The Wedges of Responsibility

Week 8 - Work, Leisure and Midlife

The Wedges of Responsibility

        This week is a perfect prelude to my upcoming "special topic" essay on "Making Marriage Work."  The work that most caught my attention this module was the article Is There Love After Baby?  The article points out the many precautions of parenthood that are told in our society: "It's hard to keep your marriage alive after having a child."  "Child abuse is more apparent in the postpartum stages of depression."

        It almost seems as if these warnings are meant to scare people from having children.  Do we know about these warnings ahead of time and manifest these negative effects?  Or, is the problem that we have no idea what we are getting into before we get married or decide to live with a partner?

       According to recent studies, 40% of children in the United States born to a 2-parent family can expect to live with 1 parent by the time they are 18 years old.  To me, this is a very sad result, and I think it can be prevented by educating young adults on what having a family and marriage really entails.

       Seven years into my marriage, I actually have the opportunity to take a step back and look at my family life objectively--the family I helped create.  While I love my children deeply and unconditionally, I once felt even more love for my husband before we became a family unit.  That was when we didn't have the dividing wedges of responsibility--suddenly, it wasn't about "just us" anymore.  We have a huge responsibility of teaching (4) little humans to become acceptable, happy and successful people; furthermore, we had the burden of financial debts, dividing household chores, and friend/family/work drama on top of a huge responsibility of feeding, nurturing and teaching children that would constantly crowd our minds.

        It is now no surprise as to why my relationship with my husband deteriorated--we had no more energy for each other!  Sure, I heard the warnings of being a parent, but not so much about what it meant to be a partner or a wife.  I look forward to discussing more about this topic in my essay...