How American Parenting Is Killing Marriage

[Cherie]

By mentioning that I thought curiousing didn't have kids, I was thinking of the comment about "the second they marry/have children, they essentially fall off the face of the planet that everybody else lives on." There is a reason why this happens, and before marriage and having a family, you never think it's going to. Single friends get very hurt when married friends don't hang out with them as much as they used to, but that's sort of just how it works. You do make time when you can, but good friends understand that when your station in life changes, relationships necessarily must shift here and there a little bit. Some friendships can't handle that. I'm really grateful for the friendships in my own life that have been able to handle it!

[blazeingstar]

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.

 

I also think part of this is that as young adults people are very close with one another, even in tragic circumstances.  However, whenever you add another to a group, especally one that is so highly dependant, the dynamic changes.

 

I think part of the "tunnel vision" especally post marriage, is becuase singles feel they MUST take a back seat. For my single friends I've been very careful to let them know that they do not, espcally my one friend who's older and been through this with his peer group.

 

I'm not sure it's always the parents fault.  I think quite often the peer group pulls away becuase children are work...to make sure they are diapered, eat on time, and nap...it's not easy for a parent, nevermind a single friend.  And yes, parents in other countries manage to make friends, but as stated above I think that has far more to do with different social values and acceptance of children everywhere than it does with parents behaviors themselves.  In some countries it's ok to leave a pram in the street or even toddlers playing together.   In America and even places in Europe a mother of 3 or more children is called a "breeder" and other nasty names.

[CatherineM]

Priests aren't married, but some make great marriage counselors.

[PhuturePriest]

Priests aren't married, but some make great marriage counselors.

 

While he was a priest and went on camping trips with his youth group, Saint John Paul II would often speak about relationships and marriage. The girls in the group said he understood so profoundly marriage and women that they would question him if he ever had a fiancee.

[Maggyie]

As someone with no living children I definitely have a lot to critique about parents and parenting (bitter? Who me?) but the article is rather dimwitted I think.

People who talk about love like it is a scarce resource or something to be doled out by weight just don't get it. My love for my husband is infinite and if I had a baby i would love her infinity times two?? my calculator is broken how much is that?

Human love is a participation in the divine. It's meant to be a bottomless well. The NYT writer the article talks about really creeps me out. I mean does she rank her love for the 4 kids too? If my mom came right out and said she loved my dad more than me I would be incredibly hurt. And I'm sure he would say the same if it was vice versa.

Also I doubt that empty nesters are divorcing because they spent too much time on their kids. Maybe some of them, but it's just as likely the marriage was a bad one to begin with and they stayed together for the kids, or they had a tough time dealing with problems of aging like health issues or changing finances.

Basically I totally feel the author on feeling like you live in a child centered world, and feeling left out if you're not part of it. But the article is just a lash out and doesn't make many good points.

[PhuturePriest]

My understanding is that we are to love all equally, in that the definition of love is to will the good of another. We are to will that all go to heaven and that all serve God and be happy, and we are to do this equally. This doesn't mean you can't enjoy being with some more than others (meaning it's perfectly acceptable to enjoy alone time with your spouse more than your children), but that doesn't mean you love your spouse more and your children less.

 

Is this on target with all that's been said thus far?

[Archaeology cat]

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.

You said what I thought.

Also, my first two were born overseas, so I have lived in another country. I also had a lot of international friends there, and my kids' godparents are different nationalities than where I lived (Kieran's are from The Gambia, and Charlotte's godmother is English-Filipina and grew up in Italy). I saw lots of different parenting styles, some I liked and some I didn't. I'd say my style most closely matched that of my Zimbabwean friends. A mutual British friend said she couldn't understand why they never wanted a babysitter, until they finally explained to her that they were a family and didn't do things without their children. We are pretty much the same way. But we also work on our own relationship. We don't see it as a competition.

[Archaeology cat]

I do agree with the authors' observation that parenting is almost seen in religious terms, so that if you do something different, you are seen as a bad parent, not just a different one. We are unfortunately seeing the consequences of that as more parents have CPS called on them for simply letting their kids play outside without the parent standing over them.

[Ice_nine]

I think there are a lot of legitimate criticisms about helicopter parenting and making your child the center of the universe. I don't agree those things are healthy for the child, even though the child may be outwardly successful because of it. But I don't see any hard evidence that this is what leads to the destruction of marriage. There's no data just speculation that is perhaps plausible, but there are simpler explanations: hedonism, utilitarianism, egoism; trends that have more or less taken hold of american culture.

[CatherineM]

It hurts marriage in that many of the kids created by helicopter parenting don't get married.

[dUSt]

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 have four kids and I agree with the article. The greatest gift I could ever give my children is to put their mother first.

[Cherie]

I have four kids and I agree with the article. The greatest gift I could ever give my children is to put their mother first.

I tried to clarify earlier that I wasn't asking curiousing that because I felt that people with kids wouldn't agree with the article, but more because of the curiousing's specific comments referring to married people/people with kids and how they act in regard to their social lives. Even the most sanguine, extroverted people I know had a big change in their social lives after they got married and had kids. A lot of single people complain about that and say it'll never happen to them ... And then, inevitably, to some degree, it does once they themselves get married and have kids. It was that kind of change in perspective I was mostly referring to.

I have a bunch of friends with lots of kids who agree with the article, and I understand, and agree with, the underlying truth it was trying to express, that parenting should never come between spouses and cause their marriage to be put on the back burner. But I still think it was done very stupidly and in a fuddled manner, and I still don't think it's a good thing to say that one loves their spouse MORE than their kids, or their kids MORE than their spouse. To each his own, though. That's just the way I personally feel about it. :)

[Lilllabettt]

When people begin seriously dating, their world gets smaller.
When they get married and have kids, their world gets smaller still.
And that is the nature of the vocation to family life.
Marriage shrinks a person's world, it limits the horizon in a meaningful way to the 2, 3, 4 or however many souls belong to the family unit.
Whereas people in religious communities are free to be more open to others, and single people still more free to be open.
The price for the freedom of singleness is living with the knowledge that most everyone you ever know will always put someone else before you (their spouse, their children.)

Let me tell you a story so you know I know what I'm talking about. On my 24th birthday, I was very unwell. Too sick to leave my bed or have any cake. Severely annoying. I wanted my sister to stay with me that day, and thought it would be easy to guilt her into doing this. But she did not stay with me, because it was a Saturday night and she had a date w/ her very serious boyfriend. A few days later I went for a long hospital stay. My sister came to visit me after work, but only when she could arrange her date to be somewhere in the part of the city where I was hospitalized. When her date was elsewhere, she did not visit. Let me tell you, I was tremendously butthurt over this, and frankly still am now that I think about it. As twins, we'd always been each others number 1 person. But she was dating the person she was planning to marry, and that is the nature of that vocation. A very difficult lesson for me as a singleton. But that is the nature of my vocation. Basically, pick your poison. Or rather, pick the way you'd like to sacrifice.

[dUSt]

The catechism says, "Marriage and the family are ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of children. The love of the spouses and the begetting of children create among members of the same family personal relationships and primordial responsibilities."
 
So really, it talks about spouses loving each other, but nothing of loving your children--just creating them. lol
 
It goes on to quote, "He who loves his son will not spare the rod. . . . He who disciplines his son will profit by him." - Sir 30:1-2.

Obviously, I'm not saying we shouldn't love our kids, but it seems to me that the church teaches that there is a definite order of priority.
 
I also like what my friend Matthew Warner had to say about this topic: "The truth is that the very best way to love your kids is to love their mother first. When you love their mother first, you aren't choosing her over the kids. You're choosing to love your kids in the most powerful way possible: through your marriage. And by providing them with what they MOST need - not your friendship or personal relationship or attention - but with a stable family held together by a strong, loving marriage."

[Cherie]

Yup! Not disagreeing with you at all there. :)