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On 26 July 2009, a woman named Diane Shuler drove a minivan carrying herself, her two children, and her three nieces the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway in New York State for nearly two miles. She hit an SUV carrying a father and his adult son head-on. The only survivor was her 5-year-old son. Some details have come out about her movements before the crash, but nothing that really explains how the accident happened. The coroner's decision was that she was drunk at the time of the crash, with a blood-alcohol level of .19; a conclusion supported by the smashed 1.75-liter bottle of vodka on the van's floor. Despite this evidence, her family and friends find this conclusion hard to accept because they had no idea that she had a drinking problem. She had a six-figure job in cable television, managed the household finances, looked after the two children, all generally on her own. Her husband worked nights, and so they only saw each other on weekends. Moreover, the husband gratefully allowed Diane to be the boss, happy to have her mother him as well as the children.

A marriage that got much more national attention than the Shulers' was that of Jon and Kate Gosselin. According to Diablo Cody, writing in Entertainment Weekly, "The show was interesting because Jon and Kate hated each other. In its finest moments, Jon & Kate Plus Eight was an uncomfortably crisp reflection of a new American family dynamic: Mom as the aggressive, gruff-voiced breadwinner . . . ; Dad as a passive, befuddled man-child who dreams of the lifestyle teased in his Esquire subscription" (4 December 2009, p. 28).

Another marriage being carried out in public that seems to conform to this model is that of Governor Mark and Jenny Sanford, which I've blogged about already. You know what they say: the first time is an accident, the second time is a coincidence, and the third time is a real pattern.

I was first intrigued by the Shuler case because, aside from the mystery centering on Diane's condition, it raised the question of how open life partners should be with each other. How much should one reveal to one's partner about one's darker thoughts, emotional pains, worries and anxieties? The common wisdom is that one should be able to be totally open with one's life partner, but reading about the Gosselins' marriage, which seems like a clone of the Shulers', suggests to me that, in most marriages, openness is a one-way street. If Cody is right, that the strength and competence of women like Diane Shuler and Kate Gosselin has the effect of infantilizing their husbands, it makes sense that the one who has taken on the role of the "strong one" has to maintain that façade, even at the cost of her own happiness, or, in the case of Diane Shuler, of her life and those of several innocent people.

So, what is the answer? Why do women allow themselves to be put in this position? Why do we allow men to opt out of adulthood?

This is not really meant to be about me . . .

This is my blog, but it's really meant to begin dialogs, not just be a monolog. I waited so long to start a blog because I generally shake my head at the numbers of people who think their views are of interest to anyone outside their immediate circle of friends. So, I don't want to write that kind of a blog, since I would be surprised if anyone really cares what I think about anything. The kind of blog I would like to write is one that introduces topics that other people have thought about, too.

The recent cases of the Heene family and the Balloon Boy and the couple who gatecrashed the President's State Dinner represent the negative consequences of the shift from fiction TV to reality programming. People who wanted to be famous would daydream about being discovered by a talent agent while waiting tables or serving in a shop. Now they want to actually create circumstances that will get them public notice and parlay that into a reality career ("reality" should be in quotes there, probably). While we could trace the trend back to The Jerry Springer Show, the move from daytime to prime time and the increased rewards (actual money instead of the opportunity to publicly berate an adulterous spouse) have literally raised the stakes that make participation more enticing. As part of the evening TV-scape, reality TV shows attract media attention. Finally, the TV channels benefit because reality TV shows are much cheaper to produce than fiction TV.

The greater presence on TV of average people (as opposed to stars) parallels the greater presence of average people on the web through blogs and wikis.

I'm not sure that this is such a good thing. What do you think?

When Facebook Isn't Enough . . .

Why do this? Why subject the internets to my random neural firings? Don't you hate rhetorical questions? I wanted a more expansive format to explore what I think about things that interest me, and, I hope, anyone who stumbles on this blog.

What interests me at the moment is my response to Mark Sanford's situation in South Carolina. I don't know either Mr. Sanford or his wife, Jenny. My personal history would suggest that I would be on the side of those who have condemned Mr. Sanford, but I am surprised to find that I am not. In fact, while most people had a field day making fun of Mr. Sanford's romantic ramblings (on and off the Appalachian Trail), I thought they were moving and heart-felt. I appreciated his desire, even his courage, in trying to serve out his term as governor and husband, but felt great pity for him, since, in doing so, he would be condemning himself to a half-life rather than a rich, full one. Now, with his marriage broken and his governorship overshadowed by a list of relatively petty ethics violations put together from his political enemies, my only question is: Will the Argentinian woman whom he called his "soul mate" take him back? If I could meet him, I'd tell him to turn his back on everything and go back to Argentina and start a new and happier life down there, far away from everything that had deadened his soul for all the years before he met his lover.