How American Parenting is Killing the American Marriage by D. Teller

How American Parenting is Killing the American Marriage by D. Teller

(Link): How American parenting is killing the American marriage

Excerpts

Sometime between when we were children and when we had children of our own, parenthood became a religion in America. As with many religions, complete unthinking devotion is required from its practitioners. Nothing in life is allowed to be more important than our children, and we must never speak a disloyal word about our relationships with our offspring. Children always come first. We accept this premise so reflexively today that we forget that it was not always so.

In our recently published book, Sacred Cows, we took on our society’s nonsensical but deeply ingrained beliefs surrounding marriage and divorce.

…Another sign of the parenthood religion is that it has become totally unacceptable in our culture to say anything bad about our children, let alone admit that we don’t like them all of the time. We are allowed to say bad things about our spouses, our parents, our aunts and uncles, but try saying, “My kid doesn’t have a lot of friends because she’s not a super likable person,” and see how fast you get dropped from the PTA.

….Much as parents love their children and have their best interests at heart, however, they don’t always like them. That guy at the office who everyone thinks is a jerk was a kid once upon a time, and there’s a pretty good chance that his parents also noticed that he could be a jerk. They just weren’t allowed to say so.

…. Of course, Ayelet Waldman’s blasphemy was not admitting that her kids were less than completely wonderful, only that she loved her husband more than them. This falls into the category of thou-shalt-have-no-other-gods-before-me.

As with many religious crimes, judgment is not applied evenly across the sexes. Mothers must devote themselves to their children above anyone or anything else, but many wives would be offended if their husbands said, “You’re pretty great, but my love for you will never hold a candle to the love I have for John Junior.”

Related posts:

(Link): Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

(Link):  “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” – one of the most excellent Christian rebuttals I have seen against the Christian idolatry of marriage and natalism, and in support of adult singleness and celibacy – from CBE’s site

(Link): How American Christians Were Influenced by 1950s American Secular Propaganda to Idolize Marriage and Children and Against Singles and the Childless -and how over-emphasis on “family” and lack of respect for singleness started a backlash against both (excerpts from ‘Pornland’ book)

(Link): The Bible Does Not Teach Christians to “Focus On The Family” – The Idolization of Family by American Christians (article)

(Link):  ‘It’s a break from the kids’: Why parents cheat more than childless couples

(Link): Loving the child-free people in your church

(Link):  Study: Couples Without Children Have Happier Marriages

(Link): Otherhood – An overlooked demographic – the Childless and Childfree Women and Singles Especially Women Who Had Hoped to Marry and Have Kids But Never Met Mr. Right (links)

(Link): Why is the childfree singleton a curiosity? by V Blackburn

(Link):  Widows Have Better Well Being Than Married Couples says new study

(Link): Father Beats Two Year Old Daughter to Death For Soiling Diaper – Parenthood does NOT make people more godly or loving, Christians

(Link):  Childfree By Choice: How Women are Redefining Tomorrow’s Family

(Link): Response to the Hemingway Editorial ‘Fecundophobia’ – conservatives and Christians continue to idolize children, marriage – which is unbiblical

(Link): “You’re not a real man until you have children” by G. Proops – women should be able to relate to this too

(Link): “Marriage is the closest you can come to being like Christ.” ~ says an obnoxious married Christian man to an unmarried woman

(Link): Christians and Churches Discriminate Against Unmarried People / Singles

(Link): Placing One’s Marriage Ahead of The Church – Preacher Used Prioritizing and  Rebuilding His Marriage as Rationale for Bullying His Church Members

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