Caring for Children and Your Mate - At the Same Time
Willard F. Harley, Jr. Ph.D. wrote an article entitled Caring for Children Means Caring for Each Other. Obviously you can go read the entire article on that link but I’ll summarize a few key points and save you from the excess reading. Basically Dr. Harley says the one thing that we all know but are inclined to let slide when the going gets tough. Children need their parents. And, children need their parents to stay married to one another and to love each other.
How hard can that be? If you don’t know, just look around at the divorce rate that runs between 22 and 32% for 2007. So, many kids don’t even know what it is like for their parents to be married to each other. I remember nothing about my parents living in the same house, they divorced when I was four. And, most obviously if they don’t stay married it is probably because they don’t love one another and believe it or not, that affects our children.
Couples have to remember that they didn’t marry to simply have kids and watch them grow up. Men and Women marry so they can meet one another’s intimate emotional needs. Unfortunately, when children are added to the equation, men and women alike end to put their spouse on the back burner.
Dr. Harley gives 2 ingredients of a romantic relationship - being in love and meeting intimate emotional needs. The two go together and you can separate them to fit your thoughts or feelings. If either one of the factors suffers, the other will also suffer. That means that no matter how hard you work to raise good moral children, remember that the state of your marriage is fragile and you children need to know that is is stable.
June 20th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
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June 20th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
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