Posted on 08/30/2007 9:06:05 AM PDT by qam1
I am 39, have been married to the same beautiful woman for 18 years. we have 6 children; 16, 13, 9, 7, 4, 14mos. We homeschool and all of my children except th eyoungest are involved in city athletics the oldest palys varsity baseball for a local christian high school. We will always have kids in the house.
When we saw grow up do we mean being responsible or being a stodgy, dull grown up? We do the responsibility part, but I’m known to be a bit childlike.
“Amen! When parents make children (as opposed to the marriage) the center of their lives, it puts a huge burden on the kids, from childhood through adulthood.”
That’s a very interesting insight! You are right, it would place a burden on the kids. Kinda like they have to keep tap-dancing—doing well in sports, getting good grades, giving the parents stuff to brag about—in order to keep the parents occupied and happy.
“And I agree that parents who are emotional parasites of their children do no one any good.”
That’s a great comment! I would be interested to hear examples of this. Do you mean, for example, parents who get an ego boost from bragging about their kids’ sports?
“We will always have kids in the house.”
No you won’t, unless your adult children live with you after they are married, or unless you keep having babies well into your 70s! :-)
To me this is not so much about children as it is about the quality of younger women.
Just listen to Dr. Laura for a few weeks to get an understanding of the spoiled nature of young ladies.
LOL! Well, a little bragging is normal.
My statement was a gross over-generalization, but to me, being an adult means the ability to postpone immediate pleasures for future ones, being self-reliant and for taking responsibility for ones actions. Having a kid isn’t a necessary condition, but it does concentrate the mind most singularly on the aforementioned.
>>A healthy family is one where the marriage is at the center, not the kids.<<
You are absolutely right. My wife and I say, “We were a couple before we had kids, and nothing should change.”
Relationships are doomed once parents start putting their children between them.
Having said that though, this article is slightly scary. As our society becomes more and more selfish, we’ll see fewer and fewer kids.
We got married young and started raising children young. Never regretted a moment of it!
Children and Grand children
Shame on you for using common sense!
“Both partners having to work full time just to pay the bills makes it harder for people my age to have kids.”
Harder, but not impossible.
In WWII, women were encouraged to work as an act of patriotism. Then in the sixties, Betty Friedan decided that staying home could not possibly be fulfilling and wrote a seductive book that got women who fell for her claptrap out of the house in droves. The instant women controlled their own pocketbooks, amazingly (/sarc), the cost of everything increased just because it could. That caused even more women to enter the workforce because those women who hadn’t fallen into the trap couldn’t afford anything anymore.
Considering the massive negative effect this has had on society, maybe it would be an act of patriotism for moms to stay home. Why? Just think. Overnight it would decrease our gasoline usage by more than half and terrorists would not be financing their operations with our money. Oh...and it would decrease our carbon footprint. ;)
“Women are marrying later, devoting more attention to careers and waiting longer to have children, research shows, which sometimes results in them not having children at all.”
National suicide.
Bump!
I joke with people and say that it becomes 1952 when you cross the threshold of my house. My wife was raised by her grandmother, and holds a lot of those “old-school” Biblical ideals as to how a wife should be.
We homeschool, have only one vehicle, don’t take expensive vacations, have a small & modest home, and don’t eat out or entertain very often. We cut corners and save, but it’s worth it.
It’s a countless blessing to have a low-maintenance helpmeet who shares a love for children and the way things ‘ought to be’.
Good comments! Except...
Are you calling me selfish for not having children? I’ve never understood that argument. Maybe it’s because parents feel they are sacrificing so much for their kids that they can’t stand the thought of someone else not having to make those same sacrifices? Then that would simply be jealousy and self-righteousness.
“I think society should be adult-centered, not child-centered. “Back in my day,” parents were not so uber-involved in all the extra-curricular activities of their children, like most parents are today.”
Agree strongly with you. It’s called “accessibility time.” In other words, a parent is around someplace, but not involved in or directing childplay. The child has a sense of security just knowing a parent is within calling distance. So-called quality time is good if not overdone. Children need to practice the good examples they get from their parents away from their parents. Like solving disputes. Nowadays, adults interfere and control that process and kids aren’t learning it how to do it themselves. Now we have anger management classes to make up for what they never were allowed to learn.
Amen!
I go to restaurants that have no "family specials."
And when I go on vacation, I look for the places that the NAACP is boycotting.
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