Mark Sanford, poster boy for the party of second chances?

The NY Times magazine has a feature story up on Mark Sanford, former governor of South Carolina, now member of the House of Representatives. Sanford, of course, infamously hiked the Appalachian Trail all the way to his mistress's house in Argentina, killing his marriage and, it seemed at the time, his political career. The utter ridiculousness of how Sanford's indiscretion came to light seemed to make the outcome of the story inevitable. The man was finished, at least as far as politics was concerned.

But a funny thing happened on the way to nowhere. Sanford regrouped, stepped back, and started rebuilding. Read the article and judge for yourself whether you think he is genuinely repentant or playing a political angle. Time will tell.

Another famously fallen political figure, my old boss Chuck Colson, is mentioned in the article. When I started working for him more than twenty years after Watergate, I heard from several still skeptical friends and relatives who just were not buying the whole "born again" thing. Time was never enough to tell them anything about Colson they didn't already believe to be true. Opinions are like that, and I guess we're all entitled to one.

A few thoughts on Sanford and the NY Times article.

Thought #1: I'm not surprised that Sanford is resurrecting his political career or the aplomb with which he handled the less than enthusiastic members of his constituency in the article. Nor am I surprised at the comments in the article about current South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. I've had the opportunity to meet them both, briefly, in the same context. While serving as an officer in a community organization, I twice went to the governor's office to attend the signing of an annual proclamation. The first time, Sanford was in the State House. He welcomed our group into his private office, a room just beyond the larger and more public office, where he greeted each of us personally, chatted comfortably, asked questions and showed interest in the reason for our visit, posed for pictures with us, then sat at his desk to sign the proclamation, handing the official pen to the eldest representative of our group. A year later, Nikki Haley kept us waiting in the hallway where she eventually swept out to cheerfully but hurriedly greet us, sign the proclamation with a borrowed pen while leaning on her secretary's desk, and seemed like she would have dashed off without any pictures had not a bold member of the group asked her to pause. I thought then, and I thought again now reading this article, that Sanford possesses a natural ease and charm that makes him a great campaigner, while Haley, whatever other good traits she may have, simply lacks that social grace.

Thought #2: Perhaps a campaign victory rally is not the best place to meet your boyfriend's child from a prior marriage for the first time. This might be particularly true when the prior marriage imploded very publicly, when you were the very public cause of that implosion, and when the child involved was still a child but old enough to know exactly what was happening.

Thought #3: A friend asked me not long ago why it was that Republicans seem to be so unforgiving of their politicians who have affairs. We talked at the time about how the Republican party has fashioned itself as a party of family values so marital failures seem to cut right at the heart of what we say we're about. As I read this article though, it occurred to me that it's deeper than just that. Reflecting on Sanford's early political career, the writer mentions that a younger Sanford once "castigated" another politician who'd had an affair. When one preaches family values, it is perhaps easy to use the failure of an opponent's family as a political edge. But having done so, a later indiscretion of one's own seems like a much more glaring act of hypocrisy.

Thought #4: As someone who once had to learn how to write in Chuck Colson's 'voice,' the quote from the phone call with Sanford sounds completely wrong in its wording but very true in its sentiment. Chuck was a big believer in using his story to reach out to others who were experiencing a spectacular fall from grace of their own making and encouraging them to look to God and not lose hope. But he was not a big believer in grammatically incorrect phrases like you got to and slang like 'cause.

Thought #5: Chapur does herself and Sanford a good turn by coming across in the article as humble, gracious, and cognizant of having done wrong.

Thought #6: If you're interested, here is a post I wrote for the BreakPoint blog back in 2009 when news of Sanford's affair first broke. Even those of us who worked and wrote for Colson could scarcely imagine back then that the mess Sanford had made of his political career would be anything less than permanent.

'Til Death Do Us Part

This article on Gwyneth Paltrow's choice of words regarding her divorce from Chris Martin struck me as interesting for two reasons.

First, the author starts out sounding like she is all for the idea of a kinder, gentler divorce, especially because as a child of divorce herself, she struggles with feeling like her family is broken. But then by the end of the article, she reveals that she is troubled by the thought that one could enter marriage with the idea that it is a transitory relationship.

But without even the intention to make it for the long haul, won’t relationships end even earlier? To me, adding an escape clause to the highest level of commitment would only weaken it.

Good point.

The other interesting thing I found in this article was how worldview played into the conscious uncoupling concept. The article has a link to a post on Paltrow's web site by Habib Sadeghi, in which "he mentions how mating for life was easier when life was shorter. Since cavemen lived till their early 30s, they could stay together till death do them part, no problem."

Of course, if one holds a slightly different worldview, say one that involves guys like Methuselah and Noah trudging along through life for 969 and 950 years respectively, a paltry 50 or 60 years of marriage should seem like a real piece of cake.

Finding the right one...

...even if it's the second time around. Diane Paddison is an author and founder of a nonprofit that encourages women in their faith, career, and relationships. In her book Work, Love, Pray, she was refreshingly candid about the failure of her first marriage. Having gotten a second chance at love, in this article on her blog, she talks about how to make a wise decision when it comes to relationships and marriage.

Love, Hawaiian Style

I posted a few weeks ago about a recent episode of Hawaii Five-O that featured Danny, a.k.a. Danno, learning that his parents are about to divorce and then talking about his own divorce with his young daughter.

The story line continued this week with Danny and daughter conspiring to get his parents to reconcile. What child of divorce hasn't fantasized that story line?  (Blame it on The Parent Trap if you want.)

As a total side note, not that I can picture Melanie Griffiths playing James Caan's wife, but wouldn't it have been kind of fun if they'd been able to get Danno's real life dad to play his on-screen dad? Just a thought.

Little People, Big Marriage Problems

The stars of "Little People, Big World" are attempting a trial separation. Putting your family through the rigors of reality TV has been a tough gig for more families than the Roloffs. Here's hoping they can work things out and find a way to keep this 26 year marriage together.

The face of love

I'm such a sucker for stories like this one, where life takes an unexpected, horrifying turn and love shines through. 

They stand in such stark contrast to an interview I remember watching years ago, one of those Barbara Walters specials, with John and Bo Derek. For those too young to remember, Bo was the star of the movie "10" that famously included a scene of her in blond cornrow braids jogging in a swimsuit. During the interview, perhaps sensing that John was infatuated rather than in love, Walters asked him whether he would stay with Bo if she were disfigured in a car accident and got the response she must have sensed was coming: "No."  I was a teenager at the time of the interview and still remember the look of embarrassment and pain on Bo's face. John Derek has since died and, happily, Bo seems to have found a steadier love in John Corbett. Here's John C. telling the story of their first date.

Some lines are not meant to be blurred

Blurring the lines between people who are your spouse and people who are not is not a great recipe for longevity in marriage, as Mr. and Mrs. Robin Thicke are apparently learning.

Time for some straight talk

Time magazine has a good article on the state of the American family, including the devastating effects of divorce on children. Two snippets:

a lasting covenant between a man and a woman can be a vehicle for the nurture and protection of each other, the one reliable shelter in an uncaring world —or it can be a matchless tool for the infliction of suffering on the people you supposedly love above all others, most of all on your children...

...is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function — to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in it the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation's own safe passage into adulthood? Think of it this way: the current generation of children, the one watching commitments between adults snap like dry twigs and observing parents who simply can't be bothered to marry each other and who hence drift in and out of their children's lives — that's the generation who will be taking care of us when we are old.

Dear Abby....

...please tell parents not to be hateful toward their children during a divorce. Honestly, what made this mom think this was EVER appropriate to share with her daughter? Good grief.

Say cheese

"people who frown in photos are five times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile."

Amy-able wedding advice

Dear Amy: My daughter is getting married this summer. She is 22. Her biological father left us in 1994 for his secretary and has since married her. He pays child support and calls once in a while, but he was distant through her "terrible teens." I remarried in 1996. Our combined kids were 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10 at the time we married. My husband and kids have been close, and now that there is a wedding, the secretary/second wife has contacted our daughter and asked about the ceremony. She wants to make sure my daughter's biological dad walks her down the aisle. She says only the biological dad should do so. The kids and I believe the stepdad should be involved because he has chosen to be a part of the kids' lives for more than 12 years, dealing with cuts, scrapes, car crashes, boys, school, etc.I would not dream of excluding the stepdad or the new step-secretary-wife of the biological dad. This must be a common problem. What do you suggest? How can both dads be involved?—Wondering Mom

Click here to read Amy's sound advice.

Redeeming divorce

Check out my post on "Redeeming Divorce" on The Point blog.

Penn divorce called off

It seems the Princess Bride will get to keep her prince after all.

No way to tell

From a book review of Graham Swift's novel, Tomorrow:

The parents of 16-year-old twins plan to announce their divorce to the children -- tomorrow. Thus, much of the novel happens the night before, inside the mother's insomniacal mind. (This is not to betray any surprise -- the reader learns of the announcement on page 5.) And yes, Swift is writing from a female point of view.

The story, then, is of the night before tomorrow, as Paula, the wife and mother, replays her married life -- the full story which she would like to tell her children -- while her husband slumbers next to her. Of course, there is no way to tell the children of divorce the whole story, so a wistfulness falls over her recollections. Really, she is telling herself the story of her marriage, and this is the heart of the novel.

The New Yorker panned this novel (see Amazon's editorial reviews) and I'm not rushing out to read it. But I was intrigued by the reviewer's statement above that "of course, there is no way to tell the children of divorce the whole story." I'm sure that's true in the sense that there are things that happen between two people in a marriage--especially one that lasts 16+ years--that no one else is going to fully understand. And I would certainly agree that parents don't need to (and probably shouldn't) trot out every detail of their marriage's failures for their kids' inspection. Still, it troubles me--not that the novelist would depict the mother as feeling this way, but that the reviewer would accept it as absolute truth.

Then again, maybe it just struck me as a vivid contrast to the post I just did on the NPR "This I Believe" essay.

Broken from the start

In an essay in Real Simple magazine (March 2008, page 79), Jennifer Baumgardner writes of the child she had with a man she did not marry:

Still, while I believe that this coparenting arrangement is best for everyone, Skuli, now three, might not agree. The other night, after a family dinner, Gordon was heading out the door when Skuli said, "I don't want Daddy to go. He should stay." Gordon's face crumpled, and I felt like a witch. As our son gets older, I am going to hear this more, I assume, as we take on more of the contours of a traditional broken home. I feel a pang of loss that we can't all hang out in bed Saturday mornings and read the paper. I get weepy when I see that Ford Freestyle commercial where the family has a fun day at the beach and then drops the dad off at his prefab divorce apartment. The tears well for a few reasons: the sadness of Skuli's having to say good-bye so often to one of his parents, but also the reassurance of knowing there are so many once-together parents who now have joint custody (and manage just fine) that Ford is marketing to them.

Seriously wrong ideas

When I was a kid, if I complained about my arm hurting (for example) for no good reason, my mom would jokingly say, "Let's cut it off, then." No, it wasn't child abuse--just sarcasm and a way to get me to have some perspective on a minor bump or scrape.

One could hope that the author of this piece were using the same tactic. Sadly, I think he was actually serious.

What of the children in a society that is moving inexorably toward consecutive plural marriages? Under present arrangements in which marriages are ostensibly lifetime contracts and then are dissolved through hypocritical collusions or messy battles in court, the children do suffer. Marriage and divorce turn lovers into enemies, and the child is left to thread his way through the emotional wreckage of his parents' lives. Financial support of the children, mere subsistence; is not really a problem in a society as affluent as ours. Enduring emotional support of children by loving, healthy, and friendly adults is a serious problem in America, and it is a desperately urgent problem in many families where divorce is unthinkable. If the bitter and poisonous denouement of divorce could be avoided by a frank acceptance of short-term marriages, both adults and children would benefit.

By the way, this was written in 1966. There's nothing new under the sun, as Solomon once said.

Dogg is no dog

The three children of rapper Snoop Dogg and his wife Shante can thank their dad for staying out of divorce court:

Rapper Snoop Dogg decided against divorcing his wife because he could not bear the thought of another man raising his children.

The hip-hop star - real name Cordozar Calvin Broadus - filed for divorce from wife Shante in 2004 after seven years together.But the star quickly changed his mind after realising he had too much to lose.

"I was going to split up with my wife - my wife wasn't going to split up with me," he said.

"You know, I was caught up with Hollywood, and the girls and the night life. I thought I was the man and I was willing to give up what I had at home for that, until I realized that what I had at home was irreplaceable, so I gave that up to go back home.

"I just don't want another man raising my kids. That was the main goal. I had kids with my wife because I wanted to be with my wife. And those three babies are all wanted, and I wanted to be with them."

Marriage is green

Want another reason to stay married?

Rising divorce rates mean that fewer people are living in each household, causing them to take up more space and consume more energy and water, a new study suggests. "People talk about divorce hurting the children. Divorce also has an impact on the environment," said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, senior author of the study and the Rachel Carson chair in sustainability at Michigan State University. "Nobody knew about it."

Pandas are naturally solitary creatures, living separately from each other. Humans, on the other hand, tend to be more social. But when the social bond falls apart and people start living more like pandas, the drain on the environment is greater, Liu said.

A new generational legacy

More from Daisy Goodwin:

You see, since my own parents' marriage had ended when I was a young child, and there had been around 15 divorces in my immediate family after that, I feared my trip to the altar was going to be very much a triumph of hope over experience.

Today, however, I am still married, with two daughters - Ottilie, 16, and Lydia, seven - and have more wedding anniversaries to my name than anyone I know in my parents' generation.

It hasn't always been easy, but I am so grateful that I've managed to hold onto something that my mother's generation seemed to throw away so readily. And I'm not the only one.

This is a great article in the London Daily Mail. Read the whole thing here.

Marriage and a movie

New York magazine, in an article on the marriage and movie partnership of Jennifer Jason Leigh and Noah Baumbach:

[Leigh speaking] "...this was always my childhood idea of what a marriage would be."

...she relaxes as she describes her notion of connubial bliss. It's a familiar fantasy, one that animated Joan Didion's memoir of her life with John Gregory Dunne, an ideal I remember picking up like a virus in high school, when I read about Woody Allen's relationship with Mia Farrow, back in those sweet and innocent days, before the fall. There's another model, of course, in which love is poisoned by competition: Baumbach himself portrayed it with acid specificity in his memoir of his parents' Park Slope divorce, The Squid and the Whale. But Leigh and Baumbach are clearly aiming for something different from their parents' lives (she's the child of artists who split up as well): marriage as an idyllic, never-ending brainstorm among supportive equals.

[Later in the article]

Much of Leigh's own personality, she acknowledges, was shaped in response to her older sister, a wild child who was the muse not only for Georgia but for her mother's earlier TV film Freedom, and who is currently a drug-addiction counselor in California.

"She was a very--" Leigh begins, then pauses, struggling to describe their childhood dynamic. "I mean, who knows why, exactly, because I could point to my parents' divorce, I don't know, I was 2 at the time, she was 5! But she had a very, very difficult time, and she was a very emotional kid. A lot of acting out. And so I was a very good kid."

Leigh remembers "literally going off to clean my room" when her sister freaked out. She can recall her own inner dialogue: "I don't want to be that. I don't want that attention. That's scary."

Other than the celebritology factor of a movie actress married to a filmmaker, who just happened to make a critically acclaimed and very personal (although rather disturbing) film about children of divorce, this article struck two separate chords with me.

First, I was a little taken aback by the cynicism of the author. I know, I know, this is New York magazine, the magazine for a town that defines cynicism. Maybe I've been out of the NYC aura for too long and have started to adopt the sunny optimism of the South. It's true that my wardrobe this summer contained a lot of pink and almost no black; but then isn't pink the new black?? Still Nussbaum's denigration of a happy marriage as "fantasy" and something picked up "like a virus" seems a tad mean. Why can't two people be happy, especially two people who have already seen the mean side of marriage? Can we just let these lovebirds enjoy wedded bliss, and perhaps even wish them a lifetime of happiness together? Is that too much to ask?

The other thing that struck me in this article was Leigh's comments about how she and her sister reacted differently to their parents' divorce, one child acting out and the other trying very hard to keep it together and be the good child. Same family, same divorce, different kids, different reactions.