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Have you heard about The Council on Contemporary Families? If not, you’re missing out on some great information. This nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of family researchers and practitioners has been working since 1996 to increase our understanding of how America’s families are changing, what contemporary families need and how these needs can best be met at http://www.contemporaryfamilies.org/.
I am impressed with their recent research update, and am including an excerpt from News You Can Use: Are Babies Bad For Marriage? :
· Old News: Having a Baby Will Save Your Marriage
· New News: No, After Having a Baby, Satisfaction With Marriage Goes Down for Most Couples
· New New News: Having a Baby Won’t Improve a Poor Marriage, but Couples Who Plan the Conception Jointly Are Much Less Likely to Experience a Serious Marital Decline
· And Really Good News: Couples Who Establish a Collaborative Parenting Relationship After the Child Is Born not Only Have Happier Marriages but Better-Adjusted Children
In the mid-20th century, marital counselors often advised couples that parenthood would increase their marital satisfaction and adjustment, and polls showed that most Americans believed that true marital happiness depended on having a child. But over the past three decades, a series of studies, including two by Philip and Carolyn Cowan and another 25 studies in 10 industrialized countries, have discovered the opposite. On average, satisfaction with marriage for men and women goes down after the birth of a first child and continues to fall over the next 15 years.
Today, conventional wisdom seems to have swung the other way — holding that babies bring trouble to their parents’ marriage. A recent New York Times article by Tara Parker-Pope (Jan 20, 2009), quoting from the most recent studies, points to the time bind facing new parents and the burden on women resulting from increased household work as factors in reducing marital bliss. She holds out hope to her readers by reporting the finding from a 50-year longitudinal study of Mills College women that couples are likely to re-connect once their children leave home.
For parents of young children, that’s a very long time to wait. And it’s not good news for the children either, because children are more likely to have social, emotional, and academic problems when their parents’ marriage is in distress.
But many of these findings on marital distress in the early childrearing years are based on the uncritical use of averages. More in-depth examination reveals that the averages hide considerable variation. The Cowans’ detailed interviews with 96 couples, followed for 6 years after their first babies were born, revealed four different pathways that couples take in deciding to become pregnant and carry the pregnancy to term. First are couples who agree about when to begin trying to become pregnant (about half of their sample). Then there are the couples who “find themselves pregnant” and decide to “accept fate” and go ahead (about 15%). Another set of couples (about 20% of the sample) are still ambivalent when they reach the 7th month of pregnancy. Finally, for some couples who are at serious loggerheads about the decision, one spouse agrees to become a parent only because the other threatens to go it alone (about 10%).
The Cowans found that the average decline in marital satisfaction was almost completely accounted for by couples who (1) slid into having a baby without planning; (2) were still ambivalent about becoming parents in late pregnancy, or (3) disagreed about having a baby but went ahead and conceived without resolving their difference. About half the planners showed increased marital satisfaction or maintenance of their initially positive level in measurements taken when their babies were about 18 months old. ALL the couples where one partner had given in (usually the man) were either separated or divorced by the time their first child entered kindergarten.
When both partners feel they are part of this major family decision, they are more likely to be able to meet the challenges of balancing the needs of both partners in terms of work and family. All this bodes well for their developing relationship with each other and with their child — and ultimately for their child’s sense of security and well-being.
The bottom line? When men and women work together to plan when to have children and then establish a collaborative approach to parenthood when children are young, it’s a win-win situation for the couple and for the children.
Click through to read News You Can Use: Are Babies Bad For Marriage? in its entirety here. I have already invited the Cowans to join me for a special episode based on their book When Partners Become Parents on The Mommy-Muse Is In: Empowering Your Journey into Motherhood. Stay tuned and send in your questions for me to ask them on the air at mommymuselive@gmail.com.
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