Put your marriage first? Or the kids?

What amazes me is that strangers would actually get openly ANGRY at a
columnist who writes in the paper that she puts her husband ahead of
her kids!

After all, leaving aside the fact that kids need to be hugged and
kissed daily, don't they also need to know that the marriage is
secure, given the emotional impact of divorce? Not to mention the
financial impact?

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbal....html#comments

By Leslie Morgan Steiner.

Kids Come Second?
Two years ago, the New York Times Modern Love column ran an essay that
got stuck, apparently permanently, in that large storage space between
my ears where the mommy wars simmer. The author, Ayelet Waldman, wrote
in Truly, Madly, Guilty that after four kids and 12 years together,
she was still in love with her husband -- and that she was not in love
with her children. "If a good mother is one who loves her child more
than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother," she wrote. "I
am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my
children." Her candor set off a firestorm of criticism from other moms
who wrote the Times angry letters and blogged in rage that a mother
could place her husband above her children.


One reader's response:

For me the answer to the question of who do you love more--kids or
husband--is I love them both the same amount but in different ways.
Who would I save if both my kid and my husband were drowning? My kid,
hands down. And while I can't fathom life without my husband, the
thing I honestly don't know how I would bear is losing one of my kids.
I have a friend who lost her 5 year-old a few years ago in a car
accident and I literally can't imagine how she has gone on living
after that; it was almost 5 years ago and I still think of that little
girl almost constantly and mourn for her and she wasn't even my kid.

That said, what I don't agree with is the concept that kids preempt a
marriage to the point that the whole relationship between a husband
and wife becomes basically ships passing in the kitchen between runs
to and from school, sports, work, etc. I'd say that 9 out of 10
couples I know have marriages like this. The weirdest and saddest to
me are the couples where the parents either sleep with a kid between
them in bed or, worse yet, one parent sleeps with a kid and the other
parent either sleeps with the other kid or alone in a different room.
Not only is this SUCH a bad example of what marriage is supposed to
be, but it is basically ensuring that one or both spouses will end up
cheating at some point.

It also puts an unfair burden on kids when parents center their lives
around them because whether a parent like that realizes it or not they
must then seek adult satisfaction from the kids because they're not
getting it from adult interaction. For instance, I know parents who
wear their dedication to their kids like a badge of honor--"sorry, my
kids come first and my husband (or wife) knows he/she comes
second" (yes, I have heard this exact statement more than once)--but
then have basically no relationship with their spouse so have to look
to their kids for social interaction and emotional support. These are
the parents who treat their kids like friends, telling them too many
details of their own lives, bashing the other parent or depending on
the kids to be their constant companions. Yes, family night is a great
thing--but ALWAYS making it family night, or "girl's night" for a
mother and daughter, and never having it be date night for a mom and
dad is, to me, the eventual death knell of the marriage.

Ultimately kids grow up and go on to live their own lives and if you
want to grow old with your spouse you need to make sure there's a
relationship there by the time that happens. I don't see how people
can expect to ignore their relationship or put it on an 18 year hold
then turn to each other once the last kid leaves for college and just
pick up where they left off.

And as far as sex goes--the whole "I'm just too tired" or "there's no
time" or "the kids will hear us"--just doesn't cut it. To me sex is
part of adult life and if you're not getting it in your marriage it's
just a matter of time until one or both of you end up getting that
need met outside the marriage.

Posted by: mleifer | November 14, 2007 09:12 AM


Lenona.