Princeton mom to female students: Find a husband in college, or else
OPINION - After all these years of black women being pummeled with bad advice to relieve them from singleness, it’s sickly funny that our white counterparts are getting publicly heaped on for being single as well...
From Clutch Magazine:
Forgive my lack of a proper set up for this story, one with wit or something deep to draw you in. I can’t pull one together right now that has more depth than, “what the entire **** is going on?” So instead of giving you a bunch of symbols to replace the string of expletives I’d like to use, allow me to “use my words” and jump right in with the facts.
Last Friday, a Princeton alum from ’77 and mom to two sons, one who currently attends the university, wrote a letter for the school paper, The Daily Princetonian. It was billed as “what [women] really need to know that nobody is telling you.” The big secret? That matriculating women should be spending their college years looking for husband, starting in their freshman year. I thought it was a satirical, something unexpectedly witty mocking the reams of bad advice that women are given to find a mate. But then I learned that Susan Patton, an Upper Eastside (NYC) Mom was entirely serious, and just like that, my whole head exploded.
When I was able to compose myself, I laughed an evil laugh. Because after all these years of black women being pummeled with bad advice to relieve them from singleness, it’s sickly funny that our white counterparts are getting publicly heaped on for being single as well. Our misery just got company. And then I felt terrible, because I shouldn’t wish being piled up on for being single on any woman. Sorry, white ladies. My bad.
“For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry,” Patton warns. “You will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you.Here’s what nobody is telling you: Find a husband on campus before you graduate.”
She also advises that women shouldn’t date men who are not their intellectual equal, nor should they date men who are younger than them (as in, if you’re a senior, you should only be dating other seniors.)
I’d tell you what else the page and half letter said, if I could actually read it. According to USA Today, where I located the nuggets above, traffic for the article literally crashed the newspaper site where it appeared. Womp.
Over at My Brown Baby, Denene Millner straight up called Patton’s piece “bulls**t”, adding, “Those of us women who’ve been to college know the deal: learning how to live on your own, get educated AND juggle a relationship is no joke, and the petty foolishness that comes with trying to keep a man who doesn’t necessarily want to be kept can be distracting as hell.”
Read the rest of this story on Clutch Magazine.
