Train Wreck Thrills Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager was so thrilled with an article that he happily read it and touted it on his radio show, had the writer on his show, and linked to the article on his website. Dennis Prager was downright giddy about it.

Turns out this guy is his friend. Now, I don't expect Dennis to trash his friend, especially on the air. Instead, he simply should not have mentioned the article. But Dennis couldn't help himself, because he's so obsessed with advocating that people marry and have children that he lauds it even if it is clearly a train wreck.

Dr. Laura and Dennis Prager would both be called conservative talk show hosts. Yet I  think Dr. Laura would, in most of my points below, agree with me. If Dennis' friend had called Dr. Laura on the air and proposed what we'll see below, Dr. Laura would have probably ripped him a new one.

Enough intro.

Joel Alperson wrote at Medium "How to Marry and Have Four Newborns at 60."

Right off the bat, that's a huge NOPE!!!

A Chinese woman in her late 40’s and an American man of almost 60 were finally living their dream.

Over ten years of age difference. Not good. Of course Dennis, being married to a woman 15 years his junior, has no qualm about that.

Wei (my wife) was a perfect fit and throughout the nine years she worked for us, there was never a flirt or hint of anything romantic between us. That was more my doing than hers.

After all, she wasn’t Jewish (and I wanted to have a Jewish family), she was an employee, she lived in China and was married. What’s more, it was around the time I hired Wei that I met the woman I would marry.

So this a second marriage (at least) for each. Most second marriages divorce. Different country, different culture, was an employee, different religion... how many red flags can there be?

But, as life is rarely predictable and sometimes horribly unfair, this seemingly impossible-to-marry single, who married for the first time at 47, saw his marriage end in divorce after only seven years.

That was to be expected since you married at the first time at 47.

I was shattered. The part of my life I most wanted was now over.

After finally starting a race that almost everyone else I knew was running, I found myself behind the starting line again.

Getting married and popping out kids is a race?

But it’s funny, things can happen when one is running out of time. As options narrow, choices that once seemed crazy can seem perfectly reasonable.

That's called desperation.

Who would help me start my search for a wife in China? It was Wei.

The woman who became his next wife. Conflict of interest?

It was only after months of meeting other women in different parts of China, usually after Wei had traveled to, yes, meet and pre-qualify them, that I finally noticed her.

This isn't romantic. It's a mess.

After over ten years of employing her, I told Wei that of all the women I had met in China, the one I most wanted to be with was her. She was stunned — both for the reason I expected and for one I hadn’t: she had committed to marry another man.

I felt even worse when she added that she had been interested in me for years. But, like a professional poker player, she’d had no “tells”. She never betrayed her feelings even slightly.

This is so painful!!!!

But Wei’s marriage was troubled from the beginning. Though married, they lived in different cities, seeing each other and communicating with one another rarely. The last straw was when Wei learned her husband was communicating with other women via a Chinese chat service.

Is she bad at picking men? Or does she neglect them?

She separated from him and virtually all contact between them ended.

That what she told you.

It was after this separation and her plans for a divorce that we started talking about our future together.

Why include a detail like this? Maybe you're protesting too much?

Given that a divorce in China can be appealed and the extreme acts some in China will take to save face, Wei’s escape ultimately involved her hiding from her husband for almost two years.

Yeah, this is a way to start a marriage.

Another challenge was how we could quickly have the two or three children we wanted (yes, we have four . . . remember that part about life being unpredictable?). As Wei was still living in China, we chose to have our children in Asia.

Remember, she was in her 40s. He was in his 50s. They rented wombs, which, especially in other countries, can be fraught with ethical issues.

And as she was too old to have them naturally, we used surrogates. The laws surrounding this type of childbirth forced us to operate in multiple countries.

Maybe that should have been a clue!!!

A friend helped us find two surrogates — in Thailand of all places. And the embryos were implanted in Cambodia (don’t ask about the room where I gave my sperm sample. The awful porn DVD they were playing was, to put it mildly, not helpful).

So it was ALLEGEDLY his sperm. Has he done a DNA test? Whose eggs were used? Another ethical consideration.

How many human beings were discarded in this process? ("Extra" embryos)

As their due dates approached, the surrogates traveled to China where our children were born. You’re probably thinking, “Wasn’t there an easier way to do this?” Maybe, but I don’t regret our choice because the result was four happy, healthy children.

You could have adopted embryos or born children, you know, instead of intentionally creating children whose parents will be elderly before long.

The moral of this story? Actually, there are three.

Don't marry. Don't have kids. Avoid working with women.

The first is that fear can destroy one’s life and it had seriously compromised mine. It was fear that kept me from confronting my dad over the very poor relationship we had.

Oh, hello.

It was the fear of appearing foolish that prevented me from expressing the emotions I often wanted to convey to others.

How about sexual harassment lawsuits?

And more recently it was my fear of approaching Wei when I first saw the opportunity, which nearly prevented us from enjoying the beautiful life we now have together.

He gushes about Wei throughout this. I sincerely hope he always can. Chances are, it won't be long before he's feeling very different about all of this.

The second moral is to be honest with oneself about what’s important in life.

Staying free.

For too long I told myself (and others) that marrying and starting a family was the most important thing, yet I constantly put other activities ahead of that goal. I fooled myself for years. A goal is important only if it is seriously pursued.

Reality check: If you hadn't done those other things, you wouldn't have been able to afford Wei or your kids.

The final moral? Don’t wait for life to turn out exactly as you imagine because it probably won’t.

Yes, things often don't go as planned, but we should plan anyway. And responsible Free Men can have far more control over their life.

By the time I was 30, I expected to have married and started a family with an American Jewish woman. Over the years, I missed so many opportunities because they didn’t match the image I had for my life. And yet, by the age of 60, I had married a non-Jewish woman from China, who converted to Judaism and had four children with me, all delivered within six weeks.

Another potential problem.

Somebody by the name of Tmcgoe responded.

While the story is a happy one, it is also very peculiar and is highly unusual.
Sorry, but Mr. Alperson can have just about anything he wants with all that wealth at his disposal. The chances of this happening to any normal man (or woman) is about zero minus:
- Few women are going to marry a man twenty years their senior (unless he has a lot of money),
- Few, if any Western women are going to be vetted by some Chinese female to see if they're worthy of Mr. Alperson,
- Few, if any- Western Christian women would even consider 'converting' to being a Jew ( (no matter how much money he offers them),
- Few, if any Western women will agree to surrogate pregnancies of foreign origin-- but FOUR children the same age all from different women?
Yikes. Mr Alperson strikes me as a very self absorbed man. Focused though, I'll give him that. He had to turn to a culture where the females traditionally acquiesce to men to make his plan work.
I don't care how much money he has-- he strikes me as a total turn off.

I bet there was a customized prenup. Not that prenups are a sure thing, but if this guy didn't get one, he's extremely foolish.

How much money did this guy blow? He could have adopted for far less; maybe helped out a woman in a crisis pregnancy, or multiple such women.

These kids are going to have multiple half (maybe full) siblings out there. It is not out of the realm of possibility that they'll meet up and have sex. Maybe even children. When these kids are graduating from high school, if their father is alive, he could be frail, sick, etc. Maybe he won't even be seeing them by then, because this woman can divorce him, stay in the USA if she wants, and live well off of the alimony and child support. The odds are not good that this will be a lasting, happy marriage. I hope it is, for the sake of those kids.