North Dakota is filling with men who’ve had to choose between providing for their families, and seeing their families.
Ain’t this a hell of a thing. The New York Times has one of those good old-fashioned in-depth articles that journalists used to do back when there were journalists, all about the North Dakota oil boom and the odd culture that’s grown up around it, as workers, mostly men, flock to the one state in the union with 3% unemployment.
Many newcomers are, like Mr. Ripka, middle-age family men angling for a fresh financial start. Builders cannot throw up homes fast enough to house them; an estimated 1,200 housing units are expected to be completed in Williston in the next few months, and one-bedroom apartments rent for $1,700 or more a month, if they are available. With an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 job openings in the area, many men live where they can — in their cars, or in illegally parked campers — and send their earnings to their families while they hunt for housing.
There’s something about the whole thing that smacks of the Great Depression, migrant men riding trains to wherever there’s work, half-assed little company towns springing up to dig in the earth… part of my brain expects the photos on the article to be in black and white.
It’s retrograde in another way, too, as an absolute manifestation of man-as-breadwinner. The men in the article all tell the same story, that they have families to support, children to look after, and they’ve had to choose between looking after them in person and being a full-time parent, and looking after them economically in the form of checks that arrive from far away. They might go months without seeing their kids, living in cars and working whatever shifts they can get, providing their families with income while depriving them of husbands and fathers.
I guess in hard times, people sometimes relapse into old narratives.
Are these men heroes? What can we do to change this situation, so that men aren’t forced into such terrible choices?
Photo— lindsey gee/Flickr
“There’s something about the whole thing that smacks of the Great Depression, migrant men riding trains to wherever there’s work, half-assed little company towns springing up to dig in the earth… part of my brain expects the photos on the article to be in black and white.” I’ve become an infrequent visitor to GMP, having concluded a sabbatical and having to get back to The Real World with a reduction in the luxury of hyperbolic speculation, What ifs and ill considered comment. (Big wave to anyone about who has been wondering at me ironic absence.) P^) I would like to… Read more »
Uh, guys? The whole point of this article is “DON’T YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR CHILDREN GROW UP? DON’T YOU WANT TO HAVE A HAND IN RAISING THEM?” You seem to have entirely missed the point that men and only men are missing out on their children in this situation. Even if your job isn’t right next to your Manhattan apt., you’d still see your kids more than these guys do.
I don’t see it so much as a relapse into old narratives as much as it is making a conscious choice. One of the great things about progress is that it’s supposed to make these additional choices valid, but that doesn’t mean that we have to toss out all of the old ones, too. It’s great that a man can choose now to be a stay-at-home dad – that’s a real boon. But, just because a man may want instead to provide for his family financially doesn’t mean that he’s any less progressive or that he’s simply some troglodyte slipping… Read more »
It is very common for workers to have to be away from their families for extended periods of time in order to earn a living. The author paints it as retrograde and furthers the negative association with the living these men are earning for themselves and their families by associating it with the Great Depression. Whether it is picking vegetables, driving a big rig, making sales, mining, or being deployed, this has been the narrative for many men in the United States and around the world for a long time. Many of these jobs entail long hours, high rates of… Read more »
It seems to me the ‘Cultured Elite’ have truely lost touch with how us in the ‘Other Half’ live. Not all of us can write articles and edit a web site from the comfort of an office room in our own homes. Having worked in heavy construction all my life, I’ve worked with pipeliners, dredgemen,and all sorts of ‘Boomers” (guys that go where the work is). You think that right now civilians are driving trucks, doing construction and other things in Iraq or Afganistan for the scenery? Even men like myself, lucky enough to live home while working, have to… Read more »
@bobbt, those civilians driving trucks in the Middle East have got it made. It used to make my blood boil when I had to risk my own life to escort Halliburton convoys so that the vice president’s buddies could make a fat little profit off the war. I was out there in a machine gun turret at 60mph in 115 degree heat making 35k per year while these drivers that I was protecting with my life were making 100k tax free sitting in their air conditioned cabs eating bon bons. Don’t get me wrong I loved those guys and it’s… Read more »
Noah, I’m not sure how this is a ‘terrible choice’. This has been a historical reality for a reason – it is impossible to perfectly match up locality with jobs and lifestyle choices. In a perfect world, I’d have a good job in Manhattan located right next to my cheap apartment in Manhattan. It’s just not going to happen like that though. I can’t think of any good ways to implement ‘good choices’ on a large scale. Policy wonks are spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to create jobs, but that hasn’t (and never will) happen… Read more »