Posted on 04/19/2015 2:37:37 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows
Less than one month after my husband and I got married—before I even mailed thank you notes for our wedding gifts—I found myself holding a positive pregnancy test.
Eight and a half months into our marriage, while we were still getting comfortable in our roles as husband and wife, we suddenly became mom and dad. I won’t say that our son was poorly planned—we were both anxious to start our family—but I will say that in hindsight becoming a mother in the same year that you become a wife is not for the weak.
The first year of our son’s life was the most difficult of our marriage to date and it is also the year I learned a very important lesson: My husband must always come before our children.
Don’t get me wrong; I love my kids and would do anything for them. But I love my husband more.
When I share this with my mom friends, it’s usually met with outrage and total shock. After all, this goes against the golden rule of motherhood, the one that tells us being a good parent means sacrificing all for the happiness and well-being of our children.
Putting aside our own needs for theirs is practically a requirement but I’m sorry, I’m just not buying it.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
——The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position-——
I think I nailed it....
99.9 % of families decisions are not a matter of life or death....
No, I mean if you were all on the Titanic. Should have explained my question more clearly.
Never said they were.So can we assume that you and your wife,to use a non-life & death example,would decide to spend a week in the Caribbean,alone,in spite of your 4 year old's needing serious TLC after having had successful hip surgery? No life and death involved...just a frightened kid who's simply too young to understand that everything will be fine in just a few days/weeks.
If my child needed hip surgery, I would not plan a Caribbean vacation at the same time, if I had too, I'd cancel the vacation...hip surgery isn't like pulling a splinter (Oh' ... a strawman)
Hip surgery isn't done on the fly, they are planned weeks in advance and I would re-schedule the vacation...
Are you purposely being dense or just myopic...?
Yes.
A little different view:
I married a woman who had 3 children, a son and 2 daughters. Her son took to me right away. One daughter took to me after awhile. The other daughter fought us both about the "new arrangement"
MY wife was very worried about that daughter and I told her, once that daughter saw, witnessed how much I loved her, the daughter would come around.....took about 5 years, but it happened.
We are all a loving family now, including 2 grandchildren (and they love me to death) and I thank God for it.
FMCDH(BITS)
“I’m sure this won’t be at all controversial.”
I’m not much for the mainstream media talking about parenting, as it’s a topic that generally DISGUSTS liberals, but they have a point here.
My kids used (and use) flip phones - THAT IS IT. My wife, of course, has a real phone (like an Android or I-Phone). She gets the real phone because she’s an equal - if I wanted a real phone, she would support me too. My kids are not equal, their opinion on the matter DOES NOT COUNT. I’m sure they’d support me having a real phone too, if they too could get a real phone, but that doesn’t matter. We (wife and I) simply set the rules for them. When they have a well-paying job, THEN they can get a real phone. They DO NOT run things in this house.
As to our future relationship with them, I have no fears, our job is to PROTECT and nurture them and this is one way we do it. Our oldest, who has a great job by the way and now has a real phone, is VERY HAPPY to have been able to concentrate on school work, rather than Facebook. Now he has time for Facebook, video games, or whatever else he wants to do. Of course when he visits us, he still under orders to work on the cars, do plumbing and electrical repairs, etc. But otherwise, he can do as he pleases and he has NO REGRETS regarding his childhood - and he NEVER came first, not in our house.
See my post above, we think the same. And something tells me that your kids adore their parents too.
Oh my gosh, that’s beautiful. ;) God bless
Total lack of finesse in this article.
It’s like your kids arguing over who is moms (or dads favorite). There isn’t one, and they know it. Same difference here...if, as a spouse OR parent you love unconditionally BUT use skills of discernment and common sense, everything will turn out fine. A sense of humor helps as well.
The tone of this article I find follows the dribble (in the news recently) of the new mom (just had her second baby) GUSHING how much she loved her toddler and how “hard” it is to love baby 2.0 as much because she had so much time (3 years!) to bond w/número uno. Hopefully in adulthood Baby2.0 can lead the rest to a good mental health practitioner.
When absolutes are decreed (the first year of our marriage was hardest because we had a newborn too!) I wonder how this couple can w/future difficulties. Lack of sleep and learning to budget and live together—granted not easy, but loss of health, or income, profound.
I find these types of articles more attention grabbers/resume builders/talk show “expert” guest list builders for the author than of any real benefit...but hey, your mileage may vary.
Having a sanctimonious pride in it doesn’t exactly start things off on the right foot. It’s one thing to understand the clear division between family members, it is another to insist on a superiority complex.
It is indeed and God bless you and yours.
FMCDH(BITS)
Not necessarily. I've heard women say they would ditch their husbands in a second in favor of their children.
Personally, I don't consider my husband disposable.
I've seen a number of Christian essays which say that, Biblically, a spouse's primary responsibility and loyalty is to the other spouse.
Would we women die for our husbands, as well as our children...?
Not necessarily.
Many times the poorly treated child is the one who takes care of the parents and the 'chosen one' - the child who was favored - isn't around. That favored child becomes accustomed to being catered to and can be quite self-centered.
I have some personal experience here..on two fronts.
1) 20 years working for a large hospital during which time I saw *every conceivable* medical scenario play out (hundreds of times) and 2) more importantly,I watched my sister and late BIL go through that *very* scenario with their 6 month old daughter.Years of TLC (along with lots of medical/surgical care) for a congenital hip abnormality.In fact,I'm watching that sister go through this *at this very moment* with another daughter (30 years old) who was just flown to Boston the other day needing repair of one of her heart valves.
Oh well,I suspect that the complexities (and the simplicity) regarding this subject are lost on you but remember,one of *my* favorite non-political bumper stickers is "Be Good To Your Kids,Someday They'll Choose Your Nursing Home"
And P.S.,Not that you'll believe me but I assure you that not all hip operations are "scheduled".
Thank you to everyone who has responded to this thread. I have not contributed as I am here to learn.
Popman,
Kudos to you and your wife. Our son will turn 20 next month and when he left for college a couple years ago hubby and I eased into being empty nesters naturally. We look forward to growing old together. Our son and his older sister knew they were loved and cherished, but were not the center of our universe. Both are fine young adults.
Not new. My Mom catered to my Dad always. She basically said Dad goes to work and brings home the bacon and he gets what he wants for dinner. Deal with it. That’s just one example. I always thought that was fair.
Go ahead, say it.......
I guess we differ here. I don’t consider it a “complex” for a parent to feel wiser and more experienced than a child...but others may only look at themselves as equals.
To each their own (but I’ll take my kids ANY DAY, over any others - and so would a lot of parents I know).
If you can't cut loose of your kids by the time they reach the age of adulthood, then you haven't done your job properly as a parent.
Now I'm not saying you can't have your adult kids home for Christmas and that you can't babysit your grandchildren once in a while. But this culture of "my kids are more important than anything else" is the root of perpetual adolescence among adults today. Kids need to eventually grow up and be on their own.
When my own sons were teenagers, I used to say to them that I'd be embarrassed if they spent their prime adult years living in my basement because they could not or would not go live their own lives. I was seen as cruel for saying that by my in-laws and others, but guess what? Both my sons are in their mid-20s today and doing extremely well for themselves. My wife and I have moved out of state and left them behind in the area we raised them in. We only see them several times a year. We look forward to those infrequent visits and marvel at the way they have been able to make their own lives on their own terms when so many of their peers are still sitting in their parent's homes playing video games and working dead-end jobs with no good prospects.
So, our marriage has come full circle and yes, the both of us have put each other first in order so that our children can be free to make their own lives in the way that they see fit.
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