How American Parenting Is Killing Marriage

[Socrates]

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.

 

I also thought the blog piece was stupid, and had little of substance to support its extremely questionable thesis that our society over-values children and parenthood.  (Any society which kills and discards so many unborn children because they are inconvenient certainly does not over-value children.)

It sounded to me like the ranting of a bitter childless person.

(And really, anyone upset over "baby on board" signs on cars needs to get a life.)

 

I also totally agree that love of spouse and love of children should not be in conflict, or measured against one another.

 

In my experience, I think that having, loving, and caring for children actually strengthens the marriage bond.  This reflects what our pastor told us, that children help give a needed outward focus to married life and love.

 

I think the idea that excessive valuing or love of children is the cause of high divorce rates is nonsense.

Divorce rats actually started to sky-rocket following the sexual revolution of the '60s/'70s, and plenty of childless couples get divorced

I'm sure many of the empty-nesters getting divorced stayed together long as they did "for the sake of the children," but I'd bet that most of them would have divorced much sooner had they been childless. 

It's also dubious that their marriages would have been stronger or better had they been less devoted to their children.

 

Lack of proper discipline of children, and spoiled kids are a genuine problem, but this is not a matter of loving them too much over one's spouse.  Discipline is part of love, and actually takes more effort than just letting kids have their way all the time.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Socrates