October 9-15, 2003

cover story

The We Generation

Author Ethan Watters considers the phenomenon of the urban tribe.

by Alex Richmond

Do you recognize yourself in this scenario? You¹re a city person, between the ages of 25 and 39. Unmarried, in spite of the fact that you put a lot of time, effort and thought into your romantic life. And you have a large, loose group of friends with whom you run and enjoy the seasons, instead of noting the passage of time by marking your child¹s growth spurts in pencil against your kitchen door.

Sound familiar? Sure. But do you ever wonder why the walk down the aisle and the grown-up, obvious, fairy-tale happy ending hasn't happened to you?

If you've ever considered going to a rock show as important as, say, attending a family wedding, you may resemble the scenario that started the book Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment (Bloomsbury, 272 pp., $24.95).

Cut to Burning Man. San Francisco journalist and author Ethan Watters sat on a rock, contemplating his circle of friends and why none of them had gotten married. Were he and his tribe putting off becoming adults in favor of fun, or is the marriage delay part of how we're evolving as human beings?

One thousand-word magazine article later, Watters is dubbed a definer of our culture, plugged into a national trend and tapped to appear as an expert on glossy morning national news programs. This role makes him nervous, but he goes along with it. This sets the tone of his book: a reluctant expert in the most fluid of subjects (personal relationships) that incites the most aggressive debates, both at parties and between couples.

Urban Tribes is very approachable -- sort of brainy, sort of a beach read about modern societal structure. It's conversational in tone, but sociological in nature. He consciously chose to take the less academic route and not cite sources or include an index or footnotes. He instead uses anecdotal evidence, references Seinfeld and Friends and describes the moment that he heard his favorite alt-country band piped into a showroom at IKEA as a boing! moment -- the kind when you realize the marketing is aimed at you.

This informal technique is fully intentional. Watters explains, If you look at this book and think, oh great, a sociology book about young people's lives, you'd feel gypped. I wanted to do a book that was much, much lighter. I tried to mimic the style of conversations people I know have about their lives. We're very eclectic about where we take our data from. It could be TV, or The New York Times. The data we select has no respected set of bibliography. It's a narrative for our unprecedented time, collected in a haphazard way.

Making himself the main character in this book about relationships was another conscious choice. He's unsure and not authoritative, and doesn't cite sources, but you somehow can't write his theories off. His points hit too close to home.

The reason I had a narrator describing his concept, and the narrative following me as a character, was so people would read the whole book. I wanted to draw in the reader. I also didn't want to do this slam-dunk book. I intentionally let the narrator not come to the firmest conclusions, to allow a discussion to develop. I don't think I know everything about these groups. I want people to use this as a beginning of a discussion of their lives. The way I wrote it allows for a person to come in and say, I have an idea too.

So, why aren't people getting married young anymore? Watters says the way gender roles are changing is key, i.e., women working and delaying having children. But it isn't a science, it's just the way some people are choosing to live their lives.

Fundamentally I take my idea of the tribe and think, not only did I get it wrong, but I got it wrong about my own tribe.

If you think about it, you probably run with several tribes of your own. There's your work friends, your school friends, your friends from the bar. How do you keep in touch and keep cultivating them as time goes by, without the bonds traditional marriage and family create?

Marina D'Angelo, 40, has been a fixture on the Philly rock scene for years. She has several tribes, including the Drexel University set (with the subset of DJs from WKDU) and the rock club people (her band, KeN, just recorded an album at Miner Street Studios).

Two years ago, she founded a girl gang of sorts. S.L.U.T.I., Soused Ladies Urban Tourism Initiative, was created so she and her friends could visit landmarks that longtime city dwellers may not have had a chance to visit since an elementary-school outing forced them to. Think the Liberty Bell, or the Masonic Temple adjacent to City Hall. Core member and stained-glass artist Judith Schaechter developed a serial killers of Philadelphia tour.

S.L.U.T.I. members donned Catholic-schoolgirl uniforms and drove around in a van, piling out at notorious crime sites, including Gary Heidnik's house in North Philly. Stealthy drinking is encouraged at S.L.U.T.I. gatherings, which are held about once a month.

At the core of S.L.U.T.I. initially were D'Angelo's closest girlfriends -- just three at the start. There are no men allowed, though on occasion, male friends or boyfriends have been recruited to drive. They willingly wear wigs to play along. Today the girl gang has 60 members, and D'Angelo continues to recruit new blood into the fold. She says, I like to think that it's an opportunity to hang out with people in places or situations where you can see them in a different light. In some cases, daylight.

D'Angelo is familiar with the concept of the urban tribe -- she's been living it for most of her adult life. And though she recently got engaged and plans to start a family soon, she sees some truth in what Watters presents. It's a way of putting labels on things that make sense. Maybe there's a natural tendency to join these groups -- people move a lot, get distant from their families. I think people are lonely, and the ways we work and pursue knowledge these days can be isolating. So we're desperate for affection, and the tribe concept is one of the ways to get it.

Ellen Rosenholtz, 36, is an arts coordinator and co-founder of S.L.U.T.I.

I see the urban tribe thing as a recognition that you need multiple people in your life, and less of a replacement for marriage, says Rosenholtz. I see it as more adult. You need multiple viewpoints to be a holistic person. You can't depend on a small group of people to fulfill all of your needs. The ideas of being insulated in a specific family are being broken down; there needs to be varied people in your life for you to be happy. In my opinion, it's more responsible and more adult.

Rosenholtz sees the evolution and recognition of the tribe theory as an affirmation of something larger than her lifestyle; it's about support for those tough times, and connecting with the world around her.

Like that thing, it takes a village to raise a child, I think we're just realizing that now. In America we had our own home, our own yard, and isolated ourselves from the community at large. We're realizing that's not what's healthy and productive.

Kevin F. Flemming, 33, is the director of sales and marketing at Integrity Personnel in Allentown. He's also a monthly columnist for the Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal. He felt compelled to write to Watters after one of his friends had come across his article online and forwarded it to no less than 20 of his friends.

I went on Watters' website to read a little more. When I finished reading I thought, gosh, this sounds just like us. At that time there were probably 12 of us, with maybe another 30 people on the fringes that were all in the same position. We were between the ages of 25 and 35, all single. We substituted the traditional lifestyle for each other. You feel like you don't have to go ahead and grow up.

His life is very much unchanged today, except for the fact that some in his group have been getting married. Two members of his group got married to each other. We did have a token married couple, they had their first baby a year ago, so they're on a different track.

Flemming doesn't bristle at you're not an adult if you're unmarried finger-pointing. The way I interpret it, there's no stigma attached to being unmarried. Maybe years ago, a couple decades past, if you weren't married when you were 28, you might have been embarrassed. Now the stigma is gone since we're able to have some of this lifestyle without the traditional trappings of it.

Class enters this picture as well, but more subtly. What Watters focuses on is a group of people who have achieved everything professionally, like good jobs, owning homes and making high salaries -- just without marriage or kids. Many of us are very successful for our age. We have accepted high levels of responsibility, so there's no level of negativity there for me, Flemming says. He loves the idea that perhaps marriage is becoming archaic and not as important as it was in years past; maybe serial monogamy is fine.

Again, our generation grew up in a different lifestyle. We grew up with divorce as a common occurrence. Also, our parents were both working. There's the whole latchkey-kid thing. We grew up with different views. Now that we're in our 30s, we don't look at marriage as a must-do. Every friend I know who's married, I know two [others] who are divorced. And I'm not scared of marriage, I'm just scared of divorce.

Ethan Watters will read and sign Urban Tribes on Fri., Oct. 10, 6 p.m., free, Borders, 1 S. Broad St., 215-568-7400.