From my “This Makes Me Embarrassed To Live In Massachusetts” file:
Donna Wood of Southbridge, MA made national headlines last week by holding a public audition on her front lawn to woo prospective husbands for her daughter, Kimberly.
Kimberly, a 22 year-old single mother who still lives with her parents, has apparently demonstrated appallingly poor taste in boyfriends (I don’t know…but if my mother were pimping me like a set of second hand steak knives at a yard sale, I might have a bit of a self esteem problem too). So Donna, she of the over-frizzed perm and the gap-toothed grin, has set about to ruin her daughter’s life yet again by throwing open her door to every would-be-Aryan skinhead crackpot from Swansea to Salisbury.
Remember a few years ago there was that ridiculous study done about how certain women were more likely to be killed by terrorists than get married? I’d just like to direct the authors of that study to a certain front lawn in Southbridge, MA last Saturday, where a horde of delusional young hopefuls lined up around the block for a paper cup of warm lemonade and a five-minute interview with the selection committee (sorry, did I hear someone say something about a Man Shortage?) Of course, they all insisted that they were just doing it for the fun of it, and not because they were really, really ugly and really, really stupid.
As one eligible (and I use that term guardedly) bachelor told The Boston Herald, “I’m not desperate. Maybe some other guys might be, but I’m not.”
Memo to Delusional Young Bachelor: Uh, Dude, let me clue you in on something here. You’ve answered a public cattle call in the hopes of winning the hand of a 22 year old welfare mother with an overbearing family and bad taste in men. You’re waiting in line to be interviewed by a gaggle of sweat stained troglodytes sporting mullets and stirrup pants who will, in all likelihood, reject you as “not good enough.” And not only are you admitting all this to a newspaper reporter, you’re letting him take your picture and put your real name right underneath it for all the world to see. Face it. You’re desperate. Also? You’re an idiot.
Ironically, although the news reports and Letters to the Editor resonated with the horror of concerned citizens appalled at the sheer indignity of this spectacle, I am not particularly shocked by this type of tackiness. Maybe I’ve seen so many Jerry Springer episodes (shut up) that nothing fazes me anymore. I’ve grown used to people airing their dirty laundry on their front lawns (literally, in this case) for the public at large to pick through and comment upon.
No, although I think it’s sad and pathetic, the cattle call idea isn’t really what’s bothering me.
What’s bothering me is the unquestioned assumption that marriage is going to be this woman’s only means of obtaining stability and financial security. In this case, everyone’s all up in arms about the means, but no one is paying any attention to the end.
Kimberly Wood is 22 years old. She’s already saddled with an unplanned toddler that she can barely take care of, and now her mother wants to saddle her with a total stranger for a husband when she’s barely old enough to legally toast herself at her own wedding.
Let’s suppose for a moment that this scheme does pay off and the Drooling Lawn Herd is winnowed to one lucky contender. Suppose he marries her and then abuses her, leaves her, or dies. Then what? She’ll be right back where she started - living at home with her psychotic mother, standing in line for food stamps, and trying to bring up a daughter who will never have any inkling of what it means to be independent and able to fend for herself and who will thus be doomed to repeat the cycle.
Maybe if Kimberly Wood hadn’t been brought up to assume that a relationship, any relationship, no matter how dysfunctional, is her only ticket to bliss, she wouldn’t have made the horrendously stupid mistakes she already has.
Here’s some news. Marriage is not a magic bullet that can save you from poverty. Yeah, it must suck to be a single mother, and I’m sure it’s hard, and I know all the statistics about how single mothers are more likely to live in poverty and have their children grow up to be crack addicts than non-single mothers. But I fail to see how shuttling women into marriage with the first available sucker who happens along is going to make any of these problems go away. As long as we continue to teach young women that you can fuck up your life innumerable times and it’s okay as long as some man comes along to rescue you, they are going to continue fucking up their lives waiting for that white horse to come galloping up to the welfare office to carry them off to that magical palace in Never-Never Land. And, in the meantime, they’ll put the rest of their lives on hold while they run around kissing every frog that hops across their path in the vain hope that he’s really Prince Charming in a toad suit.
Instead of hosting “Who Wants To Marry My Daughter?” maybe they should have tried something a little more practical, like “Who wants to give my daughter a college education and a job that pays more than the minimum wage so she can become financially independent and not have to choose between living with the freaks at home or with one of the freaks they select for her?”
Which brings me to the George Bush Marriage Initiative Scheme, which was actually supposed to be the topic of this piece in the first place. Our government wants to spend $300 million dollars on programs that encourage women on welfare to get married. In other words, it’s kind of like the Kimberly Auction, but on a far grander scale.
Now, chop off my ring finger and call me Old Maid, but wouldn’t that money be better spent on preventing women from getting themselves into a position where they feel that marriage is the only option? Yes? Anyone?
I don’t know what’s going to happen to Kimberly and her weird family, and I don’t really care. Recent reports had the entire brood heading off to California to begin the talk show circuit, so you can rest assured we haven’t heard the last of them.
Luckily, though, by my calculations their fifteen minutes will be up by the middle of next week. Which leaves another fifteen years or so for Kimberly’s daughter to absorb and internalize the important lesson she’s being taught today.
But that’s okay. After all, everyone loves a yard sale.
12:03:39 PM 
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