Posted on 04/19/2015 2:37:37 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows
Less than one month after my husband and I got married—before I even mailed thank you notes for our wedding gifts—I found myself holding a positive pregnancy test.
Eight and a half months into our marriage, while we were still getting comfortable in our roles as husband and wife, we suddenly became mom and dad. I won’t say that our son was poorly planned—we were both anxious to start our family—but I will say that in hindsight becoming a mother in the same year that you become a wife is not for the weak.
The first year of our son’s life was the most difficult of our marriage to date and it is also the year I learned a very important lesson: My husband must always come before our children.
Don’t get me wrong; I love my kids and would do anything for them. But I love my husband more.
When I share this with my mom friends, it’s usually met with outrage and total shock. After all, this goes against the golden rule of motherhood, the one that tells us being a good parent means sacrificing all for the happiness and well-being of our children.
Putting aside our own needs for theirs is practically a requirement but I’m sorry, I’m just not buying it.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
That's very well said. Reminds me of when our kids were younger and we dined out occasionally. When it was just the wife and I and we had a baby sitter, I'd take her to a very nice place, because it didn't happen often and we were going to make a special occasion of it.
However, when it was us and the kids, and we wanted to go out to eat, it was Chuck E Cheese, Pizza Hut or some other very casual restaurant - unless is was a very special occasion like a graduation or a school award.
I'm sure the kids would have wanted to come to the fancy steakhouse or lobster place that I would take my wife too but they learned early that they were not going to be included on everything that the two of us did. When we took vacation with the kids, it would be Disneyland or some other child-friendly venue. But when they were 10 and 12 and my wife and I wanted to take a break and go to Hawaii together, we arranged to have them spend the week with my in-laws and the two of us went alone.
It was things like that that allowed us to keep our marriage vibrant, even though our primary focus was on the kids during that time. I know many parents who would never consider leaving their "babies" out of something like that, but my view is that lugging them along on what was supposed to be a romantic trip would utterly defeat the purpose of the two of us getting away, because that would have entirely changed the dynamic of the trip.
I did notice during that trip to Hawaii that other couples our age had young children with them that were often fussing and pouting and they were definitely not having a nice experience. Having the children involved in everything does not help sustain the marriage.
If we ever manage to wind our way through the paperwork we will be parents someday.
But as much as we will love them, our marriage came first and will last long past the time they have left the nest.
If a person chooses his or her spouse wisely, they should be able to find a balance of everyone’s participation in the family, without too much difficulty. Some circumstances require prioritizing a child’s needs - a newborn infant, a serious illness or injury - but must situations are just tweaking.
Best wishes on your adoption process!
“That’s very well said.”
Thanks, it just seems like common sense to me. Kids start out knowing nothing and they stay that way for many years...if not well into adulthood.
Many parents let kids step in it, with the results often haunting them for life (babies, abortions, criminal records, crappy education and job skills). I work with a lot of those parents - but I don’t see the good in allowing a kid to wreck his life.
At first, I was proud of how my kids were doing (years ahead in math and reading, for example, not to mention very well behaved) - even though the kids were nothing special and not even self-motivated, at all. I figured that the young parents I knew would want to know what I did, so I told them. Big mistake. They heard it differently - what I told them (in their minds) was that they were crappy parents. I guess I can’t fully deny their conclusion...but either way, I just shut up - they can spend their retirement money on college (maybe), and helping their adult kids along - I plan to do some serious traveling, and retire early.
But...would you hit it? :-)
The best way to care for and love children is to love and commit fully to one’s spouse.
Given the opportunity.
“My wife, of course, has a real phone (like an Android or I-Phone). “
You call them “real phones”?
You have GOT to be kidding.
.
Fair point...but to them it’s a “real phone”.
I am sorry, fellows, but some of you are either hipocrites or delusional or misunderstood my point completely.
First of all this article says ‘husband’ not ‘dad’ which is not necessarily the same person when we are talking about marriage these days.
And isn’t divorce rate some 40 to 50%?
Divorce between spouses has become a kind of social norm, regardless do they have common kids or not, meaning up to half of all marriages finishes this way.
No go show me an individual who divorced own kids! There is no such thing.
In Soviet Russia, kids divorce YOU!
Great thread.
Well, this is the point. The divorce rate is so high because we’re largely secular-humanist in our thinking instead of living according to the Bible, the way quite a large swath of the population used to.
Biblically, there is no separating husband and wife aside from a death, adultery or what could be classified as abandonment, i.e., the person walked away from their spousal duties. Voilence of course would be such a case, or any other behavior where the spouse becomes dead to their Christian responsibility and thus makes it impossible to function as a household. In such cases of divorce, Biblically it is treated as though the offending spouse died; they of course would be excommunicated from their Church. The innocent spouse would be thus encouraged to marry a godly person to complete raising their children.
Biblically the marriage relationship is equated to Christ and his Church; the man is the head of the wife and she is his helper.
Biblically, children are to honor their parents, which really sets for the principle that people are to honor their family obligations and relationships in addition to honoring mother and father.
Parents who do well and are blessed with one or more good children will find they are not abandoned in their old age.
It’s actually the height of idiocy or possibly arrogance to think one can live all alone once one is elderly and not have any help from anyone. Parents care for their children when they are young - only the statists and lazies think it best for parents to hand their children off to someone else to raise. Same can be said for the elderly and sick.
Pagans and heathens certainly get divorced for no good reason, do all sorts of nutty things relating to children, e.g., letting them run the house, etc., and we certainly could expect heathens to wind up with lives of misery, though not necessarily.
I learned years ago, before my conversion to Christ, from experience that you can’t put children above your Biblical spousal duties. A parent needs to be a leader of their children, not a follower. The child may or may not turn out ok, even with the best efforts of a parent, though proper Biblical child rearing generally leads to success, i.e., children growing up into generally decent adults, whatever their blessings or shortcomings.
I find the parent who constantly overlooks instead of corrects, allows the child to get away with things, or allows them to get away without doing what they should do, who tries to give them preferential treatment... finds that the child does not have much interest at all in helping that parent in their old age. Such poorly raised children do not “return the favor” of all that favoritism and babying and having a parent that made excuses for them all along. And I also find that such a child will be the one showing up at will reading time - looking for money and stuff. They will never lift a finger. The children who did the work, were not babied, etc., they will be the ones usually that will help the parent when they are elderly and need someone to clean messes, work around the house and yard, cook and clean, bathe them, care for them. And those “good” children won’t be doing these things looking for money.
It all goes back to God’s Fifth Commandment: honoring father and mother.
As far as “divorcing” one’s children, many, many children are kicked out by their parents after becoming incorrigible, on drugs, violent, lazy, etc.
If they repent of their wicked ways, they certainly can return, and the parent should accept them back. Although frequently they do not, often they accurately discern that the child has not changed for the better but is just looking to go back to their old ways and be permitted to do that.
Great posts.
Thanks!
Only if your reading comprehension has flown the coop. Read the article again. The author speaks of her husband, and of her pregnancy after marrying him. She says they became mom and dad after becoming husband and wife.
It seems strange to me that you would assume anything else.
"And isn’t divorce rate some 40 to 50%?"
Nope. That's a myth. It was based on projections made in the 1970s. Do a google search and yo'll find endless refutations of it.
"Divorce between spouses has become a kind of social norm, regardless do they have common kids or not, meaning up to half of all marriages finishes this way. No go show me an individual who divorced own kids! There is no such thing."
Sure there is. I give you the example of my husband's father.
Husband's parents divorced when he was around twelve. Prior to that, his father had been a perfectly loving dad, and continued so for a while after the divorce. But when my mother-in-law remarried, the man moved to another state and effectively DIVORCED his children.
My husband and his siblings tried repeatedly to make contact with him in the form of phone calls, birthday cards, etc. The only reason they had his address was because his sister, who was disgusted by his actions, gave it to them. But all their reaching out was in vain.
Even as adults, they made occasional attempts---most recently a few years ago--to get in touch with him, as they knew he was getting older and thought it was the right thing to do. But to no avail. The aunt says he just doesn't seem to want anything to do with his children, that he seems to blame THEM for having a stepfather.
They won't try again...they understand it would be useless. It's truly his loss...not only because of his wonderful daughter and sons, but because he knows he has grandchildren he will never see, and he's fine with it.
As for me personally, my father-in-law is the stepfather who really DID "step up" to care for those kids...the guy who took off and put up a wall is just some stranger I've heard talk about.
So, yeah, divorcing the kids does happen.
This is deeply disturbing to me.
This is not so!
I’m wearing your tag line instead of a ring!
Remember, there is a fine line between “flirting” and “violating the Restraining Order”.
All is right with the world again.
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