How American Parenting Is Killing Marriage

[PhuturePriest]

http://qz.com/273255/how-american-parenting-is-killing-the-american-marriage/

 

Any parents here have some thoughts on the article? I thought it made a lot of good points and a lot of common sense, but articles are meant to come across as common sense in a "How could you not agree with this?" attitude, after all.

[Cherie]

Honestly, I thought it was stupid, and I'm surprised so many people I know liked it.

Here's why. My husband agreed with me that it's not one or the other, that you have to love your spouse over your kids or your kids over your spouse. We feel that the nature--the vocation--of being parents is that you sacrifice yourselves for your kids, and so kids' needs must come first, especially when they are very young. But the love between spouses and the love between parents and children are BOTH important; it's not a competition, or at least it hasn't ever been for us.

I would never say that I love my husband more than my kids, and my husband wouldn't say that he loves me more than the kids, either. Our love for each other and our love for our kids is *different,* and we don't see it as a competition. We don't feel at all like our relationship with our kids comes at the expense of our relationship with each other. Our relationship must be a strong foundation, and in that sense it comes first, but that doesn't mean that we love each other MORE than we love our kids, or our kids MORE than we love each other.

Love is not quantifiable. What a mercenary view of it! It seems to totally leave out the supernatural.

I read the advice of the two Saints I look to most regarding parenting--St. John Bosco and Bd. Zelie Martin--and I can't imagine they would agree with this article. I think the author is looking at the entire issue through the completely wrong lens.

Maybe that's just me, though.

[Cherie]

Also, the "baby on board" signs aren't signifying that babies are more valuable to parents than their other kids or family members; it's because maybe some reckless or road-ragey jerk won't be as much of a jerk if they know there's a baby in the car for which they're about to cause a wreck.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

I was thinking deeply the other day about how Jesus says " love one another as i have loved you" and god loves everyone equally yes? And i got to thinking if we love GOD and Love others, the two most important commandments Jesus said. Is love worship, like are we called to worship each other? If we are than none are more important then the other, family, friends, children or stranger.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Tab'le De'Bah-Rye

[Gabriela]

I agree with the article, though I also agree that they exaggerate the claim that this is what is causing divorce. I mean, I'm sure it does cause some divorces, but I think the MAIN underlying factor behind the divorce rate today is just plain old selfishness.

 

I recommend to anyone who is a parent, or who wants to be a parent, to go live overseas for a while. Pick any country. Watch how the people there interact with their children, and especially how they DON'T interact with their children. Watch how they still maintain their friendships with other adult friends even when those friends don't have children also, how they still go out for coffee and drinks without their kids (and without their spouses), how their lives do not center 100% without exception around their tiny little insular family, such that the second they marry/have children, they essentially fall off the face of the planet that everybody else lives on.

 

I do think Americans in general are TOO focused on their families, to the exclusion of other meaningful relationships. But it's not bad to be focused on family, obviously. It's that the way Americans tend to do it is "fundamentally disordered," for lack of a better phrase. They do it, I think, out of insecurity, out of fear that others will consider them not family-oriented enough. And I tend to think that, also, there's a deep-seated guilt about abortion, culture-wide, and so we exaggerate our love for the children we do have to convince ourselves that we are not bad people for killing the children we don't want.

 

I see the consequences of this in my students, who are used to the world revolving around them, because their parents live for them. Not in a healthy way, but an unhealthy one. They have a severe sense of entitlement. They have been told they're perfect little idols that everyone will and must love. So, in my experience, this is not just bad for the parents, but for the children also. And obviously for society.

 

This article reminds me of George Carlin's "Child Worship", which I heard ages ago and agreed with even then. I can't post it here, cuz it's George Carlin, so it's obviously full of profanity. But if you can handle the profanity, I suggest you watch it.

[Cherie]

Curiousing, you don't have kids, do you? Not saying that to be smug, just saying that having kids sometimes changes your perspective on certain things.

I don't know; Zelie Martin was not only French (i.e. NOT American!), she lived from 1831-1877, AND is a Saint. Here's what she said:

"We lived only for them; they were all our happiness and outside of them we desired no other. For their sakes, nothing gave us trouble; the world meant nothing without them. For myself they compensated for everything. And so I desired to have many of them in order to present them to Heaven." And yet, her daughter describes the intense love and affection she shared with her husband.

So, I'm not convinced, personally. Obviously others are. To each his own, I suppose?

[Cherie]

Also, the rates of divorce are similar--or higher--in European countries. Many of these European countries parent differently than we do in America, so I don't think it's the parenting that is the driving force behind divorces.

[blazeingstar]

Also, the "baby on board" signs aren't signifying that babies are more valuable to parents than their other kids or family members; it's because maybe some reckless or road-ragey jerk won't be as much of a jerk if they know there's a baby in the car for which they're about to cause a wreck.

 

Yep.  Plus I see more stick figure family signs now adays then baby on board.

[Gabriela]

"You don't have kids" is what parents always say whenever someone without kids disagrees with them. While I'm sure that changes one's perspective, there is also value in being able to observe a situation from the outside. I don't want kids, and one reason (though certainly not the sole reason) is because people become so biased and unreasonable when they have children. This tendency is good to a certain extent, as an expression of the parental instinct to protect one's children, but it also leads many parents into being very unfair toward others.

 

So, no, I don't have kids. But that means I can be a more objective observer of the cultural trends I see going on in families around me. It also means, of course, that I can't understand those trends "from the inside" (although I am also a child in a family, so I'm not completely without experience of family living). But being so close to parental living, most parents can't see objectively. The two perspectives balance out, IMO, and we ought to listen to each other rather than dismiss one another's views on the basis of our own biases.

 

I see the argument "You don't have kids, so you can't understand" as equivalent to the claim that men should not have a say in the legality of abortion, because it doesn't directly affect them. Other people's kids, and the way they raise their families, DO directly affect me. I am a member of this society just like everyone else. I will also one day teach their children, so I'd prefer they not be self-centered brats.

 

As I said, it's one thing to live for your kids in a healthy, ordered way. It's another thing to live for them in an unhealthy, disordered way that leads them to believe they're the center of the universe. I don't think the Martin family had any problem distinguishing between these two!

 

Yes, divorce in Europe is also high. Which is why I say the root problem there is lack of willingness to self-sacrifice. That's a serious problem in most Western countries!

 

 

[blazeingstar]

I recommend to anyone who is a parent, or who wants to be a parent, to go live overseas for a while. Pick any country. Watch how the people there interact with their children, and especially how they DON'T interact with their children. Watch how they still maintain their friendships with other adult friends even when those friends don't have children also, how they still go out for coffee and drinks without their kids (and without their spouses), how their lives do not center 100% without exception around their tiny little insular family, such that the second they marry/have children, they essentially fall off the face of the planet that everybody else lives on.

 

I think you're far too harsh about this.  Partly becuase American awards type A behavior while other countries do not.  It has nothing to do with parenthood, and everything to do with how we're culturally conditioned to act in EVERYTHING.  Become a Baptist, well no more nights out at the bar.   Join a soccer club?  Pizza fridays are out.  Americans tend to join clubs and become exclusianry.  Parenthood is among them, but not nearly the only reason for them to be.  Quite franly, as with my work, little groups form and to them unless you want to join their group, you really don't matter.

[Gabriela]

I agree with everything except that I'm being harsh and that Americans join clubs. Read "Bowling Alone" by Putnam. Americans don't really join anything anymore.

[blazeingstar]

I agree with everything except that I'm being harsh and that Americans join clubs. Read "Bowling Alone" by Putnam. Americans don't really join anything anymore.

 

Well a soccor clubs are fairly popular, but it's not a club as in a real frenships.  And actually, if you paid attention to trends, like Mormons and Freemasons, then you'd know that the "no join" trend is being reversed, especally among men.  Still, it can be a very exclusive, singular, devoted membership.  Americans do tend to generalize.  I researched this for a class.  Vegetarian Catholics VS Catholic vegeterians.  There are two poplular message boards, one for Veteterians and another for Catholics.  They have about the same memebership.  They both have equally frequented groups created for the subcategory, eg on the Catholic messageboard they have a Vegeterian/Vegan group, on the Vegeterian message board they have a Catholic/Christian group.  Interestingly enough, both forums have incidentally linked to eachother for recipies and such, but when memebers are approached about why they use a particoualr forum (or if they use both) they tend to say, "Well I'm really a X but I also do Y."  Note  "I AM a Catholic but I also eat vegeterian"  "I AM a vegeterian who is also Catholic"  They are not both, their loyality is to the first group, not the latter.

[Cherie]

But curiousing, when you have an immortal soul entrusted to your care by God Himself, it does change the way you think on certain things; even when you don't have a child on earth to hold. The simple fact of having a child in your womb even for a short time, it changes your perspectives on some of these things. It doesn't nullify the opinions of those without kids. But virtually every parent has uttered the phrase, "I didn't think this way before I had kids."

Certainly some parents become doting of their kids at the expense of their spouse. That is true. And I agree with the sentiment that I should never be too busy or too caught up with the kids to be my husband's wife first. But I thought this article expressed things very strangely, and in a way I don't agree with.

[PhuturePriest]

But curiousing, when you have an immortal soul entrusted to your care by God Himself, it does change the way you think on certain things; even when you don't have a child on earth to hold. The simple fact of having a child in your womb even for a short time, it changes your perspectives on some of these things. It doesn't nullify the opinions of those without kids. But virtually every parent has uttered the phrase, "I didn't think this way before I had kids."

Certainly some parents become doting of their kids at the expense of their spouse. That is true. And I agree with the sentiment that I should never be too busy or too caught up with the kids to be my husband's wife first. But I thought this article expressed things very strangely, and in a way I don't agree with.

 

I think you've made very valid points thus far. That's why I posted and asked what others think -- being an unmarried teenager whose main concern in life is getting a better ACT score, I'm not exactly an authority on matters such as marriage and child raising.

 

And I do agree with Curiousing. While having children does of course change your perspective and change your opinions on raising children, having an outsider's perspective is always healthy. Looking in from outside the forest always gives a unique perspective those within can always benefit from, even if they can't distinctly see every twig and insect.

[Cherie]

I do agree; an outsider's perspective can be a great gift. I didn't mean to imply only those with children can have a perspective! Not at all. I hate that kind of thinking.

I understand the general underlying truth the article is trying to express - you can't worship your kids and leave your marriage on the back burner. Some parents do, surely.

But I think that point was fuddled by a lack of good content, some erroneous comparisons, and a bitter tone.