In praise of younger men

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Nancy A. Knox with Kelly Knox

Often, these methods result in rebuffs, disappointments and dead ends. Sometimes it seems life would be simpler if we could just head down to the spawning ground to hook up with our intended.

As for me, I got lucky. After a dismal-at-best first attempt at wedded bliss, I have found a true soulmate. After vowing I would never again be labeled as anyone's wife (a title I had come to view with a vast amount of scorn), I am now referring to myself in that capacity with wonder and a certain amount of pride. I took the proverbial plunge once again last January, and I say this with no reservation: "I am truly happy."

My new husband is warm, witty, erudite, sensual and fascinating. He is a caring, loving husband and a much more involved father to my four children than the one which they are biologically burdened with.

He is a true find, a one-in-a million guy. Oh yeah, he is also 13 years my junior.

True, we are not your typical "matching" couple. When I first brought him around, my friends referred to him as the "Boy Toy." When he first brought me around, his friends referred to him as "insane." Strangers have asked if he is my son. Amorous store clerks continue to hit on me in front of him, assured he must be just the next customer in line.

When I first introduced him to my mother, she rather briskly pulled me aside and accused me of being a "cradle-robber." After meeting him, my former co-workers at University Medical Center made frequent jokes about keeping me out of the nursery.

One friend, upon viewing his very young countenance via a photograph, queried as to why I didn't "just adopt" if I was anxious for another child in my household.

What does he do for me? He has stayed up countless nights, helping me type out those "due tomorrow" papers. He has paid for several of my winter and summer sessions. He even paid my library fines last semester.

He helps my kids with homework, volunteers at their schools and is quick to offer them new material used in their ritualistic "teasing of Mom" phases. He painfully sat with me at my daughter's side, living through every one of her facial stitches after she was struck by a car last year.

How do I work this? I'm not sure, but I am having a great time trying. What could we possibly have in common? Just about everything. School, our financial aid burdens, our hobbies, our sense of the ironic, our hopes, our aspirations, our dreams.

Sure he could have married a woman his own age, had his own children and all that happy stuff. Sure, I could have married a man my own age and been more financially secure. But I speak for both of us when I say we both like it right here. So many times, I have heard friends and acquaintances alike bemoan the lack of decent men/women on campus, in Tucson, on the planet. I beg to differ.

Perhaps one should stop trying to find someone to fit "the mold." Maybe the mold should be thrown into the garbage, where mold belongs. True, at times it is strange to be married to someone who was shaking a rattle while I was shaking my pompoms at the Homecoming game, who could have been the ring boy at my first wedding, who, if he had been my prom date would have had to accompany me in a car seat. But it does make life interesting, and I wouldn't trade my relationship for the world.

Nancy A. Knox is a sociology and political science senior and can be reached via e-mail at Nancy.A.Knox@wildcat.arizona.edu.