Preparing sibling for birth process?

On Apr 23, 12:45*pm, Banty wrote:

snip

I've summed it up as - the hardest thing about being a single parent is that
it's all up to oneself. *The aspect of the situation that makes it doable is - -
that it's all up to oneself.

I have a coworker with a wife with a new baby, and she's calling him to come
home 'early' (in our industry, read "actually leaving for home at 5:00 pm") to
help her out. *He's stressing over all the work-life tradoffs that causes and
her idea of that vs. his idea of that. *I had to make tradeoffs to be sure, but

I didn't have the hassles, negotiation, and resentments over which ones were
made.

Changing the subject a bit, I suspect that the divorce rate is higher
than it once was because more people are expecting a marriage free of
hassles, negotiations, and resentments, and that many divorced people,
especially parents, only realize later that their expectations were
too high and that they made a mistake. Here is a description study
supporting this:

http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/marriagestudy.php
Does Divorce Make People Happy?
Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages
July 11, 2002

Call it the "divorce assumption." Most people assume that a person
stuck in a bad marriage has two choices: stay married and miserable or
get a divorce and become happier. 1 But now come the findings from the
first scholarly study ever to test that assumption, and these findings
challenge conventional wisdom. Conducted by a team of leading family
scholars headed by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite, the
study found no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced
were typically any happier than unhappily married people who stayed
married.

Even more dramatically, the researchers also found that two-thirds of
unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their
marriages were happy five years later. In addition, the most unhappy
marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: among those who
rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who
avoided divorce were happily married five years later.2

The research team used data collected by the National Survey of Family
and Households, a nationally representative survey that extensively
measures personal and marital happiness. Out of 5,232 married adults
interviewed in the late Eighties, 645 reported being unhappily
married. Five years later, these same adults were interviewed again.
Some had divorced or separated and some had stayed married.

The study found that on average unhappily married adults who divorced
were no happier than unhappily married adults who stayed married when
rated on any of 12 separate measures of psychological well-being.
Divorce did not typically reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-
esteem, or increase a sense of mastery. This was true even after
controlling for race, age, gender, and income. Even unhappy spouses
who had divorced and remarried were no happier on average than those
who stayed married. "Staying married is not just for the childrens'
sake. Some divorce is necessary, but results like these suggest the
benefits of divorce have been oversold," says Linda J. Waite.

Why doesn't divorce typically make adults happier? The authors of the
study suggest that while eliminating some stresses and sources of
potential harm, divorce may create others as well. The decision to
divorce sets in motion a large number of processes and events over
which an individual has little control that are likely to deeply
affect his or her emotional well-being. These include the response of
one's spouse to divorce; the reactions of children; potential
disappointments and aggravation in custody, child support, and
visitation orders; new financial or health stresses for one or both
parents; and new relationships or marriages.

The team of family experts that conducted the study included Linda J.
Waite, Lucy Flower Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago
and coauthor of The Case for Marriage; Don Browning, Professor
Emeritus of the University of Chicago Divinity School; William J.
Doherty, Professor of Family Social Science and Director of the
Marriage and Family Therapy program at the University of Minnesota;
Maggie Gallagher, affiliate scholar at the Institute for American
Values and coauthor of The Case for Marriage; Ye Luo, a research
associate at the Sloan Center on Parents, Children and Work at the
University of Chicago; and Scott Stanley, Co-Director of the Center
for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver.

Marital Turnarounds: How Do Unhappy Marriages Get Happier?

To follow up on the dramatic findings that two-thirds of unhappy
marriages had become happy five years later, the researchers also
conducted focus group interviews with 55 formerly unhappy husbands and
wives who had turned their marriages around. They found that many
currently happily married spouses have had extended periods of marital
unhappiness, often for quite serious reasons, including alcoholism,
infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, depression, illness, and
work reversals.

Why did these marriages survive where other marriages did not?
Spouses' stories of how their marriages got happier fell into three
broad headings: the marital endurance ethic, the marital work ethic,
and the personal happiness ethic.

In the marital endurance ethic, the most common story couples reported
to researchers, marriages got happier not because partners resolved
problems, but because they stubbornly outlasted them. With the passage
of time, these spouses said, many sources of conflict and distress
eased: financial problems, job reversals, depression, child problems,
even infidelity. In the marital work ethic, spouses told stories of
actively working to solve problems, change behavior, or improve
communication. When the problem was solved, the marriage got happier.
Strategies for improving marriages mentioned by spouses ranged from
arranging dates or other ways to more time together, enlisting the
help and advice of relatives or in-laws, to consulting clergy or
secular counselors, to threatening divorce and consulting divorce
attorneys. Finally, in the personal happiness epic, marriage problems
did not seem to change that much. Instead married people in these
accounts told stories of finding alternative ways to improve their own
happiness and build a good and happy life despite a mediocre
marriage.

The Powerful Effects of Commitment

Spouses interviewed in the focus groups whose marriages had turned
around generally had a low opinion of the benefits of divorce, as well
as friends and family members who supported the importance of staying
married. Because of their intense commitment to their marriages, these
couples invested great effort in enduring or overcoming problems in
their relationships, they minimized the importance of difficulties
they couldn't resolve, and they actively worked to belittle the
attractiveness of alternatives.

The study's findings are consistent with other research demonstrating
the powerful effects of marital commitment on marital happiness. A
strong commitment to marriage as an institution, and a powerful
reluctance to divorce, do not merely keep unhappily married people
locked in misery together. They also help couples form happier bonds.
To avoid divorce, many assume, marriages must become happier. But it
is at least equally true that in order to get happier, unhappy couples
or spouses must first avoid divorce. "In most cases, a strong
commitment to staying married not only helps couples avoid divorce, it
helps more couples achieve a happier marriage," notes research team
member Scott Stanley.

Would most unhappy spouses who divorced have ended up happily married
if they had stuck with their marriages?

The researchers who conduced the study cannot say for sure whether
unhappy spouses who divorced would have become happy had they stayed
with their marriages. In most respects, unhappy spouses who divorced
and unhappy spouses who stayed married looked more similar than
different (before the divorce) in terms of their psychological
adjustment and family background. While unhappy spouses who divorced
were on average younger, had lower household incomes, were more likely
to be employed or to have children in the home, these differences were
typically not large.

Were the marriages that ended in divorce much worse than those that
did not? There is some evidence for this point of view. Unhappy
spouses who divorced reported more conflict and were about twice as
likely to report violence in their marriage than unhappy spouses who
stayed married. However, marital violence occurred in only a minority
of unhappy marriages: 21 percent of unhappy spouses who divorced
reported husband-to-wife violence, compared to nine percent of unhappy
spouses who stayed married.

On the other hand, if only the worst marriages ended up in divorce,
one would expect divorce to be associated with important psychological
benefits. Instead, researchers found that unhappily married adults who
divorced were no more likely to report emotional and psychological
improvements than those who stayed married. In addition, the most
unhappy marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: among those
who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who
avoided divorce were happily married five years later.

More research is needed to establish under what circumstances divorce
improves or lessens adult well-being, as well as what kinds of unhappy
marriages are most or least likely to improve if divorce is avoided.

Other Findings

Other findings of the study based on the National Survey Data a

The vast majority of divorces (74 percent) took place to adults who
had been happily married when first studied five years earlier. In
this group, divorce was associated with dramatic declines in happiness
and psychological well-being compared to those who stayed married.
Unhappy marriages are less common than unhappy spouses; three out of
four unhappily married adults are married to someone who is happy with
the marriage.
Staying married did not typically trap unhappy spouses in violent
relationships. Eighty-six percent of unhappily married adults reported
no violence in their relationship (including 77 percent of unhappy
spouses who later divorced or separated). Ninety-three percent of
unhappy spouses who avoided divorce reported no violence in their
marriage five years later.

Endnotes

1. Examples of the "divorce assumption:" In a review of Cutting Loose:
Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well by Ashton Applewhite in
Kirkus Reviews, the reviewer writes that "if Applewhite's figures are
correct, three-fourths of today's divorces are initiated by women, and
if her analysis of the situation is correct, they are better off, at
least psychologically, for having taken the big step." The book's
publisher describes the book this way: "Cutting Loose introduces 50
women . . . who have thrived after initiating their own
divorces. . . . [T]heir lives improved immeasurably, and their self-
esteem soared." In an oped in the New York Times, Katha Pollit asks,
"The real question . . . [is] which is better, a miserable two-parent
home, with lots of fighting and shouting and frozen silences and
tears, or a one-parent home (or a pair of one-parent homes) without
those things" (June 27, 1997). In a review of The Good Divorce by
Constance R. Ahrons in Booklist, we are told that Ms. Ahrons "offers
advice and explanations to troubled couples for whom 'staying together
for the sake of the children' is not a healthy or viable option."

2. Spouses were asked to rate their overall marital happiness on a 7-
point scale, with 1 being the least happy and 7 the most happy. Those
who rated their marriage as a 1 or 2 were considered to be very
unhappy in their marriages. Almost 8 out of 10 adults who rated their
marriage as a 1 or 2 gave that same marriage a 5 or more when asked to
rate their marriage five years later.

In article ,
Beliavsky says...

On Apr 23, 12:45=A0pm, Banty wrote:

snip

I've summed it up as - the hardest thing about being a single parent is th=
at
it's all up to oneself. =A0The aspect of the situation that makes it doabl=
e is - -
that it's all up to oneself.

I have a coworker with a wife with a new baby, and she's calling him to co=
me
home 'early' (in our industry, read "actually leaving for home at 5:00 pm"=
) to
help her out. =A0He's stressing over all the work-life tradoffs that cause=
s and
her idea of that vs. his idea of that. =A0I had to make tradeoffs to be su=
re, but

I didn't have the hassles, negotiation, and resentments over which ones we=
re
made.

Changing the subject a bit, I suspect that the divorce rate is higher
than it once was because more people are expecting a marriage free of
hassles, negotiations, and resentments, and that many divorced people,
especially parents, only realize later that their expectations were
too high and that they made a mistake. Here is a description study
supporting this:

I think you're right both about over-idealization of marriage and that hassles,
negotiations (at least, the resentments should be minimized) are normal parts of
people living together.

When I point to the energy and attention a marriage needs that I don't have to
deal with, I don't mean to denigrate marriage. There are advantages with
marriage that go with that.

Just to make myself clear on that.

I do resist the assumption that all single people cant cope, and all marriages
cope well, though.

Banty

On Apr 23, 4:28�am, Chookie wrote:


Actually, I think it's extremely foolish to choose single motherhood. �My Mum
left Dad when we were small and took us to live with her widowed mother. �
Grandma dyed her hair and went to work until Mum was fit enough to work
herself. �Grandma was the SAHP for the next X years -- I always say I had
three loving parents. �But even with that support, being a single parent was
terribly hard on my Mum. �To walk into such a difficult life *voluntarily*
boggles my mind.

But leaving a marriage, or being widowed, are in themselves terribly
stressful situations, leaving one with lots of emotional baggage.
Choosing to have a child as a single mother does *not* involve any of
those stresses. Not there can't be plenty of others, of course. But if
*all* one had to worry about were the logistics, and if everything
looked reasonably well aligned (finances, health, etc.) before one
made the leap, it seems to me that it wouldn't necessarily be a
terribly tough life. I would agree with you that you'd be increasing
the *risk* of facing a tough life, but arguably taking on far less
risk than many people who start babies with dicey partners and in
terrible financial situations.

--Helen

"Chookie" wrote in message
news:ehrebeniuk-461630.21282223042008@news...
In article
,
" wrote:

I can't think of a reason why choosing *responsibly* to be a single
mother would be a problem either (not that I think that's what you
meant). I know one woman who adopted a child as a single woman, one
who has twice had babies by artificial insemination, etc. And that's
just in real life -- on the internet I know far more examples.

Actually, I think it's extremely foolish to choose single motherhood. My
Mum
left Dad when we were small and took us to live with her widowed mother.
Grandma dyed her hair and went to work until Mum was fit enough to work
herself. Grandma was the SAHP for the next X years -- I always say I had
three loving parents. But even with that support, being a single parent
was
terribly hard on my Mum. To walk into such a difficult life *voluntarily*
boggles my mind.

I agree here. It's one thing to choose single parenthood when one is in a
bad relationship and the choice is stay or go or even if it's an accidental
pg and the choice is abort or single parenthood. However, to go into single
parenthood by artificial insemination or just purposely getting pg is
foolish, even with a good income and strong support. I think from the
child's POV, s/he would want to know his/her parent It's such a loss for
the child. Like I said, if it couldn't be helped, that's one thing, but to
do it purposely . . . .

I do not mean adoption here, which I would be for, since it would give a
child a home who otherwise wouldn't have one.

" wrote in message
...
But leaving a marriage, or being widowed, are in themselves terribly
stressful situations, leaving one with lots of emotional baggage.
Choosing to have a child as a single mother does *not* involve any of
those stresses. Not there can't be plenty of others, of course. But if
*all* one had to worry about were the logistics, and if everything
looked reasonably well aligned (finances, health, etc.) before one
made the leap, it seems to me that it wouldn't necessarily be a
terribly tough life. I would agree with you that you'd be increasing
the *risk* of facing a tough life, but arguably taking on far less
risk than many people who start babies with dicey partners and in
terrible financial situations.

I would agree with you, if you are comparing two less ideal situations (poor
parents vs. good single parent). I would venture that two good parents is
preferable, if it can be done, which is why it's important to try and choose
a good partner. Sometimes, it's impossible to know someone is a poor
partner, but other times, I really wonder what they were thinking.

"NL" wrote in message
...
Banty schrieb:
snip
I've summed it up as - the hardest thing about being a single parent is
that
it's all up to oneself. The aspect of the situation that makes it doable
is - -
that it's all up to oneself.

YES! That's exactly it.

I have a coworker with a wife with a new baby, and she's calling him to
come
home 'early' (in our industry, read "actually leaving for home at 5:00
pm") to
help her out. He's stressing over all the work-life tradoffs that causes
and
her idea of that vs. his idea of that. I had to make tradeoffs to be
sure, but
I didn't have the hassles, negotiation, and resentments over which ones
were
made.

Yep. My best (female) friend complains about her husband a lot. He's
working longer and longer hours, he's not really participating in the
family, he does a lot of stupid stuff (like putting ink stampings on his
freshly bathed kids... didn't go down well as the next day was a big
family gathering and the girls were _covered_ in AIRMAIL stampings...),

I honestly wouldn't have a problem with DH if he did this. He might have a
problem with me If I did it, but I don't because I know he'd have a problem
with it.

What I do think of as harder is negotiations with teachers/offices/etc.
when they see me as a single mum of two you can see them mentally putting
me into the "totally overwhelmed, unable to deal" drawer. So my son acting
out at school is because I'm the worst parent on the planet and not
because of his sensory/speech problems or because his class is too large
(28 kids, 18 of which are boys, please imaging the noise level and now
think about how that's working for a kid who's unable to filter out
background noise). When I turn up with my best (male) friend they talk to
me differently, and I can get my points across differently than I can when
I go alone. But I'm not sure if that's because a) he's male and the
teachers are women (one main teacher one who's nearly a teacher*) b)
because he's a potential witness to unfairness or c) because then it's 2
"vs." 2.

The dynamics are always different for men vs. women, sometimes in a very
subtle way. You can see the difference when a room full of women are
chatting about and a man enters. I would have to say it's because he's male
(the teachers being women or male wouldn't change the fact that the dynamics
would be different for a man vs. woman) AND a witness AND 2 vs. 1.

On Apr 23, 4:00Â*pm, "
wrote:
On Apr 23, 4:28�am, Chookie wrote:



Actually, I think it's extremely foolish to choose single motherhood. �My Mum
left Dad when we were small and took us to live with her widowed mother. �
Grandma dyed her hair and went to work until Mum was fit enough to work
herself. �Grandma was the SAHP for the next X years -- I always say I had
three loving parents. �But even with that support, being a single parent was
terribly hard on my Mum. �To walk into such a difficult life *voluntarily*
boggles my mind.

But leaving a marriage, or being widowed, are in themselves terribly
stressful situations, leaving one with lots of emotional baggage.

Do you really think the "emotional baggage" of the wife and children
are the same when the father

(a) dies in an accident
(b) *chooses* to abandon his family

Obviously, in situation (b), there can be deep and justified feelings
of betrayal.

Choosing to have a child as a single mother does *not* involve any of
those stresses. Not there can't be plenty of others, of course. But if
*all* one had to worry about were the logistics, and if everything
looked reasonably well aligned (finances, health, etc.) before one
made the leap, it seems to me that it wouldn't necessarily be a
terribly tough life. I would agree with you that you'd be increasing
the *risk* of facing a tough life, but arguably taking on far less
risk than many people who start babies with dicey partners and in
terrible financial situations.

Then don't do either! A woman should not have a child on her own *or*
with a "dicey" partner. Men should not father children with women they
are not committed to. Once upon a time, the vast majority of Americans
followed these simple rules. Here are some statistics from "The
Underclass Revisited", by Charles Murray http://www.aei.org/publications/pubI...pub_detail.asp
.

'The black ratio. At the first checkpoint in the Eisenhower years, 20
percent of black children were born out of wedlock.[15] Or to put it
in a more positive way, 80 percent of black children were born to
married parents. When the Great Society began at our second
checkpoint, 1964, the deterioration was still mild, with the
percentage growing to 25 percent. Then the roof fell in on the black
family. By the third checkpoint in 1982, illegitimacy had become the
norm, with 58 percent of all black children born out of wedlock. By
the fourth checkpoint, 1997, the black illegitimacy ratio in 1997 was
69 percent, down from its high of 70 percent in 1994. To my knowledge,
to have more than two-thirds of a new generation of children born to
unmarried women is unprecedented for any large subpopulation of any
culture, ancient or modern.

The white ratio. The white illegitimacy ratio was vanishingly small
when Eisenhower was in office--less than 2 percent in 1954. It almost
doubled between then and the second checkpoint in 1964, passing 3
percent, but the large proportional growth simply reflected the small
baseline. But the increases added up, and by the time the underclass
was discovered at our third checkpoint in 1982, 12 percent of white
children were born to unmarried mothers.

Between 1982 and the final checkpoint in 1997, the increase in white
illegitimacy got serious, more than doubling again. This time, the
large proportional increase could not be passed off as a function of a
small baseline. As of 1997, 26 percent of white children were born to
unmarried women, a figure comparable to the black ratio in the mid
1960s. To some extent this reflects a growing Latino population,
mostly white, that has a higher illegitimacy ratio than non-Latino
whites. But even if we restrict the calculation to non-Latino whites,
22 percent of all white births in 1997 were to unmarried women.'

In article ,
Beliavsky says...

On Apr 23, 4:00=C2=A0pm, "
wrote:
On Apr 23, 4:28=EF=BF=BDam, Chookie wro=
te:



Actually, I think it's extremely foolish to choose single motherhood. =
=EF=BF=BDMy Mum
left Dad when we were small and took us to live with her widowed mother.=
=EF=BF=BD
Grandma dyed her hair and went to work until Mum was fit enough to work
herself. =EF=BF=BDGrandma was the SAHP for the next X years -- I always =
say I had
three loving parents. =EF=BF=BDBut even with that support, being a singl=
e parent was
terribly hard on my Mum. =EF=BF=BDTo walk into such a difficult life *vo=
luntarily*
boggles my mind.

But leaving a marriage, or being widowed, are in themselves terribly
stressful situations, leaving one with lots of emotional baggage.

Do you really think the "emotional baggage" of the wife and children
are the same when the father

(a) dies in an accident
(b) *chooses* to abandon his family

Obviously, in situation (b), there can be deep and justified feelings
of betrayal.

They're not the same, but you seem to greatly undercount grief.


Choosing to have a child as a single mother does *not* involve any of
those stresses. Not there can't be plenty of others, of course. But if
*all* one had to worry about were the logistics, and if everything
looked reasonably well aligned (finances, health, etc.) before one
made the leap, it seems to me that it wouldn't necessarily be a
terribly tough life. I would agree with you that you'd be increasing
the *risk* of facing a tough life, but arguably taking on far less
risk than many people who start babies with dicey partners and in
terrible financial situations.

Then don't do either! A woman should not have a child on her own *or*
with a "dicey" partner. Men should not father children with women they
are not committed to.

What an ideal.

Once upon a time,

...the appropriate fairy tale opening to this paragraph...

the vast majority of Americans
followed these simple rules. Here are some statistics from "The
Underclass Revisited", by Charles Murray http://www.aei.org/publications/pub=
ID.14891/pub_detail.asp

Oh gosh Charles Murray - the champion of research driven by anticipated
conclusion. Lets just say he's a controversial choice of source.

What the practices were in the past don't necessarily have bearing on what is
right or what is workable. There were great costs to those statistics - shotgun
weddings, babies purported to be born to the mothers of teenaged daughters,
babies left to die unrecorded (all of which are in those statistics). They also
dont account for the very common practice (still recognized in many states as
"common law marriages") of forming families without formal marriage being
recognized as defacto. The great sigma lead to blind adoptions.

Banty

Banty wrote:



SNIP

I think you're right both about over-idealization of marriage and that hassles,
negotiations (at least, the resentments should be minimized) are normal parts of
people living together.

When I point to the energy and attention a marriage needs that I don't have to
deal with, I don't mean to denigrate marriage. There are advantages with
marriage that go with that.

SNIP


Banty


Just snuck in...

These sound like my words a few years ago. It took ages for me to
understand that it wasn't marraige that I had found hard....it was
him... he was hard..

toypup wrote:


" wrote in message
...

But leaving a marriage, or being widowed, are in themselves terribly
stressful situations, leaving one with lots of emotional baggage.
Choosing to have a child as a single mother does *not* involve any of
those stresses. Not there can't be plenty of others, of course. But if
*all* one had to worry about were the logistics, and if everything
looked reasonably well aligned (finances, health, etc.) before one
made the leap, it seems to me that it wouldn't necessarily be a
terribly tough life. I would agree with you that you'd be increasing
the *risk* of facing a tough life, but arguably taking on far less
risk than many people who start babies with dicey partners and in
terrible financial situations.


I would agree with you, if you are comparing two less ideal situations
(poor parents vs. good single parent). I would venture that two good
parents is preferable, if it can be done, which is why it's important to
try and choose a good partner. Sometimes, it's impossible to know
someone is a poor partner, but other times, I really wonder what they
were thinking.

Rose cloloured glasses numb the grey matter I think.