5 ms·

Marriage is about compromise. Children, however, afford no such privilege. No, marriage is having one heck of a good time living your life with your spouse. B

by yason 14y ago

Marriage is about compromise. Children, however, afford no such privilege. No, marriage is having one heck of a good time living your life with your spouse. Being a single parent is better than a bad marriage. And marriage can only be good if the parents know and acknowledge that they together go first, kids come second. Period. Your spouse is the person you spend rest of your life (or at least decades, if you're lucky) and if you give up too much of that for the kids, you won't necessarily have a relationship once the kids move out in twenty years or so. It's not my intention to lure you into thinking that parents should do whatever they need to do and mostly ignore the kids. (A whole lot of good people have been raised that way over the centuries, though.) However, nobody promised the kids a rose garden and neither did anyone promise the same to you. It's just those times in life when there's too much everything and good times are sparse. That is when you need to take care of yourself first, because that's a prerequisite for a relationship. Then you need to take care of your relationship because that's a prerequisite for a working family of two parents and one or more kids. When the relationship is all right, then you can truly take care of the kids too, not just mechanically play a role for a decade while getting more and more bitter every year. Most of the time you do all three—yourself, your relationship, your kids—but you must know which comes first in the tight spot. It's like oxygen masks on the plane. After all, your kids will first try to learn how to live and be happy by mimicking how you live your own life. You don't ever own your kids' lives and you won't even have much control over theirs for more than the 10-15 early years. So be sure you take care of yourself and your marriage because that's what makes you happy for a long time, in your own life.

throw-a-way-3 14y ago
> And marriage can only be good if the parents know and acknowledge that they together go first, kids come second. Period. Eye-opener for me. This is very true, and a harsh truth at that. You made me finally understand what broke my parents' relationship. One of them focused on children, with "at all costs" mindset. And the cost was great indeed. > and you won't even have much control over theirs for more than the 10-15 early years. That much just as well.
- danparsonson 14y ago
  That's a false dichotomy - putting your children first doesn't have to mean 'at all costs'. Strike a balance between the two. Parents' first responsibility should be to their children, who didn't choose to be born (that was the parents' choice) and haven't yet learned the important lessons in life - such as how to care for others. It's not about controlling so much as guiding. Selfish behaviour begets selfish children.
run4yourlives 14y ago
I don't mean to be rude, but I think your comment illustrates the attitude prevalent in countries with 50% marriage failure rates. Your ideal is simply unsustainable and impossible. First: Are you married now (or have you been) and do you have kids? I'll assume you are married/committed but I'm not sure you are a parent, given your views. This is a tremendously important point to help frame this discussion. I fear you probably won't understand my points at all with out first hand experience. What you are saying isn't technically wrong, but it requires precise compromise in order to be successful. That's exactly what jasonlotito is saying: You can't get what you want all the time, especially with your partner, most certainly with your children. You and your partner need to understand, respect, and tolerate each other, first and foremost. Some people are simply incapable of doing this, period. Some people conflate this with making their life completely about the other person. Both of these people will be miserable regardless. For the rest of us though, simply understanding that statement means the marriage is a compromise - sometimes you get your way and your partner tolerates, sometimes you tolerate and your partner gets to do their thing, most often you are both getting your ways, as they are the same, but sometimes both of you are tolerating, for the good of the family/marriage. Of course, with children, that last point becomes a vast majority of your life. Kids are the centre of their worlds and don't really understand how to be anything else. It takes literally years to impact the knowledge that life is better when they look outwards towards others into their little heads. Until then, you and your partner will do a lot of tolerating in your lives. How well you can do this (and when not to) will pretty much define how successful a parent you will be. It's an approach governed by the exact opposite thoughts that you are presenting however: Child first, couple second, self last. Be clear than I'm not suggesting your entire life should be one of self-sacrifice, That doesn't work either. But it must be the last of your concerns 90% of the time if you are to make raising kids and marriage - especially marriage - work. Ensure the kids are alright (not necessarily that they get their way all the time), ensure your spouse is alright (happy wife, happy life after all) and ensure you are alright in that order, and you have a winning formula. Looking out for yourself first is a guaranteed path to conflict. It's very rare that you can do this and remain in sync with other people, even best friends and spouses aren't going to want to do the same things all the time. Your children will never want to do the same things as you in any consistent fashion, which is way most happy family spend time in parks during the day as opposed to bars late at night.
jasonlotito 14y ago
You're really reading a lot more into that than was intended. Indeed, you completely miss the point, which is clear with this: > you won't necessarily have a relationship once the kids move out in twenty years or so. Right here is the problem. You assume a healthy child, one that is capable of living on their own. But you have a responsibility to that child if they can't. This doesn't mean you give up your dreams. This doesn't mean an end to your life. But it means taking care of your children. It's your responsibility. I can't just ignore my child's care and go on a long vacation with the wife. Oh, I mean, I could, but that would be tantamount to child abuse. I need to make sure he's cared for, appropriately, or adjust my vacation to accomodate his needs. > You don't ever own your kids' lives and you won't even have much control over theirs for more than the 10-15 early years. This is why you can't just quote a part of the comment, and take it out of context. I'm faced with the very real possibility that I'll be responsible for my son's life for much longer than that. You can't just make assumptions like you are. So no, you are wrong. Wrong, because you make some obviously wrong assumptions that simply don't hold up to any amount of scrutiny. I think your intent is honest, but frankly, you're trying to argue a point that is, frankly, pointless. Edit: I do want to point out though, that neglecting your marriage isn't good either. So, please dont' think I'm suggesting that by putting children first, you aren't leaving room for your spouse.
- yason 14y ago
  Please don't think I was specifically arguing a point or arguing against one of your points, or reading into what you wrote specifically. I was merely sharing because what you wrote touched me. (It might not have come out that way in my writing, though, I admit.) And that all was mostly triggered by the line that I quoted in my earlier post. Now, your situation is exceptional and something like that can't be assumed when speaking generally. It's similar to your spouse getting seriously ill. From being a husband or a parent it turns a relationship or a parenthood partly into a special case of taking full-time care of a very ill person. So in that case we're not strictly talking about only parenthood anymore. It's partly patient care, not just parenthood. However, I think I still carry the same opinion: taking care of yourself first is especially important in a situation like yours where you might have to take care of someone into his adulthood. A person can only give as much as he's been able to receive himself. If you don't put yourself first ever then eventually you imperatively have no chance of giving anything to your son or anyone else in the long run. (You might be able to trick it for years in the beginning, though.) It's like you have to stop to fill up the gas tank while driving a long distance. Otherwise you just can't do it at all. I also want to point out that I was not advocating taking a long vacation with your wife just like that: putting yourself or your relationship first doesn't mean leaving your kids in abandon. (Or maybe, naively, for some people, it means just that but it wasn't what I was thinking.) I did write that parents can't just do whatever they feel they need to do and ignore the kids. I'll try to reiterate my viewpoint. What I mean by putting yourself or your marriage first is that in the worst cases, you do just that, but only in the worst case. If it's not the worst case you will have some energy left for others, too. For example, if you're truly out of the game, you must be able to say to your wife "Honey, now I just can not do this anymore. I need a weekend alone at the cottage or with my friends or I'll just simply go mad somehow and I don't have anything left for myself or our marriage. I'm sorry I can't be more flexible now and you'll have to take care of all things but I'm so out of everything now that I just can't. I'll be back—but not today." Or if you're exhausted with your kids, you're going to have to be able to say: "Listen guys, we're so worn out of everything that we're going to have to postpone the beach trip we planned with you and instead send you off to your grandparents for the weekend. You see, we need some adult time alone with your mother so that we'll have time to enjoy ourselves too instead of always working and taking care of others. If we didn't do that, we'd become quite uptight and just plain angry at everything, and you wouldn't like that either. So, we're going to have to take you out to the beach sometime later and you're going to go visit your grandparents for the weekend." Of course you have the responsibility for your kids and you can't drop that. But kids can survive a night without a proper meal. They will live even if they don't have clean clothes for few days. And they can't always enjoy the privilege of your full presence. Doing such things repeatedly would be detrimental to their childhood but in the worst case it's better for them to suffer little than see their parents gradually losing their grasp on life.
jakejake 14y ago
I do agree with you that people flame out because their lives evolve around kids and they lose touch with each other. It can't really be underestimated the amount of energy required to stop that from happening. You always see on TV that marriage takes work but I doubt many people understand what that actually means until they're in it. Little things can creep up on you. Your spouse may feel neglected and you won't even know it until it's gotten to be a serious problem. You might think you're being the perfect parents because you dote on your kids and meanwhile your spouse is lonely and unhappy. You might not even be aware that you're being selfish. Children tend to consume every ounce of energy that the parents have, especially in the early years. That doesn't leave a lot of time or energy left for each other. It really takes a constant effort and work to keep the marriage healthy.
mibbitier 14y ago
> "And marriage can only be good if the parents know and acknowledge that they together go first, kids come second. Period." That's a terribly sad outlook. Your children are extensions of yourself. They should come first forever. They're not pets that you just take in and look after. They're your babies... I don't know if you have kids or not, maybe you don't have very strong parental feelings :/
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  I think the GP means things like it's ok to leave a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum with a baby sitter while heading out for date night. Doing such a thing won't hurt the kid at all, but will do wonders for maintaining a healthy happy marriage. Having parents who are burnt out, resentful martyrs does not help a kid. NOTE: This does not mean it is ok to abandon a child to the wolves, and it's not meant to justify mistreatment of special needs children. If a child has special needs, it will obviously place a much higher burden on the parents.
  - jasonlotito 14y ago
    > I think the GP means things like it's ok to leave a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum with a baby sitter while heading out for date night. There isn't anything about that that I disagree with, nor is there anything about that that suggests you are putting your children second. Indeed, quite the opposite, in fact.
  - mibbitier 14y ago
    > "Having parents who are burnt out, resentful martyrs does not help a kid." Completely agree. But that as you say is not putting the kids first. Putting the kids first means that you will leave them to throw tantrums when you need to, or leave them with someone else so they develop in that way. Giving kids what they want != putting them first.

by yason 14y ago

throw-a-way-3 14y ago

> And marriage can only be good if the parents know and acknowledge that they together go first, kids come second. Period. Eye-opener for me. This is very true, and a harsh truth at that. You made me finally understand what broke my parents' relationship. One of them focused on children, with "at all costs" mindset. And the cost was great indeed. > and you won't even have much control over theirs for more than the 10-15 early years. That much just as well.

danparsonson 14y ago
That's a false dichotomy - putting your children first doesn't have to mean 'at all costs'. Strike a balance between the two. Parents' first responsibility should be to their children, who didn't choose to be born (that was the parents' choice) and haven't yet learned the important lessons in life - such as how to care for others. It's not about controlling so much as guiding. Selfish behaviour begets selfish children.

run4yourlives 14y ago

I don't mean to be rude, but I think your comment illustrates the attitude prevalent in countries with 50% marriage failure rates. Your ideal is simply unsustainable and impossible. First: Are you married now (or have you been) and do you have kids? I'll assume you are married/committed but I'm not sure you are a parent, given your views. This is a tremendously important point to help frame this discussion. I fear you probably won't understand my points at all with out first hand experience. What you are saying isn't technically wrong, but it requires precise compromise in order to be successful. That's exactly what jasonlotito is saying: You can't get what you want all the time, especially with your partner, most certainly with your children. You and your partner need to understand, respect, and tolerate each other, first and foremost. Some people are simply incapable of doing this, period. Some people conflate this with making their life completely about the other person. Both of these people will be miserable regardless. For the rest of us though, simply understanding that statement means the marriage is a compromise - sometimes you get your way and your partner tolerates, sometimes you tolerate and your partner gets to do their thing, most often you are both getting your ways, as they are the same, but sometimes both of you are tolerating, for the good of the family/marriage. Of course, with children, that last point becomes a vast majority of your life. Kids are the centre of their worlds and don't really understand how to be anything else. It takes literally years to impact the knowledge that life is better when they look outwards towards others into their little heads. Until then, you and your partner will do a lot of tolerating in your lives. How well you can do this (and when not to) will pretty much define how successful a parent you will be. It's an approach governed by the exact opposite thoughts that you are presenting however: Child first, couple second, self last. Be clear than I'm not suggesting your entire life should be one of self-sacrifice, That doesn't work either. But it must be the last of your concerns 90% of the time if you are to make raising kids and marriage - especially marriage - work. Ensure the kids are alright (not necessarily that they get their way all the time), ensure your spouse is alright (happy wife, happy life after all) and ensure you are alright in that order, and you have a winning formula. Looking out for yourself first is a guaranteed path to conflict. It's very rare that you can do this and remain in sync with other people, even best friends and spouses aren't going to want to do the same things all the time. Your children will never want to do the same things as you in any consistent fashion, which is way most happy family spend time in parks during the day as opposed to bars late at night.

jasonlotito 14y ago

You're really reading a lot more into that than was intended. Indeed, you completely miss the point, which is clear with this: > you won't necessarily have a relationship once the kids move out in twenty years or so. Right here is the problem. You assume a healthy child, one that is capable of living on their own. But you have a responsibility to that child if they can't. This doesn't mean you give up your dreams. This doesn't mean an end to your life. But it means taking care of your children. It's your responsibility. I can't just ignore my child's care and go on a long vacation with the wife. Oh, I mean, I could, but that would be tantamount to child abuse. I need to make sure he's cared for, appropriately, or adjust my vacation to accomodate his needs. > You don't ever own your kids' lives and you won't even have much control over theirs for more than the 10-15 early years. This is why you can't just quote a part of the comment, and take it out of context. I'm faced with the very real possibility that I'll be responsible for my son's life for much longer than that. You can't just make assumptions like you are. So no, you are wrong. Wrong, because you make some obviously wrong assumptions that simply don't hold up to any amount of scrutiny. I think your intent is honest, but frankly, you're trying to argue a point that is, frankly, pointless. Edit: I do want to point out though, that neglecting your marriage isn't good either. So, please dont' think I'm suggesting that by putting children first, you aren't leaving room for your spouse.

yason 14y ago
Please don't think I was specifically arguing a point or arguing against one of your points, or reading into what you wrote specifically. I was merely sharing because what you wrote touched me. (It might not have come out that way in my writing, though, I admit.) And that all was mostly triggered by the line that I quoted in my earlier post. Now, your situation is exceptional and something like that can't be assumed when speaking generally. It's similar to your spouse getting seriously ill. From being a husband or a parent it turns a relationship or a parenthood partly into a special case of taking full-time care of a very ill person. So in that case we're not strictly talking about only parenthood anymore. It's partly patient care, not just parenthood. However, I think I still carry the same opinion: taking care of yourself first is especially important in a situation like yours where you might have to take care of someone into his adulthood. A person can only give as much as he's been able to receive himself. If you don't put yourself first ever then eventually you imperatively have no chance of giving anything to your son or anyone else in the long run. (You might be able to trick it for years in the beginning, though.) It's like you have to stop to fill up the gas tank while driving a long distance. Otherwise you just can't do it at all. I also want to point out that I was not advocating taking a long vacation with your wife just like that: putting yourself or your relationship first doesn't mean leaving your kids in abandon. (Or maybe, naively, for some people, it means just that but it wasn't what I was thinking.) I did write that parents can't just do whatever they feel they need to do and ignore the kids. I'll try to reiterate my viewpoint. What I mean by putting yourself or your marriage first is that in the worst cases, you do just that, but only in the worst case. If it's not the worst case you will have some energy left for others, too. For example, if you're truly out of the game, you must be able to say to your wife "Honey, now I just can not do this anymore. I need a weekend alone at the cottage or with my friends or I'll just simply go mad somehow and I don't have anything left for myself or our marriage. I'm sorry I can't be more flexible now and you'll have to take care of all things but I'm so out of everything now that I just can't. I'll be back—but not today." Or if you're exhausted with your kids, you're going to have to be able to say: "Listen guys, we're so worn out of everything that we're going to have to postpone the beach trip we planned with you and instead send you off to your grandparents for the weekend. You see, we need some adult time alone with your mother so that we'll have time to enjoy ourselves too instead of always working and taking care of others. If we didn't do that, we'd become quite uptight and just plain angry at everything, and you wouldn't like that either. So, we're going to have to take you out to the beach sometime later and you're going to go visit your grandparents for the weekend." Of course you have the responsibility for your kids and you can't drop that. But kids can survive a night without a proper meal. They will live even if they don't have clean clothes for few days. And they can't always enjoy the privilege of your full presence. Doing such things repeatedly would be detrimental to their childhood but in the worst case it's better for them to suffer little than see their parents gradually losing their grasp on life.

jakejake 14y ago

I do agree with you that people flame out because their lives evolve around kids and they lose touch with each other. It can't really be underestimated the amount of energy required to stop that from happening. You always see on TV that marriage takes work but I doubt many people understand what that actually means until they're in it. Little things can creep up on you. Your spouse may feel neglected and you won't even know it until it's gotten to be a serious problem. You might think you're being the perfect parents because you dote on your kids and meanwhile your spouse is lonely and unhappy. You might not even be aware that you're being selfish. Children tend to consume every ounce of energy that the parents have, especially in the early years. That doesn't leave a lot of time or energy left for each other. It really takes a constant effort and work to keep the marriage healthy.

mibbitier 14y ago

> "And marriage can only be good if the parents know and acknowledge that they together go first, kids come second. Period." That's a terribly sad outlook. Your children are extensions of yourself. They should come first forever. They're not pets that you just take in and look after. They're your babies... I don't know if you have kids or not, maybe you don't have very strong parental feelings :/

snowwrestler 14y ago
I think the GP means things like it's ok to leave a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum with a baby sitter while heading out for date night. Doing such a thing won't hurt the kid at all, but will do wonders for maintaining a healthy happy marriage. Having parents who are burnt out, resentful martyrs does not help a kid. NOTE: This does not mean it is ok to abandon a child to the wolves, and it's not meant to justify mistreatment of special needs children. If a child has special needs, it will obviously place a much higher burden on the parents.
- jasonlotito 14y ago
  > I think the GP means things like it's ok to leave a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum with a baby sitter while heading out for date night. There isn't anything about that that I disagree with, nor is there anything about that that suggests you are putting your children second. Indeed, quite the opposite, in fact.
- mibbitier 14y ago
  > "Having parents who are burnt out, resentful martyrs does not help a kid." Completely agree. But that as you say is not putting the kids first. Putting the kids first means that you will leave them to throw tantrums when you need to, or leave them with someone else so they develop in that way. Giving kids what they want != putting them first.