Today's parents seem prepared to set aside all kinds of pleasures to nurture a child – from their sex lives to careers, not to mention happy-hour beers – but there's one thing even the most kinder-friendly couple is loath to give up: their marriage.
And when one child rocks the marital boat, a growing number of couples are sticking with just one to keep their union strong.
That doesn't make them wimps, though. In fact, research suggests that children are more taxing on marriages than they used to be.
Essentially the article discusses how many modern couples are stopping at one child because having children is so stressful, and after struggling in their marriage to raise one, many don't want to go through it all over again and again. It actually goes so far as to posit that happiness is inversely proportional to how many kids you have, citing a 2005 study that determined mothers with one child were happier than those with multiple children.
There's nothing wrong with this story. It's well written, and although it's based on some entirely anecdotal quotes backed by "evidence" of studies that are as dependable as a GM stock option, these are more symptomatic of a leaky premise than they are of shoddy writing.
I guess upon reading this, more than anything one has to reflect on the cultural context from which this story was made possible. Clearly, nobody would have written this article in 1940, even if they had the concrete backing of a Danish sociology professor circa 2005.
Attitudes surrounding the entire concept of marriage and family, and the many interrelationships that compose those two entities, seem infinitely more complex these days than they once did. And for the most part, those complications stem from a forward march to break down what were once the most concrete of human connections; your spouse and kids were once inescapable, really, but we have moved into an era were if something doesn't quite work for you, it's completely possible to move on.
I am not casting judgement. I simply find these paradigm shifts fascinating. The implications of familial relationships, if you think about it, really has a hand in almost all the cultural and social evolutions of the last 10-15 years, both in the liberal movement and the aggressive partisanship rift that ensued.
How have social values changed? What is important to us now, asides (and likely after) ourselves? How much of every decision we make every day is painted by these broad cultural engravings and, looking back, how did today's seemingly quaint ideological cliches dictate the ebb and flow of generations past?
When it boils down to it, I guess after reading that article, I really was left wondering only one thing:
Why are these parents having kids in the first place?
I have a feeling if they can answer that question honestly, then deciding whether or not to have another one shouldn't be a very difficult question at all.
*****
In other news; awesomeness.
3 comments:
yess, you used inverse proportionality in a proper sense.
"backed by "evidence" of studies that are as dependable as a GM stock option"
Ouch... Too soon? GM was delisted today.
"Why are these parents having kids in the first place?"
Because mistakes happen ALL the time.
-d
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