From: Mark Day (markday@cisco.com)
Date: Wed Sep 13 2000 - 06:36:34 PDT
> Question to those with kids (none here - none planned - yet?):
> Do children,
> in general, strengthen, weaken, or have no effect on the marriage bond?
Everything is intensified. The good parts get better, the bad parts get
worse.
Corollaries:
People who worry that children would spoil their great relationship are
probably worried about nothing.
People who think that children will save their lousy relationship are crazy.
> Taking it a step further, would children have a
> similar/dissimilar effect in
> a monogamous relationship? I say that a marriage vs. a monogamous
> relationship built on strong trust and commitment are two shades
> of the same
> color (pick your favorite/least favorite depending on situation).
Probably there's no difference to marriage vs. other forms of committed
monogamy for the two parents. I think there's a big issue for the children.
The two-married-parents setup is still clearly the ideal, for whatever
reasons. Just talk to some children and I think you'll find that's true.
I'm not saying it should be true, just observing that it does seem to be
true.
Which is not to say that children want bad marriages to stay together. Just
that there is a real difference to them between non-marriage and marriage.
--Mark
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Sep 13 2000 - 06:21:09 PDT