Staying Together For the Kids?

Staying Together For the Kids?

Right or wrong?

Posted to Relevant News by Amanda Lockhart on Fri, 06/22/2007 - 9:20am

I don’t put much stock in social commentary from anyone who worked in Republican administrations and has contributed to Fox News Channel. But I wanted to give a pro-marriage column written by Linda Chavez that appeared in the Houston Post-Chronicle, the benefit of the doubt.

However, the more I thought about what she said, the more I found her a shill for family values and social conservatives who want to impose their views of what’s right on the public.

I found myself agreeing with her that couples with kids should do everything they can to stay together, but what she asks is just too much wishful thinking. Chavez relates her own story of marrying as a 19-year-old and toughing it out with three kids. She and her husband have been married 40 years. That's a great story of perseverance. But their life isn't for everyone.

Her observation that our high divorce rate is a product of our disposable society is insightful and perhaps true. But then she launches into a bunch of superficial reasons why people seek divorce.

Sure, lots of us reach a point where we're no longer physically attracted to our spouses. But that's just a symptom of deeper problems. And those larger issues can't be fixed, as he seems to suggest, by sticking to traditional wedding vows. What do your wedding vows have to do with anything years later when you're having real-world troubles?

When you realize that your life and your husband's are going in opposite directions, you can't just "stick it out for the kids." If you're pulling one way and your husband is pulling the other, what do you think that does to your children?

Sometimes you have to make the decision that it's better for them not to live in that environment. Chavez and her husband are fortunate that they remained compatible with one another.

But for many of us, priorities and attitudes change over the years. Who you were when you got married and who you become as you evolve aren't always the same. But staying together and trying to deny those changes will only cause friction. And that's no good for anyone, especially children.

Chavez would have you stick your head in the sand and remain together because marriage is "the foundation of our society." But I say if you’re falling back on rhetoric, your marriage is probably past the point of saving.

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