON A WIFE

He said his father has been ill and wants a grandson to carry on the family name.Brooks compared his father to Larry David’s character in the TV series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” saying he “thinks he does the right thing, and then it all blows up in his face.”He said he’d never buy an ad like this himself, but “it’s worth a shot. Can’t hurt.”

(Link):  Full-page newspaper ad seeking wife

(Link): Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

One father in Beverly Hills is trying to find his son a wife the old-fashioned way.

Arthur Brooks, 78, spent $900 on a full-page ad in Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Press newspaper using the headline “Looking For a Wife.”

The Single American Woman via NY Magazine

The Single American Woman via NY Magazine

Pretty long article, but very interesting.

Please use this link I’m giving you if you’d like to read the entire page (it’s a little bit farther below).

I am a right winger, have been a Republican my whole life (though the GOP has been annoying me more and more the last few years, but no, I am not fine with the Democrats), and I am a single woman who was raised in a Christian home.

My parents were Christians who had very traditional values.

The one thing I dread when reading articles like this one I am linking to in this post is imagining how my fellow right wingers will react to what it discusses.

Typically, rather than help single women where they are (which is what they should be doing), they will more likely, instead, complain and yell about singleness, about what a shame it is people aren’t marrying as much or not as young as they did decades ago, and yell at single women to run right out and get married immediately.

(One thing these types of idiots overlook is that marrying is not that easy. I’ve always wanted to be married, but I never met the right guy. I am not going to marry just any guy with a pulse just for the sake of being married.)

Anyway, following that initial reaction of my fellow right wingers, they will then, at that point – by “they,” I refer more specifically to the conservative marriage concern trolls among the secular right wingers and the conservative Christians – will write fear-mongering articles (like (Link): this one) to scare single women into marrying the first man they meet who has a pulse.

The fear mongering and pressure by conservatives to scare or cajole women to marry has gotten so bad with right wing marriage concern trolls, that some of them are even directing Christian women to marry (Link): known pornography addicts.

The majority of my fellow conservatives don’t give a rat’s ass about doing anything to assist single women so long as those women are single.

Many conservatives would prefer to sit back in their rocking chair on the front porch, sipping on lemonade, smoking on their pipes, complaining about how times have changed for the worst, and how the nation was so much better back in 1952. They would rather pine away for the so-called “good old days” than to help people in practical ways in 2016 where ever they find themselves in life.

Though I am right wing, I think this author makes a few good arguments against conservative views about singleness and marriage and the roles of women.

(Link): The Single American Woman via NY Magazine

Excerpts:

• The most powerful voter this year, who in her rapidly increasing numbers has become an entirely new category of citizen, is THE SingleAmerican Woman
• By REBECCA TRAISTER
• ….In 2009, the proportion of American women who were married dropped below 50 percent. In other words, for the first time in American history, single women (including those who were never married, widowed, divorced, or separated) outnumbered married women.
• Perhaps even more strikingly, the number of adults younger than 34 who had never married was up to 46 percent, rising 12 percentage points in less than a decade. For women under 30, the likelihood of being married has become astonishingly small: Today, only around 20 percent of Americans ages 18–29 are wed, compared to nearly 60 percent in 1960.
• It is a radical upheaval, a national reckoning with massive social and political implications. Across classes, and races, we are seeing a wholesale revision of what female life might entail.
• We are living through the invention of independent female adulthood as a norm, not an aberration, and the creation of an entirely new population: adult women who are no longer economically, socially, sexually, or reproductively dependent on or defined by the men they marry.
• This reorganization of our citizenry, unlike the social movements that preceded it and made it possible — from abolition and suffrage and labor fights of the 19th and early-20th centuries to the civil-rights, women’s, and gay-rights movements of the mid-20th century — is not a self-consciously politicized event. Today’s women are, for the most part, not abstaining from or delaying marriage to prove a point about equality.
• They are doing it because they have internalized assumptions that just a half-century ago would have seemed radical: that it’s okay for them not to be married; that they are whole people able to live full professional, economic, social, sexual, and parental lives on their own if they don’t happen to meet a person to whom they want to legally bind themselves.
• The most radical of feminist ideas—the disestablishment of marriage — has been so widely embraced as to have become habit, drained of its political intent but ever-more potent insofar as it has refashioned the course of average female life.

How Sorry Do We Feel for the Lonesome Single Bachelors of New York? by T. Moore (never married men in their 40s talk about being tired of being single)

How Sorry Do We Feel for the Lonesome Single Bachelors of New York? by T. Moore (never married men in their 40s talk about being tired of being single)

I am not surprised to see some of these 40 something men, who have never married, pine for a 20 something women – some claiming it’s so they can “start families.”

Hey, sexist, ageist entitled never-married male buffoons: women in their 30s and 40s menstruate and can have babies too, if that’s your thing. See the links below on this page under “Related Posts” for more on that.

But I’d also have to point out that many 20 something women have no desire to marry men over five to ten years their senior. Most women are grossed out by dudes who are ten or more years their senior “hitting on them.”

I’m in my 40s and have no desire to marry or date a 60 something or 70 something dude, yet sometimes, these jokers contact me on dating sites, in spite of the fact my age cap cuts off after about 6 or 7 years my age.

(Link): How Sorry Do We Feel for the Lonesome Single Bachelors of New York? by T. Moore (never married men in their 40s talk about being tired of being single)

• (Related link):  More Proof that 40 is the new 30, and Even Men are Doing Life Wrong. Or Something. 
• (Related link): Claim:   A woman over age 40 has a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than of getting married.  Status: False

Excerpts:

• It’s not a trick question: There’s a piece in the New York Times about aging single men in their 30s and 40s who are finally ready to settle down, but bummed that it takes actual effort and stuff.
• What shall we do here? A round of sympathy drinks? Or a heartless, sarcastic boo-hoo?
• First, let’s get to know the men (Link): in the piece:

• Scott Slattery, 35-year-old communications and marketing consultant

  Slattery wants to be a dad but realizes old age is encroaching. “I still want to take care of [my kids] through their entire lives, so I don’t want to be old.”

• There are more: Paul Gollash, the 40-year-old who realized in his late thirties that he was “fed up with being single” and so he suddenly had to hit up all the sorts of places he’d never have gone before to do the dreaded mingling, like cocktail parties and work events.

• Or Alan Yang, the co-creator of the Aziz Ansari Netflix show Master of None who admitted that it wasn’t until his sister had a baby that it struck him that he might want a family of his own.

• Or there’s 44-year-old Paul Morris, who doesn’t want kids, but doesn’t want to be single forever, either. He was out at a bar at 9 p.m. on a Sunday night—trying to be “out there,” and wondering if this was what 44 really looks like.

• ….So, truth be told, it’s easy to mock these guys—careerists out working hard, having fun, seemingly oblivious to the notion that time ticks along for everyone.
• It’s, yes, amusing to see men grappling mid-life with an insight that was tucked into an invisible pamphlet issued at birth to every woman I know. It read: Better lock something down before it’s too late and your looks are all dried up. Women have spent decades fighting this cultural notion of a female expiration date, only to find out that men have one too?

Sacred and Secular Split and Its Effect On How Christians View Morality (via Probe)

Sacred and Secular Split and Its Effect On How Christians View Morality

These blog posts from Probe seek to explain why so many evangelicals are leaving church or not adhering to biblical ethics and standards. It unfortunately focuses on the millennials, but I can see how a lot of what they write can apply to Christians in any age range.

(Link): Good News for Evangelicals? (part 1)

(Link): How Are Evangelicals Doing? Part 2

And scroll to the end of this post to see excerpts from Part 3, about guilty feelings.

Excerpts Part 2:

The Barna Group and its founder (now independent George Barna) are warning that evangelical and born-again believers actually hold to confused, disjointed and unbiblical beliefs that result in unbiblical behavior

…When You Look at Peoples’ Beliefs as a Set, Voila! All Studies Show the Same: Captive Evangelical Christians

…So each of the surveys used by the four different sociologists basically showed the same result: less than one third of born-agains (or evangelicals) had a set of beliefs consistent with the biblical worldview taught by Jesus, and less than 10% had a biblical worldview and a set of cultural beliefs (e.g. beliefs about sex outside of marriage, abortion, materialism, caring for the poor, etc.) taught by Jesus in the New Testament.

…Among several, I think that three major messages from the survey results are important for us to consider here.

Bottom Line: Evangelicals Copy Culture, Young Adults Leave Church and Beliefs Splinter Between Sacred & Secular

First, as the culture has adopted more unbiblical views regarding pluralism, sexuality, honesty, etc., the majority of evangelical church members have adapted to accept the new cultural positions rather than stand firm in the truth taught by Christ and his apostles.

In other words, they have been taken “captive by the empty deception and philosophy according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ” (Col. 2:8).

Aged Out of Church by M. Van Loon (For Christians over the Age of 35 – 40 – Churches ignoring middle aged adults)

Aged Out of Church by M Van Loon (For Christians over the Age of 35 – 40)

If you are, as of 2014 especially, over 35 years old, especially over age 40, you should relate to this (if you are currently 20 years old, come back and read this blog post in another 15 – 20 years, and you will relate):

(Link): Aged Out of Church (on Virtue Online)

(Link): Aged Out of Church

• Even in our congregations, midlife has become a joke.

by Michelle Van Loon

I have linked to some of her material before, or similar material by other people, such as

(Link):

Why Even Middle Aged Married with Children Christians Are Leaving Church – Not Just Unmarried Singles | 40 Somethings Gen X Quitting Leaving Church

(Link): Why Even Middle Aged Married with Children Christians Are Leaving Church – Not Just Unmarried Singles | 40 Somethings Gen X Quitting Leaving Church

(Link): Never Married Christians Over Age 35 who are childless Are More Ignored Than Divorced or Infertile People or Single Parents

Excerpts

(Link): Aged Out of Church (on Virtue Online)

(Link): Aged Out of Church

• Even in our congregations, midlife has become a joke.

by Michelle Van Loon

Ask anyone who’s hit midlife, and they’ll tell you: this stage is no joke for us.

The emotional, spiritual, physical, and relational shifts that occur at midlife can lead to disconnection from old social networks and a profound sense of loneliness, which brings with it serious health risks. At this point, many also feel drained by the increasingly common occurrence of death, disease, divorce, and the changes that redefine old friendships.

And yet, rather than engage these important but uncomfortable issues that come with aging, our culture—including, at times, the church—would rather laugh it off. We see midlife as a caricature…

….Church should be a place of meaningful connection with God and others at every stage of our lives, but nearly half of more than 450 people who participated in an informal and completely unscientific survey I hosted on my blog last year told me that their local church had in some painful ways exacerbated the challenges they faced at midlife. As a result, they’d downshifted their involvement in the local church from what it had been a decade ago.

Mature Christians Need to Stop Allowing the Under 30 Crowd to Direct the Entire State of Christian Affairs

Mature Christians Need to Stop Allowing the Under 30 Crowd to Direct the Entire State of Christian Affairs

I remember being in my twenties seeing articles appear in the paper about how Christians over 30 were freaked out or worried about Christians in their twenties and younger. I did not understand this mindset then (when I was a teen and in my twenties), and I don’t understand it now.

If you are someone reading this in 2014 who is currently under the age of 30, this blog post might piss you off. Welcome to the club, because I am already there now.

If you are in your twenties as you read this now (2014) and feel offended by it, please book mark this page, save it, and re-visit it when you are 40 or 50 years of age, and you will probably have a change of heart when you are older.

It’s hard to see and understand when you are under the age of 35, but once you’re past 35, you really start to notice what I’m writing about in this post.

I have written before about American Christianity’s fixation on youth, specifically, today’s “Millennials.”

I have a blog post where I was for a time keeping track of all the “Oh noes, the youth be leavin’ the church, how can we stop this travesty” type stories I kept coming across.

It’s located here:
(Link): (Ageism): Links about the never ending obsession with why the kids are bailing on church (one stop thread)

What just clicked in my mind today after glancing over a headline on a Christian news site, the headline being something like, “Must one believe in a six day creation account to be a biblical inerrantist?,” was this:

Christians are allowing much of the state of Christian affairs today to be dictated by people who are under the age of 30, especially those who are under the age of 25. And this is not good.

Interestingly, this stupidity falls equally across the aisle from liberal Christians to conservative ones. Both liberal and conservative Christians get their knickers in a bunch over what teeny-boppers and college kids think about the faith, the Bible, and Jesus.

Both liberals and conservatives are oh- so- concerned and oh- so- sensitive about what the kids think today.

While churches continue to heap finances and resources on marriage and married couples, they also spend a great deal of time, money, and energy routinely twisting their hands in agony over how to appeal to 21 year old kids.

Why?

Jesus said your duty is to share the Gospel with every one. I don’t remember Jesus saying to obsess over only one demographic, how to get only the 21- year- olds in a church building every week, or how to respond to their questions about the faith and their spiritual struggles.

Why Even Middle Aged Married with Children Christians Are Leaving Church – Not Just Unmarried Singles | 40 Somethings Gen X Quitting Leaving Church

Why Even Middle Aged Married with Children Christians Are Leaving Church Not Just Unmarried Singles | 40 Somethings

You already know, if you are a Christian over 30, or maybe mid 20s, that churches ignore you in favor of catering to those already married with children.

Churches are nauseatingly obsessed with marriage, parenting, and the nuclear family.

However, it takes some married Christians longer to catch on to this; they tend to be blind to it – specifically, the married with kids couples who don’t start to notice the idolization of the family by Christians and churches until their own kids grow up and move out of the house. It is at that point they no longer fit the target demographic of most churches.

These sorts of Christians (middle aged married, with older kids) say they didn’t realize until they got into their 40s and 50s and their kids moved out how little most churches care about, or minister to, people who aren’t married with kids at home.

Read more about it here (among other reasons why middle aged adults are dropping out of church):

(Link): 40+ Adults And The Church / Outgrowing The Congregation?

Here is an excerpt from part of that page (please click the link above to read the rest):

Is it possible to spiritually “outgrow” a local congregation?

It is not only possible, it happens more often than you’d think. One trend I saw in my poll of those over 40 was that a notable percentage of those who’d changed churches or decreased their level of “official” involvement at their present congregation did so because they’d grown past what the church offered.

I’ve met precious few church leaders who believe that anyone could “outgrow” their congregation. Think about it.

When was the last time you heard a church leader explain the departure of a long-time member who’s chosen a different faith community in glowing terms?*

“Ken and Julie have left our beloved Baptist church to join Messiah Lutheran because they believe God has called them there, and frankly, we don’t have much to offer them beyond great preaching, the opportunity to help out at Awanas, and Ken’s role as a deacon, which is basically a building caretaker.

They’ll be able to grow much deeper there because they’re going to become Stephen Ministers at the church and use their gifts of encouragement and service in a much more meaningful way.

Too, their new church has a great history of spiritual formation-oriented small groups, and we are praying they find rich growth and deeper connection with God in their new congregation just up the street. May God bless you, Ken and Julie. We love you and are grateful for the time we’ve had with you in this church.”

…Those over 40 grew up in what was dubbed as the Me Generation. The questions of selfishness are legit and need to be answered. But as I’ve already pointed out (Link): here [In Defense of Church Hoppers], many who leave churches have valid and important reasons for doing so.

What I’m hearing from those who’ve responded to my survey is that growth has often taken them out of churches where they’ve grown weary of passivity (all meaningful ministry is reserved for paid staff, or limited by gender/racial beliefs held by the leadership team) or the constant requests for time and money to support the ego-driven “vision” of a leader. I believe both of those reasons are markers of growth in a leaver, not a sign of selfishness.

(Link): 40+ Adults And The Church/An Update

A few excerpts about her survey of over 40 Christian adults who stop going to church:

• Nearly 84% of respondents reported they were married, 10% said they were single (never married), and nearly 6% told me they were separated or divorced.
• Since I am a rank amateur when it comes to knowing how to best query demographic data, I do wonder if the way I worded question about marital status may have confused respondents. Those figures don’t entirely make sense to me.

…I did hear sadness, burnout, anger and a deep desire for true community. I also heard people drawing boundary lines around their limited time and energy.

And I heard a very strong distaste for the institutional insistence on lockstep theology and ideological uniformity among members.

If one popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, I would characterize most of the less-involved group’s answers to the survey’s “why” question as coming from a longing to gain (or regain) spiritual sanity rather than engaging in an axe-grinding habit:

• • [said one respondent]

… As I’ve grown older, I find my needs have changed.

I don’t need a weekly barrage of long, multi-point sermons going over and over the same basic areas of scripture and doctrine while avoiding large chunks of the Bible.

I need something to the point that I will consider and chew on over the week. I don’t just want to be immersed in the church, I want to live out my faith in the community, and that takes time that previously I might have spent at other church activities.

Being part of a triple decker sandwich generation: youngest offspring finishing university and marrying (and moving); downsizing; health issues (self and hubby); caregiving aging parents (and helping them move); supporting parents as they die . . . challenging to have predictable time to commit to church involvement.

Burn out, kids grown, felt a bit suffocated in the rather non-porous church bubble, doubts.

…Sunday School is geared for “newbies” who have almost no understanding of Scripture or the church. Events designed to get people to “plug into community” are “child-centric” (Easter Egg hunts, Fall Festivals bouncy houses, face painting, games/rides, VBS, etc.)

…Captial Campaign every 3 yrs to build new structures & keep things “fresh” and “new” and attractional to younger families w/ kids; etc.

… Tired of the way church is run and the failure to address some of the real life issues. Also, my wife and I left for 6 months and no one noticed.

But they did call to ask me to teach Sunday school. I agreed and went back.

We then realized that after being gone for 6 months (and not giving during that time) no one realized we have been gone, including people we sat next to each week.

We wondered why we kept attending.

(Link): 40+ And The Church / When Christian Ambition Fades To Gray

(Link): 40+ And The Church / Beyond Recreation Therapy?

(Link): 40+ Case Study: Jeanette

• • Sarah Bessey, a gifted thirty-something writer, noted in her post last week at Christianity Today’s Her.meneutics blog that as she was pulling together research for an upcoming book, she discovered how many midlife women felt marginalized by church and culture alike. She noted that the church often mirrors culture in way that cause pain for those of a certain age:

• • • Sadly, perhaps we need to admit that we don’t honor age in our churches either, particularly for women. Once a woman reaches a certain age or if a woman is not considered beautiful or outgoing or charming, she often disappears in the eyes of her community.

(Link): 40+ And The Church / (Re-)Sowing What We’ve Reaped

(Link): 40+ And The Church / Regret

(Link): 40+ And The Church / Survey Final

(Link): 40+ Adults And The Church / Survey Results #3

(Link): 40+ Adults And The Church / Survey Results #1

(Link): 40+ And The Church / A Matter Of Time

(Link): 40+ And The Church / Beyond Sunday Morning Church Attendance

(Link): Over 40? Share your church experience via brief survey

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Related posts this blog:

(Link): Youth Fixation in Churches and how it alienates older Christians

(Link): Never Married Christians Over Age 35 who are childless Are More Ignored Than Divorced or Infertile People or Single Parents

(Link): Pandering to the Youth – Parallel Between Politics and Contemporary Christianity

(Link): To Get Any Attention or Support from a Church These Days you Have To Be A Stripper, Prostitute, or Orphan [or a kid or a 20 something]

(Link): Christians and Ageism – Under Age 15 Favored / Declining Youth Church Membership

(Link): I Don’t Care That The Millennials [20 somethings] Are Leaving Church – Churches Ignore Age 40 Forties 40+ Generation X Mid Life

(Link): How Christian Obsession with Orphans Is Creating Problems (article) – Also: confirms my previous warnings about Christians ignoring Christians to help only special classes

(Link): Post by Sarah Bessey Re: Churches Ignore Never Married Older and/or Childless Christian Women, Discriminate Against Them

(Link): Why all the articles about being Child Free? On Being Childfree or Childless – as a Conservative / Right Wing / Christian

(Link): Religion Runs in the Family (article – kid obsession more evidence of Christian Family Idolatry)

(Link): The Fruitful Callings of the Childless By Choice (editorial)

(Link): A Grown-Up, Not Sexed-Up, View of Womanhood (article) – how Christian teachings on gender and singlehood contribute to raunch culture and fornication etc

(Link): Single Adults – Why They Stay and Why They Stray From Church – Book Excerpts

(Link): Focusing on the Family Causes Church Decline

(Link): Southern Baptists – Still Majoring in the Minors and ignoring the never married (singles) – Why Church Membership is Down

(Link): The Bible Does Not Teach Christians to “Focus On The Family” – The Idolization of Family by American Christians (article)

(Link): Refreshing: Christian Researcher Disputes that Youths Are Leaving Churches in Droves, Disagrees that Churches Should Be Family Focused