Newsweek - Why get married?
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Newsweek - Why get married?
| Wed, 07-14-2004 - 1:24pm |
There are some interesting responses to the Newsweek article on cheating wives which brings up a question? Why do people still want to get married, on the affair support board many are wanting to marry their affair partner and start the perfect life. If you are a male the court system is going to destroy you in a divorce so why keep getting married. Just a note to start, I think there have allways been just about the same amount on cheating women as men (who would the men have sex with, so it has to be about the same). A recent college study with a lie detector showed that women lie about sex questions and that throws off surveys that don't use them. Over all the percent of cheating women and men has increased over the past thirty years as well as the divorce rate. Currently, according to paternity lab results, about 30% of children in divorce cases were not fathered by the husband.
Getting married is a huge gamble with your life and the current success rate is less than 50%. I am currently married and have been for a long time but if I were ever divorced or a young person starting out I don't think I would ever marry. The odds of being betrayed are just too great.

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Robin
Like you, there are certain times when I'd rather be home and the guilt from people who actually are fortunate enought to have an option/choice just burns me. It hasn't been that way here though. I think most people understand both sides.
Dr. Laura here on talk radio says daycare is dangerous to children. I personally think even the young ones get valuable interaction when they get a break from mom for a while. IMO the child needs this as well as the mom.
I still think that I made a good decision staying home until my daughter was 4 and in pre-school, but even if you get the requisite 3 months it is still great. As long as the child has a safe place to be where people nurture him, he/she will be just great. As someone said, I think it depends on the situation and levels of resentment.
Right now my daughter has a broken leg (Zion and small sandstone cliff)and is home with my husband. Given a choice she would bolt for the nearenst daycare. Trust me on this one.
"Given a choice she would bolt for the nearenst daycare. Trust me on this one." LOL, I hear ya! When our oldest was in 1st grade, he threw up one day at school. I was at work, Dh was off so he went to pick him up. When I got home DS breathed a huge sigh of relief. Apparently his dad felt that after one heave, he was fine so he let him drink a quart of juice and then took him outside to play baseball! DS was distinctly green around the gills when I got home and so glad mom was there to take over with gingerale and Tylenol, lol.
Oh, definitely. The funny thing is though, is that I never sat down one single minute. never even napped while my kids had. I am quite the handi-man and worked endlessly on restoring our old house, including floors. It's quite large, and by the time I finished the last room(furniture and all), I had to redo another. Never watched a soap-opera either. I was always on the go or doing something creative. At one point, I even restored used furniture(bought from the thriftshops), and sold them. I used the money wisely.
"The working moms get names like selfish, bad parent, uninvolved, uncaring career first shrews who make husbands and children carry the load that should be theirs."
I NEVER look at working mom's in that light. I believe that everyone should do what makes them happy. I just knew for **ME** being home was important. If anything, I HELPED the working mothers as much as could because I was home.
"Like you, there are certain times when I'd rather be home and the guilt from people who actually are fortunate enought to have an option/choice just burns me. It hasn't been that way here though. I think most people understand both sides."
I wouldn't feel guilty if I made the choice to continue working. I had a very good career that I left behind.
"Dr. Laura here on talk radio says daycare is dangerous to children. I personally think even the young ones get valuable interaction when they get a break from mom for a while. IMO the child needs this as well as the mom. "
I had siblings, cousins and friends(all SAHMs) who had children, and we always congregated so that the children had someone besides us to "play with." If not, the park was a daily trip anyhow with lots of other children. Please don't for a minute think that as a mother, I was the center of my children's attention. Nothing could be further from the truth.
"I still think that I made a good decision staying home until my daughter was 4 and in pre-school, but even if you get the requisite 3 months it is still great."
Well...I had two children, four years apart, so it was nine years until they both were in school full-time(although there's no such thing as full-time school as I mentioned in my other post).
"As long as the child has a safe place to be where people nurture him, he/she will be just great. As someone said, I think it depends on the situation and levels of resentment."
Never said they wouldn't be.
"Right now my daughter has a broken leg (Zion and small sandstone cliff)and is home with my husband. Given a choice she would bolt for the nearenst daycare. Trust me on this one."
There's nothing wrong with daycare, it just wasn't a necessity in my situation.
Edited 7/26/2004 10:21 pm ET ET by free_to_choose
Not all of the mothers I know could get home to pick up their children from school, they worked full time and dropped their kids off at 6am and didn't pick them up sometimes until 7:30. There were also many other children who remained in after-care at the schools until 6:30. Unlike you, most of these kids lived(mostly) on fast foods, understandably so, and didn't have many sit down dinners.
**Six hours is not really a lot of time to always do what needs to be done.*
"It's plenty for us. I clean the house for a couple hours on Saturday. We only have 2 bedrooms."
I was talking about a typical school day(being six hours long)...you know...free time. ;-)
**You also have to consider that it's the ONLY free time a mother has to do what she wants to do for herself as well as the house and everyone else. Kids, home, husband is a 24/7 job.**
"That's just it. I don't think it is a 24/7 job. I work, go to school, play with my daughter and husband and keep the house. I have plenty of time to read 2 novels a week and to take short trips on the weekends."
I didn't have time to read until they were in bed. Usually until the kids are in bed, there's little time for rest. I only had two, but can imagine someone with three or four would be even more exhausted. I just never seemed to rest until they were in bed though. As I said, I was always busy doing other things during the day.
**Also, you have not accounted for when the children are sick**
"That's what sick time is for."
**or when they have a half-day or no school at all.**
"That's what grandpaprent are for. Also she can hand out at the library where I work. It's also a museum."
Most of the family units I know didn't have grandparents around. Sure, sometimes a child can "go out" when they're not that sick, but then there's times when fever is present and they need to be in bed.
"Summer camp? My daughter rather paint, dance, horseback ride, swim, and play with outher kids than be with me every day. She also goes to my MIL in Montana and her Grandpaprents and vacation bible school, etc."
Why do you assume that a child doesn't get any of that at home? Nothing could be further from the truth. My kid's friends that went to camp, hated it...it's not for everyone.
**I was lucky to had had the privilege to SAH, however, I worked on my career as soon as the kids began to need me less, but I just couldn't desert them(yes that's how it felt to me). So, no, my house wasn't a symbol of perfection, but it was organized which helped all of us to function in a healthy manner. I feel that I made the right choice for all of us and would do the exact same thing all over again. My kids, my husband and I needed me to be at home.**
"Glad you had the choice. Glad it worked for you. I wouldn't have taken that way even if I had the choice. My kids and husband don't need me at home."
Glad it worked for you too. It's nice now, because my girls are grown, and they don't need me as much. Although teenagers are a whole nother realm of parenting. I'm glad that I'm self-employed so I'm "still around" to keep an eye on them. ;-)
To Verve: your declarations that "American men generally don't have any choice other than to date and marry American women. They don't usually have the freedom to travel abroad" are not only broad and too general, but they aren't based on fact. I thought we all had choices especially about who we choose to marry!
WHERE are you getting your information? Americans probably travel the world more than any other people. If you have a little money and a visa or passport, you are free to travel. That's just nonsense.
Not to mention that virtually every nationality is represented right here at home. If a man really wants to marry a person of foreign birth, shouldn't be that difficult to arrange.
Edited 7/27/2004 11:13 am ET ET by katmandoo2001
Hey you single gals!
That statistic has been touted for years and never really backed up with supporting information as to % of first time vs second or third marriages (let alone marriage by age group). Thus it leaves the reader to assume that 50% of "people" that get married get divorced. I know from my experience - my siblings, cousins and most of my friends have married thier first spouse (yes they have had issues) and they are still together.
I think if you are to consider children you should consider marriage - or at least
be so committed to each other that you vow to stay together throughout the childs infant through post teenage years. Children need to know what love, trust, compromise and committment mean. If they don't learn that at home - they won't really learn it anywhere else. These are values you need throughout your life - not just if you decide to marry as well.
* Note I am the product of divorce (my dad left when I was around 8). I know it affected me and my siblings - it was very hard to trust people. But not so much to want to stay single (never trust marriage) - but to be very cautious about the type of person we chose when we grew up. We all looked for more than just attraction.
And I also have to disagree that most people stay together. When my children were growing up, they were always asked if I was their real mom and their dad was their real dad. Only one of their friends lived with both biological parents. Staying together for the long haul is definitely not the norm anymore.
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