0061.

As I was enduring the frozen tundra that is the beaman weight room, sitting in that little blue chair, I decided to peruse the magazine rack for something to occupy my time.

The cover of a TIME magazine with a wedding cake on the cover, mentioning the importance of marriage in the title, caught my eye. I actually found the article to be very interesting. I mean, a popular magazine actually arguing FOR marriage, not just commenting on the decline of it? Hm.

Some points that stood out to me:

- The decline of the institution of marriage can be attributed to different motives per socio-economic class.
"The poor are [forsaking marriage] be uncoupling parenthood from marriage, and the financially secure are doing it by blasting apart their unions if the principals aren't having fun anymore."

-One of the previous arguments for children doing exceedingly well with two parents was that if you account for income level, the presence of a father is not the cause for poor performance in children. In this article, they found that across the board, even in lower income scenarios, children from two-parent households far exceeded the performance and achievement of children from one-parent households. Even if the one-parent household child is in a more wealthy family than the child from a two-parent household, the two-parent household child exceeds the other.

-A president that actually challenges men to step up and honor the commitment to raising a child. Regardless of politics, I admire this statement by our President:
"We need our fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one."- Barack Obama


-A reason for marriage other than happiness and romantic love: to raise the next generation.
"Children have a primal need to know who they are, to love and be loved by the two people whose physical union brought them here. To lose that connection, that sense of identity, is to experience a would that no child-support check or fancy school can ever heal." -Blankenhorn, President of the Institute for American Values

-An explanation for the troubles cohabitating adults have when a child is brought into the picture:
The child arrives in a family that hasn't resolved its most basic issues, i.e. sexual fidelity and division of responsibilities. The woman starts making wife-like demands on the man, and with no binding commitment, the man leaves.

-A pattern forming: adults are becoming increasingly less willing to put in the hard work and personal sacrifice it takes to maintain a marriage. President and Michelle Obama are often admired for still being "in love." They took a period of separation to work on their marriage and are now in a better place.

-An observation re: Jon Gosselin
The article says that he lives "as though loving the kids and doing right by them were unrelated events."

-The general public delights or even experiences "relief when a standard bearer for the 'traditional family' fails to pull it off."

-Once again, a different reason for marriage than being "in love" and "happy" all the time:
"To raise the next generation. To protect it and teach it. To instill in it the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation's own safe passage into adult-hood."


..Something to think about.