Parent Convinced Kids Improve Marriage

Parenthood alters marriage, for better

My wife and I have been married for 10 years now. For all but the first 10 months of our marriage, we've also been parents. . . . We don't do everything well, but we are good at being fruitful and multiplying. We have produced four kids at last count.
. . .
Long ago, we had time for romance. That was before I stopped sending flowers and started giving her presents like a wheelbarrow for our anniversary and a screen door for Valentine's Day (in my defense, she asked for both).
. . .
She still looks great in a black dress, but her wizardry with car-seat installation and coolness in an emergency room seems far more important now. As a father, I do my best. But I'd be lost without her. We wonder what we did with all of the free time we had before becoming Mom and Dad. How was it possible that we thought we were so busy back then?

We hardly ever have serious arguments, but we do annoy each other. . . . I know we have a good marriage, though, partly because I know what a bad one looks like. Elise was never married before. I was -- a tumultuous, childless union in my 20s.

Kids always change a marriage. I'm convinced they change most -- certainly ours -- for the better. Our lives are far more chaotic than they were a decade ago, but we laugh much more.

This seems less an article than a diary article. He's "convinced" that kids change a marriage for the better, despite the fact that every study on the subject says otherwise. He knows his marriage is good - despite lack of romance - based on his sample size of two. (Of course it is not possible that he has had one awful marriage and one so-so one?)

This evinces parents' ability to convince themselves of the things they need to to get through the day. I suppose I should not begrudge them that - at least until they begin preaching about it in the newspaper. But when someone makes an allegation such as this publicly, they ought to have a lot more to back it up than a brief, 10 month, pregnant union for comparison.

Technorati Tag: childfree